Page 7 of Again, In Autumn

“You DoorDashed coffee when we’re minutes from leaving the building?”

“It’s efficient.” She waves her hands around. “Anyway – why exactly are you so weird about going back there? You never said.”

“It’s a long story.”

“Well, I’ve got coffee to wait for.”

I glance off at the sky and wince. I’ve only told this story to a nail technician, a drunken girl in the bathroom of a bar, and an old man at a dog park. I begin, “It’s just…there was this boy…”

Noelle’s head snaps back, her brown eyes narrowed. “A boy at your godmother’s lake house. In the middle of nowhere. Was it your brother? How Georgia are you?”

“He was perfect,” I muse, ignoring her. The sky looks dreamy when I recollect this part of the summer I never speak of. The black cloud comes later.

I continue, “I was awkward and eighteen. He was not awkward and eighteen, too. We immediately liked each other and snuck off together and spent every possible second alone. We fell in love. Or, I guess it was love, I’m not sure now. I was eighteen, there was a heavy dose of lust. All I know is that I had my whole life ahead of me and he wanted us to spend it together.”

Noelle’s face tightens, falling with sadness, probably mirroring my expression. “What happened?”

“Obviously we lived happily ever after,” I mock. “Can’t you see how happy I am? I’m obviously living the dream.”

“Seriously. What happened?”

I roll a stone with the bottom of my buckled suede shoes. “My dad and Heddy put a stop to it. Before we did something stupid.”

“Like?”

“Like run off and get married at the courthouse. Which was what we were going to do.”

Noelle’s jaw drops. Her phone screen flashes. “No wonder you love trashy TV, it reminds you of your life!”

“What?” I stamp my foot. “I am not trashy. I’m well-worn.”

She steps into the road and waves her arms over her head. The passing librarian thinks we’re waving at her. So, I wave back.

Sinking her hip in wait, Noelle calls back, “You almost eloped at eighteen with your brother. That’s not okay, Vienna.”

“He was not my brother! He was the next-door neighbor.”

“How many teeth did he have?” she argues, eyebrows raised.

“Whatever number of teeth adult people are supposed to have. And they were beautiful white teeth. He had these soft, warm brown eyes. And strong, flexible hands. And beautiful…other things.”

A silver car slows down in front of us, and she says over her shoulder, “Ooh, now I want to know.”

“No,” I shout while she crosses the car to the driver’s side window. “You respect the whole story, or you don’t get any juicy details.”

“How juicy?”

I feel dreamy again. “Love letters. Pickup trucks. Baking in the kitchen. Making out in the lake. Dancing at a bar.”

She comes back around with a cardboard tray, and the DoorDash driver honks his horn goodbye. She scoffs, “I’m sorry, but that sounds so redneck. I can’t with you. I’m moving back to New York.”

“Every time I even think about the lake house, I think of him,” I mutter. “It’s tainted now. It used to feel like my mother and now all I think about is him. And what my life could have been. How it turned out.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the way your life turned out, Vee,” she says.

My eyes close. I pinch away the pain that lives in my gut. “I just couldn’t go back to that house.” The storm rolls over all the rainbows I just allowed back in my conscious mind.

Noelle takes my hand. I open my eyes to a warm to-go coffee.

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