With a subtle lift of his chin, he reveals more of that face aPitchforkwriter once described as “obtrusively magnetic,” and I lose all sense of time analyzing every new bit of him that is both exactly the same and completely different from the lasttime we were together. His face is as lit from within and sun-kissed as ever, with new lines etched by time and inconsistent sunscreen application. His hair is the same warm brown with new salt and pepper strands woven in. Though it’s too short for a bun now. He must’ve gotten a haircut.
He pushes his hair back in that boyish, sleepy way so his steely-blue eyes collide with mine, and suddenly, I’m thirteen again. I’m under our tree, messing around with my dad’s Canon and resisting the urge to photograph Ethan while he’s strumming a couple chords to see if he “finds something.” He never wrote songs, he “found” them, like they were hidden in the corners of his mind, waiting to be uncovered by a sunset or the chorus of rain beating against the windows or the sound of Petey and Laurel arguing over Mario Kart.
“Chuck.” He greets me with a tilt of his head as he hops out of his dorm room on wheels, and suddenly, I’m eye to eye with Ethan Powell, the boy who at one point knew me better than anyone on the planet, whom I now keep in touch with primarily through memes and text message reactions. It’s the sad, predictable trajectory of countless childhood friendships as one barrels into adulthood. Once upon a time, I spent every day with this boy and knew the exact noise he made when he slurped soup. Now I send him GIFs.
Which raises the question, why is Ethan Powell sleeping in my driveway?
“What are you doing here? At my house? In a camper van?”
“Well, good morning to you too. You look…” His eyes snake up my body like he’s surveying damage to his car after a fender bender. I recall the way I woke up this morning and stiffen. He may be just as I remember, but nothing about me is the same. Last time we saw each other, I was about to getmarried. I was on a career upswing. I was looking at houses and had momentum. Now I’m…untethered.
Ethan’s grin crinkles his face in that irresistibly charming way I’ve never been able to trust, as though he’s a basset hound and I’m merely a person in front of him with sausages in her pockets. “I’m sorry. You look really bad,” he says ruefully. “I shouldn’t have started that sentence, but it’s justsobad, I had to say something or—”
My laugh cuts him off. It catches us both off guard.
It’s just such anEthanthing to say. He’ll tell anyone what he’s thinking, 90 percent of the time, at least. It’s that pesky 10 percent that’s always been a mystery to me. When I think I’ve got a handle on him, he rips the rug out from under me and I’m left crashing to the floor.
“Your hair is, uh, mid-takeoff—” He reaches for my head, but I swat his hand away. “Are you in tap shoes?”
I look down at my clip-in rowing shoes and back up at Ethan. I’m not prepared to explain. “Yeah, yeah. You look like shit too.”
He folds his arms with a sideways smile. “I can’t look worse than you do.”
“To what do I owe the pleasure of this very early morning visit?”Or any kind of visit, I don’t say out loud, because I’m unreasonably excited to see my friend parked on my landscaping, and I’d hate to scare him away.
“I told you I was going to be nearby.”
“And I never responded.”
His head tilts, confused. “You don’t remember responding?”
My stomach floats into my chest as my dehydrated brain tumbles around my skull searching for any inkling of what he might be referring to. My cheeks burn hot. “Obviously not.”
Inside the van, I spy the sun reflecting against a kitchen cabinet handle and a fret of the acoustic guitar leaning against it as he yanks the door shut behind him.
“You texted me,” he explains. “A lot.” He pulls his phone from his pocket and scrolls through the damning evidence: a humiliating wall of gray text bubbles. All from me. Every so often he reacts to one or attempts to respond, but my messages move from one topic to the next at a breakneck pace.
“Oh god.” I hand him back the phone. If I had anything left in my stomach, I’d vomit it up. Right there on the pavement.
His forehead scrunches the way it does when he’s trying not to laugh. “Don’t be embarrassed, Beekman,” he tells me, pulling me into his arms with his signature warmth, which I’ve never been able to resist. I can’t help but lean into it. “I like it when you drink and meme. And I would’ve come if it was one text or a thousand. I’ve missed you. It’s been way too long.”
I huff a laugh into the collar of his T-shirt. We’re about the same height, so my face always ends up in his neck. I don’t know if he still smells like sugar donuts or if my brain has permanently grafted that smell onto him over the years, but it’s nice, whatever it is. He smells the way he’s always smelled to me. It’s comforting to know some things never change, even when the world feels like a current that’s sweeping my feet out from under me.
“How long can you stay?” I ask.
His chin drops onto my shoulder. “As long as you need.” His voice is steady and sure, and I feel my defenses slip a little. Then he says, “But…I’m playing at a festival in Grand Marais next weekend.”
There it is.
As much as Ethan teases me about my devotion to mycalendar and the routine predictability of my life, his bursts of spontaneity are far more tedious. I could set a clock to Ethan’s wanderlust. Just when you’re starting to get used to him, he’s itching to take off. Love it or hate it, it’s who he’s always been. His restlessness is my unremarkable constant.
“But I have nowhere to be all week.” He says it like it’s an eternity. For him, it probably is. “Are you hungry? It’s been ages since someone’s complained about the way I order cereal.”
I pull my head back so I can properly rib him: face-to-face. “It’s not just thewayyou order it. It’sthatyou order it. Who orders cereal at a diner?”
“Someone with celiac,” he says, even though we’ve had this particular argument countless times before.
“You’re still hopeless without me, aren’t you, Powell?”
