Page 66 of For the Record
He lay back on his side, facing me. His eyes trailed over me like a warm touch, yet I couldn’t convince myself to turn to him. Everything in me was desperate to turn his way, to get any clue of understanding in his eyes. But the fear of rejection stood higher than any other desire I had.
“As long as I’m here, there is nothing that you should be fearful of.”
That was true. Adam took care of me in a way no one else ever could. The fear wasn’t anything when he was here. The fear was about what would happen when he wasn’t. When he wasn’t just deployed for a month or two, but when he was stationed who knows where. Out saving lives while mine crumbles away. He only had so much to carry. At what point was he going to drop the heaviest weight of them all?
“You make it sound so easy.” I let out a humorless chuckle. His fingers reached for me, tilting my chin to face him.
Our eyes locked, and tiny fireflies lit up in my brain, like stardust dancing around us, or pieces of the city lights aligned together in one perfect art form. He had that effect on me. Probably on everyone. My silent giant. My loyal German Shepherd who was all bark and no bite.
“It could be that easy.”
I looked down at his lips, recalling our last kiss in that dark, crowded hallway.
A moment of vulnerability for the both of us, a moment of giving in to the one temptation that had settled in this friendship from day one. It was meant to be quick, a small peck that I would blame on the romantic ambience of a wedding. But here I was, weeks later, with it still consuming my mind. How he held me, so gentle at the mouth but with such a firm grip. Like the kiss itself, we could take it slow. There was no rush. But then his hands on my hips, in my hair, down my back all kept me from sliding away. As if I ever wanted to. He kissed me like I was fully his, and for a brief moment, it really felt like it. It felt like the kind of night where you could go home with your date, take out the millions of bobby pins in your hair, and jump right into bed with your pj’s on and fall asleep to reruns of The Office. For that brief moment, all I could imagine was the sense of comfort he brought me. He never once failed me, so how could I assume he would now?
“Adam,” I whispered.
He swallowed, eyes searching mine. I had to know. It was going to eat away at me. Even if he left, even if he was to completely fall from my life and leave a giant rotting hole in his wake, I would have comfort in knowing the truth, wouldn’t I? That if he didn’t leave now, wasn’t he at some point going to?
“Is…there something more here?” I kept my discreet tone, my eyes never leaving his.
He didn’t answer. Not with words anyway. His chin dipped in a nod, a quick, painless confirmation to what sat in my gut. Everything in me shouted to just take the jump and go all in, to tell the guy that I had been crushing on him for almost two years and I didn’t see that letting up anytime soon. But Adam never said a word he didn’t mean, and I didn’t know if I was ready to hear that answer if it wasn’t exactly what I wanted.
“Then,” I swallowed heavily, “what exactly is this?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it, as if he was carefully choosing each word in his head. “I…don’t know. I like labels. I like to put things in boxes, and I can’t quite do that with you.”
Somehow that didn’t help. Knowing he felt something more here too, more than just a friendship kindled through late-night phone calls and this made me think of you texts. Discovering that he didn’t know what we were weighed me down even further.
But for now, it was an answer I was going to have to accept. I had no other choice. It wasn’t like I had a box to check for us either. More than friends. That was all I knew.
Currently playing: Sunday Kind of Love by Etta James
***
The last month with Adam had flown by.
I was getting pretty good at running. Well, I thought so, anyway. Adam said I looked less and less like a baby deer the more we trained. I guess, somehow, that encouraged me. Either way, I hadn’t hit that “runner’s high” thing yet, but I was getting into a routine. We’d bike in the early mornings, watching the sun rise as a cascade of yellow, orange, and purple formed around us, his short hair barely moving in the wind while mine flew all over the place like it had a mind of its own. We’d both laugh going downhill and cringe going up. In the evenings, we ran. Before dinner, as the sun was setting, those same yellows, oranges, and purples from the morning dying before us. We listened to my training to become a war hero playlist, and Adam profusely reminded me that I should stop calling him sir when he gave me directions. To which I said yes, sir.
We had our routines. He made my coffee the way I like. I baked sourdough bread the way he wanted. I watched over his house when he would go help Crew with his truck. He would feed Myrtle when I didn’t have the chance to. Eventually he volunteered to take over her care. The next day, he fed her and made his own discard protein waffles before I was even awake. Next thing I knew, he’d written her name in a scraggly font on the lid of the mason jar. When I asked about it, he said in case we get confused. Which was essentially the equivalent of the dad who never wanted the dog but was now buying the brand name food for it, along with an abundance of toys it didn’t need.
We were still checking off other items on the bucket list. A couple of weeks ago, Adam went to the gym—because biking and running every day clearly weren’t enough—and left a new Polaroid camera on the kitchen counter. Next to the white camera and several packs of film, he left a note. Take more pics. With a little check mark next to it. He was really, really cute.
I took a selfie with it, holding up the note and cheesing brightly at the camera, before sticking the photo on the fridge. I fully expected to come home from work and see it gone from the spotless stainless-steel appliance. Instead, he had added to it. A picture of my headphones sitting on top of my dragon romance book. The caption written below in black Sharpie read Little weirdo.
I cackled when I saw it, so I took a picture of his perfectly straightened shoes at the door and put it right next to hiswith the caption Big weirdo. We both laughed at it over coffee the next morning. Our fridge was now almost covered, and part of me was sad that we were going to run out of space soon. I’d need to get some kind of photo album eventually.
Summer was winding down as if it hadn’t just started. The hot July mornings were now turning into cooler late-August evenings, and the smell of freshly cut grass was slowly being replaced with the smell of fallen leaves. Transitional as it was, Adam was always steady. My one constant.
This evening, I sat on the floor in front of his sectional, on a rug—which he claimed he had been meaning to buy for a while, when in reality, it bothered him that he didn’t have one when I enjoyed sitting on the floor so much—testing various records. After my recent raise—thank you, Poppi—I splurged and bought some vinyls at an expo downtown. I dragged Adam with me, initially looking for things for the store, seeing if there was anything I could grab to display there. But I should have known it was more for myself than anything.
Adam didn’t argue or complain, and every now and then, he’d ask a little question like Why is that one so special? Or Do you have to have a certain kind of turntable for it to work? Is that what they’re even called? Turntables? He listened intently to each answer, a kid clinging to his best friend’s words. The glimmer of innocence shined in his eyes, and it was utterly adorable.
I ended up with five records. Two Fleetwood Mac, one CCR, one Crowded House, and a final Alice Cooper single. Yet my mind kept going back to the one I left behind. Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. The song itself was a classic, of course, but the artwork on the cover was what I needed. The pastels would have matched perfectly with my mahogany Fluance player, the perfect mix of dark and light.
I flipped the Crowded House vinyl between my fingers, settling for it instead, before placing it carefully on the player and letting the needle fall. “Mean to Me” strummed around me, and I settled in to it, my shoulders relaxing and my chest loosening.
The back door opened and shut. Perfect timing. Adam seemed to come home at the same time every day if he could help it. Occasionally he would get caught up with one of his brothers and come home, squeeze me like we hadn’t seen each other mere hours before, and ask me how my day was. He was ten minutes later than usual today. His boots smacked the ground, followed by the sound of him immediately straightening them.