Page 69 of Again, In Autumn

Chapter Nineteen

I always wake up in the dark. I crawl out of bed immediately and start my day.

Not today.

Today I feel Adam’s words on my skin and in the haze of my muddied brain. My head hurts, and my mouth is dry and dehydrated. I curl the covers over my head. My pillowcase is crinkled from wet tears. I close my eyes and wish myself back to sleep.

I wasn’t a body, I was just a soul.

Leave it to a songwriter to say exactly the right thing and spell out so perfectly what I had never been able to understand. For fourteen years, I beat myself up for thinking about Adam. He and I were two ends of the spectrum, teetering on opposite sides of a scale, fighting to become the heavier entity. It was impractical to think he’d fallen in love with me or I him. We were eighteen, secluded, horny and scared of the outside world.

Yet, I never lost that feeling. It was more than attraction, more than lust. I’d never met another person – romantic partner, friend, family member – who made me feel weightless. The world sits heavy on my shoulders, always. The bubble of Adam and I had no time, no concrete matter, no responsibilities but to feel and be felt.

I was just me around him.

When I finally make it downstairs, the sun has well-risen, but I’m still the only one awake.

Baking always quieted my brain. My mother taught me that. When I came home from school stressed or a friend yelled at me or I got into a fight with Francesca, mom and I would bake something.

Today I get ingredients from the pantry and fridge, including little plastic squeeze jars and food coloring I keep in a basket labeled Vienna’s Baking Stuff.

I whisk together the dry ingredients, milk and eggs. I pour some of the pancake batter into the six jars, put in drops of food coloring and use a skewer to mix them. Heddy’s electric griddle is plugged in.

I’ve watched two dozen YouTube tutorials to figure out how to make pancake art. I’m relatively creative, I figured I can do it, as long as no one asks for Bart Simpson or a Toy Story character. I’m very good at plain yellow suns. Or polka dotted hearts. Snowflakes. That sort of thing.

With a towel under my wrist, I draw on the griddle with black pancake batter to make the outline of a smiling frog. I add green batter, pink for the cheeks, uncolored for the eyes, then turn on the griddle to cook it. After a minute or so, I glide my spatula underneath and flip it.

See, baking clears the mind. I didn’t think about Adam yelling at me once during that entire activity.

After I’ve make several designs for the kids – smiley face emojis, hearts, a bear, a unicorn – I make plain round ones that can be frozen for later. Someone shuffles into the kitchen.

“Is that Adam’s coat?” David asks.

I glance at it on the rack, where I hung it last night. “No, that’s mine,” I lie.

David scratches the blonde hair that sticks up in all different directions like a dry, dying fern. “That’s a man’s coat, Vee.”

I grumble, “You don’t know anything about fashion.”

“Anyway, speaking of, Adam texted me and asked if you would bring him some pancakes.”

I turn around at the griddle, holding the spatula out and gesturing with it in lieu of my hands. “How did you know I was making pancakes? Does he not have food in his own home? What makes this man think he can just demand I bring him breakfast?”

“Whoa.” David pours himself a cup of coffee.

I spin around and flip a slightly burned pancake coin.

“I could smell the pancakes, as could anyone within a five-mile radius. He texted me what you were making for breakfast, and I told him.”

“How would he even know I was cooking breakfast?”

David doesn’t respond, so I glance at him over my shoulder. He’s staring at me, sipping his coffee. There’s something unreadable in his eyes. Finally, he says, “When I would drive over here in the morning, Adam would be here, in the kitchen with you, eating breakfast.”

I wipe my nervous hands on my pants. “So?”

“So, he knows you wake up early and make breakfast. And you make a mean pancake.” David tilts his head side to side. “The man likes a good meal.” Then, he pauses with his coffee cup hovering in front of his mouth. “Is there any other reason he would ask for you to bring him breakfast?”

I swallow. “No.”

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