Page 53 of Again, In Autumn

“Let’s ask her!” Maggie claps her hands together. “That would be so much fun!”

I smile so the mirror sees it, but all I think about is extra wheels. Wheels without partners.

Diego and Maggie. David and Francesca. Adam and Kate.

Me.

Maybe I should babysit.

We drive around the mountain’s curve, and sunlight bounces off the tops of parked cars on the very familiar overlook. I watch it pass by through Adam’s window, where his face doesn’t change, nor does his body language alter. Like there’s no significance to this location or the act of sharing a car with me at all.

Chapter Fifteen

I extra-wheel-it pretty fast.

Caroline takes Alice in hand and Grayson walks between them and his parents, who have had Diego and Maggie’s ears during the entire hike. Kate got her manicured claws into Adam from the jump. They walk in front of me, so I lag considerably behind. Even Copper doesn’t stop to make sure I’m alive.

“Grayson, get down!” Francesca shouts.

She snatches him off a tree.

David waves his hand. “He’s fine, Fran.” He takes an inhale. “Whoa, I am out of shape.”

Maggie plants her walking stick into the dirt and steps over a tree root. “I was just thinking the same thing about myself.”

Grayson grumbles, “You don’t let me do anything. Dad, she won’t even let me climb the treehouse!”

“It’s a safety hazard,” his mother argues. “That thing is a million years old, and the man who built it was half blind.”

Kate’s coat swishes when she walks past their argument and bumps shoulders with Adam. Her ponytail bounces. Her eyeliner never creases. She’s got to be hot, but she hasn’t released a single drop of sweat.

As much as I tell myself not to, I can’t help but stare at them. She and Adam look beautiful together. She’s the golden goddess to his dark and rugged, but the way they fall in step, I know she’d look perfect on the red carpet of an award show or in a paparazzi photo at a coffee shop. Adam’s fame has its sweet spot where he’s not Post Malone, but he’s not unknown either. Looking the way he does, it’s only a matter of time before he reaches a greater fandom.

Walking away from him was the correct move. I wouldn’t complement him the way Kate would. I wouldn’t enjoy the attention the way she would. She has ambitions to be of the crowd in which he operates, but I would be awkward and out of place.

He smiles at her, too, and I think that’s what hurts the most to watch. Any idiot would find her beautiful. Laughing at her jokes, listening to her thoughts, finding her enjoyable to be around – that’s the real gut punch. Adam used to do those things with me, and it felt so much more intimate and special than him telling me I was pretty.

“Ally needs a break,” Caroline calls out.

David stops. “Yes. Ally needs a break. We need to stop. For the children.”

We’re going back down the hill, near to the cars which had been parked mid-mountain. The plan was to go all the way up and all the way down, but it wasn’t my plan. I step down the path a little way, plant my butt on a cold rock, and take a swig from the stainless steel bottle that keeps hitting against my kneecap.

Voices erupt from above me.

“Let me try!” Grayson says, staring at Adam hanging from a tree branch.

“No,” Francesca insists. “You will fall and roll down the mountain to your death.”

“Why does he get to do it?”

“Because he’s a grown-up, and his mother isn’t here to see him.”

Adam drops his hands and his boots hit the ground. “My chiropractor says it’s good for your spine to hang like that.”

Diego argues, “Chiropractors are quacks.”

“Says the psychologist.” Adam shares a smile with Kate, and they walk back down the path a little way, Copper sniffing in the dirt.

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