Page 49 of Again, In Autumn

“I think I know what it is,” I offered.

He kissed me again, deeper still.

“What’s that?” he breathed into my mouth.

My arms came up between us and broke his, forcing a scowl, and I set my hands on the sides of his face. “I think you’ll like it better if I kiss you,” I teased. Before he could respond, I pulled him to me, reaching his mouth, and moving my open lips against his.

Adam’s hands wrapped around me, scooting me closer into the cage of his body.

How can something hurt and feel amazing at the same time?

Alone in the quiet, I feel his phantom touches on my body like burns, but my skin’s so frozen and numb, I barely register the pain. I relax into these memories. They felt like the beginning of something bigger.

I touch a wet spot on my cheek.

Somewhere in the woods, the sound of a harmonica hangs heavy in the air. At first, it sounds sad, but then I remember that slow harmonica playing songs like that. This person isn’t sad. He once pretended to find me disgusting and that’s apparently how I appear to him now.

That’s the harmonica playing of a smooth-talking, deeply focused, not wounded at all, musician man.

And I listen to him play for another half hour.

Chapter Fourteen

Standing in the gravel, Heddy’s hiking boots on, I stare out at the lake.

What a joy it must be to be nature. Everything you’re supposed to do comes to you effortlessly: swaying, rocking, growing. You don’t have to think about the pressures of societal life. You get to just be a tree. I close my eyes and listen to the relaxing sound of their dry leaves gently crashing into each other.

Then comes the shouting.

“I don’t want to wear shoes!” Alice cries.

“You have to, we’re going hiking!” Francesca insists.

I turn around and offer, “I’ll stay back with her.”

“Nice try.” Francesca scoops up her kicking and screaming child, and I open the car door. Alice immediately finds a stuffed doll beside her car seat and the crying stops. As Francesca buckles her in, she says to me, “You love to be outside, and you love hiking.”

“One of those things is half true and the other is not at all.”

She exhales, shutting the door. “You go for a run almost every day.”

“Running is not hiking.”

“Well, it’s like the same thing.” She ties an elastic around her hair and watches the boys come out of the house with water bottles and a bag of snacks.

“Running is not at all like hiking.” I cross my jacket-covered arms. “That’s like saying swimming is the same thing as…walking.”

“No. It’s like saying swimming and fishing are the same thing. They both happen on a boat.”

“I’m not in the water when I’m fishing. It’s more like –”

“Please stop,” David begs. He opens the driver’s side door. “Please don’t do this, it’s too early.”

Kate bounds down the stairs in her cropped puffer and skin-tight leggings. Caroline follows behind, tying the strings of her stained joggers.

“Do I need a bigger coat?” Caroline asks, looking at her sister’s attire.

“No, we’re going to be moving, you should be warm enough,” Francesca answers instead, touching the sleeve of her thin sweatshirt. “Move briskly.”

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