Page 35 of Amid Our Lines

“I loved it.”

“I’m glad. Wasn’t sure how it would compare to London’s offerings.”

“It’s a different energy here—much more personal, what with how everyone knows everyone.” Eric let his head loll to the side, watching Adrian across the gap between their seats as he curled his hands in his lap. “I’ve been to gigs in London, like at a small pub, for example, and sometimes a musician would finish a song and people wouldn’t even clap.”

“That’s sad.” Adrian sounded genuinely upset at the idea. “Like someone’s up there on stage, a person with feelings and all, and they’re trying to be heard and no one even cares.”

“Yeah.” Eric let the word sit between them for a moment before he lifted one shoulder, made awkward by how he was twistedsideways in his seat. “It’s always been… I mean, I’m not a stage performer, right? I don’t have the … desire to be seen, I guess. Never did. But I always made sure to clap, even if I was the only one, even if the music wasn’t my style. Turns out that often, it just takes that one person to make the first move, and then others start clapping too.”

Adrian seemed to consider something, briefly quiet as they exited the town and took the road that would soon narrow as it began winding its way up the valley in twists and turns. The number of houses that lined the road started dwindling. “That’s nice,” he said then. “That you cared enough to be the first to clap when I know you don’t like to draw attention to yourself.”

“I’m not like you.” Eric kept his tone light. “I don’t enjoy people looking at me. It always makes me feel like they’re judging.”

“Maybe they’re not judging but admiring.” Adrian’s tone was equally light, but even in the relative darkness, the look he shot Eric was … something. Heavy.

“Possible,” Eric allowed. “Doesn’t stop me from feeling self-conscious.”

A few seconds of silence hung between them before Adrian shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

“You don’t get what?”

“You’re…” Adrian broke off to wave his hand in Eric’s general direction. “You know.This. You’re all this, but somehow you don’t seem to see yourself very clearly.”

‘You deserve the world.’

Eric blinked away the memory of Lucas’s parting words. It hadn’t been so different from what Chloehad told him—‘You’re perfect, but it’s just not the right time for me.’ Nadia had put it as ‘I’m just not ready to find the right guy yet, but if I was? Oh, babe, it would be you.’

“There’s only so many times you can hear ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ before you start believing it is you after all,” Eric said after a beat.

Adrian scoffed. “Or maybe you keep falling for idiots.”

“Well, that would also be on me, right?” Eric pointed out.

Adrian’s sigh didn’t carry any true exasperation. “And here you go again, turning it around so you’rethe one to blame.”

Eric didn’t have an answer. He didn’t think it needed one, really—sometimes things just were. There was no dark, traumatic childhood that Eric could cite as the reason he didn’t have the confidence others could don so easily. He’d been a shy child, and when Kojo had unilaterally decided that they were best friends from then on, it had taken several months before Eric had started to believe him. He faked it better now than at the age of five, but at heart, he was still shy.

Your insecurities in a neon dream.

Another car approached from the mountains, made visible by two circles of light that danced and swerved with the path of the road. Adrian pulled over to let it pass, and then they continued their journey up the valley. It was a dark night, moon and stars hidden behind heavy clouds, and if someone had told Eric they were the only two people for miles, he might have believed it.

The first snowflakes caught by the headlights were almost surreal.

Then more, a dizzying swirl of white, and Eric started laughing without really knowing why. It was snow, just snow in December, and it happened all the time around here. But it didn’t back home, and so his childlike wonder whenever he saw the first snow of the year had never quite faded.

“What’s so funny?” Adrian asked even as he grinned at Eric. His face was the brightest thing around,I’ll search through the crowd—no, those were someone else’s words.Your face is all that I see, baby, love me lights out.

“It’s snow,” Eric said, and yes, it was nonsensical, but maybe Adrian got it because he huffed out a quiet, happy laugh.

“Never stops being magical, does it?”

“You still feel that way? Even after spending most of your life here?”

“I think…” Adrian paused, and when he continued, his voice dropped to something more intimate. “You know how children just stare at the world in absolute amazement? Everything’s a miracle—a barking dog, wiggling your toes, the first flowers in spring. Somehow, snow never stopped being that miracle for me. The way it transforms the world, how everything goes bright and silent. It’s quite something, isn’t it?”

“Let’s get out.” Eric hadn’t planned to say that.

Adrian took a moment to respond—and when he did, it was simply by steering the car into a lay-by next to the road. When he killed the engine but left the lights on, the silence was magnificent.

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