Kat's eyes filled with tears when she saw the necklace, her lower lip
trembling. She turned her eyes away, bitting her lower lip. She couldn't
remember any of it. Julia had to be wrong. Miranda wouldn't do that. She
just wouldn't. Why would she hurt Derek or Julia? Julia had to be wrong.
She didn't think Julia was lying, just confused. Something else must have
happened that's all and she just didn't understand.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry I left....I thought....I mean...it
wasn't the same place as before...." she finished lamely. "I didn't want to
take it off, but it made the stars melt."
Julia reached over and gently turned her face back to her, meeting Kat's
gaze "Do you know how much you've come to mean to me, Kat? If anything
ever happened to you....."
She couldn't finish the sentence and blinked to keep the tears at bay. She
had seen the flash of doubt in Kat's eyes and focused on that, voice low,
holding the necklace between them in her palm "This doesn't melt stars Kat.
And you can trust me on that considering where I've been. And you may not
want to believe it about Miranda either but it happened. We... we almost
lost Derek there, Kat. Everything I told you is the truth and you know I
don't lie."
She didn't want to say the word 'died'. Not ever when talking about Derek
and that was as close as she could come to saying it.
"And no matter what," she promised quietly "I will never get angry at you if
you just stay honest with me. I'm not angry now and I wasn't angry then.
Disappointed and hurt, yes. But not angry."
"And that's something we're going to have to work at....... if you want. I
want to trust you like I did Kat, without question and knowing you'll do it
because you said you would. But I'm not going to force you to do it."
She reached out and placed the necklace in her smaller palm and closed her
hand over Kat's before looking into her eyes "You hold on to that and think
about it. I'll still love you, Kat and I'll do whatever it takes to keep
you safe, but it'll be up to you to decide what kind of friendship we have."
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