Page 7

And there he was.

For a second, I couldn’t breathe. Josiah Mercer stood just inside the door of Dixie’s Dockside Dinette, one hand still resting on the handle as he looked around the room. He looked older.

Well, of course he does. Dumb butt. It’s been almost twenty years.

His hair was shorter than I remembered, darker than it had seemed in high school, with just enough gray at the temples to make it obvious that neither of us was eighteen anymore. He wore the jeans and button-down I’d seen in photographs during the election campaign, though somehow seeing him in them in person made it feel completely different. More immediate.

Then his eyes found mine, and everything else disappeared. The diner sort of went soft and glowy, out of focus. The conversations and the clattering from the kitchen had both either stopped or faded away like some stupid movie scene where it’s all still going on but the hero or heroine is in la-la land having a moment. I no longer even registered Ricky still sitting beside me for a long moment, and barely realised June had gotten up to return to duty with a quick pat on my hand, taking the coffee pot with her. All of it had simply vanished beneath the weight of one familiar look.

His expression changed, just enough that I could tell he was also affected. His eyes widened, and for one impossible moment, he looked exactly like the boy I’d known all those years ago, looking at me like he had on all those long-ago dates where we’d met up right here.

And just like that, twenty years disappeared.

CHAPTER THREE

THE NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN

Josiah

Sixteen Years Earlier

The evening feels ordinary. We're talking about nothing important, and I'm watching him move around his room while we talk, completely unaware that I'm planning to leave the next morning. He thinks I'm staying. That's the worst part. He thinks we have time, that in two weeks we'll have cake at my house that my mom baked to celebrate my being twenty-one, a quiet affair as always because, God, I've always hated being made a fuss over. And that we'll have time to keep moving slowly towards our forever.

So do I, but I've enlisted in the Air Force, and I've already made the decision. I've signed the papers. I've received my orders. I know I have to be at Lackland. I also know I should tell him, as it's our future I'm trying to secure. Instead, I keep thinking I'll tell him tomorrow. Then tomorrow became the next day, and the next day became the day I'm leaving.

Max came over tonight expecting what we've both been talking about for weeks, things getting more physical than we'd been thus far because we both knew we weren't ready. But now we're twenty, mentally twenty-one, and we've been together for years, since the end of seventh grade when being boyfriends meant sloppy kisses, blushes, holding hands, and standing awkwardly at the school dances together, trying to get up the courage to go out onto the dance floor as a couple. Given our recent talks about finally taking that next step, I know what he expected when he came over.

I want him. God, I want him, but I also know that if I tell him I'm leaving, the whole night will change. He'll ask where I'm going. He'll yell and ask why I haven't told him, and then he'll cry and ask whether I'm coming back.

And I don't have answers that don't sound like abandonment, because I don't know if I'll make a career of this or not, even though I think I will. Or if he'll like where they'll send me, and be happy to join me after we date long distance and finally get married, because I won't rush him. He needs his progression to be steady until he feels his footing is secure and he's ready to keep going. So asking him to marry me when I have leave after basic, before they send me to AIT, is a no go, as it isn't fair to him.

So I kiss him, and I hold him, and when he finally asks why I seem distracted, I give him the most cowardly answer I've ever given anyone.

“I have to get up early.”

He looks at me for a moment. I can see the question in his eyes, but then he accepts what I've told him. He believes me, though he looks a little disappointed.

"Okay, well, see you tomorrow night?" he asks hopefully.

I smile and kiss him again, and watch him go.

The next morning, I get up, and I can't even manage to eat any breakfast, so I simply take what they gave me on my list and get into my dad's car. I don't call Max to tell him where I'm going, even though every fiber of my being wants to, even knowing that he'll be mad and upset, and then say he'll wait for me and we'll get married, even though he's not ready for that. But he'll do it so we aren't kept apart any longer than the military forces us to be.

I hope he forgives me when he finds out that I didn't tell anyone except my parents, and I've made them promise not to say anything until I'm gone. My dad backs us out of the driveway, and I look back, spotting Max’s family's house just down the street, and I have to fight myself not to unbuckle my seat belt and jump out of the moving car to go wake him up and tell him.

"You sure about this?" Dad asks me, and I know he's not talking about my enlistment. He means Max.

"Yeah," I reply, resolutely. "It's for the best. He'll understand when he sees what I accomplish and the benefits I've gotten for us, scoring us a future."

Present Day

At not quite twenty-one, I'd convinced myself I was protecting Max from the uncertainty of what comes next until I was able to show him concrete proof of what that would look like. Really, I'd been protecting myself from having to watch him be hurt by making such a huge life decision without him.

It had been cowardice, and looking back, I'd actually known that then. I knew it even more now. I had imagined this moment approximately ten thousand times. Okay, maybe not exactly ten thousand, but close enough that I’d stopped counting years ago.

I'd imagined walking back into Hartwell Cove. I'd imagined seeing Max again. I'd imagined what I'd say when we finally stood face-to-face after all this time. I'd rehearsed conversations while driving, while lying awake at night, while sitting in airport lounges, and once, memorably, while brushing my teeth because apparently sixteen years of regret could turn a perfectly sensible man into someone who argued with his own reflection. None of those conversations survived actually seeing him.

Max was thirty-six now. Older, obviously. We both were, with me closer to being thirty-seven than he was. He was also beautiful, and that part hadn't changed. His hair was a little different than I remembered, and he wore glasses now, and he looked cute in them. I hadn't known about those. His astigmatism must have gotten bad enough after I left that he needed them, and somehow that tiny detail hit me harder than it should have. There was a little line beside his mouth that hadn't been there when we were young. His face had changed in all the small ways a person's face changes when they're no longer twenty, but I could still see the youth I had loved underneath it.