Page 11 of When We Were Young

CHAPTER SIX

Oscar

Ilean in closer toEmma and ask her about her life now. She tells me about her job in car sales, and I think that’s odd for a media and literature graduate and for someone who drives a Skoda that’s so obviously on its last legs, but I don’t say anything. I just listen.

She tells me how she’s moving back in with her parents, but she doesn’t give a reason, and I don’t want to pry. This just feels too fragile, and I don’t want this to break, to end.

I don’t want her to go.

Having her sitting next to me feels right. So right. And I want to talk, talk properly, but this conversation—it’s not right. It feels superficial, talking about these surface-level details of her life, when what I really want to talk about isher. Is us.

I want to know if she’s still a little scared of thunder. If she’s still got two cacti on her windowsill. If she still keeps a diary and believes it is bad luck to write her entries in black ink.

I want to ask how her family is. How her mother is after her recent operation.

All this time, I’ve remained friends with Emma on social media, in a vain attempt to keep up with her, to know what she’s going through. But as I sit here and ask her about her work—a job she clearly doesn’t like—it just all feels so unimportant.

And I need to know the important things about her again.

I need to know her.

“Are you seeing anyone?” My voice breaks as I ask the question, and she turns toward me.

She shakes her head. “No. I’m not seeing anyone.”

She reaches toward the coffee table, puts her mug there. Without a coaster. But I shake that thought away and deposit mine there too.

She turns more to me, and I think I see it in her eyes. The familiarity. The longing. And something else.

I reach out, for her hand.

She puts her fingers in mine. Her touch is electrifying—still. Even after all these years.

“Do you think...?” I swallow hard, and then I take her hands, envelop them in mine. And I feel it—the fragility of this. I can’t go quickly. I can’t. I don’t want to lose her. Not again. I can’t.

And I won’t—I won’t make any mistakes this time. And she must want to see me, because I said she could mail the album back, but she said she’d be in the area anyway and could drop it off no problem. But I live two hours away from Rose Haven, the seaside town she still lives at, and Wednesday is always her day off. A day that she usually uses to relax—it’s always Wednesday when she posts book photos on her IG, captioning them with something about how nice it is to have a day to relax and do nothing but rest and read. And today she’s here—having driven all the way over when she could’ve been relaxing. So, something tells me, she must want to see me properly. Because...

I breathe deeply, and I swear I can feel her pulse in her hands. “I’ve missed you.”

My words hang between us for what seems like an eon, but then she nods.

“I’ve missed you too.”

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