Page 25 of Born in the Spring

Of course she thought about me.I argue these ones to myself. We were hours away from each other, but we were grieving together, for the same person.So fucking stop,I tell my head now, not knowing what tortures me the most—her or myself.

That’s an unfair thought.

But it’s not as unfair as the echoes of my brother’s voice, our conversations, our memories that are spread all around this space, giving me some type of hot flash, trying to send me back to who I was after he died.

I pull up the sleeves of my sweater, the slight chill in the room not doing anything to cool the heat inside me, as my eyes follow our memories, coming back in jagged snapshots.

The coffee table, where he taught me how to play poker. Well, hetriedto teach me, but I wasn’t too into the game, more into just having his attention, so I forgot all the rules.

The kitchen island is where he talked to me about girls. I’d watch him cook us whatever foods we were in the mood for on whatever day. It was never about any of his girls, ones he’d mostly pick up on the road, just general talk about girls. Because I liked them and wanted to talk about them, though I didn’t get my first real girlfriend until I was sixteen. We hada lotto talk about then.

That island is the same spot he sneaked me my first taste of beer. Some of the chill starts to cool me down as I remember him laughing at the way I gagged.You don’t like it. Good,he said, as if that meant I’d stay away from it. I was underage,obviously, but he was drinking one, so I had to follow him and drink one too. One sip, and he told me to never tell Mom and Dad. And I never did.

The heat rises again as I think about the porch. I went off on him the last time I stood there.

“Jasper.” Elara says my name, taking me out of that one before it replays, and I meet her sad, but sparkling eyes. “Are you gonna sit down or what?”

That’s an unfair question. But she’s trying to make me comfortable, which doesn’t work, but the weakest smile does pull at my lips. I eye the blanket that she’s folded up over the back of the couch as I approach her to keep them from dipping to the cushions, feeling like I’m walking with my old teenage steps. But it’s the creeping sliver of my old guilt, and my hope that was always dashed, that sits me at the opposite end.

I’ve dealt with the memories around the resort—theirs, ours, all of ours—but not the ones here. All his and mine except for the one making me the most jumpy inside my skin now that I’m on this couch, to get away from these echoes I don’t have a grip on—that’s now on my knees—too far in the past and soured by a visual I don’t want—that’s my fault I have—right where I’m sitting.

The visual I know Elara’s seeing as she looks down at the gap between us.

If I could take back another thing I’ve done involving us, it would be that.

Shepherd was back from another trip and I just wanted to see my brother. Now he’s everywhere, with Elara at the edges, because she’s literally at the other end of this memory, before I get the snapshot of her sprawled out under him, under where I’m sitting.

“Are you okay?” she asks to my distance, motioning to the gap as I look away from it with a stiff jaw, remembering now how I’d even gone as far as stealing the middle seat from Shepherd on the lifts sohewasn’t the one beside her. “I mean, areweokay? Really?” Her worry over us shifts me closer, but I’m still at the edge. “If you needed more space—”

“I didn’t.” I blurt the assurance, loosening my grip, and leaning forward with my arms stretched out over my knees and my hands rubbing together, as I try to squash the guy that I was, who pushed her away because guilt made wanting her close seem wrong and I suddenly didn’t know how to act around her. That really messed me up. And it’s trying to become a problem for me again.

But I’ve come to terms, I mentally berate my body as I finally sit back against the cushion. My feet are tapping and my hands are again clenched around my knees, but I can deal with this now.

It’srightthat she’s here, and I’m not losing her a third time.

“I didn’t,” I say, calmer. “I wanted you back. I’m just. . .” I swallow, start again. “Now that you’re here. . .” But that’s not right, either. It’s more so, now that I’minhere, and I don't want to take us back to that, becauseI’mnot really there anymore. But nerves flutter in my gut and a laugh shudders through me as I think about dropping from that balcony again. Which is a better memory to be hit with, a much softer blow. “It kind of feels like we really are starting over,” I say to that nicer move, now that I’ve added more height to my age, and made a smoother landing, and to my stumbling sentences.

Then I mentally berate myself again for saying it. Because I don’t want to start over. It would be like changing everything we’ve been through. Like forgetting.

Elara’s laugh is quieter, but that sparkle is back in her eyes, her face lit up almost the same as when I first dropped six years ago. It both helps and hinders my attempt to relax.

But then her lips part, and my eyes drift right to her mouth, hesitating around more words, even through every one as she says them. “I don’t want anything to change between us.”

I flinch. Well, that’s obviously not what I meant.That’san unfair thought, sending two different, yet similar stings through my next breath. I’m sitting further away and she wants me closer, or she’s trying to deepen our line in the sand. Or both. It always seemed like she wanted both. Me close, but only close enough.

It is an unfair thought, but it makes the same amount of sense as mine, and an answer to my place in her life. Basically the same place. We’re not starting over, but we’re staying the same. And it’s what I should expect. That old guilt also says it’s what I should want.

But it’s not.

“I want everything to change between us,” I say through an exhale, letting myself still have that want, because I never stopped myself before. And whenever I made myself crystal clear that I more than just care about her, she’d smile at me, taking my feelings with her and not giving me much back, besides another reason to stare at her lips. She’d either say nothing or just change the subject, but she’d always smile, and not like she felt bad for me. Justhersmile, and maybe that’s why I never tried to hide with her, because she made me feel safe to show myself.

But she’s not smiling now. She looks as serious as I am. But she’s holding my gaze. Watching me. A bit more than she usually did. Like she was back at the main lodge.

It’s because she’s worried.

It’s because I’m being weird.

But there’s nothing weird about what I just told her.

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