I turned down a back-country road and steered through the gently rolling landscape. Like much of Pennsylvania, the countryside was dotted with forests, populated around here mainly by old oak trees, and the bright sun glimmered down on the green of their lush leaves. I found my way to some old farm fields, now unused and starting to grow over with tall grasses and weeds, then parked my car.
Most days, I worked in the office of the Allegheny Conservation Project, but since I had the proper training in forestry, I got to spend a couple days a week out in the field, too. That morning, I was checking up on the populations of grey-headed prairie coneflowers. The flowers sprouted up in wide fields and along the roadside, away from mature trees, and I’d learned to spot them quickly in the grasses. Their slim stems stuck up high, and their elegant yellow petals fanned backward and pointed toward the ground.
The prairie coneflowers were in danger of going extinct in Pennsylvania, and gathering data provided us an important tool in keeping them around.
There was some sadness in working with nearly extinct plants all the time, knowing our efforts might not be enough to save them for another generation, but the fact that I got to spend my days working on the preservation of wild flowers was this botany geek’s dream come true.
Still, as I strolled along the edge of the field and made occasional notes on my clipboard, my mind kept drifting back to River. I’d found my passion, even if the job didn’t pay that much, but the rest of my life was flat. I always had OkayOkai to lift my spirits, but relying on a faceless, voiceless masturbation partner wasn’t exactly an ideal solution.
I dropped to a squat, then traced my finger along the delicate yellow petal of a coneflower while small bugs flitted through the air. Maybe seeing River again was a sign that things were about to change. Maybe he’d introduce me to his friends, and they wouldn’t mind that I was awkward and quiet, and maybe I could even find someone to date again.
It seemed like a silly dream, hoping my best friend from middle school was going to turn my life around.
But even I needed a little more than flowers and faceless strangers sometimes.
Chapter Four
Kai
“What do you remember about Izzy?”Leo asked. “Were you two as close as he was with River?”
I was down at his condo, chilling on the couch with my brother while Leo made us all cocktails. Izzy was supposed to be over anytime, and I found myself looking forward to seeing him again after so long.
“Not quite. River and Izzy did everything with each other for a few years. He and I just hung out sometimes.”
“We didn’t do everything,” River objected.
I chuckled. “Pretty much. Izzy followed River around with puppy dog eyes.”
“He did not,” River scoffed, then shrugged. “He just had a little crush.”
I shrugged. “Whatever you say. I just remember Izzy coming over after school sometimes, and if River wasn’t around, we’d sit on the back porch and read together.”
“Aww,” Leo cooed, then handed me a gin and tonic. “I didn’t know you could be cute like that.”
I rolled my eyes, then took a sip of my drink. “It wasn’t cute. It was just… nice.”
“Izzy is nice,” River said brightly as he took his own cocktail. “I invited him to the wedding, by the way.”
“Moms will love that. He was their favorite of our friends.”
“Because he always helped with the dishes after dinner,” River laughed.
The buzzer rang, and River jumped up to let our old friend in. For a minute, my mind drifted back to junior high. My twin brother and I always had plenty of differences, but that was the time I really started to feel them. River could be impulsive, and he was constantly chasing his latest crush or nursing another heartbreak.
Something about it encouraged me to act even more cautious and hyper-rational, which I was inclined to do anyway. It felt good to distinguish my personality from my twin brother’s, and I thought back then that he and I could balance each other out somehow.
That was what I really remembered about Izzy. Right when I started acting all serious and defining my differences from River, Izzy showed up, happy to just hang out while I copied out notecards for class or organized my three-ring binder again.
Izzy walked in, and I stood, totally surprised. He was my height when I last saw him, but he was a good three inches taller than me now. He wore his hair a bit longer, swooped back with a comb, and it had grown curlier. The soft cleft of his chin was familiar, but his jaw was wider and shadowed with sparse stubble.
My eyes lingered, and my pulse accelerated. Izzy had an Adam’s apple now. Why I always thought Adam’s apples were so hot, I’ll never understand, but my whole body responded. I felt warm and dizzy, and it took all my self-control to tear my eyes away from his cute butt.
His really, really cute butt, I noticed, as he slipped his shoes off, then offered me a quick little wave.
I pulled myself from the daze and greeted him. “Izzy, hi.”
“Hey, Kai,” he said, his voice rolling deeper than I expected. “Good to see you again.”
