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I found it hard to concentrate, frantically trying to piece together a coherent understanding of who we were to each other now. I desperately wanted him to say something to fix everything, to vanquish the weirdness, and make him feel like home again.
“So, um, Oglethorpe—” I started when he finished his plot summary. “What do you think of it there?” He’d spent the week getting settled in and surely had an opinion.
Adam frowned. “It’s great. It has some really nice shade trees.”
“Nice shade trees?”
Adam nodded, avoiding my eyes. Sunlight from the kitchen window glinted against his dark reddish-brown hair as he started in on his second sandwich. He said nothing else.
“You don’t like it.”
He shrugged and took another bite.
I tossed my half-eaten sandwich on my plate and crossed my arms. “Why are you going there? You can still forget the whole thing, come home, and go to UT with me.” A deluge of mixed emotions tumbled through me as the suggestion left my mouth. I turned my focus to my sandwich so he wouldn’t see my confusion.
Adam sighed. “Leslie’s there.”
“I’mhere.”
And I realized as I said it that I had a life of my own now. If Adam came back to Knoxville, still attached to Leslie and not committed to me, I didn’t see a way for that scenario to fit in with who I was here and who I was becoming. A life in Knoxville with Adam, one still built around secrets and lies, would drag me back into the closet. I wasn’t okay with that. That wasn’t part of my plan for us.
Adam grabbed my forearm and tugged me close, trying to kiss me, but I turned my face away.
“Eater, we just have today. I don’t want to fight.”
I got up to take my plate to the sink and stuff the remains of the sandwich down the disposal.
“I promised my mom I’d give Oglethorpe a year, okay?” Adam pleaded. “I told Leslie I wanted to come back to Knoxville, that I missed you and—”
I turned to him. “And what? You let her talk you out of what you really want? Or was it Sarah? Or your mom? Who was it this time?” I leaned my hip against the counter and glared. “Because you know what, Adam? It’s really starting to beyou.”
He’d only been home a few hours and we were already back to fighting—already back to square one.
“Eater, you aren’t listening.”
“I’m all ears,” I snapped, throwing my hands up.
“I told her I missed you. You’re my best friend. Even if things are cool at Oglethorpe, I still want to switch to UT next year. I want to be your roommate. I told her I want us—you and me—to get an apartment together.”
I swallowed thickly. That wasn’t what I was expecting. That was almost like progress, but not really.
You’re my best friend.
It was all just words. He could back out anytime he wanted.
“So? Isn’t that better, Peter?” Adam asked. “Isn’t that closer to what you want?”
Closer? Yes. But so far from a cigar that it was more like a monkey. I shrugged. “What did Leslie say?”
“She asked me to promise that I’d stay at Oglethorpe for the full year, and if I still wanted to come back to Knoxville after, then—well, she’d be okay with that.”
“Uh-huh.” I turned on the garbage disposal and ran the water.
The loud grinding effectively cut off communication. My body was tense and my mind racing. Apparently I wasn’t willing to be wooed by the orgasms. All summer I’d told myself it could be different when Adam came home, but this wasn’t what I’d wanted at all.
I snapped off the power to the disposal and turned back to him. “Here’s the thing. It’s always someone else before me. Leslie, Sarah, your mom, your dad, someone else always matters more than I do, and it sucks.”
“Peter…” He swallowed. “I know it seems like that sometimes, but I don’t think I can love anyone better or more than I love you.”
