Page 74 of Again, In Autumn

“But don’t be too nice to me.” I jam my hands into my jacket pocket. “It’ll look suspicious.”

“I’m not normally nice to strangers,” he says. “I like to kick them when they’re down. Beat them at their own game.”

“Oh good. I never make friends with my competition.”

Adam’s polite half smile falls, and he bites his lip. The wind whips his hair, and he takes the opportunity to smooth it down with the relief of a kid who hears the fire alarm before his big presentation at school. Finally, as I begin walking backward, he begins, “I am sorry, Vienna.”

I wait.

“I was mean, last night.” He screws up his face. “I’m never mean.”

“I know,” I understand softly.

“I don’t want to be mean to you,” he says. “I’ve had a lot of time to get my head out of my ass and I never did it. I just kept being mad at you.”

I try, “You had every right to be angry –”

“No,” he stops me. “I didn’t really listen to you that day. I’m glad we got to see each other again.” He pauses. “I listened to you last night.”

He’s transformed himself into the boy I knew. The boy I loved.

“Thank you,” I say. I glance over my shoulder, and he sticks his hands into his pockets, nodding, watching me walk back to my house.

Then, I stop. I remember what I wanted to say minutes ago, back on the porch. He didn’t understand what really happened that last day, when I watched my dad throw my suitcase in the back of his car and felt Heddy’s hand on my shoulder. He deserves to understand.

Over my shoulder, I say, “For the record, Adam, I never rejected you.”

His jaw clenches. “That’s what it felt like.”

I consider how to tell him. “I wasn’t rejecting you. At all. That’s the last thing I wanted. I just…couldn’t accept the offer on the table.”

Saying this feels like breaking the rules. We just agreed to pretend it didn’t happen. Now it’s hanging between us, the invisible rope tethering our past and future, and I understand why it wasn’t long enough and why it never broke.

I couldn’t marry him, but I still loved him. He couldn’t accept that I chose another path and was angry. If we hadn’t had that misunderstanding, everything could have been different. We could have had some kind of future. We could have had the opportunity to try.

We’re sucked into each other’s energy for a moment, and it feels like that first day we met.

Adam had come out to introduce himself to David and Francesca, who were kicking around a soccer ball on the grass, in honor of David surviving his scholarship and never being forced to play soccer again.

I came down the steps with Amber. She took off toward Adam. He bent down and pet her behind the ears and his thin white shirt billowed over tanned skin, his handsome face breaking into a smile. Unprompted, he looked up at me.

I didn’t think about how dopey I looked in my ratty clothes or beat myself up for unwashed hair. I stared at him and everything else faded. I knew it would end, that time would speed back up, but despite the distance between our bodies, I saw him clearly as if we stood nose to nose.

We were both frozen, staring at each other.

Then David kicked the ball into the air and clocked him in the face.

I feel that pull between Adam and I right now. The rest of the world has faded away. We’ve come full circle. The first time was hello and this time it’s a goodbye.

Chapter Twenty

It’s a perfect day. Clear sky, mild temperature, crisp and crunchy leaves to fall into. It’s quiet on the lake. The passing family of deer have ventured off the property before Alice could chase down the fawn for a hug. Actually, Francesca had to restrain her, kicking and screaming, lest the deer be traumatized before the holidays.

The neighbors arrive any minute for our twentieth annual holiday game day.

The rules are simple: everyone picks their own game and brings all of the needed supplies. The participants may scoff, argue, complain, threaten or drink too much, but they may not bow out. That was Heddy’s rule. She would say, “It’s about the experience.” Then she made us play Past Life Regression where we lay on the grass and listened to a guided meditation to take us on a journey of the soul.

She played her sound bowl. Francesca always ended up crying.

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