Page 92 of Just Friends

It strikes me that I am too. That for the first time, thinking about a life with Alex fills me with more joy than it does fear. It will be a life with ice cream and movies, lake days and sunshine, bad dancing and whatever drink I’m in the mood for. It will be butterfly wishes and stardust and the magic of simply being with my person, the one who makes my soul sparkle.

And I want that. I want it so badly it hurts.

“Yes,” I say, and it feels like a benediction, a wish come true, and an answered prayer. “It’s Alex.”

Thedaysimultaneouslypassesin a blur and stretches on like the miles and miles of open road that will lead me back home. To Alex.

I’m still terrified of the future and the heartache it could bring, but I’m also buzzing thinking about seeing him tonight, about telling him what I’ve decided, and everything that will come after.

Those lips of his that I’ve been daydreaming about will be a reality, and I intend to find out what his skin feels like beneath my fingertips. I know so much of him, and yet there’s so much left to be explored.

The zipper on my duffel sends an echo through my room as I close up my last bag. I perch on the edge of my bed, looking around at all the mementos of my childhood, the pieces that made me who I am. I’ll be back here soon, probably as soon as apple season starts, but this also feels like an ending. This will be the last time I sit on this bed brokenhearted and too scared to reach out into the universe and grasp on to the things I want.

My eyes catch on the pictures on my mirror once again, a record of all the memories I made in this town, all the things I’ve loved and lost and felt and dreamed of. Pushing off the bed, I walk down the hall, the floorboards creaking under my weight. The door to my dad’s office opens easily, squealing on the hinges, and I head right for the printer on his scarred walnut desk.

It takes me just a minute to connect to the Bluetooth and print the photo before I turn back around and head into my room. With steady hands, I fit the photo into the sliver between the frame and the mirror.

A smile curls over my lips as I look at the photo, mixed in with all the other ones, on plain printer paper instead of the glossy prints like the rest. It’s the selfie of Alex and me from Cam and Ellie’s wedding, the night everything was set in motion for us. Looking at it now, I can see the love in his eyes, his happiness to justbewith me. I don’t know how I missed it before.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at him again without seeing it.

Mom and Dad are in their matching white-washed rockers on the porch when I carry my bags out. Dad jumps up from his seat and grabs the duffel bags from each of my shoulders, leaving me with just my faded canvas backpack bumping between my shoulder blades.

“You heading out?” Mom asks as Dad unlocks my car and carefully arranges the bags in my trunk.

I nod, looking out across the mountains, vibrant green and drenched in the bright yellow sunshine of the early afternoon, before fixing my gaze back on her. “Yeah, I want to get back before it gets late.”

A smile touches her lips. “It’s movie night.”

Dad climbs back up the stairs and pulls me in for a hug. I breathe in the familiar scent of him, like pine and cedarwood and lemon laundry detergent. Hugging him feels like being transported back in time, and I have a hard time letting go. I didn’t realize when I followed Cam to California at eighteen that I’d never be back here again with them the way it had been. I would neverlivehere again, but being back here for the past few weeks has been like watching a movie you haven’t seen in years, only to realize you loved it more than you remembered.

Leaving this time,knowingthis, is harder than it was back then. But I have someone waiting for me back home.

“Let us know when you make it home safe,” Mom says when I release my hold on Dad and wrap my arms around her. Her hands smooth down my hair and over the bumps of my spine, one, two, three times. It’s the smooth, reassuring gesture she’s always given me, and I sink a little further into it.

“I will,” I promise and give one more squeeze before pulling back. The wind rustles the trees and catches my hair, making it blow around me.

Mom tucks a strand behind my ear and grins, her eyes sparkling. “And bring Alex next time.”

Dad looks between us. “So youareseeing him?” he asks, like he’s just now putting the pieces together. And also probably regretting not pulling out the air mattress with the tiny hole we’ve never been able to find when Alex came home with me for Trail Days. It will probably haunt him for weeks thinking about what may or may not have happened in my tiny twin bed.

A laugh punches out of me. “No, I’m not. We’re just friends.”

But hopefully that will all change after a few hours and a couple hundred miles.

He nods, relieved, and Mom and I hold back matching smirks, our cheeks coloring. I’ll call him tomorrow and tell him the news if things go according to plan. If I can muster up enough courage to tell Alex how I feel. Dad will be thrilled, but I know that next time we visit, the deflating air mattress will be set up in the living room.

“I better hit the road,” I say, letting my eyes roam over them one more time. Mom looks good. The bruises across her cheekbones from the sinus surgery have faded, and freckles now dot in their place. There’s a light behind her eyes, glowing with something like joy. Dad looks like he always does, a little rough around the edges, callused and leathered from spending all his days in the woods with no sunscreen. There are wrinkles around his eyes that have been there since I was small and deepen with every passing year.

“I’ll miss you,” I tell them. Their arms come around me again, and they whisper in my ears that they will miss me too, that I need to visit more, and that my room will always be ready with fresh sheets whenever I want it.

We’re all sniffling when we pull back, and I vow to visit more. This town is as much a part of me as they are. The mountains are written in my DNA, and the trees and grass and sun have left their little marks all over my skin.

Wiping my eyes with my knuckle, I say, “I’ll be back for apple season, if not sooner.”

“Okay, honey,” Dad says, patting my shoulder with his large, rough hand. “We’ll be here. Hit the road so you make it home before dark.”

I nod, giving them one last quick hug before making my way down the porch steps and across the dirt driveway, dust kicking up beneath my feet and coating my leather sandals. When I climb into my car and look out the window, they’re standing right where I left them, Dad’s arm around Mom’s shoulder, soft smiles lighting their faces.

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