He hasn't been in Karen's life in, oh, fifteen years, and suddenly it's the week before her high school graduation. When she gets home from school on Wednesday afternoon her mother is sitting at the kitchen table with an empty expression on her face.

"He wants to see you," she says, rubbing her eyes. "He wanted you to know that it's up to you."

She meets him for dinner Thursday night and she can't bring herself to smile, even though he looks exactly the same as he does in all of the pictures at her grandmother's house. Familiar things are comfortable, but he's not familiar to her and all of the happy pictures in the world couldn't ever make her feel anything for him, anything at all.

He smiles, though, and he even looks proud as she slowly begins to tell him about how she'd been captain of the field hockey team and how she'd just gotten accepted into Syracuse. He even laughs as she talks about friends and boys and summer plans. She thinks she (maybe) gets it, gets why he'd needed to see her.

She ends up giving him an invitation at the end of the night, and she hopes to God that her mother will understand.

As she crosses the parking lot of the high school stadium in her white gown, she sees him standing next to his Cadillac with a bouquet of pink roses. He hands them to her, kisses her on her cheek, and says, "I love you."

She clutches the flowers and she can only think, but red means love. She's lying when she says, "I love you too," because you really can't love someone who doesn't show up until it's already over.

She doesn't know him at first, he's...somebody's brother or something, or one of her roommates' ex-boyfriends, or someone she'd just seen on campus, but one morning, she walks into the kitchen of the house she's sharing while at school, in nothing but a t-shirt and a bathrobe and he's there, fixing the faucet that only spouts a tiny stream.

By the time the sink is fixed, she's got plans to see him for drinks that night.

Broken faucets and cheap beer eventually turn into finding every little reason to be together, until finally they realize that it doesn't matter when there is no reason at all. She likes to think that sometimes a reason can just be the way she sinks into his blue eyes like warm, warm ocean water, or how his hands cup her face when she gets angry, or how soft the skin of his back feels under her palm when he sleeps on his stomach, or the way he breathes in when she traces her fingers along the muscles of his shoulders.

When he says it, it's not when they're lying in her bed with the sheets twisted around their legs, their legs tangled around each other. It's not when they're comfortable, curled up on the ratty old couch in his apartment, his arm draped across her stomach and his chin nestled in her hair, on the top of her head.

When he says it, it's when she slips in the snow while they're walking through the quad, and her jeans get soaked and she's freezing and embarrassed she wants so badly to cry. He falls down next to her, presses his glove against her cold cheek, and kisses her and his breath is warm next to her ear, and he whispers it; "I love you."

She's never in her life believed three words more than she does at that moment, and she means it with all of her cold, wet being when she breathes back, "I love you, too."

He loves her every minute up until he graduates that May. First love aside, he'd never promised her anything more than that.

They've been best friends their whole lives, and they've shared everything. Too many secrets to count, too many first times, too many fights and problems and they've always been in it together. She's what everyone wants in a little sister, and she's the only person she has ever needed.

And she's not losing her, exactly, but she knows it'll never really be the same.

She stands outside of the doors to the church sanctuary, wearing pale yellow silk, holding a tiny bunch of white roses, and she sighs, knowing that the cause of distraction for most girls her age would be because it's not them and it's getting too late and everyone else is doing it. But for her, it's because after today they'll be so far away from each other and there'll be other families to spend holidays with and no more crashing at her place at three in the morning when she's drunk and crying over some guy.

(Now she'll have the brother she used to tell her that she'd always wanted instead.)

She holds on to the arm of the best man, and fights back tears as she slowly walks down the aisle. She's disappointed in herself for wanting to cry before the vows even take place.

During the reception the two of them sneak away to the ladies room and it's like they're teenagers again, giggling and joking about drunk aunts and rowdy groomsmen. She can almost forget that her sister's in a white gown, with a new shiny platinum band around her finger. It feels like the last time it'll be just them, and she pulls her close, not caring that she's messed up their hair and their makeup and she cries, cries, "I love you."

Sisters always say they love you back.

It starts with an explosion and at first she only allows herself to believe that he pays attention to her like that because she isn't really giving him a chance not to. But then she blames him, because she had been there first, and he shows up with his too-big jackets and his dumb faces and his tallness and what is she supposed to do? She's almost certain that he doesn't notice her the way she notices him and she lets herself be okay with that, but then before the branch closes he throws her a tiny chance.

And she takes it. She figures that either way, she's leaving, but the difference is that she knows him now and she'd rather be where he is, if she has the option, rather than where he isn't. It's really as simple as that.

Somewhere between packing and unpacking it happens, she gets what she's kind of always wanted with him, and it seems a little too easy, but she thinks it's nice just to have something normal for a change.

(She doesn't mind that he likes for them to do quiet things together).

She waits for when the snow melts, when it seems like there's more sun than there are clouds in the sky during the day. She waits for other rough patches to come and go so that she can ride them out, feel her way, determine if he's in it for the same reason she is. She's not convinced that he is, half the time, but he always ends up at her front door with his eyes red and his eyebrows telling her he's sorry (even if it never actually comes out of his mouth).

If there's one thing she knows, it's that things can't always be happy, and she's not blind. She doesn't say it just to keep him, or to guilt him, or to scare him. She says it because she means it, because she doesn't want to be with anyone but him, so she just says it. She waits a few minutes after he finishes and his breathing goes back to normal and she doesn't feel his heart beating so loudly under her hand on his chest.

"I love you." She says it gently, carefully, trying not to break anything, because she easily could, if she wanted to. She's very well aware of this.

He doesn't turn his head towards her. She can see the silhouette of his face in the almost-darkness of her bedroom, and he's staring at the ceiling. He blinks a few times, opens his mouth slightly, and then closes it again.

She holds her breath, but human beings can only do that for so long. And when she lets it out, she knows, without him even saying anything. She could get up, grab his clothes and throw them at him, tell him to get out, but she doesn't. "Jim," she whispers, and he faces her, his eyes sadly searching her.

"Karen," he says softly, and even in the dark he looks defeated and overpowered (overcome). "I can't."

And what burns isn't the fact that he doesn't love her; it's the reason why.

He slides his hands down her waist and presses into her stomach with his lips and tongue, and she holds her hands over her head against the pillows, wanting so badly to scream out loud but she's got hardly any breath left so she lets out a tiny whimper. She reaches one hand out and lets her fingers get tangled in his black hair, and she lets him go places with his tongue that haven't seen tongue in a long, long time.

When she's almost there, he thrusts into her, and his body is surprisingly heavier, more solid than it looks (at least it feels that way on top of her). She lets him go, go, go, and she knows they're both in it solely for the outcome. She's really okay with that.

She had run into him at the gas station after work and she'd never really spent much time talking to him before (he and Kelly have always been attached at the hip). But hello is harmless and he'd smiled at her, which he's never really done, ever. She'd always liked the way he looked in his long black coat.

She'd suggested Poor Richard's because it's right down the street and they'd gone and talked for nearly three hours straight. He'd told her after the second round of drinks that he and Kelly were taking a break (long story, he'd said).

So they're lying on her bed, silent, and she thinks about why. It's just one of those things, probably, one of those right place, right time situations. Something they'll forget about in a week and only think about in an awkward moment when it's accidentally just the two of them in the kitchen.

But there's something about him, really. She thinks it's his blue, blue ocean eyes, like the first one had.

She giggles, quietly, lying on her side, trying to muffle it with her face in her pillow, but he hears anyway.

"What?" he asks sharply.

"Nothing." She takes a deep breath.

She pauses before saying anything else, and she realizes that laughing makes her look like an idiot and she feels almost obligated to explain, even though the whole point of them being together is to never feel obligated over anything. But everything just seems so ridiculous, so strange, so funny, and she wonders how things have become the way they are.

"I really did love him," she says, more to herself than to him, because she knows he doesn't care. He might not even know who she's talking about, for all she knows, but it doesn't even matter.

He's quiet for a few seconds, and he rubs his hand up and down his cheek.

"Yeah," he says. "I really love her too."

And it really is just one of those things.