“Not really. Just…” Just, this was the first girl he’d ever been in love with, the first girl he’d had sex with. The girl who, once upon a time, he thought he’d spend his life with. “It seems weird.”
“Adam. I’m happy for you.”
That twinged a little. He tugged his arm away.
“Adam?” The smile slipped off her face, and she stopped walking.
He sucked in a deep breath. “It’s fine. Really. I just…” He hadn’t exactly accepted they were over, but he’d been getting closer and closer, and tonight, when he’d seen her hair, he’d very nearly understood it. “I wasn’t expecting quite this level of enthusiasm.”
“Oh.”
“It’s…” He trailed off before he could say that it was fine again, because it wasn’t. It would be, but for the moment, it had him feeling unsteady. Like a chapter of his life was really, truly ending, and maybe it was for the best. But it didn’t make it easy.
“Come on.” She put a tentative hand on his arm and led him to a low wall where she tugged him down to sit beside her.
He put his elbows on his knees and closed his eyes. Apparently they were doing this.
“I loved you so much, Shannon. For so long.”
Her voice trembled when she said, “I loved you, too.”
“It’s over, isn’t it? For real this time.”
At least she didn’t pussyfoot around. “I think it is.”
“I mean, I knew that. I really did. But somehow it hadn’t sunk in.”
The warmth of her hand settled on his back, and he let it, accepting the comfort for what it was. “I haven’t exactly helped with that, have I?”
A snuffling laugh forced its way through his nose.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just… we’d been together so long, and I cared—I still care—about you.”
“It’s okay.” He knew how she felt.
“It’s such a cliché, but I really do want to be friends.”
Her hand had drifted up to his shoulder, and he moved to place his own palm over hers. “I cannot imagine a world where we’re not friends.”
A couple of months ago, he hadn’t been able to imagine a world where they weren’t more.
Her voice trembled. “Sometimes, I think, when two people get together when they’re as young as we were—when they stay together for so long—you either grow together or you don’t, and it’s like you don’t even notice it happening. I feel like… we don’t fit anymore. Not the way we used to.”
“We don’t,” he agreed. He’d known that for ages, but he’d thought it was okay. That if they worked at it, they could push through and find a new way to fit.
So many times they’d broken up only to end up getting together again. But this time…
This time was for real.
He turned to look at her, and her eyes shone, the glassy wetness of them glittering. “I know we always fell back into each other, but it was hard to tell if it was just because we were lonely or if we really wanted that. And it had hit the point where, sure, it was comfortable, but it was also—”
“Suffocating,” he finished for her, the word coming to him out of nowhere.
Her smile was wobbly. “Exactly.”
He never would have been able to say that before, but this summer without her, when she’d enforced the separation… it had seemed cruel at the time, her refusing to return his calls. But maybe it had been a kindness. Without her voice in his ear, he’d had to branch out. Grow up.
They’d had the chance to finish growing apart.
Sitting up straighter, he reached up to twist his fingers through a crimson curl of her hair. She shook her head and wiped at her face, making his own eyes feel mistier.
“I’m sorry I dragged it out so long,” she said.
“You were better than I was.” He’d just held on and on and on.
“But I could’ve been clearer.”
“And I could’ve listened.”
She laughed as she dug a tissue from her purse and dabbed at her nose. “It’s funny, how it feels like we grew apart. But really, sometimes, I think we’re too similar.”
She wasn’t wrong. Both afraid to upset each other, both trying for so damn long to make something work.
“Maybe.” He stood, looking away while she tidied herself up and while he got himself put together, too. When they were both more or less reassembled, he held out his hand. “But that’s why we’re going to make really, really good friends.”
Letting him pull her up, she smiled. “I like the sound of that.”
“Me too.” He tipped his head toward the next street over. “Come on. This really, really good friend of mine is going through a breakup, and so am I. If that doesn’t call for ice cream, I don’t know what does.”
The gelato shop he’d thought they might end up at was still open, so they wandered in and got a couple of dishes to go. As they hit the street again, she looked at him, twirling her tiny spoon.
“So. Is it any less weird now if I ask you about this girl you met?”
“No.” He picked a direction and started walking. “But I’m willing to pretend if you are.”
“Then tell me about her.”
So he did. Ignoring the awkwardness of it, he tried to encapsulate in words the way Jo had grabbed him and thrown him—literally, in the case of their first meeting. He described her walls and her fire and the visions he had of a vulnerable girl, somewhere just underneath. A vulnerable girl who was still one of the strongest people he’d ever known.
Through it all, Shannon listened, and when his words dried up, she clucked her tongue at him. “You’re going to have your hands full with that one.”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“I think”—she hesitated—“it’ll be good for you. You need someone who challenges you.”
“You challenged me.”
“No, I didn’t. Not the way you needed to be.”
Maybe she had a point.
Over the course of his rambling, they’d finished their ice cream and wandered back toward the hotel. He took her empty cup and tossed both in the trash. He looked over at the hotel’s entrance with a stone in his throat.
Then he swallowed it down.
“Well, here we are,” she said.
It was a crazy idea. One he never would have gotten up the guts to say, not to Shannon. Not before. “Do you want to just keep going?”
“What?”
“Let’s not go there.” Not to that confining room they were supposed to share. “Let’s just keep walking.”
“All night?”
“Why not?”
A look he couldn’t read passed over her face, and he held his breath. But the clouds in her gaze parted, and the smile she flashed him was the freest, realest one he’d seen from her all night. Maybe the best one she’d given him in years. He held out his hand and she took it.
She squeezed his fingers. “All right.”
Adam woke up squinting, blinking hard against the sunlight streaming through the curtains they’d forgotten to close. He was on the floor, still in his clothes, the pillow under his head doing absolutely nothing for the ache in his spine. Groaning quietly to himself, he levered himself up with his arms to sit and glance at the clock. It was barely nine.
He and Shannon had stumbled in at half past five.
It had been good. Weird and different. But good. They’d reminisced about the past three years, and when the sun had risen, they’d returned here, to this room, where he’d insisted she take the bed.
Sitting up straighter, he gazed over at her.
Her crimson locks shone in the morning light, just like her blond hair had, but it didn’t stir a pounding in his chest the way it used to. She was beautiful, and dear to him. She was his friend. With any luck, she always would be.
And the girl who got his heart going now was waiting for him.
He didn’t want to wait anymore.
After the quickest shower known to man, it took him only a few minutes to get his suitcase out and all of his belongings crammed inside. He checked himself for his wallet and his phone, and he was ready to go out the door. Back to another life and another world. To a girl who wouldn’t be easy, or comfortable, but who might just fit.