Page 17 of Born in the Spring

I wanted her first.

And the signals said she could’ve wanted me back. But my age played me. And the next several years were both the hardest and best of my life. Because I still got to have her in mine in some way.

My love for Elara was born in the spring.

And so was my brother’s.

And I had to watch her fall for him, being my most bitter self the first couple of years, while everyone else watched me fall into a love that was unattainable.

But she was still with me through it all. She may have been the second star on my brother’s arm, but she never put me in the shadows.

And I was right. My life was never the same.

Seven

Elara / Now

Iease off the gas pedal once I make it to town. I was driving a little over the speed limit on the way, my body bobbing in the seat to loud music, used to chase away my thoughts, my breath bated to cross the city line.

And now that I’m here, now that I’m back, my lungs fill up, taking in air the way they should, and my body settles to take it all in, like it’s been six years I’ve been gone instead of six months.

I turn off the radio, wanting to hear the sounds of the people on foot. Their laughter and conversation comes muffled through my windows as they cross the street, as they go in and out of the buildings and shops lined flush on both sides. A Christmas tree sits in the center—it gets set out the first of November like clockwork—and wreaths of lights hang overhead. The sky is pink, the sun fading behind the mountain just enough for every small bulb to have flicked on only a few minutes before I started driving through.

And though it was much earlier in the day, the sky blue and the streets brighter, the first time I drove through, I have the same feeling now that I did then;that comfort hugging my skin, with everything around me feeling familiar, even though I was a foreign body.

This is where I belong.

A fate thing.

My lungs pinch with my next breath, tears stinging my lids, as that comfort turns melancholy with that still new burn in my chest, only not as deeply searing. Not as hollow.

Once I’m off the busy road, with more space to pedal between me and the other cars, I speed up again. It’s a short distance from here to the mountain, but the trip has felt too long, and the driver in front of me keeps riding their brakes like it’s their first time on the road. My hand shifts over the horn as I talk myself against pressing it—I don’t know this person’s situation, and they don’t know mine—but I press it anyway when my phone rings, the two blaring together as I startle.

“Shit,” I sigh out, slowing as the driver’s taillights come on in a longer flash this time. And I consider myself saved, forced into a moment of calm, as I decide to pull off the road, onto the same paved shoulder I did six months ago, to take the call.

It’s probably my mom, thinking I’ve made it already and forgot to check in.A mother’s worry knows no bounds.

I grab my phone from the cupholder, smiling as I think of her telling me that, answering the call from my assumption, then hesitating to lift the phone once I see who’s actually called me.

Jasper.

I stare at the seconds ticking by, a sadness holding me still, then a fight lifting me up as I do the same with the phone.Because the only reason he could be calling now is to tell me not to come back.

“Elara?” He asks for me with no hesitation, only a small panic for why I haven’t said anything, which eases my back into the seat, but not my fight to be here. I can’t stay away anymore.

“Jasper.” I say his name back, speaking through the memory of his brokenness that comes to me as that warning. “Look, I know—”

“How close are you?”

I pause at the question, hearing that still small panic in his voice, and I look out the windshield. “I’m just at the mountain.”

He sighs, a big rush of air at my ear that relaxes me fully into the seat.Relief.“You’re really coming back.”

“I’m almost there,” I say through a shaky smile, steering the car back onto the road.

“Hurry.”

The word repeats in my head as I keep him at my ear, holding too to my trust of knowing him.

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