Page 102 of Again, In Autumn

Adam’s eyes drop to my mouth.

“That’s another one.” I duck underneath his arm, but he catches me by the hand. I stop, feeling his pull. “People will be up soon,” I whisper, wiping my brow.

His hand moves through mine, tying our fingers up. “I know. Just tell me, once and for all. Why are you okay with just friends?”

I watch the question mark fall between us, his rugged and handsome face confused and perfect and not for me.

This week will end, and we will go separate ways, far too established in our adult lives to waste time trying to puzzle ourselves together.

He really doesn’t know that? He can’t see how different our lives have become, how painful the inevitable ending would be when it’s finally realized? Or maybe he does, he just doesn’t want to accept it. He only sees what he wants, like Maggie said, and goes after it. I have to be the stopping force.

This feels like deja vu.

“Because things are complicated. They always were.” He’s about to argue with me when I stomp on his attempts, saying, “Chicago, Atlanta. Traveling musician, full time teacher. Hot commodity, bakes alone in her pajamas. We have two very different lives, Adam. We missed our window to grow together. Now…we’re just too far apart.”

A fold of skin pinches between Adam’s eyebrows. He says, “This is why I’ve been angry.”

A flash of water reaches my eyes. “I get it now,” I mutter back.

“I wish you wouldn’t act like you aren’t as wonderful to me now as you’ve ever been.”

“I’m just an average girl,” I argue, shrugging.

He pinches my chin and directs my face toward his. “Not to me.”

Adam tightens his hold on my hand while the grip on my face softens. He glides his thumb and forefinger along my chin like I’m a block of clay he’s molding with precision. It’s an action so familiar, fourteen years later, that I forget we ever stepped foot out of this kitchen. I’ve time-jumped. Figured out time travel.

I just don’t know how to change the future.

Adam parts his lips, cupping my jaw. “I wish I’d kissed you last night.”

That would have destroyed the space-time continuum.

I collect his wrist, dragging it easily from my face, and say, “We’re two trains on two different tracks, Adam, and I don’t want to blow up at the end.” I focus my eyes on a chip in the baseboard. “If you keep looking at me like this, everything will just go back to where it started.”

“That’s where I want to be. Back where it started.”

I almost let him pull me in, I almost hear what he’s saying. Who doesn’t want to be eighteen again? We had no problems, no reality, just perpetual summer.

I correct: “We’d be back where it ended.”

Above us, feet hit the floor, and I point to the sound. “Right on time.”

He lets go of my hand, and we both take a step back, deep inhales, hands fixing whatever parts of our appearances became human – wet eyes, reddened skin, pounding hearts.

Adam squints up his face. His calloused hand down his mouth. As the footsteps reach the bottom of the staircase, he says earnestly. “Friends, at least, Vee. I meant that. Please.”

I swallow.

He nods briskly, tweaking his nose.

Grayson comes into the kitchen in Halloween pajamas. He asks, without even seeing us, “What’s for breakfast?”

I shake out my energy with wild, good morning arms, and clap, “French toast roll ups! Yay!”

“Too loud,” he grumbles.

“Do you want to help me?” I begin moving around the kitchen, opening cabinets nervously while Adam still stands there, hands in his pockets.

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