Covet (Clann)

wrong, Miss Know It All , he’d said. They gave me permission to tell her. And I think it would help her feel a lot better about herself.
    And just when and where do you plan on springing this crap on her?
    I don’t know. Maybe tomorrow where I always go? Why?
    So I know when to expect her totally ticked off phone call, of course!
    Anne… He’d reached out to her, touched her bare arm, made her shiver before she’d turned away from both his touch and that yearning in his voice.
    Just stop. It’s never going to work between us, and you know it. I was never the right girl for you. You should…you should be with someone like you. One of your own kind.
    And though Anne hadn’t said it out loud to him, she’d thought to herself, someone who isn’t so plain and boring and hopelessly clueless about all of this stuff. Someone who could possibly be interesting enough to keep you from getting bored with her.
    And that’s when she’d headed inside with Ron on her heels.
    Oh Anne , I thought, shaking my head and wishing I could admit I’d heard her thoughts so I could cross the room and give the both of them a hug.
    Why were they so determined to be stubborn?
    And what the heck was Ron planning on telling me that worried Anne so much?
    Ron slipped away to the kitchen. I heard him murmuring something to my mom, but they were too far away for me to pick up their thoughts.
    “Okay, that’s it, pack it up,” Carrie ordered Michelle when the song ended a few seconds later. “Study time.”
    Grumbling, Michelle took the CD out of the karaoke machine and returned it to its case.
    The machine seemed heavy, judging by the grunt Carrie made when she tried to lift it by its handle. Smiling, I said, “Here, let me. You guys get the CDs and the mike.”
    Carrie rolled up the microphone’s cord while Michelle collected the CDs. Then we lugged our respective loads toward the foyer.
    “Don’t mind us doing all the heavy lifting here,” Carrie called out to Anne as we passed her.
    Lost in thought, Anne muttered, “Okay.”
    Carrie, Michelle and I looked at each other, eyebrows raised, then continued on through the foyer and out to Michelle’s car. I thanked them for everything, watched them leave, then headed back inside just as Ron was leaving the kitchen.
    “See you tomorrow,” he murmured to me while glancing through the parlor doorway at Anne. “And, uh, happy birthday.”
    “Thanks. Bye.”
    Rubbing the back of his neck, he left through the front door.
    Anne twisted in her chair in time to watch him through the window. I waited till the throaty rumble of his car had faded away before saying her name.
    She jerked back to face me with a scowl. “Crap, you scared the crap out of me!”
    “Well, crap, sorry about that,” I teased, hands on my hips. “And sorry about the unexpected guest.”
    She shrugged one shoulder, her fingers drumming on the arm of the chair. “It’s fine. Sooner or later we would have been stuck in the same room together anyways.”
    “Are you okay?” I murmured.
    “Sure,” she answered automatically. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
    I didn’t have to read her mind again to know that was a lie. But I didn’t press her.
    After a minute of silence, she sighed and seemed to realize where she was again. “Hey, where’d Carrie and Michelle go?”
    “They left to go study for Carrie’s next big test.”
    She frowned. “Oh. Guess I didn’t hear them leave.” She rolled up to her feet. “Well, happy birthday.”
    “Thanks.”
    I walked with her to the front door. She paused at the threshold, turning back with her mouth parted as if to say something.
    “Yes?” I prompted her. She looked like a robot that had run out of batteries.
    “Um, nothing. G’night. See you tomorrow.” With a little wave over her shoulder that reminded me of Ron, she slowly walked out to her truck.
    Several minutes after she’d climbed into the cab, Anne’s truck finally backed out of the driveway into the street, the back right tire running up over the curb before she pulled forward toward her home.
    Wow. That was the most distracted I’d ever seen her. Whatever was going on between her and Ron was really messing with Anne’s mind.
    Blowing out a long and loud breath, I went back inside the house to see what emotional destruction my parents might be wreaking upon each other in the kitchen.
    They were sitting at the banquet opposite each other. And they looked…peaceful.
    It was way more shocking than if I