Excerpt, Before Pittsburgh

Chrysalis Press, 2021

The person who answered the door wasn’t Kacie. She was a small Filipino girl who looked a lot like Tabby. She said her name was Marlene and offered to let me wait inside since Kacie was expected home any time.

I took in the neat arrangement of furniture, the hangings on the walls, the dishes in the sink. I sat on a barstool and tried to look non-threatening, all the time hoping she didn’t have a gun and wondering just what would have possessed her to let me inside.

“So how do you know Kacie?” Marlene asked, reaching into the refrigerator for a pair of bottled beers.

“We went to high school together,” I said.
“In Virginia?”
“I’m sorry, where did you say she was?”
“She’s got this deadline thing every day. Five o’clock, so if she worked from home, she’s running pages to the paper. If she’s been there all day, she’ll stay until after the deadline.” Marlene handed the beer across the bar to me.

“She’s a reporter?”

“Copy editor. Lifestyle section. Only gets published twice weekly. The other days she’s covering a beat.”

“And what do you do?”

“I’m a journalist like her. Been trying to get her to come work with me.”

I raised an eyebrow and Marlene continued, “I’m on CNN’s website team.”

“Website team?”

She nodded and took a long drink. “Basically anything they report on TV needs to be written up and posted. So, I watch a lot of CNN.”

“You write after they put it on the air?”
“Pretty much at the same time.”
Before I could ask her more, the door opened, and Kacie fell through.
“What a fucking disaster,” she said. “I don’t know how much longer I can put up with…” Then she saw me and stopped talking.

“Kace,” I said, and tried to smile but seeing her stung me, unexpectedly, even out of context, even after all that time. Even though she looked so beautiful. Maybe because she looked so beautiful. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair a wild mess, and her eyes bright and wide.

Then they narrowed and she said, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Glad to see me?”
“Get out.”
“Kacie, let me explain.”
“How could you let him in?” This demand was thrown at Marlene.
“What? He said you went to high school together.”
“This is Brian!” Kacie all but shrieked it.
Marlene’s face went pale. “Oh, shit, like Brian Brian?”

“Fuck.” Kacie threw her purse and coat on the couch and stood, hands on hips, facing me. She tipped her head at the beer in my hand. “Make yourself comfortable.”

“Come on, Kace, don’t be pissed.”

“Don’t call me that. You have ten seconds to say whatever it was you came to say. Then you have to go.”

Marlene stepped away from the counter. “I’m really sorry, Kacie,” she said. “I’ll just give you two some privacy.” She slipped down the hall and I heard a door close behind her. I could almost hear Kacie’s huffy breathing. Imagined her nostrils expelling smoke. I’d write it that way. Like she was a dragon and I was a reluctant knight.

I took a drink from the bottle in my hand.
“You’re wasting time,” she snapped.
“I came all this way. Don’t kick me out. Let’s talk.”
“About what?”
“It’s been over a year, Kacie.”
“Since I saw you, sure,” she said, folding arms over her chest, “But not since your crazy fucking emails and letters. You chased me out of Charlottesville, Brian. I changed my email address. Moved. Told my parents to write return to sender on all the mail they got for me.”

“I never sent anything to Colorado.”
“How would I know?”
“Kacie, Barcelona was amazing and . . .”
“That’s what you’re here to tell me? About your European adventure?”
“No, I mean, yes, but that’s not all. I went and I saw these places and I wanted to tell you. To tell Tony.” She flinched. “I’m not doing this right. It’s not like I thought it would be.”

“What did you think? That I’d hug you?” She glared and her voice dropped on each of the next few fragments. “Hold you? Want to be with you? Want to see you? After the shit you said to me?”

“I was angry.”
“And drunk.”
“And broken. And missing Tony. And missing home.”
“And you took it out on me. Like always.”
“Stop, okay, just stop. I’m here to apologize. To explain.”
“I don’t want you to apologize!” she shouted at me, hands straight to her sides, fists clenched. “I don’t want you at all, Brian. I made that clear.”

“It’s been a long time.”
“Not long enough. Get out.”
“Kacie, please, just hear me out. For Tony?”
“Don’t you dare use Tony to get to me.” Her hand came up and she pointed at me. “Don’t you dare. I’ve been hurting, too, Brian. And healing. And part of that was getting the fuck over you. Now here you are in MY town? In MY apartment, and I should give you what? A minute? An hour? The benefit of the doubt?”

I’d stood from the stool and still had a few inches on her, but the distance between us made it seem like we were eye level, so I closed the space. Made her look up at me.

“Stop right there.” She was trembling. “Stop.” 

Kasie Whitener’s first novel, After December (2019), was a finalist for the National Indie Excellence Awards and has been called “a breakthrough debut” and “outstanding fiction.” Her second novel, Before Pittsburgh (2021), won Honorable Mention at the New York Book Festival and the Hollywood Book Festival. She was honored by South Carolina Humanities in 2021 with the Governor’s Award Fresh Voices in the Humanities for her work as host of the weekly radio show Write On SC and as board member to the South Carolina Writers Association. Whitener is a business owner and instructor at the University of South Carolina. She is a 1995 graduate of Herndon High School and has presented for Bowling Green State University's Winter Wheat Literary Festival, the Pat Conroy Literary Center, and the Fairfax County Public Library.