Page 47 of Meet Me Back Here

“That’s great!” His enthusiasm is sudden and pulls a barking laugh out of me. I slap my hands over my mouth to stifle the loud sound in the quiet night.

“It’s great?” I question from behind my fingers.

“I think so? I mean. Yes. It’s who you are. And you’re my best friend. And you’re great. So, it’s great. How do you feel about it?” he asks.

I think about it for a second. “Nervous? But also good. And happy I told you,” I answer.

“I’m happy you told me too.” His face gets serious before he continues, “I just want you to be happy and safe. I’ll kick anybody’s ass who gives you a hard time about it.” He trails off again. “I’m sorry. I don’t really know what to say. I don’t want to mess up. I’ve never had somebody come out to me before.”

His eyes are still so kind, and my heart swells. I do feel safe with him. I’m always safe with Forrest.

“Well, neither do I,” I admit. “I’ve never come out to somebody before.”

Forrest reaches out and covers my tangled hands with his, squeezing hard.

“I think you’re doing an amazing job at it,” he says.

“You do?”

“Best coming out I’ve ever been at.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

why is it that when you need to focus, your brain decides it’s the perfect time to do a deep dive on what happened to the roanoke colony?

PRESENT

Two days later, I’m doing everything in my power to try to get the creative juices flowing. Currently, that involves doing jumping jacks on the balcony while looking out at Camelback Mountain. It’s something I’ve tried several times over the past few days to get blood flowing, and it hasn’t been very successful, but maybe today will be different.

Annoyingly, I woke up Sunday morning from a loopy, tipsy night of half-sleep knowing I’d had a wild dream about my still faceless characters, but my hungover brain just couldn’t grab at the wisps of the story I’d thought up.

Even though it was right there.

I. Need. To. Write.

With our birthdays, Thanksgiving, and the game next week, I know things will be crazy here pretty soon. Then the workshop starts shortly after that, and I’m running out of open days to find my next book. I need to focus.

Knowing that sadly doesn’t make it happen.

Because now all I can think of is our birthdays. If it wasn’t that, it’d be something else. It feels like my brain will cling to anything but my book. Random historical topics I’ve never cared about before? Suddenly the most fascinating mysteries on the planet. The many different kinds of scorpions? Information I really didn’t need to know. Ever. But there I was Googling it yesterday.

“Hey Forrest,” I call through the half-open sliding door, finally giving up my jumping jacks and leaning around the wall so I can look inside. The blast of air conditioning on my face feels divine.

“Hm?” Forrest answers from the little table between the couch and the kitchenette where he’s pouring over notes and drawings and calculations that all make no sense to me.

While I’ve been unable to keep my mind on writing for more than thirteen seconds at a time, he’s been the disciplined, studious person he’s always been, working, joining meetings, keeping up with his studying, being all smart.

“What do you want for your birthday?” I ask.

“Well, I think seeing you fall in that creek is present enough,” he answers around the back of the pen he’s got between his teeth. “Care to do it again?”

I don’t think he realizes he’s doing it, but he starts playing with the silver ring around his thumb as his eyes scan down a page of neat handwriting. It broke off the pencil case I gave him for our thirteenth birthday a decade ago. I think it’s possible he’s worn it as a ring ever since. He discovered it was a perfect fit our senior year of high school, and he said he’d never take it off, but the broken bit has definitely been filed down and the ring has been polished at some point. When he wiggles it, I can see the tan line that I’m confident predates this most recent sunburn.

“Once was more than enough, thank you very much,” I say, huffing. “Be serious with me. You already claimed the day for whatever your secret plan is. I want to get you something.”

Forrest pulls the pen from his mouth, tucks it behind one ear, and focuses on me.

“I’m really just happy to be on this trip with you. If I wasn’t, we wouldn’t be able to spend the day together, so letting me come along is a great present,” he says, and I really do believe he’d be content with nothing.