Abstract Sincerity

Kennedy sat on the couch in Alex’s living room in between Matt and Jack and they were watching some early morning cartoon on cartoon network. Kennedy didn’t mind – she’d always loved cartoons. Growing up, she had watched the original Pokémon, Batman Beyond and other stuff of the like.
She held a gigantic bowl of cereal in her tiny, frail hands while Matt and Jack laughed their asses off about what was going on with the characters in the show. Kennedy would have liked to laugh along but her mind was elsewhere, thinking of other, seemingly more important things.
Alex stumbled down the stairs, fully dressed and hair done. Jack looked back at him, “Where are you going?” he asked, looking down at Kennedy to see her reaction. Matt looked around, too, but kept his eyes on Alex.
“Um,” Alex said as he was looking for his keys, “I’m going to go meet up with Lisa,” he told them and then pocketed his keys. Kennedy kept facing forward and bit her bottom lip.
“Have you not seen her since your guys’ fight a few weeks ago?” he asked but kept his glance on Kennedy.
“No. She called me this morning. She wants to get together so that we can talk about everything and so I agreed to meet up with her at ten at Starbucks so I’m off to go deal with her right now,” he told them. Alex looked at Kennedy, expecting her to turn around and say something but she didn’t.
“Well, you have fun, man,” Matt said to break the awkward silence.
Alex scoffed, “Oh, I will. I’ll see you later, Kenne,” he said and she just remained silent. Alex let out a sigh and walked out the door.
Kennedy finished her cereal a few minutes later and set the empty bowl on the coffee table. They finished the rest of their show and then there was a knock at the door. Matt and Jack turned to Kennedy, looking at her as if they expected her to get it. “What?” Kennedy asked, looking at both of them.
“Are you going to get the door?” Jack asked.
“Are you asking me that because I’m a woman?” Kennedy asked, pretending to be offended.
“No, I just meant that… you’re practically living here so I figured it would be more appropriate for you to answer the door,” Jack corrected.
“So it’s not because you expect me to be your woman slave?” she asked and he just laughed at her. She chuckled with him and got off the couch to answer the door, still dressed in a pair of Alex’s boxers and one of his dress shirts. Luckily, she knew that it wouldn’t be Lisa because he was out with her right now. She opened the door and saw Zack standing there with a six pack in his hands. “Hey!” he greeted enthusiastically.
A smile spread across her face, “Hey!” she exclaimed back. She loved seeing him because he was always so genuine and instantly put her in a better mood – kind of the same way that Jack did.
She stepped aside to let him in and he gave her an awkward side hug and she chuckled. He shut the door behind himself. “This is a nice surprise,” she said pleasantly and went and reclaimed her seat on the couch.
“It shouldn’t be a surprise,” he said and went into the kitchen to put the six pack of beer in the fridge.
“Why do you say that?” Kennedy asked, confused as to why Zack was even there.
“Um, because it’s a Raven’s game today,” he said as though it should be the most obvious thing in the world.
“Oh my god, I forgot! It starts at eleven, right?” Jack exclaimed. They all make it sound as though if they missed this game then the world would end.
“Yeah, in about ten minutes,” Matt said and Jack reached for the remote to change the channel.
“Alright, that’s my cue to leave,” Kennedy said dismissively as she got off the couch.
“What? Why? You should watch the game with us!” Jack complained and Matt looked up at her, begging her to stay with his eyes.
“You know I’m not a football person,” she told them.
“That’s because you’re Satan,” Jack said then hissed at her. She laughed and shook her head. She walked upstairs to go into her room to find some more decent and acceptable clothing to wear. She grabbed an off the shoulder sweater that said Paris on it, with the A shaped like the Eiffel Tower, and a pair of skinny jeans. She braided her hair in a fishtail braid off to the side and then headed back downstairs.
The game had started and Kennedy shook her head as she briefly looked at the action going on on the screen. She walked into the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. She tended not to have coffee until she’d been awake for a few hours because of how acidy it was it usually upset her stomach. She’d only drink it really early if she absolutely had to get something done at an ungodly hour of the day.
She went to the front porch and picked up The New York Times newspaper, which she had decided to get delivered to Alex’s house because she enjoyed keeping up with the politics. She walked into the kitchen and sat at the island in the middle and started reading the paper, just like she did every other morning.
She heard the guys exclaim over something and she was pretty sure she heard Jack swearing over something but she tried to ignore it to the best of her ability.
She didn’t understand how they were okay getting upset over a stupid, silly football game when other, more important things were happening in the world. Just right now there was a huge crisis going on in Libya where thousands of people were dying and yet they didn’t seem to get upset about that – hell, they probably didn’t even know it was going on. And just before that crisis there was the whole issue in Egypt with their corrupt president and all those riots. Then throw the New Zealand earth quake on top of it with hundreds of people dying there, she pretty much thought the world was going to hell in a hand basket.
She shook her head as she read about Libya and all their current issues, but she got up after reading the article to pour herself a cup of coffee. She made a mental note, must have coffee before reading about world news, politics, or religion.
She heard the front door open and her heart stopped. She didn’t hear anything over the guys yelling at the TV screen. She grabbed her cup of coffee and went into the living room to see Alex standing behind the couch, watching what was going on with the game. He turned at looked at her and his smile dropped.
“Hey,” he greeted her and backed away from the couch to face her and behind him stood tiny Lisa with a smile on her face as she turned her head to look at Kennedy after also being engaged in the game.
“Hi,” she said then took a sip of her coffee to hide her astonishment. Apparently her assumption had been incorrect; he was never going to leave her. She should have known this, or at least prepared better for it. Jack and Matt were watching her, they were the only two aware of what was going on.
“Hey, Kennedy,” Lisa greeted her and cocked her head to the side. “Is that coffee?” Lisa asked, pointing to Kennedy’s cup.
“Yeah,” Kennedy answered and nodded her head.
“Is there some left?” Lisa asked.
“Yeah, it’s fresh. I just made it,” Kennedy answered.
“Perfect,” Lisa said and took off her coat and set her purse down.
“Didn’t you just get back from coffee?” Kennedy asked in a nice tone.
Lisa chuckled, “Yeah, funny, huh? I guess I’m just an addict,” Lisa said and walked past Kennedy into the kitchen.
Kennedy stared straight and Alex and he looked straight back at her. “Good to see your coffee session went well,” Kennedy commented.
“Kennedy, I –“ he started, but she cut him off.
“It’s fine. I don’t really feel like talking. I have Libya to get back to,” she told him and turned around.
“Kenne?” Jack called her and she turned back to look at him.
“Yeah?”
“What’s Libya?” Jack asked her. Kennedy let out a sigh and shook her head.
“You really should pay more attention to what’s going on in the world. There’s more to life than your stupid band, your stupid football games, and your stupid fans. Libya is going through a major crisis – their people are getting killed by their government; innocent people. Women, children, they’re getting slaughtered and yet all you care about is where you’re going for tour and whether or not your team wins a stupid football game,” she said angrily and she sounded like she was absolutely disgusted with them – which she was. But she was mad at Alex not Jack and she knew that she was just taking out her frustration on him.
Nevertheless, she turned around and went back into the kitchen to finish reading about what else was currently going on.
She sat back down at the island and Lisa was standing behind her, stirring her coffee. Lisa put her spoon in the sink and stood across the island from Kennedy.
“Kennedy, I just want to let you know that I appreciate you keeping your word. When Alex and I got into that fight, I thought for sure that he would come crying back to you, begging you take him back and have sex with him, but he didn’t and you didn’t. I appreciate you not doing anything with him like you promised. It means a lot,” Lisa told her kindly.
Kennedy hated being falsely thanked – it made her feel like a fraud. “No problem. Like I said, Alex and I are just friends. Never anything more,”
“We should hang out. I know we talked about it, but I’d actually like to make it happen. What are you doing this Saturday? I’d love for you and I to go out clubbing and talk a little more. What do you think?”
“I think that sounds perfect and like just what I need,”
“Great! We’ll have so much fun,” Lisa said and reached across the island to lightly touch Kennedy’s forearm. Lisa turned to walk out of the kitchen but stopped at the doorway and turned back around. “You shouldn’t be so hard on them. They’re kind of like children – they can only handle things in small doses. If they read the newspaper or watched CNN the way you and I do, it would be too much for them to handle,” Lisa told her gently and then walked out of the kitchen.
Great. Now Kennedy felt like a real bitch for not being as understanding as Lisa.
She had just started to get back into reading her newspaper when Matt walked into the kitchen. He sat at the seat next to her and just stared at her until she looked up from her paper.
“Yeah?” she asked, annoyed that he was there.
“Are you okay?” he asked her. She liked Matt because he never fucked around he just got straight to the point.
“I’m fine,” she told him. “Is that why you told me not to get attached?” she asked, lowering her eyes so that she would have the guts to get the question across her lips.
Matt let out a sigh. “Pretty much. Ever since I heard about their fight, I knew that it was only a matter of time until they met up with each other and sorted everything out. I knew that you would get caught in the crossfire because you and him had been seeing each other and that you would just get hurt. I didn’t want to see that happen. Granted, I didn’t think they’d make up this quickly, especially since I know that he loves you, which is why I thought I was telling you early to not get attached,” he gave her a nice, long pretty speech.
“Evidently you didn’t warn me soon enough,” she said sullenly.
“Yeah, that’s probably true.” He told her. She still wouldn’t look at him. She’d focused on a spot on the floor and just stared at it. “Kennedy, I know that you think none of us care about you and that we’re all pretty much just your friend because of yours and Alex’s relationship, but that’s not the case.”
“I don’t think that.” She told him.
“What?”
“I don’t think that you’re all just my friend because of me and Alex. I know that Jack’s my friend because of me, the rest of you, sure, I can see that,” she agreed.
He scoffed. He turned his body so that he was fully facing her and he leaned in a little closer to her. “I don’t think of you that way, Kennedy. I enjoy you, as a person. You and I used to really get along before everything happened on tour. I still care about you,” he told her.
“I care about you, too,” she said and bit her lip.
He put his middle and index finger underneath her chin and lifted it a little bit so that she would actually look at him instead of staring at that spot. She looked at him and into his eyes. He brushed a stray piece of hair that had fallen out of her braid behind her ear. They were inches apart.
She leaned in a little closer and their lips were nearly brushing. He pushed forward and their lips brushed and then he flicked his tongue lightly against her bottom lip. He gently pulled away and let out a sigh.
He stood up and went to leave the kitchen. He stopped in the doorway, just as Lisa had when she’d been in there, and he turned around to look back at her.
“I hope that’s not the last time we do that,” he told her gently.
He left and she bit her bottom lip again. She felt a rush of excitement.