Free Swept Away by Marie Byers Page B

sort of thing?”
    “Yeah,” Kim says and there’s a thoughtful look on her face as she tips backwards to stare at them. “I mean what do you think, is there that special half of your soul out there somewhere?”
    Ryan chews on the end of his pencil in thought. And Amber can’t help but to imagine her one special person. But maybe he wasn’t because if he was he’d still be here wouldn’t he?
    “I don’t think there is,” Amber says. And isn’t that the problem with my Mom and Dad? Mom couldn’t be satisfied with getting her needs met by just one man, and Dad couldn’t put up with Mom’s wandering…well, to be honest, her wandering everything. And yet they’re still together, still trying. And yet she and Michael…
    Michael was everything she’d ever thought she could want. Smart and attractive, someone who loved her for herself, someone she could be herself around in every goofy, awkward, clumsy form. They could talk about anything and maybe it’s unrealistic to expect to never fight but they never did.
    Until that one time that ended everything.
    “I mean there are billions of people in the world,” Kim continues blithely on, oblivious to the turmoil that’s swirling around Amber. “What are the odds there isn’t at least one person out there that’ll be the perfect match?”
    “Exactly,” Amber answers immediately, “what are the odds there is only one match?”
    Ryan pipes up thoughtfully from her lap. “I think you’re both right. There’s someone out there that’s out perfect match but then if you don’t stumble into them maybe there are other people that are just as good, could love you just as much, and that you could love too.” He looks up at her and his eyes are serious and Amber doesn’t know what to say.
    They’ve settled into this friendship thing where her interest in him on anything but a purely platonic level is one big fat zero of a void. She talks to him, shares her life with him, hangs out with him, and vaguely somewhere in the background thinks he’s attractive and funny and cute and all those other adjectives girls use to mean a guy’s a catch. But it’s vague and half-formed and she can’t really see herself falling for him, there’s not enough room in her heart for another man, not when her heart still belongs to Michael.
    Her hand goes to the bit of fluffy, spiky hair that always stand up, and she pushes it back again. “Maybe,” she agrees reluctantly. “Or maybe they just think that there’s someone else out there for them and really it’s just that one person forever that you’ll never get over no matter how you wish it wasn’t true.”
    There’s a silence for a moment, a long moment that stretches out awkwardly between them. She’s said too much and she knows it, they don’t talk about her life or ‘before’ like that. They keep things light because that’s the way Amber likes it, that’s the only way she’ll be able to handle moving on, if she’s not presented with memories and flashes of Michael every second of every day. She misses him like a physical pain tearing her in two, all the time and she just wants it to end.
    “Are you agreeing with me now,” Kim clambers to her feet and pushes her way between them, nudging Ryan off of Amber’s lap and back into his own space. “You never agree with me, this is so cool. I have to write this moment down so I don’t forget.”
    Amber has never been so grateful for her bubbly interference as she is right now. Ryan remains uncharacteristically quiet for the rest of the evening and Amber has never been a chatterbox, especially not after everything, but Kim covers for them both effortlessly and by the next day they’re back to their regular again.

 
     
     
     
    Chapter Six
     
     
    Things feel like they could go on this way indefinitely. Days stretch into days and soon Amber’s studying for her mid-terms and her smiles are coming a little more generously and laughter too at times.
    It's