Chapter Forty-Three

Apologies

I own nothing except Melissa, Kate, and any other OC's that I mention.

Oh, I forgot – if you spotted the Austin Powers connection last chapter, chocolate covered pretzels! (Hey, I have to be a little healthy!)

Kate walked into Elm Creek Animal hospital Wednesday at noon, carrying a brown paper bag. She went to the door on the right and closed it gently. Melissa still looked up, anyways.

Kate quietly walked forward to her desk and set the brown bag down on the counter. Melissa kept her icy blue eyes locked on her.

"Do you want to take your lunch break with me?" Kate asked, meekly. "I brought you a blueberry muffin. I made it this morning."

Melissa looked at Kate, then the bag. She sighed. "Fine." She got out of her chair, went through the back, then went into the waiting room, where Kate was. She walked outside and sat on the stony front steps.

Kate handed her an, as promised, large blueberry muffin. She brought a large poppyseed one for herself.

"I'm sorry," Kate said. "I don't know what I was thinking. I-I wasn't. I know that I made a mistake and I'm trying to regain everyone's trust."

"So you haven't gained Will's yet? There's a surprise."

"He and I are going to couple's counseling." She took off the muffin lining, then looked Melissa straight in the eye. "I'm really sorry, Mel. You don't deserve this. You're such a good person...you deserve a hell of a lot better than what I did. I spent last night thinking about how I affected you and Will and I just wanted to apologize."

Her eyes drifted down to the stone steps. "I wake up now wondering why I did it. You know...there was no reason to. Will and I are probably going to be done, you and I aren't friends anymore, I mean...I was just being stupid."

Kate paused. "I know I try to act like the grown-up a lot of the time, always saying that I know the difference between right and wrong, and I can make my own choices. But that night...I acted like a selfish, immature child. It was about what I wanted."

Wanted, she thought. You wanted my boyfriend.

"I didn't even think about who I'd hurt. I didn't think about you or Will, or even where I'd go other than that one night. I knew that I'd never tell you, though."

"But you didn't have to be the one to tell me," Melissa said. "Will had to, saying that he saw you two last night."

Kate nodded. "I know." She set her muffin down on the liner. "You know, it's so stupid. I got caught up in him. He just hypnotized me. I felt so bad when I was with him, thinking about him at night, everything."

"What all did you do with him?"

Kate took in a deep breath, then out. "The second day you dropped him off, Wednesday, we all went to Fort Snelling. That's when I realized there was something there. He was talking about freedom and how I wanted it...And we...we almost kissed."

Freedom? Was that why she was with Jack? She never felt free?

"What do you mean by almost?" she asked.

"Well, we were going to, but a fourth-grader said 'icky' when he saw us."

Had it not been a situation like this, if it was with someone other than her boyfriend, Melissa would have laughed. But now Kate was being real and raw – something that she needed.

"I felt myself falling for him way too fast. And a week and a half ago, on Friday, he ate my birth control pills. He didn't know what they were, so he hinted at having sex. Well, not really hinted, per se, more like flat out said it. And I said that I wouldn't have sex with him. He said that I didn't promise, and so...I didn't say anything."

This had been going on for a week and a half before they went to the cabin? Melissa didn't know what to say.

"But we didn't, Melissa," she said. "We never had sex."

Melissa had faith that Kate wasn't lying. She was looking her right in the eye.

"And the weekend my parents came home, my dad told to me about some guy named Daniel who's an intern at my mom's work. He tried to set me up with him, then he and I got into a fight. I didn't feel free, though. Jack offered me freedom, and I wanted to take it. The only thing holding me back was you and Will."

It hurt to hear the truth. She was glad that Kate was finally telling it, though. It made her trust her – but not necessarily want to forgive her.

"And remember how I called you and told you that I couldn't watch Jack last week because I was busy?"

Melissa nodded.

"I wasn't. I just didn't want to, well, tempt myself."

At least you did that, Melissa thought, instead of just flat-out sleeping with him.

"And so, then came the cabin. On Saturday, Jack took me out on the boat. He was persuading me to try to break up with Will and be his. We still hadn't kissed yet. And then when we came back, I got mad at Will for telling me not to go out with Jack. I mean, not go out as on a date, but, like, go out on the boat. I think he sensed something between us, he just didn't want to face it. I can't blame him, though. I would have done the same thing if I sensed something between you and Will. Looking back, I was overreacting, almost like I was waiting for just one more thing to go to Jack. Because then all I wanted was freedom."

"And you thought that he could give it to you," Melissa finished for her.

Kate nodded. "Yeah. And so, that night...you basically know the rest of the story of the weekend."

Melissa looked at a bird walking along the small rocks surrounding the trees. It looked like a sparrow.

"You know last year when we went to the midnight screening of 'Dead Man's Chest,' and how everyone in the audience was screaming at Elizabeth that she kissed Jack?"

"Yeah?" Melissa asked.

"I kind of feel like that. Only I can hear what you and Will are saying and this isn't a movie."

The sparrow walked along the rocks some more towards them. He went up to Melissa and looked at the muffin that she had. She tore a little bit of it off and gave it to the sparrow.

"Thank you for telling me," she said quietly.

"You deserve to know. That's everything that happened between us."

Melissa blurted it out before she could stop it. "I looked at your blog."

Kate cracked a small smile. "When?"

Was Kate crazy? She was smiling?! "Um...on Saturday when you and Jack were out on the lake. I accidently clicked onto your site, and I'm sorry."

Kate laughed. Seriously. She laughed. "That's why you were so quiet. All I have to say is that I'm sorry you found out by a blog."

"I-I think it would have been worse if I found out like Will did."

There was silence between them. Kate got up and collected her bag and muffin. "I should probably get going now. Bye."

Goodbye. Was that a permanent goodbye? Could Melissa forgive Kate?

Both had hurt her, but both were doing everything that they could to show that they were sorry. Both had different ways, though.

Kate seemed very sincere the whole time. And Kate was being Kate by trying to make amends. But who knew if she would do that again – with Jack or any boyfriend that she had.

If she forgave both of them, things could return to normal. She could be the Melissa that she was two weeks ago, the carefree, happy one with an eclectic boyfriend and a fiery best friend. She could kiss Jack again and not be angry at him for what he had done with Kate, and she could go out shopping with Kate at the mall and throw a coin into the fountain and make a wish like they used to.

She could do that, right?

Right?

Had Melissa forgave Kate?

Who knows. Melissa was always one to forgive and forget, but this time, she seemed uncharacteristically stubborn. Not that Kate was saying that Melissa was wrong by doing that. It was just now that Melissa was probably holding back calling her a whore.

Kate picked up the black phone and pressed "talk." She looked at it for a few seconds, then hit the "end" button.

Should she call Jack? He was the last person concerning the matter that she needed to talk to. But wouldn't it be a little more meaningful to just talk to him in person?

She sighed and put the phone down back on the charger, then picked up her car keys and purse, then headed out.

Kate picked Will up at Fort Snelling at 3:20 that afternoon. Not much was exchanged between the two of them again.

"I didn't know it was Cutler Beckett," Kate said, breaking the silence between the two of them.

"The company's name is E.I.T.C., though, Katherine," Will said. "East India Trading Company? And for a woman who claims to know about as much of my life as she says, she knows that those letters mean something to me."

"Well, if you saw them, why didn't you just leave?"

"I had faith that it wasn't what I thought it was."

"Yes, Will, they go branding people left and right here!"

"I didn't think that Lord Beckett would be here. You can't tell me that he's not, Katherine."

She sighed. "Look at what happened to us. We're fighting over four letters. We would never have done this before."

There was a short silence.

"You promised that nothing would ever come between us," he said, "and look at what happened."

"Nothing did." They came to a stoplight. The laced her fingers through his. "Nothing's going to."

"Jack came between us."

Alright, well maybe he did. But Kate wasn't about to let him point that out when they were having a "moment."

"He never came between us," she said. "That's why we're still together."

Their foreheads touched, their fingers still laced together. She looked into his beautiful brown eyes, then closed them for a moment. He wasn't pulling away, he was mirroring her. This was the most that he had done or said to her – besides yesterday's appointment – since she made what she made her mistake.

"Will, I–"

A car horn behind them honked. She jumped, then saw that the light turned green. She quickly started driving again. Their moment was interrupted, just like every romantic moment of her's it seemed.

"What?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Nothing."

Melissa's Blog Entry

It was nice of Kate to come and talk to me and admit that she did wrong...but I don't know if I want to forgive her. But it was better than her not saying anything at all. I would have run to a corner like a coward...But that's Kate for you. She does what's right.

Love,

Melissa Rose

Kate's Blog Entry

Apologized to Melissa: check.

Prepared for another ugly session of couple's counseling: check.

Talked to Jack: ...not yet.

XOXO,

Kate