Page 20 of The Comeback Summer

My chest aches with the memory, and I swallow as I turn down Broadway, passing the elementary school and a cozy bookstore. Instead of focusing on the way we ended, I think back to our beginning.

We were in eighth grade and my appendix had ruptured, putting me in the hospital. Josh and I were in the same English class, and the teacher asked for someone to drop off my homework. We weren’t really friends, but he volunteered. He showed up with said homework, plus a battered copy ofThe Devil in the White City, a book about serial killer H. H. Holmes, who lured women to their death during the 1893 world’s fair in Chicago. Josh sat by my hospital bed and read to me for hours about the torture rooms, acid vats, and crematorium in Holmes’s so-called Murder Castle. He stayed until the nurses kicked him out, then came back the next day.

And that was it. The beginning of the closest friendship of my life.

Come to think of it, that’s what launched my fascination with true crime. A pitiful reminder that a huge portion of my personality traces back to Josh.

We were fifteen when I realized I loved him. I didn’t just want to hang out with him as a friend and watch Tim Burtonmovies and talk about how Danny Elfman was the best film composer of our time. I wanted to hold his hand and kiss him and snuggle with him under a blanket. One day, while riding the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier, I worked up the courage to take his hand, thread my fingers through his. And to my utter relief, he smiled and said,I’ve been wanting to do this for so long.

Back in those days, Josh had braces and acne, and he was shorter than me; the popular girls teased me for dating him. That all changed by senior year. He ended up six feet tall with dark hair, blue eyes, and a dimple. Those other girls were suddenly interested in him, but he didn’t seem to notice. Before and after his glow-up, I felt like the luckiest girl on the planet.

We applied to college together and decided on the University of Florida, where Josh became friends with everyone, invited to every party—and I was happy to ride his coattails. Most people just knew me as Josh’s girlfriend, and on more than one occasion I overheard someone asking, “Why is he withher?”

Josh never made me feel that way, though. My parents’ divorce should have made me suspicious of love, but I never doubted Josh. Which just goes to show that I can’t trust my own instincts.

I’ve reached Stan’s, five minutes early, and am considering a loop around the block, but the place is packed, so I get in line.

And then I hear something.

“Banana! Hey, over here.” It’s Josh. He’s sitting at a table with two cups of coffee and two donuts. Waving.

I freeze, and time slows as I clock the ways he’s changed. His hair is still dark and wavy, but longer than he used to wear it. His eyes are still as sparkling and blue as the lake on a summer day, but his face is tanned and a bit weathered, like he’s spent time outside over the years. There’s something elsedifferent about him, too, something intangible. He’s comfortable in his own skin, I suppose. Self-assured in a way that he wasn’t before.

Swallowing hard, I force myself to walk over to him. When I reach his table, he stands, and... was he always this tall? And broad? Or has he somehow grown since college?

“Hey,” I say, waving awkwardly.

Josh opens his arms and pulls me into a hug. Andoh, he smells good. Just a whiff and I’m tumbling backward in time, sixteen years old and wearing his hoodie to bed because I wanted to be surrounded by his smell all night long.

I pull away, my heart beating too quickly. Josh smiles down at me, his dimple creasing his cheek. He has faint laugh lines around his mouth and eyes that I’ve never seen before, and that shakes me: the passage of time, etched on his face. I used to know him better than anyone in the world, and now I don’t know him at all.

“It’s so good to see you,” he says, and it sounds genuine.

“You, too,” I say. “Although I didn’t expect you to be here before me.”

His grin widens. “I knew it would be busy, so I ordered. Iced dirty chai and a Nutella donut. I hope that’s okay?”

I rarely drink anything caffeinated anymore (it makes me anxious), but I’m flustered that he remembers what I used to order.

“Thanks,” I say, and we both sit. “How long are you in town?”

“I moved back. Started a job here.”

“A job? So you didn’t...” I stare at him, confused. “What happened to coral reef ecology?”

“That’s what I study. Just finished my PhD at UCSD.”

Damn.Have to admit, I’m impressed.

“And now you’re... in Chicago? There’s no coral reef here.”

He laughs again. “The job’s at Shedd Aquarium. They have research scientists on staff—I’m studying the effects of climate change on coral reef biological niches as water temperatures rise. I’ll be helping to create a new exhibit, developing educational offerings, that sort of thing.”

My head is spinning. “I can’t believe you live here now. In Chicago.”

“Yeah, I’m staying with my parents while I look for my own place.”

I take a sip of my coffee. This issoweird.

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