Page 55 of Again, In Autumn

“She is not boring,” Kate insists. “Look, Vienna might not be the first one to hike a mountain or backflip off a dock, but she’s the best person I know. She’s funny. She’s kind. She’s easy to be around. I can tell her absolutely anything.”

“I shouldn’t have said anything.”

Kate says, “If I was stranded on the side of the road at three in the morning, I would call Vienna. Even if I was in another state, she would somehow get me help. She’d organize everything.”

My eyes close, my nose itches.

The familiar sound of Adam’s deep exhale runs through the trees between us. He says, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.” He pauses. “It’s just that she doesn’t seem like the same girl I remember from fourteen years ago.”

“She’s the same as she’s always been.”

“When she was eighteen, she seemed more…full of life.”

“That’s probably because she was eighteen,” Kate comments. “Everyone’s free right out of high school. Vee’s just not a wild child. And her family are not adventurous people.”

“I guess I just got a different idea about her back then.”

“I won’t hear anything bad about her!” Kate insists.

“I don’t even know her,” he says.

They walk up the path, past me. Kate’s voice drops. “My mom said that Fran was a mess when their mom died. Vienna was the only one who could calm her down and she was, like, eight. Their dad practically abandoned them. Vienna always has to be calm so that she can manage the crazy people around her. Grayson had pneumonia when he was two, and Fran convinced Vienna to cancel her trip to Italy to stay home and help take care of him. Who asks that of someone? And Vienna just does whatever Fran tells her to do.”

Their voices trail off, and I wipe rogue tears from my cheeks.

So, I’m dependable, giving, and practical, and he thinks that’s boring. That I’m boring. Boring. He shouldn’t have a single thought about who I am now. We’ve barely been in the same room this week, let alone spoken to each other, and he doesn’t know anything about me. But…boring?

Damn that word stings.

For the record, I am not boring. I keep myself pretty entertained, that’s a skill. Grayson likes me when you catch him on a good day. I bake things that people love to eat. I know how to play chess. I can do a headstand.

I can juggle for god’s sakes.

Kate’s not wrong about my sister, but I don’t know any other way to be. The minute I think of telling Francesca “no,” all I see is her sad, scared blue eyes. Adam didn’t know that part of my personality. He and I lived in a bubble. He couldn’t have ever really loved me, not knowing how I behaved in the real world. If we had gotten married, he could have landed on the same conclusion he has now, and we’d have wasted years of our lives pretending to be eighteen, sun-kissed and in lust.

I shake out my head and slap color in my face before standing. My sleeve catches some snot and tears. Hearing what he thinks of me really sobers up that heavy feeling in my core. He’s not so hot and broody to me now.

Besides, who cares what Adam Kent thinks? Not me.

I don’t care because he and I are not involved anymore. Everything has turned out as it should. We are strangers, that’s all we ever could be and possibly ever were.

Francesca calls out my name.

“Coming!” I take a deep breath and my boot catches a tree root. My hand slams into the ground as I catch myself, my leg coming into contact with a rock.

“Fuck,” I mutter. Blood drips down from my palm and a cut below the knee, through my leggings.

Francesca shouts, “Vienna, we are leaving you! Pick up the pace!”

I groan, “Okay!”

My thirty-two-year-old body doesn’t love being slammed into the ground any more than the skin around open wounds love an infection, so I continue carefully down the hiking trail, where the others are a decent way ahead of me. With the water left in my bottle, I clean my leg and hand while walking.

“Auntie Vee is hurt!” Grayson calls out.

I look up. “No, I’m fine,” I yell back.

Francesca chuckles, “Our outdoorsy girl strikes again.”

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