A/N: Last chapter!! In which there is a cameo by yet another SMverse character, who eventually will get her own story. Epilogue coming soon, and then the Zach/Amy story! Hope everyone's liked Magnolias In Bloom, and thanks to those who've read and reviewed, it means more to me than I could ever express!!
Disclaimer: What do you think?
Kevin's last year of high school started off uneventfully enough, all things considered. He'd kept the details of his time in Georgia to himself, for the most part, and received a few sympathetic looks from those classmates who'd spent the summer partying and living the high life. This he ignored, because it would be beyond pointless to try to explain to them that he wouldn't have changed anything in the last three months for the world.
Of course, not everyone bought the taciturn facade.
That his best friend Raye could take one long look at him the first day he was back, raise an eyebrow and say "Something's different about you" in her patrician, matter-of-fact voice, was no more or less than he'd expected.
"Yeah," he nodded as they made their way down the hall towards AP Chemistry together. "I'll tell you about it after school or something."
"It's a good different, though," she pronounced after eyeing him critically for a few seconds. She spared him a small smile as he opened the door for her. She walked in ahead of him, dark-haired and elegant and striking, blithely ignoring the way that most of the guys in class followed her every move and several of the girls stared covetously at her perfectly put-together designer outfit. Raye Harcourt, daughter of a prominent senator, had arrived at his high school two years ago, having made the controversial decision to withdraw from an extremely upper-crust and expensive all-girls' private school in Manhattan and live with her grandfather after her mother's death. Kevin had, on an impulse, straightened out a guy who'd trash-talked her in the parking lot on her first day, and they'd been close ever since. She'd been the only one not to offer sympathetic platitudes after his own mother had died, and he figured that he numbered among the very few guys in the school who've not viewed her as the token hot but inaccessible rich bitch. Neither of them were the emotionally expressive type, but they could read each other through the smallest nuances.
They met each other in the library after school, as was their custom. Raye was early, as was her habit, seated at a table far in the back away from the librarian's desk with her flawless finishing-school posture. She wasted no words as he set his bookbag down.
"So, it's a girl. What's she like?"
Kevin's eyebrow raise was the sole indicator of his surprise. "How do you know it's a girl?"
"You don't answer questions with more questions," Raye declared with a dismissive wave of a manicured hand. "I'm not an idiot, and you're all but radiating goofy lovestruck fuzzy-wuzzies. Well, okay, so no one else would be able to tell, since you're basically unfond of changing your facial expression or evincing grandiose emotions, but I'm me and you're you. Spill."
And so he did, and told her about his summer, about Great-Aunt Emmaline and the family that lived across the street from her. He told her about the awkward phone calls with his dad, the photographs that were now back up on the walls and desks at his home, about Little League games and magnolia trees and beignets and a world so much slower and simpler than New York. He told her about Mina, and didn't know that his eyes softened whenever he spoke her name.
Raye noticed, though, and for the sake of her friend, was glad. "She sounds like the perfect girl for you," she murmured, uncharacteristically gentle for a moment. "I'm glad you met her."
"I miss her," Kevin admitted aloud. It might be unmasculine to state such a thing, but Raye would never razz him about that.
"I can tell," she said quietly, before breaking the somber moment with a wicked smirk. "You should call her. Put it on three-way so I can listen in. I want to see what she's like, female friend's prerogative and all that."
"No!" He stared at her, agape.
"Oh, why not? Do you have phone sex or something?"
He gave her a light, half-hearted shove on the shoulder and glared at her. She laughed lightly and patted his arm, and her usually jaded eyes were kind. "You're happier, even though you miss her and such. I don't actually need to eavesdrop on you two or anything to be able to tell that she's good for you."
He ruffled her hair for a moment, easily ducking her swats, and smiled back for a moment. "You're going to knock some lucky guy head-over-heels, ass-over-teakettle, stupid in love with you someday, Raye. And then I'll have to ask to eavesdrop on YOUR conversations. Not to mention threaten to beat his ass if he makes you cry or something."
"Yeah, yeah, keep it up," she cracked, though her smile was genuine. "You're the one whose ass is going to get beat if you try to mess with the hair again."
***
Autumn turned to winter, and winter melted into spring. Kevin had kept in touch with Mina, talking with her on the phone at least once a week, and even more frequently via email. She got a cell phone for Christmas and they exchanged thousands of text messages throughout the course of the months.
He, with Raye's help in the selection process, bought her a gold heart-shaped locket for her seventeenth birthday in October and had it overnighted to Georgia. Then, when his eighteenth birthday rolled around a month later, she sent him a handmade scrapbook, filled with little bits and pieces of memories. There were pressed magnolia petals and forget-me-nots sealed under cellophane in the cover. After he'd received it, he'd called her, and they talked for hours.
His father only yelled a little bit when the astronomical phone bill came through, but it was better than not looking at them and leaving the checkbook for Kevin to pay them every month.
It was early April and the last day of school before spring break. Kevin, mind full of college admissions and a week free of homework and grilling Raye about some guy named Jake that she'd met somewhere-or-another that she actually seemed serious about, was eating a bowl of cereal over the kitchen sink when his father entered, knotting his tie.
"I'll pick up Aunt Emmaline after work from the airport," John Ellis' eyes were twinkling with something that Kevin did not know, but Kevin was preoccupied with other matters and didn't notice. "We'll have to take her out, show her around town. I think I can just about spare an evening for that before diving back into the chaos known as Tax Season. Feel up to it?"
"Yeah, sure," Kevin said around a mouthful of cornflakes. He headed to school, spoke briefly with his guidance counselor about his plans for college, and played twenty questions with Raye after class. She sniped at him briefly for being a nosy worrywart, but the shine in her eyes when she spoke of Jake reassured him somewhat.
He was busy checking information online on a college website when the door opened to signify the arrival of his father and Aunt Emmaline. With a smile, he looked up to greet her, welcome her, and then his expression changed to pure, disbelieving shock.
"MINA!" he all but leapt out of the computer chair. She was bundled up against the cool spring weather in jeans and a daffodil-coloured sweater and her smile lit up the room with its brilliance. With a laugh, she rushed forward and threw herself in his arms.
He twirled her around in dizzying circles, uncaring of the others in the room, and she giggled. "I wanted to surprise you. My family accompanied Miss Emmaline to New York for a vacation. Willie promised Junior and Ange a Yankees game and Louise a Broadway show. They're checking into a hotel, but I wanted to come here and see you first."
He pulled her close and stroked his fingers through her hair. "I love your surprise," he murmured. "I have one for you as well. I didn't think that I'd get to tell you in person."
"Oh?" she looked up at him expectantly, her eyes glowing with warmth and love. "Let's hear it."
Kevin's eyes encompassed everyone in the room for a moment, lingering on Aunt Emmaline's before meeting Mina's gaze again. "I applied to Emory," he told her quietly. "I just got the acceptance letter last week." A faint smile curved across his lips as she caught her breath. "I'll be going to school there in the fall. It's half an hour away from where you live, isn't it?"
She squealed and hugged him tightly. At the door, John Ellis gave an indulgent chuckle, somewhat tinged with sadness, perhaps remembering his first meeting with his wife. Aunt Emmaline brought a delicate lace hankie to her eyes and beamed.
"I guess they'll be together, hmm?" she asked John.
John watched as his son hugged Mina back, both of them radiating hope. "I guess they will."