Page 5 of The Way I Am Now
She laughs then, and it’s the best sound in the world. “Well, you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I do.” She lets go of me and crosses her arms again as she steps away. I put my hands in my pockets. “I’m not as cool as you are. I get it.”
“As cool asme?” she repeats, this little lilt to her voice. “Yeah, right. No, I meant what are you doing in town? Shouldn’t you be at school?”
“Spring break.”
“Oh.” She looks around and tips her head in the direction of the line. “Do you need to get back or—”
“No,” I say too quickly.
“I mean, if you wanted to—” she says, just as I’m saying, “We could—”
“Sorry,” we both say at the same time, interrupting each other.
She gestures to a wooden picnic table around the corner of the building. I follow alongside her and take her all in. She’s maybe put on a little weight since I’ve seen her last, a little softer somehow, stronger, and God, she looks stunning in the streetlight. Her face and her hair—her everything. In all the years I’ve known her, I realize I’ve never seen her like this, wearing a sleeveless shirt and jean shorts, her feet in sandals. We were always cold months, fall or winter. Seeing her bare arms and bare legs, her painted toenails— parts of her I’ve only known in the context of my bedroom—makes me long for the cold again. I try not to let her catch me staring. She does, though.
But instead of calling me on it, she just looks down at her feet and says, “So, you’re on spring break and you decide to comehereof all places? Boringville, USA?”
“Hey, I told you, Eden, I’m a pretty boring guy.”
She gives my shoulder this playful little shove, which makes me want to wrap my arms around her again.
We reach the table, and as I sit down on the bench, she steps up to sit on the tabletop, her legs so close to me. I have the strongest urge to lean forward and kiss her knees, run my hands along her thighs, lay my head in her lap.
God, I need to stop my brain from going there. What is wrong with me? Need to stop it right now. So I promptly step up too and sit on the table next to her.
“Is this awkward?” she asks.
“No,” I lie. “Not at all.”
“Really? Because I’m weirdly nervous to see you. Happy,” she adds, her hands fidgeting with the hem of her shirt. “But nervous.”
“Don’t be,” I tell her, even though I can barely get the words out with my heart pulsing in my throat like this. For me it’s not nervousness; it’s more that every nerve ending seems to be coming alive in her presence, all at once. She looks at me like she always has. Like she really sees me, and for the first time since the last time we were together, I realize I don’t feel quite so lost. And because it’s always so easy to talk to her, too easy to tell her my thoughts exactly as I’m thinking them, no filter, I force my mouth to say something else, instead of those things.
“You cut your hair.”
She runs her hand through her hair, pushing it back away from her face. “Yes, I’m reinventing myself.” She makes a noise somewhere between a cough and a laugh and rolls her eyes. “Or whatever.”
“I like it.”
She tips her head forward and smiles in this shy way she only ever does—did—when I would try to compliment her, and her hair falls forward into her face. I reach out and tuck a strand back behind her ear like I’ve done so many times, my fingers brushing against her cheek. And it’s not until she looks up at me that I remember I can’t do that anymore. “Sorry. Reflex or something. Sorry,” I repeat.
“It’s okay. You can touch me,” she says, and my heart again, in my throat, mutes me. “I—I mean, we’re friends now, right?”
I nod, still unable to speak. It’s a lot easier to just be friends with her when we’re not sitting next to each other like this.
She clears her throat and turns her whole body toward me, looking at me straight-on. Now she reaches out, her fingers barely touching my hair near my forehead before she trails the back of her hand along the side of my face. There’s a part of me that so wants to lean into her touch.
“Your hair is longer,” she says. “And you’re growing a beard.”
Now I’m the one smiling, all shy and awkward. “Well, I’m not intentionally growing a beard; it’s just stubble.”
“Okay, stubble, then,” she says, smiling now as she seems to consider something. “I like it. Yeah. It’s very, um,College Josh,” she adds in a deeper voice.
I laugh, and so does she, and all that tension between us just sort of melts away. I know I’m staring at her for too long again, but I can’t help it. This is all killing me. In the best way.
“What?” she asks.
