Page 6 of Something About September

“We should go,” she said, searching for equilibrium.

“Sure. Of course. It’s been such a long day for you. I’ll walk you home.”

Cort paid the bill while Rebecca got their coats. Then they stepped out into the quiet of the late-September night. The street was slick with rain, the air sharp with woodsmoke, all grounded by the peaty-brown scent of damp fallen leaves. Their shoulders brushed as they walked toward the diner.

“Is Pip with Melanie tonight?” Rebecca asked, wanting to fill the silence, but also just wanting to hear his voice again.

“He is, yeah.” Now Cort’s voice contained a smile. “Lost his first tooth this week. He wanted to put it under his pillow at my place and his mom’s, and how could we say no to that? Smart kid. Not sure where he gets it.”

“I seem to recall tutoring a guy who insisted he hated to read, and then finished all the books I gave him like they were his favorite snack and he needed more. And he had a lot of smart things to say about them.”

“Pip loves to read, too. Right now, I’m reading him The Night Gardener at bedtime. On the nights he’s with Mel, we FaceTime before bed so we can get a chapter in. It’s nice. I think I like it as much as he does, if not more.”

They had reached the diner, were standing at the edge of the parking lot. Rebecca looked up at Cort. “Thanks for everything,” she said.

“You’ll be all right?” he asked. “You’re sure?”

She hesitated. She would be fine tonight, she knew it. She was too tired to feel the sharper edges of her grief, and all the comfort the townspeople and her friends had offered was doing its job, for now. But she also wasn’t ready to say good night to Cort. It felt as if, in the cool crisp of the autumn night, a spell had been cast. Everything was quiet except for the hum of the crickets and her pulse in her ears as she looked up at him and said, “I’m sure. But—”

“But?” He tilted his head.

You shouldn’t…It was the familiar inner voice, the one telling her to stay away from him because it never ended well. Except tonight, for the first time, she was able to push the doubt away. She felt like she was floating toward something so perfectly right for her as she rose onto her toes, brought her lips to his. She felt the heat and the softness of his mouth, and how firmly, how hungrily he kissed her back. As if he, too, had been waiting a good portion of his life to do this.

He tasted like tart apple cider, a hint of mint. The sawdusty, soapy smell of him was all around her, and she felt the firm muscles of his back beneath her fingers.

But she must have been imagining the part about his kissing her back so hungrily—because what was really happening and had become impossible to ignore was the sensation of his hands on her arms. Not pulling her closer. Pushing her away, gently but obviously.

“We shouldn’t,” he said, as if he had somehow managed to hear her inner voice and repeat it back to her. “I’m sorry. Becca, I—”

The agonized way he was saying her name told her everything she needed to know and should have seen before.

She froze but then stepped back, so fast it was sobering. “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what I was thinking— I’m just—sorry.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but she didn’t wait to hear it, knew that any apologies or explanations would break her. Any semblance of feeling okay was gone now. She felt cold, alone, and embarrassed. She turned, fumbling with her keys until the door gave, then stepped inside and closed it behind her.

The air inside was still. She could smell flowers. Roses, lilies. Cloying. Funereal. Her heart hammered against her chest, the way it had all night—but now she understood it had been a warning, not a green light. She had ignored it. She had made a mistake. She moved blindly in the darkness, not knowing what she would see if she looked back. Would he still be standing on the step, visible through the window, waiting? Or had he disappeared into the night?

She found the stairs, her room, her bed, sank onto the mattress and slid under the duvet, shut her eyes and squeezed them tight, waited for the embarrassment to subside, for her heart to stop aching.

It didn’t. It just got worse, through a long, sleepless night where the absence of Lenore grew more stark and more real, where she relived every moment of the kiss with Cort. She felt him push her away over and over, until she was writhing with shame at the memory. What had she been thinking? Cort had never, ever felt the same for her as she did for him. What about tonight had she been so sure was different? Was it because of her grief, her loneliness? Because she had just lost the one person left in the world—that she knew—who was related to her by blood?

She sat up in bed and stared at the full moon out her bedroom window, willed herself to release these feelings that now felt like a curse into the glowing dark. But it felt like she was a bottle of apple wine with a cork that wouldn’t release. That’s because you’re here, that inner voice of hers said—and she was forced to listen to it now, because ignoring it had gotten her to this terrible moment she was stuck in. This is the last place you should be right now. You’ll never get over any of this if you stay in Bramley Hollow.

So, at dawn, still in her funeral clothes, Rebecca got out of bed and packed her bags. She texted Sabrina that she’d call her later but she had to go, offered no further explanation as she got in her car and drove south, back toward the city. She refused to look in her rearview mirror as she spiraled like a leaf down the highway, the ache only increasing with every mile she put between herself and her hometown. It would get easier, she told herself. It had to. It would. She just needed to wait—because, as her grandmother had always said, time healed all things.

Chapter 5

It felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders, the moment the final sentence was out. “And that’s how Cort Adams turned me down, yet again.” She sighed.

“Oh, Rebecca,” Sabrina said softly as she rubbed Rebecca’s back. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

Rebecca shook her head. “How could you have? I kept it inside.”

“But I should have stayed at the Tipsy Apple that night, walked you home myself.”

“I’m not a child. I made my own mess.” Rebecca heard how small her voice was. She straightened her spine and shook her head. “Really, I need to get past this. It was the day of my grandmother’s funeral. I was grieving. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“I read an article once about how people get extremely horny after funerals.”