Three on my left upper arm: a pink carnation, a fern frond, and lily of the valley. The outfit is likely throwing him, as well. I used to not give much thought to my wardrobe, wearing whatever hand-me-downs were at the top of the drawer. I’m dressed in an olive prairie dress with burgundy tights and soft faux leather ankle boots, and four or five beaded necklaces of varying length. My brown ponytail is gone. I’m more comfortable in my skin than I’ve ever been, but he wasn’t around to witness the evolution, so this version of me is a total stranger to him. I’m floored that he recognized me straightaway.
“You have flowers in your hair,” he repeats.
“For luck.” I bite my lip, unbearably shy all of a sudden. Distantly, I’m aware that people are watching and listening but can’t bring myself to care. “Your hair’s different, too.”
He touches the top of his shorn head, blunt fingernails teasing along the bristles where silken rings used to hug my fingers; oh, how I’d loved it. The zing of electricity as I realized my influence over him, how my movement could accelerate his heart, pulling his chest out and pushing it back down in irregularbreathing affected by my mouth, my exploring fingers. How my hands became defibrillators wherever they pressed.
It’s disorienting to see Alex this close again. The truth that years have passed in which I have no idea (designedly so) where he’s been, what he’s done, who he has become, is glaring. Every change is fascinating. Every similarity is an ache.
He rounds a table and moves toward me, expression unreadable while I’m positive mine is bleeding alarm, and before I know what’s happening he’s wrapping his arms around me. My soul knocks backward out of my body, through the floor—we are sixteen and he’s giving me my first kiss, his hands a little shaky and unsure; we’re seventeen, lying on the trampoline in his backyard with my head on his stomach, gazing at the stars; we’re eighteen, and he’s in my rearview mirror, watching me back out of my driveway with my car packed full of cardboard boxes, his eyes stricken with heartbreak so naked and ruinous that I felt it following me for days, months, years. But he broke us, too. No other relationship will ever come close to destroying me like ours did, which is saying a lot.
Alex lets me go.
Everything around him is vaporous, colors of the wall swirling into colors of the light fixtures, people watching curiously smearing into diagonal streaks. I have never been slammed so far beyond my own control with such quickness, grappling to school my features, project calm normalcy. The hug was brief. Friendly. It’s been eleven years. I should not be this affected.
I’m not, I’m not, I lie to myself.
We can’t stop staring at each other. The biggest distraction in my mind is howsubstantialhe’s gotten. He takes up more room, he’s taller and harder, filled out in ways that make me feelstrangely weak. My peripheral vision has constricted to black circles, narrowing and widening to the beat of a fluttering in my chest.
“You are,” he manages. “So—”
“You’re sotan,” I interrupt, a blush staining my ears, my neck, and wish I hadn’t. How was he going to finish that sentence?You are so different, probably. Oryou are so awful.You are so unwanted here. “You get a lot of sun for a doctor.”
A tiny frown develops between his eyebrows, then disappears.
“Are you seriously marrying this lady?” Trevor asks Mr. Yoon, gesturing at Kristin. “For real?”
Mr. Yoon nods. His expression is solemn, but there’s a quiet happiness about him. Unlike Trevor, Mr. Yoon doesn’t seem like the type who’d ever jump up and down enthusiastically. “Yes. I’m glad for you to finally meet.”
Trevor stares at Kristin, agog. “Well, damn! Bring it in!” He dives forward and embraces her. She gasps as she’s lifted off the ground, but then starts laughing. “When did y’all get engaged? You said you had a girlfriend, but you never told me anything about afiancée. You should’ve brought her around.”
“Oh, it’s not his fault,” Kristin rushes to say. “It’s been a real whirlwind—we only met for the first time in person four months ago! Online dating. He’s in Philadelphia, I’m in Sandusky, and neither of us could believe that we’d both lived in Moonville years before, at the same time, but never crossed paths. We decided last week that we want to get married. I thought it’d be fun to just do a wedding right away and not draw it out long enough that I’d go into stress mode. Surprising everybody was my idea.”
Pragmatic, even-keeled Kristin King, throwing a surprise spontaneous wedding? Unfathomable.
“I know,” Alex says, and I glance up to see him watching me. “I found out about half an hour ago.” His focus switches to Trevor. “I think I remember you. Did you go to school here?”
“From eighth grade onward. Moved around before that.”
“He’s a few years younger,” I tell Alex. We didn’t have any classes with Trevor, and he ran in different circles. Hanging out with the golden boy senior and his girlfriend (who wasn’t so golden, but was trying to be) wouldn’t have held his interest.
Alex’s frown deepens. “Didn’t you spray-paint dicks through all the letter Os in the stop signs?”
Trevor brightens. “Yes! It’s nice to know my work is remembered.”
Mr. Yoon sighs to himself, looking away.
“How’re your folks?” Alex is addressing me again. “Your sisters?”
“They’re good. I see Luna every day, and Zelda lives in Virginia now, but we’re trying to talk her into coming home.”
“And the baby? Well, I guess she wouldn’t be a baby anymore, would she.”
“Aisling’ll be twelve in August.”
He’s blown away. “That’s... how can she be eleven already?”
“Right? In my mind, she just started kindergarten.”
