Page 29 of Autumn on My Mind

I wonder if I could make him laugh like that again.

And again.

And again.

“Fancy seeing a girl like you in a place like this.”

At the sound of Dominic’s dry voice behind me, I startle so violently that my forehead jerks forward and thumps against the glass of the window. When I lean back again, there’s a perfect grease spot illuminated with the light from inside, which has me questioning my skincare routine. But my facial cleansing habits can wait; right now I need to come up with a rapid lie for why I’m crouched in the bushes outside his dad’s house.

I claimed just yesterday that our parents weren’t serious; that their relationship would fizzle on its own. If Dominic finds out they’re here together this late at night, he’ll probably jump to conclusions—the same conclusions I’m jumping to, I admit, but if it turns out I was dead wrong, I’d rather not find out while he’s standing right here.

So as I turn to look at him, I grasp desperately for something else I could say, another reason I might be here.

The pickings are real slim.

“Hi,” I begin breathlessly, my feet grinding into the mulch. But I don’t get a chance to say anything else, because a thorny streak of pain finds my cheek as well as my scalp, a chunk of hair pulling across my face as it tangles in the bushes I’m crouched between.

So. That’s pleasant and great and not embarrassing.

My eyes find Dominic right as I’m spitting hair out of my mouth. His expression is disconcerted, his arms folded, his lips furled into a questioning frown as he watches me. Unfortunately he’s also tall, because he’s standing, looming, while I’m all the way down here in the flower bed like a very stupid gopher.

This is not the moment or the month or even the year to notice the backward baseball cap he’s wearing, so I do not. I ignore it completely. Don’t even give it an appreciative glance or wonder what the point of a backward cap in the dark could possibly be.

I just clear my throat and repeat myself, with much more dignity this time. Like this is exactly where I planned to be. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he says slowly. I can’t fully see his expression as he takes a step forward, because some of my vision is obscured by the hair still tangled in the bush and pulled across my face. But I can hear everything I need to in his silence.

Out of courtesy, I give him three seconds. When he doesn’t offer to help, I speak—calmly. “Stop making that face and come help me, please.” My fingers are searching around in the snagged mess that is my tangled bush hair, but I’m making no progress.

Dominic sighs, and then he crouches down in front of me, pulling out his phone and turning on the light. I wince as it finds my eyes and lingers on my face for a moment, but then it swings away. Dom sighs again like I’m a major inconvenience before turning the light off.

“Wait,” I say quickly as he stands up again.

“I’ll be right back,” he says, and then he walks away—disappears out of my sight, his footsteps rounding the corner of the house until all I hear is silence.

I swallow down my humiliation and ignore the pain in my feet, shifting my position as much as possible while blinking furiously. Dominic won’t leave me here, but I don’t know what he’s doing or how long it will take, and I think my face is bleeding.

My shoulders slump with relief when I hear his footsteps returning a moment later, my breath shuddering out of me. He reappears in my vision and crouches once more, but a camping lantern is in his hand now.

“Stop moving around,” he says, and then turns the lantern on, settling it on the grass as his hands reach up and begin working on the tangled snarl of hair holding me captive.

“Is my cheek bleeding?” I say.

I can’t see any of his face, because the light from that lantern is probably visible from space and is shining directly in my eyes, but he hesitates only a second before saying, “You’ll be fine.”

His hands aren’t gentle. He pulls and tugs, motions punctuated by my little ows until finally he says, “Well, stop moving, then.”

“You’re yanking my hair out of my head,” I say.

“Then just—hold still, would you?”

“I’m trying⁠—”

“Try harder.” A beat of silence, and then he says, “Good grief, Berkeley. Did you stick your entire head into this bush? Why are you even here?”

I spit out the first thing that jumps into my mind—the first thing that isn’t the truth about our parents’ midnight rendezvous.

“I came to see you.”