Sarah grilled Jon for the next half-hour. She kept up a strong poker face, but Jon couldn’t help but feel that every answer he gave was being judged. Like this was a test and he’d have no idea whether or not he passed until he was done and his answers were returned.
Fortunately, Sarah kept her physical distance. She let Karyn hang on Jon’s arm the whole time, and there wasn’t a threat of Karyn slipping into her other persona again. But also, Sarah didn’t let Karyn help Jon at all.
Which almost may have been a blessing. It meant that Karyn couldn’t accidentally say something that would raise Sarah’s suspicions.
But Sarah was eventually satisfied. Or at least, she appeared so. And she walked her two guests to her front door, and watched as they started down her long driveway and back to the neighborhood where they lived.
"Thank you for saving me," Karyn said softly as soon as they were out of earshot.
"I was really worried," Jon replied. "Are you sure you're alright? You spent nearly four hours as Other Karyn. You're not feeling any, like, side effects or anything, are you?"
"No, no side effects." A guilt build up in Karyn's chest as the words escaped. Jon thought she'd been under Sarah's influence the whole time. All told, it had just been an hour and change between the gym class and her time in Sarah's house, with a two and a half hour break as herself just having fun with a bunch of cheerleaders. Karyn didn't know how to tell Jon that she'd actually liked spending time with them.
And she definitely didn't know how to tell Jon that she'd deliberately chosen to bring herself closer to Sarah and change herself back into bitch mode.
"Did you mean everything that you said to Sarah in there?" Karyn asked after a few moments of silence.
"I mean, yeah. Sort of."
"Sort of?"
"Like," Jon stopped walking and considered his words carefully. "We're not actually dating, right? That was just to placate Sarah. But every time she asked a question I just thought 'if I was dating Karyn, how would I answer?' And if we were dating, everything I said would be true."
Karyn took two slow, swinging steps forward and turned to face him, her body on display, her eyes gleaming under the streetlights. "So let's make it true."
Jon took in all of Karyn. Without the pressure of Sarah's presence, without anyone else around at all, he could let himself be unguarded. He could let himself just appreciate how beautiful Karyn was in Sarah's clothes. How beautiful she always was, but how she seemed to comfortable showing it off now. She was different than the Karyn that he knew yesterday, somehow. But not in the sense that she was being controlled or brainwashed or something, just like she was the same person she'd always been, only with an unlocked sense of confidence.
He wanted it. He wanted Karyn. But suddenly he almost felt inadequate. So he retreated to humor, trying to avoid what was literally standing right in front of him.
"Isn't dating your best friend the kind of thing that a loser would do?"
"Maybe," Karyn smiled. She wasn't letting him off. "But didn't you hear what I said back at Sarah's?" She took a step forward. "You're my loser."
Then she kissed him, and he found himself kissing back. And he still wasn't sure that he was enough for this new, realized Karyn. But he knew that he wanted to be.
