Page 54 of Four Weekends and a Funeral

My left hand fusses with the silicone lining of the cupholder, but then Adam places his hand over mine, stilling me. His calloused palm burns my skin.

We’re both quiet for a moment, like we only have so many words left and the wrong ones in the wrong combination could cost us. Finally, he breaks the silence to say, “You mean something, Alison.” My knuckles flex up against his until he gently removes his hand from mine. “Sam pushed me like that too, you know. Mostly in a good way. I was so uncomfortable during my freshman year of college. I was sure I didn’t fit in and everyone could see it when I walked into a room. But Sam liked me, and I felt, uh, chosen, I guess. But things changed when we got older. Sam always wanted me to be more like him. He wanted me to risk everything for a half-baked carpentry business, but I had bills and responsibilities. He’d say I was making excuses, but I was never bold enough for him.”

“We don’t talk much about you and Sam.”

Adam clears his throat, but I wait.

“I try not to think about him too much,” he finally says. “We’d been drifting apart for a while. He’d always stop by on his way somewhere else, and I’d see him when I was visiting my family, but it wasn’t like how we used to be. He was obsessed with my business and when I was moving. We fought about it the last time I saw him.”

He closes his eyes. I don’t rush to fill the silence. I hold it. Protect it.

“That day, he was so insistent about me starting my company and moving back. He’d tried to get me to rush my plans before, but those conversations had always been like ‘Move in with me, man! It’ll be epic!’ ” I can hear Sam’s voice in my head when Adam says it. “This was different. He was…frustrated. He said I was in a rut, and he wasn’t going to watch me stand still anymore. He pointed out everything he wanted me to change. My job, my life, my relationships—or lack thereof. I told him to shove it, and we argued. My last words to him were passive-aggressive directions to a scenic lookout point. But we were supposed to meet up for New Year’s, so I just thought we’d figure it out by then. He was planning to set me up at his party with some girl who was ‘perfect for me,’ and I was already strategizing how to blow it off.”

My heart is in my throat. Even though we’d stayed friendly, Sam never invited me to a New Year’s party, and I can’t stand to hear about some perfect girl for Adam that isn’t me—yet another heavy presence between us.

“I remember feeling so relieved he was leaving. I remember thinking, This is so exhausting. He’s so exhausting. You must think I’m a monster.”

“No. Not at all.” I clasp his right hand in both of mine. I want to imbue my touch with a small glimpse of how much I think of him. Not enough to give me away, but enough to show I could never see him as a monster.

His eyes tangle with mine, and I’m sure he’s going to pull his hand away. Instead, he threads our fingers together.

“I thought he and I would have time to figure it out. Or maybe not. Maybe I was ready to let the friendship go, but now he’s gone for real, and I feel so awful.” The apple in his throat bobs. “At the funeral, Mrs.Lewis kept calling me Sam’s best friend. I kept thinking, That can’t be true. He deserved someone better than me. That’s why I’ve wanted to take care of everything. I think I thought this condo thing could be some sort of messed-up penance for being a horrible friend.”

“Is it working?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer. I open my mouth to tell him he’s not alone in those feelings of trying to be someone else for Sam’s family. We have so much more in common than he knows.

But I forget how to form words when his roughened thumb starts to draw circles on my skin, and goose bumps cascade up the surface of my arm, spreading across my body in waves. I’ve nearly lost myself in the simple pleasure of holding hands when he asks, “When’s the tow truck coming?”

I shake my head and reflexively grab for my phone: a thirty-something’s comfort object. I pretend to scroll through text messages before answering. “Soon, I’m sure.”

The loss of his touch leaves me cold.

Not for the first time, I wish I knew what I wanted from Adam. There are a million reasons I shouldn’t want anything at all. He’s a temporary fixture in my life, and he’ll disappear back to Duluth as soon as the condo’s ready. I know we’ll probably never speak again after this.

The heat kicks on and the unmistakable scent of onions wafts upward, killing any mood.

“Is that lunch?”

He blinks. “Yeah, it’s from the same place as yesterday. With the salad dressing you like.” The plastic bag resting by his feet crinkles as he pulls out a brown, compostable container. “You’re lucky you even got a lunch. I figured out this address was a cancer center while I was waiting for my sub and left.”

“Without your sandwich?”

He shrugs like it shouldn’t have been a question. Like this isn’t the most swoon-inducing thing a man has ever done for me.

I stab at a piece of lettuce. “I’m sorry I didn’t explain why I was here. I didn’t realize it’d, uh, affect you.”

He steals a cherry tomato from the top of my salad and takes the container out of my hands to place it on the dashboard. I pivot toward him, because even without saying so, I know what he’s about to tell me is important. “You, uh, your health, it…” He stumbles over his words, a pink flush erupting on his cheeks. “It matters to me, Alison. You do. Knowing you were here and imagining you might be—” He presses his eyes shut and inhales through his nose before he opens them again. His gaze focuses on me, as if he’s reminding himself that I’m still in front of him, healthy and in one piece. “So, yes, it affected me. And I left my sandwich.”

These simple words shoot fireworks through my abdomen.

“Admit it.” I lower my voice, worried any increase in volume will push him away before I’ve memorized the intensity in his eyes at this moment. “You didn’t want to be my friend, but I wore you down with my delightful personality.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course we’re friends,” he says simply. “Personality notwithstanding.”

My tension feathers across my skin until it releases into the air, humming around me with a cold, lonesome shiver. “Friends,” I repeat. The word echoes in my head until it loses all meaning. Friends. Friends. A mixture of giddiness and disappointment curdles in my gut.

His jaw works as he starts and stops before saying his next sentence. “You’re kind of my favorite new person, if that’s not too weird a thing to say.”

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