38
"I have something to ask you," I tell Kate when I drop Sasha off the following week. I'm sitting on the couch and she's busy unpacking Sash's overnight bag. She looks up at my words.
"Oh?" she asks.
"A friend has asked if Sasha and I want to join her for a day out next weekend."
Kate smiles.
"It's your time with her, Edward," she says. "You don't have to ask my permission."
I glance down and notice my knee bouncing slightly.
"It's Izzy," I say, looking back up at her tentatively.
She pauses, Sasha's pajamas in her hand and her head tilted as she slowly sits down.
"Please tell me you're going into this with your eyes open," she says. The slight frown creasing her brow tells me she's already worrying.
"They couldn't be wider," I assure her.
She sighs.
"Kate, if you'd asked me even six months ago if I'd ever consider this, the answer would have been no. As far as I was concerned she was gone from my life for good."
"So what changed?" she asks.
"She did," I reply.
"People don't just change, Edward," she says. There's a bite to her tone that tells me she's losing patience with me.
"No, they don't," I agree. "But sometimes they go through so much, they mold and adjust. It's not even as though she's changed unrecognizably, more like she's back to her old self." I sit forward, desperate for her to understand. "This is how I remember her being, Kate. This is the girl I fell in love with in the first place. This is the memory I clung on to when she was busy being someone else."
Kate listens to me, her chin in her hand and her fingers covering her mouth.
"You seem so sure," she says at last.
"I switch between certain and terrified," I admit.
"I'm going with terrified, myself," she says. "I was around, remember, when she came back that last time? You were so scarred by her. I couldn't forgive myself if I stood by while she hurt you like that again."
What can I say?
"She's not the only one who's changed." My voice is quiet and I hear the sadness in it even as I speak the words. "I'm not diving into anything head-first, Kate, but life's too short not to take a chance on dipping your toes in the water."
~S~