by Claire Cain
“Yeah, well you didn’t stick around either, did you? I think you would have left town the day you turned eighteen if you’d been done with high school. I always kind of marveled that you did stick around.” I felt the air cool as we entered the tree-lined path and heard the bubbling of the river. Rivers in Utah were less river and more stream, but everyone called them rivers nonetheless.
“It’s not like I was running away.” He said this as a statement, but there wasn’t much conviction in it. It hung there between us, and then he sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “Ok, so I probably was running away. I always felt restless here. I think we had that in common.” He was quiet then as we walked a bit, and I could tell he was still thinking. “I was ready to do something that mattered and go somewhere that didn’t feel like who I was had already been decided. People knew I was Louis’s little brother, and I always felt like they were waiting for me to impregnate someone and destroy her dreams too.” He cleared his throat and didn’t look at me for a moment but then continued. “That’s why I tried to get through high school faster, then went to Miller College. I couldn’t stand to be in the high school crowd and be judged by people I didn’t care about or sit around and spend my days in classes while I waited for my life to start. I remember thinking that really vividly.” We met the path that skirted the river and continued walking. Occasionally our arms brushed and my entire universe stalled out at each contact. If this was a play, my nerves would have just re-entered the scene, stage left.
“I can see that. I know there was a shadow cast over you by all of that, which seems crazy now, but I do remember how up in arms everyone was even after they got married and moved to Salt Lake. But you are different from Louis—you always were.” I glanced to see if he was listening, to see if he was still bothered by his brother’s choices. More than anything, it had scared him. I wondered how he felt about it now but didn’t want to press him, so I continued. “I guess in my own way, that was me, too. I felt like I was always compared to my class president sister, the amazing Adriana, and then Michele, who you certainly remember could talk his way out of anything, and then finally I was this poster child for high school without volunteering for it.” I breathed deeply and felt myself relax as we wandered the path with the sound of the river swishing around rocks next to us and the sky slipping into pinks and purples as the sun set.
“Yeah? I always thought you were a reluctant hero for the booster club and PTA and all of that. Even the principal, right? Ms. Jensen. Seemed like everyone was always gushing about your SAT scores or your wins at state or your college acceptances, and you just did your thing. I guess they didn’t let you do it with your head down, did they?”
We came to a split in the path and he urged me to stay with the one closest to the river by guiding me with his hand on my back again. I sighed a little at his touch before I caught myself. I expected him to pull away when we were on the straight and narrow, but he kept it there a moment longer. I felt my nerve endings light at the thought that he might want to keep touching me, even in this small way.
“It wasn’t so bad. But I was ready to leave—ready to have a life separate from my siblings and carve out my own path. Inevitably, as soon as I was gone, I missed it terribly. I remember crying over my laptop freshman year, wishing I’d just gone to Miller College and stayed here, living with my parents. They never would have let me do that, of course.” I stooped to pick up a rock and toss it the fifteen feet into the river. The satisfying gulp of the water swallowing the rock was muted by the rest of the river’s rush.
“Not that I had a say, but I wouldn’t have let you either. You were made for stepping outside of this place. You always had such focus and ambition—I can’t imagine you would have been happy staying here.” His hand was still on my back, and he then snaked it around and placed it on my hip bone as he maneuvered us around a dog that had stopped to wait for his elderly companion who was slowly catching up to him, the long leash extended out between them.
I tried not to change anything about the way I was walking or breathing or talking, but his nearness was basically unbearable in that I never wanted it to end. His hand on my hip felt significant, warm, and like an assault on my nervous system. I felt clumsy, unwieldy, and maddeningly aware of the pressure of his hand and then its absence as he let me go and we walked along side by side again, no longer touching.
Curses.
“I know. I got over it, got my stride, and by the end of my first semester I wasn’t looking back much at all. I found my focus again, and about the time Adri was having my second niece, I was realizing I wasn’t ready to settle down yet. I do always love coming home though. It’s funny that we’ve only overlapped once.” I glanced over at him and saw his hands swinging lightly by his sides. I held on to the strap of my cross-body purse so I wouldn’t do something awkward like grab his hand and hold it.
“You know, I think we did overlap once or twice besides our run-in a few years ago at the grocery, but I never managed to see you those other times. I know you’re always so busy when you’re home.” He said this gently, but it was significant—that he’d known I was around but didn’t try to track me down. I felt a sting of disappointment.
“I’m sure you are too,” I said without thinking. We stayed quiet a beat and then laughed in unison.
“You know that’s not true. You’re my only friend who has any ties left here. Brian and Sam both moved years ago.” He smiled to himself as we kept walking.
I couldn’t stop myself. “So then, why didn’t you hunt me down? I would have loved to catch up!” It was true. Every time I’d come home from school, and then for holidays or events, I was acutely aware of whether or not he was in town. The first few years I’d often drive by his house, once even stopped in to chat with his mom. After that, I’d managed to stay away, knowing it would only make the feeling of missing him while being surrounded by the memories of our childhood that much worse. The fact that we’d ever overlapped other than the one time five years ago was news to me. I was watching when his eyebrow quirked up and one side of his mouth slid up into a half-smile.
“Well, I did this time,” he said, now squinting a bit before he looked back down at his feet following the path.
I inspected him as he walked with his eyes on the path ahead. I liked the way he must have spent time smiling in the last few years, the crow’s feet just beginning around his startling eyes. I admired the slope of his cheeks and his sturdy chin—his face was so familiar to me after looking at it almost daily for the first fifteen years of my life, but it was bigger now. It was harder, a little weathered, and impossibly handsome… but I shouldn’t have been focusing on that.
I tried not to look at his lips because—danger. Don’t even go there. His shoulder was even with my eye line and he could absolutely see me checking him out in his peripheral vision because he was still so much taller than me.
“I promise I’m not trying to be creepy,” I said before I could think through the path this conversation might follow. I kept my hands tethered to the purse strap across my chest, making sure they didn’t start mindlessly working their way over to where they wanted to be.
He chuckled in response. “I don’t think you’re creepy. Why would you say that?” He looked over at me then and smiled. It was a casual, gentle smile. It had a very un-casual, ungentle effect on my stomach and my heart rate, and I had no idea how to explain myself.
“Uhhh. Um. Hah,” I stuttered. I blew out a breath and then smiled a bright, shiny smile back at him to hide my inner turmoil. “I realized you could totally see me eyeballing you, and I didn’t want you to think I was trying to proposition you or anything. I just… it’s so good to see you right in front of me. It’s natural and comfortable and yet somehow totally surreal.” I finished a little breathlessly and blamed the altitude.
That was it. The altitude had stolen my ability to walk, talk, and breathe at the same time.
“I know the feeling. It is strangely fam
iliar and, like you said, a little surreal.” He walked toward a bench closer to the water, surrounded by saplings and oak brambles, which created a sense of privacy. He sat down and I followed, sitting about a foot away from him. A friendly distance. “And…” he started, but trailed off. I looked up at him, waiting for whatever was coming, and was caught off guard by the look in his eyes. It was like a little spark had lit and they were glowing, or something else indescribable.
“And what?” I asked, my voice a little shaky as I looked back at him.
“Well I was just going to say that if you’re going to proposition me, I hope you’ll be more obvious about it.”
Chapter Four
He watched my eyes grow large, and then he burst out laughing. “But then I realized that might sound creepy, and I think you’ve been creepy enough for both of us with your incessant staring at me.” He raised his eyebrows at me suggestively, and I laughed as I shook my head and looked down at my hands, now in my lap. I hoped he couldn’t see my pulse racing in my neck or how my chest was once again flushing red. Before I could think of how to respond, thank God, he started talking again.
“So, college in New York, and then you stayed there, and you’ll live happily ever after as a New Yorker forever and ever, amen?” We hadn’t talked much about our lives in the last ten years at dinner. We’d emailed here and there, mostly when we heard news from our moms. A congrats on graduating with my Master’s, a “glad you’re back” after his first two deployments, and so on.
“I do love New York. And yes, other than internships during summers in college and my time getting my Master’s in Boston, I’ve just been there. But no, not happily ever after yet. I’m actually moving next month. I’ve got an opportunity to move to a smaller company and be a little more creative, and after what feels like a lifetime, I’m finally taking the leap. Who knows though—maybe I’ll be crawling back with my tail between my legs within the year, missing the general dinge of the city at all hours of the night.” I watched the water sliding past rocks and carrying small insects and leaves with it. Would I regret the move? I didn’t think so. I felt so ready to leave the pressure and perpetual dissatisfaction of my current—well, now former—job.
I continued talking before he said anything, feeling the words turn from a dribble to a gush with a mind of their own. “But it’s always been love-hate for me and New York. I’ve loved it ninety percent of the time, I can say honestly. But the remaining ten percent isn’t ambivalence. It’s hate. It’s hard and exhausting and lonely and… sorry.” I winced as I realized I was complaining. I hated the idea I was complaining to him, knowing he had just returned from a year of living rough, to say the very least.
He sat patiently and waited for me to go on. “I think I’m just at a point where I’ve realized I’m a little older than I thought I’d be, and I’m ready for the next phase of life. I think making some changes in my work life and my personal life will get me there… And wow, that was probably a whole lot more than you were looking for.” I chuckled self-consciously, widening my eyes as I looked out at the river, feeling yet another rush of self-consciousness at my diatribe.
“That was exactly what I was looking for.” He smiled encouragingly at me, and I remembered how easy it always used to feel just to sit next to him. “But what do you mean, you’re ‘older than you thought you’d be?’” His full attention was focused on me, and I had to calm my breathing because the weight of Luke’s full attention was no light thing.
I felt a moment of hesitation—how to explain it? “Hmm. I’m not sure I can explain that. I’m not sure I even know myself. I needed a change and that nagging feeling has been a kind of driving force for me—even though I can’t name it. I just know Adriana was in her dream job, married, and pregnant by the time she turned twenty-four. I guess in some ways I feel behind, even though I never wanted the same life my sister had—I never wanted that small town experience. But now I’m realizing putting all my focus on my career maybe wasn’t the best idea… or at least, that I need to change something if I want more than my career going forward.” I exhaled—even though I’d just let loose, I felt like gasping for air.
“I think I get it. I’ve felt the same way—or had something like that, that nagging—for a while now,” he said quietly. It had been a long time since I had talked about any of this with anyone other than my own mother, much less a peer. My best friend Ellie and I had talked some, but since I couldn’t put a name to that feeling, I usually felt frustrated by conversations about what I was looking for, what I wanted to come next. I was living the next I had worked hard for for years in high school and college, so seeing beyond that felt terribly difficult.
I had definitely not talked about this with another person my own age who was a man named Luke Waterford. I’d always assumed he felt incredibly focused and purposeful and driven and knew what he wanted—that was just how he always was. It was one reason his seeming dismissal of high school was so strange to me—little did I know he’d been more focused than I could have imagined. The same, I always assumed, was true in the rest of his life. He always knew what he wanted.
“You mean… you feel behind?” My voice was small, but I wanted to know if he meant it.
“Not behind, but definitely… like I’m ready for the next step. I spent a long time avoiding that after Louis dove in head first before he ever meant to, but now I’m not avoiding it.” His voice was sincere, and I couldn’t look at him.
“Well then, one more thing we have in common after all these years.” I chanced a look at him again and repositioned my body so my left leg was propped up on the bench, my shoulder and side were pressed against the back of the bench. He rotated to face me and let his right arm rest along the back of the bench, stopping just short of touching me. “Your turn.”
“Ah, yes.” He paused and took his own deep breath. I waited. “Well, I’m back from Afghanistan. It feels surreal and normal and stupid. I keep vacillating between feeling so glad I can just go get a beer or drive through Starbucks and then feeling really pissed off that no one seems at all concerned at the fact that there is still a war happening, whether we want to call it that or not, and soldiers are dying in it.” He swallowed and took a deep breath and looked at me apologetically. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to rant—”
“—Please don’t apologize for feeling however you feel. Please. First, no one can tell you what you should feel. And second, I can only imagine how that must be—to be surrounded by something and then come away from it and feel like no one has any idea what it was like or cares that it is even happening.”
“Yeah it’s… it’s tough. You’d think after doing it a few times I’d know to anticipate it and just deal. It doesn’t…” He stopped himself and was searching my eyes for something, his eyes flickering back and forth between mine as he leaned a bit closer. “You just haven’t changed. You’re still so…” He trailed off again.
“So?” I prompted quietly after he didn’t continue, afraid of what he might be thinking.
Naïve? It sure felt that way. What did I know about what he had been through? It felt entirely separate from this moment, and I had no way to access it. Worse yet, I was guilty of going about my life and not thinking about the fact we were at war—that people from all over the country were living in conditions I couldn’t imagine, doing a job I was nowhere near brave enough to do. And Luke had done it more than once.
“So kind. You’ve always been such a kind person, it’s almost unbearable sometimes,” he said with a voice I hardly recognized. He seemed pained sitting there on the bench saying that.
I opened my mouth to respond, but I couldn’t. Once again, I had no idea how to respond to him. I kept shaking my head soundlessly, my eyes wide, trying to reach out for the words to say something. Thank you? Ok? Ouch? You’re welcome? What does that even mean?
He laughed and the sound broke the tension building in my chest. “I think that came out wrong.”
I cleared my throat. �
��Well I’ll admit that being told I’m unbearable is not what I was expecting,” I joked, trying to keep the moment moving toward lightness.
“No. You’re not unbearable. There’ve just been these moments. I can count them up when I look back over our times as kids, and when I think about them I almost feel embarrassed by how gentle and kind you were to me—even in high school, when I hardly acknowledged you or saw you.” His emphatic explanation had brought us closer. His thumb was resting on the bench right next to my shoulder, just barely touching me. He didn’t move. I definitely didn’t move. I tried to keep my mind on what he just said and not on the searing sensation I felt at that point of contact.
Was it possible for someone’s thumbprint to burn a hole into another person’s skin?
“I think you’ve got your rose-colored glasses of nostalgia on. You were kind to me, too. We were close friends for years—of course we were kind to each other. And what I just said about how you’re feeling? That’s basic human decency.”
“We’re going to have to agree to disagree on this. I’m not explaining it right.” He seemed frustrated with himself and frowned down at the river. With his face turned away from me I noticed the strong slope of his neck down to his broad chest. His collared shirt stretched out over his outstretched arm. I noticed his tan forearms and the hand resting right next to me, just barely touching me.
Was he always warm like this? Were his hands calloused from holding a rifle or whatever it was he’d been doing for the last year? And why could I not stop thinking about his hands?
“So, we got off on a tangent. You’re back. You feel… a lot of different things, we’ll say, in order to grossly oversimplify. Now what?” He pulled his focus back to me and shifted again slightly. He watched as he brushed his thumb across my shoulder and then caught a strand of my hair between his fingers. I stopped breathing.