Chapter Eighteen

See-ya later s and Have a good night s are exchanged across the wooded area between our houses. The neighbors move up their stairs with cheery conversation while David helps Francesca up the porch into our dark, quiet house. Kate follows behind.

I listen, begging for next-door voices to carry across in the wind.

Maggie has at least one photo of Adam and I, which must develop into questions. They could have had it out in the car. None of us spoke a word to each other when we paid our bill and retreated to our respective cars.

Okay, David paid my bill.

But whatever transpired between Adam and I on that dance floor remained there. He didn't want to talk about it after, and I can't hear them speak about it now.

As silently as possible, I clean my face in the bathroom I share with the kids and change into soft matching sweats. I admire Kate's short, silky pajamas when she comes by to hug me goodnight, but I'm beyond needing to look cute while I sleep in my bed alone. I'd rather not be frost-bitten. With a glass of water in hand, I close my bedroom door and slip under the covers.

It's cold and dark and quiet. The rod-iron bed creaks. I plant my head in my pillow and fold my hands atop the quilt, staring at the popcorn ceiling, wishing my mind was that blank.

No matter how many times I try to turn the channel, I'm still thinking about him. Even this room, with its teddy bears and Polaroids and movie posters, branded reminders of my childhood, makes me think of Adam.

Nothing happened in this room. Heddy would have lost her crystal-loving mind. But on those nights where we'd gotten to slip away during the day and had our fill of each other, I'd sit with my back against the headboard and listen for the sound of Adam's footsteps or a rock against my window. Coming back for more when he'd already said goodnight.

I can hear it now. The pitter pat of a rock hitting the glass when he could have just texted me. He said he didn't want to wake me up, he was just checking, and it felt more romantic that way.

Is he romantic with other people? I'd never known anyone like that before or since. Being eighteen and so bold with his affection just added another layer to how adventurous, focused and outgoing he was, but I wonder if it was youthful swagger. He could have been trying to get in my pants with all of those love notes and hand-carved stones and words of affirmation.

Which definitely worked.

But it felt like more. Every moment of it. Tonight, when his hand slipped into mine, I flashed back to those short cotton dresses and his hand on the side of my thigh. His soft, hairless cheek flush against mine. Teeth dragging over his bottom lip. Whispers into my ear: "Nothing else exists but you."

I can even hear the rocks on the window. Apparently, I'm haunted.

Wait.

I'm not haunted. I sit upright and listen again to the unmistakable sound of stones on glass. The covers fall back, and I cross the space to the window. Below, on the grass, Adam stands with his hands out, gesturing toward the lake, knowing I will understand him. He walks off.

What. Is. Happening.

Well, you have to go see what he wants , my brain says.

Pick a lane.

I waver on the spot of my warm, safe bedroom before venturing out of the door. Good thing I'm a fully formed adult now and don't need to overthink conversations with another fully formed adult. I tell myself, as I tiptoe down the stairs and hike up my boots, that this is all quite normal.

I'm careful to close the back door quietly. The silhouette at the edge of the lake hovers halfway into the woods, his shoulders heaving. When I reach him, my shoe cracks a stick, and he spins around to face me.

My arms cross against the cold air, and I whisper to him, "What are you doing?"

Adam hasn't changed his clothes. He demands, "What did you mean back there at the bar? About us not being real?"

"That's not what I said."

"Is that what you think?" His expensive-looking tweed coat ruffles. He sets his hands atop his head and stares at the water, the blood drained from his face. He steals a look my way, as if he shouldn't look at me but can't help it.

"I was asking you ," I clarify. "You brought it up."

"And now I'm the one asking." He turns, eyeing me sharply. Opening his body with wide, questioning arms. "Do you want to pretend like we never happened? As if we were complete strangers?"

I respond carefully, "Sure feels like that's what we've been doing." I glance back at the house. We're not being quiet. If someone came outside right now, they'd have a lot of questions.

Adam follows my observation and shifts to a quieter tone. He admits, "We didn't talk around them. If I made it known that I know more about you than I do myself, it would look a little weird."

A lump arises in my throat.

"Or did , know," he fixes.

And it's sucker punched right out.

He finishes, "You and I can't have an easy, normal conversation."

I add, "No, because you've been acting like I don't exist."

"Because you don't," he snaps. He closes his eyes.

I flinch. My foot takes a defensive step back.

Adam watches the movement and shakes his head, "I didn't mean it to come out like that."

An owl hoots in a tree. There's so much silence between us, the scamper of a squirrel sounds like Godzilla approaching.

Adam asked me to come outside, he's the one yelling at me, and I'm unbearably cold. I don't have anything to say. He's burdened with emotion I can't accept or understand. Either I stand out here and keep taking slices of it or call this thing quits. Like we already did.

"I'm going back inside," I attempt, my voice more whimper than words.

"Wait," he says.

I throw my hands into the air. "Why, Adam? What are you trying to say?"

"I want to clear the air."

I focus on the dark lake water. "Go ahead."

"I like being out here with my sister, and I'm having a good time with Dave and Fran." He grimaces. "That was the whole point of keeping us a secret, right? To not make things weird?"

I suck in air. I watch him sway back and forth, pacing his steps.

Adam continues, "You didn't want it to be weird for them. Now it's weird for me."

"You're not alone in that," I remind him.

He looks up to the stars, searching for words. He says, "I need this break. I'm heading back into the studio on December first, and I need to be in a creative headspace to do it. I came here to have fun and relax."

I wait for this statement to involve me. And the cold. And the potential bears.

He says, "Tiptoeing around you doesn't put me in a relaxing mood."

"And that's my fault," I gather.

He cocks his head. " Really ? Let me introduce you to yourself Vienna: you're a woman who draws attention."

My eyes bulge. "Excuse me?" I take sideways steps to get closer to him. "I am the exact opposite of that. I'm not a scene-stealer. I am the last person to draw attention to myself!"

"Oh, let me make a scene and drop glass all over the driveway. Maybe I'll give myself a skull fracture while pouring a glass of wine. I can't fit into my car, I'll have to ride with you …" Adam flips his hair back and shimmies his chest and bats his eye lashes before turning his face back to disgust.

My jaw drops. "You think I did all of that on purpose? To get your attention?"

"No," he snarls. "I don't think you want my attention, but the point is that you're not as invisible as you think you are."

"Maybe not to you," I surmise, covering my body with my arms.

He doesn't answer.

"No one else sees me," I say. My heart jumps. "You're the only one who ever looked at me without me giving them a reason to."

"Oh, you gave me a reason," he growls. He quickly presses his fingers into closed eyes, remorse for revealing himself.

I point out, " You're the one who pulled me on the dance floor tonight."

He leans to the side, body language begging for a break. "I was trying to get away from Maggie. I didn't want her to start interrogating you."

"What would she have said?"

He looks at me as if to say: Don't make me admit it.

I repeat, "What would she have said?"

"It doesn't matter," he mutters. "I wish she didn't have you to talk to at all."

"She wouldn't have anything to say if you didn't spill the beans."

"If you weren't always around, there would be nothing for her to judge."

"This is my family vacation!" I stamp my foot, but it wasn't intentional.

Adam marches toward me. His breath mists into the air like steam from an oncoming train. He edges up to my personal space. He points toward his house and says, "And that's my family vacation. I can spend it however I want to. I like hanging out with your family. Maggie and Diego like being with them too."

"And I'm getting in the way," I conclude. "Well, I'm not hiding in a broom closet because you're obsessed with my brother-in-law. Or his sister."

His brow arches. "You're not going to put a damper on the rest of the week."

A sound of astonishment gags in my throat. "When did you become in charge of me?"

"I'm just laying out some ground rules," he says.

"Then, that sounds like a challenge I want to accept. I think I will cause a scene and ruin your happy, fun time. Which would you prefer: steaming dog shit outside your door, glitter bomb in the living room, or bucket of water over your head?" I clap my hands sadistically. "It'll be like we're enemies at camp!"

Eyes narrow. "That would actually be a welcome distraction."

"From what exactly?"

"Me thinking about what you could have done with your life." Adam's mouth twists into distaste. "And what it actually turned out to be."

I brush back hair that's been whipped into my mouth. My hands and arms shiver in the cold. I watch his frustration bubble into meanness, the ripple of it elongating him an inch or so as he lords over me.

"That's what's fucking me up," he says. "That you wanted things fourteen years ago and you've never gone after them. You're a shell of the person I knew. I didn't think this is what your life would turn into."

Ouch.

My chest caves in, my stomach twists. The wave of pain I felt when I heard him call me "boring" reverberates through me again. How dare you? I wanted to say in the woods. So, I say it now for good measure: "How dare you?"

He feels pretty good about himself. His smug expression sits, and his eyes wander to my chattering teeth.

"Your mother's bakery?" he asks.

I spit, "A pizza shop."

"Apartment in the city?"

" Expensive ," I hiss.

"A great love that doesn't need your father's approval?" He's steady on that one. Sticks the landing.

I can't handle the smugness. "You don't know anything about my love life."

His jaw clenches. The anger on his face relents to allow discomfort to pool in the deep lines between his eyebrows.

"Are you seeing someone?" he pries.

"None of your business! I'm not interesting enough for you to find attractive, remember , so what do you care who I'm sleeping with?"

I'm furious, my mind and bones hollow, that he would have the balls to ask me any of this, to think he has any right to question my life choices. I'm so blind with fury that I halfheartedly notice a warmth around my shoulders.

"You don't know anything about me!" I cry.

Adam hikes up his crinkled white sleeves. "I do, Vienna! That's the point. We did exist. And I gave everything to a girl I loved and she's not here anymore!"

My eyes fill with water. I'm angry for that, too.

He continues, his own eyes turning red with feeling, "I meet people every day who are busting their ass to become musicians and artists. Everything is possible if you want it enough, if you're brave enough, and don't let other people tell you what to do. If you don't give up!"

I wipe a tear and step back. "If you think it's been easy to make my choices, then you don't know me at all," I answer quietly.

He insists, "You have money! Your father has connections! You could have had it way easier than most people do."

" All I have is my father and I barely have him at all." I press a hand to my cold, wet nose. "I can't afford to disappoint him."

Adam's hands ball into fists. "Now…or then ?"

"I made choices back then because they were right. If I had walked away from him then I'd be left with nothing."

Adam exhales, far too close for me to not feel his frustration. "Not nothing," he whispers.

I've thought about this a lot.

"Oh, I could have," I say. "There's no guarantees in any relationship. My mother is dead. I only have my dad and Fran. If I pissed him off, he'd walk away, and I'd be parentless. I have to calculate my steps with him, so I don't say the wrong thing and miss out on the one holiday a year I get to spend with my dad. And that's a lesson learned at ten-years-old."

Adam scratches at the side of his neck while his voice scratches over mine. "I wish you could have seen your potential through my eyes."

"I don't exist to be some perfect girl for you," I argue. "I'm not young and skinny anymore. I have cellulite and wrinkles now. How does that sound? Doesn't that make you want to run for the hills?"

"I didn't fall in love with you just because you were beautiful," he says, palms open, incredulous. "Or because you've never opened a book that wasn't required reading or because you'd spend whole hours on the couch watching grown women argue on tv. I loved you in spite of the fact that you were a cheerleader. For your private school. "

This feels like I'm being insulted. I should intervene.

Adam barrels onward, finishing, "I fell in love with you because you had this thing inside of you that I had, and we were the only ones with it. I don't know…When I was around you, there was no gravity. I wasn't a body, I was just a soul." The resentment, turned disgust, transforms to anguish. He whimpers, "Without you, I had to learn to breathe again."

I'm lightheaded.

Adam rocks back on his heels. "I guess I should have fucking said that before you left."

As if it would have made me stay.

I realize one more reason Adam and I were incompatible: I was infinitely practical. He was wildly romantic.

With care, I explain, "Adam, I lied to you, about a lot of things."

His eyes snap up. The frown returns.

"I wanted to go to college." I watch him fold deeper into his thoughts, continuing, "I don't like to travel. I didn't want to follow you around and watch you make your dreams a reality. But for you, I pretended all of that would have been enough."

"That's not what it would have been."

"Yes, it would have. When you asked me to marry you, I felt pressured to say yes. I didn't know what else to say."

Adam drags his hand over his face. "I was not pressuring you. I tried so hard to make sure you never felt pressured into anything."

"It was me," I said. "I'm a people pleaser. I do what they want so I don't lose them. I didn't want to lose you, and I thought if I said no that you would just leave."

"Why do you think I stayed all summer?" Adam asks. "I told my Dad I was going to visit his new house for a week, at most, but I stayed as long as I did because of you. I never wanted to leave you."

The unspoken layer of his argument is that I left . I'm the one who gave up.

I say, "I was scared. I had every right to be. You have no right being angry at me without knowing my half of it." I remember that I'm angry, too. "Oh…and fuck you for thinking that I should give a shit about your opinion of me."

He hangs his shoulders, and his eyes blink, long and slow, batting away my words.

My voice cracks. "I'm nothing, remember? I don't exist to you."

"Vee –"

"I'd like to leave it that way," I interrupt.

And I'd like this night to be over.

I turn on my heel, the wind in my wet, warm face and my ears clogged with the sound of my beating heart. I cross my arms and grip the edges of Adam's coat with my fingertips.

When did he put this on my shoulders?

I spin around to toss it back to him, but he's gone.