Page 36 of Four Weekends and a Funeral

I told him my BRCA story over craft beer and overpriced tater tots. He attempted to sympathize by revealing his precancerous-mole-removal story.

I should have called it then, but I wanted to rip off the intimacy Band-Aid. I took my shirt off and watched his brain short-circuiting at the landscape in front of him—rolling hills rather than twin peaks.

Eyes registering my breasts as incomplete looked suspiciously like a man finding them wrong, gross, and repellent. It’s upsetting to watch someone’s brain puzzle out your body in real time. I’d never felt so guilty for being in a woman’s body with scars and imperfections, for choosing survival over vanity. I didn’t have cancer, yet, I thought. I could’ve risked it. I could’ve waited until I had someone who loved me with breasts before forcing them to love me without them.

It was only a moment, and we had fairly routine, uneventful sex after that with no mention of my physical differences. Still, that one moment was enough for me to invest in lacy bralettes for future one-night stands.

I never summoned the courage to have sex with anyone else I actually wanted to see again. The stakes for physical rejection felt too high.

And now I stand here, waiting for Adam to see through my newly translucent shirt and register something lacking. That familiar shame creeps up my spine.

Adam returns holding a sweatshirt with duluth trading co written across the front. He presses it to my front without looking, and I clutch it against myself. He starts to rub the sides of my arms but freezes, and I watch the awareness that he’s touching me—kind of intimately—amble over his features.

“Sorry, uh, you have goose bumps,” he stammers.

Cold bristles over my skin the moment he releases me, and before I realize what I’m doing, I’m leaning forward into him. I know I should back away—I’m making this weird—but he’s too warm. I’m always so aware of what my breasts don’t have and can’t feel, but the pressure of his firm chest against mine just, well, feels.

He lets me stand against him a few seconds more before he speaks into the top of my head, his breath tickling my hair. “Where do you keep your clothes here?” he asks.

“I don’t,” I say into his shirt. The soft cotton is warm on my cheek, and his Adam-y scent fills my nostrils. This close, I can unravel notes of cedar and oranges, and I wonder if it’s fabric softener or soap or just him. His finger brushes a strand of hair away from my forehead. He moves it so gently—so reverently—that his body becomes the only thing keeping me from melting into a puddle on the floor. “I’ve never stayed over here, you know. We were never…I was never ready for that step.”

Adam’s body goes rigid against me as immediate regret rips through me like a tidal wave. Why am I confiding in a near stranger about my sex history—or lack thereof—with his best friend?

He clears his throat and nudges me toward the bedroom by the hand. “I have a spare shirt. Or you can wear one of Sam’s, of course.”

Whatever phantom sensations the weight of him shot through my breasts dissipate on my exhale.

I pull open the top dresser drawer and realize I don’t know where anything is. I open two more drawers before settling on a plain green T-shirt. Once I’m dressed, I plop onto the bed and hold my boobs protectively.

“I’ll throw this in the wash.” He points at my soaked shirt, and I toss it into his open hand. “We should take care of this room today.” He gestures around the bedroom.

For the rest of the day, we box up Sam’s clothes. Any of these sweaters could be sentimental, so we take the coward’s way out and every box becomes “Keep.” His closet feels imbued with him, like his clothes are an extension of his person—an exoskeleton.

“How are you doing with this?” Adam asks. He tilts his head lazily to look down at me. It’s cute. Adam is suddenly extremely cute to me. It’s staggering.

I roll my head up in his direction, mimicking him. “How are you doing with this?” Because whether he’s realized it or not, his relationship with Sam was more significant than mine.

“A bit surreal—like packing him away. But it needs to be done.” He looks up at me again from the shirt he’s folding. Warmth glows in his eyes. “I can’t imagine having to do this for my ex. Not that…you know…”

I stifle a snort. “If you’re only now telling me that your ex-girlfriend died—”

“No.” A smile teases his lips. “She’s very much alive. And married with a kid and a house on a lake.”

“Ooh, the dream,” I tease. “How long were you guys together?”

“Most of college.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I haven’t dated much since. It wouldn’t make sense if I’m planning to leave Duluth, and dating itself is such a pain. I get all dirty from work, so I have to change my clothes and figure out what to eat…”

I can’t help but smile. “You’re describing basic human functioning. First-level ‘hierarchy of needs’ stuff.”

We pack until the bedroom looks like a soulless Airbnb—not Sam Lewis’s bedroom.

“Do you think we’ll be able to make the deadline?” I gesture at the apartment. I feel like we’ve been at this an eternity, but with our side projects and derailments, it still looks like Sam just walked out for coffee.

“We got a bit done this weekend, but it’s the painting and repairs that are the problem. I won’t put that on anyone else when I’m more than capable of doing it. You don’t have to help if you don’t want to. I know you only signed up for packing.”

“Oh, you’re not getting rid of me now. I’ve watched too much HGTV to back out as soon as it’s getting good.” I suppress my grin. Just yesterday morning, the idea of spending a third weekend in Adam’s company might have sent me into a stress spiral, but now I’m hoping he wants me to stay. “I’d like to help. If you want me to.”

“That…” He looks down at the floor, then meets my eyes steadily. “I’d like that,” he finally says.

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