Page 100 of Again, In Autumn

Adam’s jaw drops. “And the hits keep coming.”

I nudge his boot with mine. “I’m sorry. I’ll shut up now.”

“I don’t want you to shut up, that’s the point.” He studies my sweater. “I want to hear you talk. To be around you. I feel easy with you, Vienna, more than with anyone in the world.”

Forcing myself to meet his eye, the words fall from my surprised mouth: “Still?”

My brain meant to say, even after all this time? Maybe even, surely you’ve met other people you like more than me in fourteen years, trust me, I’m not that great.

But Adam understands what I’m saying.

“Still,” he agrees with an urgent, pressing inflection that tethers my question to his answer so that I’ll never have to ask it again. I’ll always know his truth.

It’s still us. We’re still an us, for some inexplicable reason that defies logic. That’s how we fell so quickly into love. I’d never before met anyone who felt like they were a part of me. That’s something I haven’t felt since, either.

Adam continues, “So much of my life feels busy and full of trying to make other people pleased that I forget how to enjoy it. I needed yesterday. I needed to laugh. I needed –”

He stops. His lip grazes along his bottom lip. “I didn’t need to grope you in the woods.”

I shift, uncomfortably. Be a grownup, Vienna. Talk about it.

“Sorry about that,” I say, clearing my throat. “I shouldn’t have…” I begin to mime how I came on to him but think better of it before my tongue emerges.

Adam smirks. “It’s not your fault. It takes two tango. And grind up against a tree.”

“Adam!” I scold, covering my face. “Can we just forget about it? Please.”

He laughs lightly. “Never.”

I pull back my hand to see his eyes stern on mine.

“Vee, I know we have…history.”

He cringes at the word. I black out for a second.

Adam continues, “But I want to be friends. Even if it’s only here, on this lake. Once a week out of the year. I want a sliver of what I had that summer with you. Because I’ve never felt anything like it since.”

Nor have I. Those years before him were filled with the same friends I’d had my entire life, people I cared about and loved but didn’t feel wholly myself around. We lacked a spark. Our souls didn’t listen to the same frequency. Only after I went to college, delivered back into the wild, did I notice how different everything felt with Adam. There was no trying around him, no fighting to be seen, heard, or appreciated. I just existed. Felt at ease.

“Friends,” I murmur, wondering how that label will fit.

“I promise I’ll keep my hands to myself,” he says, staring at the ground.

“Okay,” I croak.

“Can we manage that?”

I consider what he’s asking. “Vacation friends?”

It’ll be too tight. Itchy, uncomfortable. A tank top in the dead of winter. Wrong.

“Who keep their hands to themselves.” He throws up a hand for good measure. “I wasted fourteen years of getting to be here and have this.” He gestures out to the open lake, then to he and I.

I raise my coffee mug.

He smiles and does the same. “I don’t want to miss out on any more opportunities because I’m prideful and angry.”

I rock back in my chair and admit, “You wouldn’t have seen me here anyways. I, uh, I’ve never been back here.”

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