Page 11 of Autumn on My Mind

I turn away and rub my back for effect—twenty-seven isn’t too young to get a sore back from standing around, is it?—but really I just don’t want Dominic to see the tears I’m trying to hold in. Then I point at the glove compartment, hoping I’m pointing in the right direction because I’m not even looking anymore. “Pass me something to write with, please.”

He hesitates for only a second before I hear the sound of him reaching over to the compartment and pulling out the pad of paper and pencil I knew would be stashed there. When he hands them out of the window to me, I make sure our hands don’t brush. I scribble my number in shaky writing—I deleted his number years ago so I wouldn’t be tempted—and then drop them back to him.

“Give me yours,” I say, keeping my hand outstretched. It takes him a second, but then he passes a piece of paper to me, which I tuck in my pocket.

“I have to go,” I say, “but I have something I need to give you, so I’ll get in touch later. Don’t ignore my text.” I try to say goodbye, but the word simply won’t come out. It’s ash in my mouth. So I nod somewhere at the vicinity of the hood and then turn all the way around, my shoulders straight, my head held high.

I’m not my mother’s lap dog, whatever Dominic may think. It’s true that I have trouble setting boundaries with her—something that’s always bothered him—and that’s an area I’m working on.

But I can’t let her date Dominic’s father. I absolutely can’t. I won’t let her cross that line. So if I need to break them up, I’ll do it.

And you know what? I bet I could do it so subtly she would never know I was involved. I could keep her from hating me forever—because it takes very little to get on Alvina’s bad side—and simultaneously avoid becoming the stepsibling to my ex-boyfriend.

Win-win.

I cross the parking lot on wobbly legs, my mind racing, and when I collapse in my car, I vow to throw away every tube of non-waterproof mascara I own.

SIX YEARS AGO || LATE AUGUST

The only bench with room to sit is the one right beneath the lamppost.

There’s a guy occupying half of it, but I think he’s asleep, and I don’t blame him. Summer is fading away, leaving campus with perfect breezes and rustling trees and leaves that are considering changing color. It’s an evening I could curl up in, too.

The guy on the bench seems to have assumed the classic resting position, slouched low, worn baseball cap pulled down over most of his face, arms folded, head tilted back. I can imagine him snoring softly even from here. That’s the standard for guys trying to sit up and sleep at the same time.

Although growing up we attended the little white church in town, a postcard-perfect chapel with a soaring steeple, and every Sunday I saw more than one elderly man bent forward, elbows on his knees, face tilted to the floor and balanced precariously on his hands. The benches inside were made of wood and therefore uncomfortable to sprawl on—not that the guy in front of me would have had any problems, given his current pose.

I could never sleep in church. Dresses are too uncomfortable. Heels, too, which is why when I approach the half-occupied bench now, I’m walking with a bit of a limp.

I glance down at my shoes and grimace. They’re cute, as far as heels go—simple black pumps. Nothing too crazy. But the back of my feet and my ankles are being rubbed raw, and for a moment I consider pulling them off all together and spending the rest of the evening barefoot on this bench.

Unfortunately, even if I can ditch my shoes, I’m stuck with the rest of my outfit: a knee-length black dress with long sleeves and a neck that scoops lower than I prefer. I keep worrying it will catch the evening breeze and fly up, and instead of a Marilyn Monroe situation with her famous white dress over the air vent, I will give everyone here a blue-underweared show.

It’s just that I have newish roommates this year, girls from the dorms I lived in freshman year. I don’t know them very well, and they don’t know me, but they needed someone to take the last spot in their apartment, and I needed a place to live. I moved in, and when they invited me to come with them to the back-to-school mixer this evening, I said yes. I thought it would be a good bonding experience. Classes start next week, and it would be nice to be able to call the girls friends before that.

But I think we will need to bond over something other than school dances. The campus courtyard is relatively empty, but the press of people inside was stifling, made worse by the impossibly loud music that I can hear thumping even from here.

When I reach the metal bench, I settle myself as quietly and gracefully as possible. I scoot all the way to the end so that I don’t disturb the sleeping stranger, and then I pull my feet from my heels. I flex them a bit, which feels infinitely better than having them confined, before letting them rest on the stone that paves most of campus.

I’ve only been sitting for thirty seconds or so when I get a whiff of the man next to me, some sort of sharp cologne that barely masks the scent of something more familiar.

What is that? It’s nothing gross, like BO or cigarette smoke. It’s pleasant. I just can’t place it.

I look him over for any clues, but I find nothing. He’s dressed normally in faded jeans and a dark henley, well-worn work boots on his feet.

After a moment of creepily staring at the guy, I decide he’s definitely asleep. The rise and fall of his broad chest is steady and slow, and other than that he’s totally still. So I lean surreptitiously sideways, sniffing a bit more.

Not burying my face in his shoulder or anything. Just…you know. A casual twitch of the nose.

But that casual twitch does it, and I smile. Beneath the smell of cologne is the smell of a dusty woodworking shop—of carpentry. Before I think better of it, I inhale deeply as my eyes flutter closed, my smile widening at the memories that scent evokes.

Helping my dad in the shop after school. Popping my head into the work shed out back to bring him food when he’d been there for hours, working on one thing or another for someone in town.

When I open my eyes again, I half expect this guy to have wood shavings in his hair and on his shoulders.

He doesn’t, of course. What he does have is one eye looking sideways at me from beneath the hat propped on his face. One eye making direct contact with my own.

I startle when our gazes meet, jolting back to my side of the bench like I’ve touched an electric fence. Mortification washes over me, from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.