Page 91 of Summertime Friends

Our most recent toss landed in my favor. I chose The National Gallery, an art museum. It was not the pick I would have gone with, but a storm had taken over the city, and I wasn’t ready to head back to my flat. The gray skies should have been warning enough this morning when we left. Earlier in the day, we could dart between places, avoiding the light rainstorm. It would be impossible now that the skies have fully opened up.

There was also a storm brewing in Emerson; I could sense it. When we arrived at the museum, her eyes became cloudy. Her face became stoic, and I couldn’t read it—I could always read her, even over video chats.

We explored hand in hand, but she felt far away, her touch non-existent.

“I’m glad you’re here.” I look down at her, giving her a warm smile, hoping to fill her with a bit of sunshine.

She doesn’t speak. She returns my smile with a half-smile.

“Everything okay, States?”

She nods. Slipping her hand from mine, she draws it to her front. Crossing her arms in front of her.

“Mind if I walk by myself?” She asks me, but she doesn’t need permission.

“Sure—”

Before I finish my thought, she’s gone. I watch her walk away into a wing dedicated to the Renaissance period.

I give it fifteen minutes before I follow the direction she went in. She wasn’t there. I make my way around the museum until I find her standing in a room all by herself, staring up at a painting,Bathers at Asnieresby George Seurat.

I come up beside her. She doesn’t acknowledge me physically, but I know she knows I’m standing there.

“This makes me think about us that afternoon in Paris,” she says.

“Bathers reminds you of that?”

“No. Sitting by the water, telling you about my parents.” I watch her eyes flick over toward me and back to the painting. “What do you think these people are talking about? Do you think they are washing away their past in the water? Contemplating the decisions they and others have made that impacted their lives?”

“It’s possible,” I tell her, looking at the photo, really looking at it. “Him, right there.” I point to the male sitting on the banks of the water, contemplation painted on his face. Stoic, frozen as a status, similar to Emerson right now. “It reminds me of you right now. What are you contemplating?”

“Do you think we are being cruel to ourselves. . . to each other?”

Emerson continues staring at the painting.

“Cruel?”

From the corner of my eyes, I can see her breathing pick up. She closes her eyes as if the words she’s looking for are on the backside of her eyelids or she is giving herself an internal pep talk.

“Emerson, what do you—”

She cuts me off, “pretending that this week or two in the summer is enough?”

“It has to be,” I say too quickly. I don’t know why. This morning, I almost told her how I felt. I know it doesn’t have to be this way, but this is what we wanted, right? No. I want her. I love her.

“Does it? Don’t you ever wonder what it would be like if we—”

“If we were together? All the time. But this—this dynamic between us it works, yeah? You in Chicago, me here.”

What the hell, mate?I’m cursing myself internally.

“I. . . I know, but I don’t know if it’s working for me anymore.”

Wait. Is Emerson ending this? I’m second-guessingeverything.

“Is that why you wanted to come to London? Do you want to friend break up with me?”

“No! Oh, Liam, no.” Her head snaps in my direction and I turn my entire body to face her. She’s shaking her head. “I think what I’m trying to say unpoetically is that it’s becoming a lot harder only to see you once a year, to only have you through a phone. I want y—to know you.”

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