11

_OLIVER_

"How's Kim?" I asked as I looked at Lora, who was seated across from me. We were in the middle of lunch at a restaurant that Francesca had made reservations. The food was great but my worries made it difficult to fully appreciate it.

I have been trying to reach Kim all week with no progress. She was neither answering my calls nor texts and I wondered if something was wrong. It crossed my mind that she might have gotten uncomfortable with the way I talked to her on Lora's birthday but her response to my advances was anything but repulsed. 

"I don't know," she replied after putting a forkful of pasta into her mouth.

Now that was an answer that I wasn't expecting, especially from Lora. The girl who talked to me about Kim everyday after ballet classes; whether I wanted to hear it or not. "Why's that?"

"She hasn't been to class all week."

I chocked on my pork rib and downed my glass of water to wash it down. Were thing