57. Adrian
FIFTY-SEVEN
ADRIAN
The full force of Freya’s tremulous smile hits me right in the chest. Photos could never accurately capture the pure radiance of it.
She laughs.
“Hi,” she says.
I laugh too.
“Hi,” I say.
And for a moment it feels like I’m seventeen again. It feels like we’re back in simpler times. Times when everything made sense, and I had a map to a road in front of me and no doubts I was going to take it.
Tears fall down Freya’s cheeks.
“You’re here,” she says.
She hugs me again, and over her head, I find Dylan. He looks down the moment our eyes meet, but then ventures another look my way.
It’s as if my two lives are colliding right here and right now, and the explosion makes me dizzy.
I have loved Freya since the moment I saw her in Dylan’s driveway all those years ago.
I saw her, and I knew.
She was meant for me.
But Dylan… Dylan is mine.
My whole life.
He’s always been mine. Mine and nobody else’s.
My heart gallops erratically in my chest while my eyes move between the two of them.
I stumble back a step, out of Freya’s tight embrace, and try to breathe calmly as the full weight of the last three years settles on top of me.
No. In reality, there won’t be anything simple about life ever again, will there?
Dylan and I give a statement to the reporters because we have to. I don’t think they would let us out of here if we didn’t give them something. In some distant, reasonable part of my brain, I understand the curiosity that surrounds us, and the fact that these people are just doing their jobs.
Mostly, I’m just exhausted. Disoriented. Confused.
I keep smiling, though. It’s like an armor I put on to fool myself into thinking everything is fine.
Cameras flash all around us while we stand in front of the rows of reporters.
Yes, we’re happy to be back.
Yes, it’s been an incredible ordeal.
Yes, we’re both ready to go home and reclaim our lives.
Of course we’re incredibly grateful to all the people who helped bring us back home.
On and on it goes.
By the time we’re done, Dylan is practically twitching next to me, desperate to get away.
My dad wraps his arm around my shoulders. “Home?” he says quietly.
I nod and slump against his side for a moment.
“Dyl?” I look around to see where he is. He’s standing a little way away from us with Nina.
“Ready?” I ask.
He blinks. “Ready for…”
“Home.”
He blinks some more. “Oh,” he eventually says, then glances at Nina. “I figured…” He motions toward her.
I almost start to laugh at my own idiocy. I mean, it makes sense he’d drive with Nina. As much as I might feel ownership over Dylan, Nina probably wants to have a moment with him too.
I… I don’t like it.
He’ll be right next door, a voice scoffs in my head. Calm down.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll see you in a bit, then.”
It looks like he wants to say something else, but then he seems to reconsider, and he just nods.
I watch him walk away with Nina and have to talk myself out of running after them. Fuck’s sake. I can handle a car ride without Dylan.
“I’m ready to go.” I smile and follow my parents to the car.
“Will and Ally are driving down from Vermont. They should be home by the time we arrive,” Mom says once we’ve buckled in.
Ally. Will’s wife. In my mind, Will is still twenty-six and in his everlasting on and off relationship with Zoe, his high school girlfriend. Somewhere in the time I’ve been gone, that changed.
Harriet is in law school, and Hunter is working as a paramedic.
Jax has taken over the garage and he moved out of the house a few months ago.
Mia graduated from high school a few weeks ago and is taking a year off to earn enough money for culinary school.
Charlie is obsessed with photography, and Daisy has her sights set on Broadway.
I’ve gathered all those tidbits about my family from phone calls over the course of the past two weeks. Everything that happened while I was dead.
I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.
It’s another one of those things that makes everything feel overwhelming.
Freya sits next to me in the car, and when we pull out of the parking lot, she slides her hand into mine, and my whole body jerks from sheer surprise because her hand is soft and small and delicate, and there are no calluses or scars.
She sends me a confused smile.
“Just…” I let my voice trail off because I don’t know how to even begin untangling everything. How do I explain everything that has happened? That she was constantly on my mind? That there was a hole in my chest, and that I always meant to get back to her, always thought of her?
And then weeks turned into months and months turned into more months, and somewhere along the way, I didn’t think about her always. Somewhere along the way, I started thinking about her a lot. And then sometimes.
Not because I didn’t love her anymore. Because… because I was dead.
Because there was Dylan.
Dylan.
Dylan.
Always Dylan
But now I’m here.
And I don’t know what’s true anymore.
Because sooner or later I’m going to be alone with Freya, and then I’m going to hurt her. I’m going to tell her everything. The truth. And it’s going to hurt her.
I never wanted to hurt her.
It’s killing me to hurt her.
Because when I push away all the guilt and sorrow and sadness, I’m left with all the what-could-be’s.
Everything with Freya has always been easy. There’s never been any confusion about what I want. I saw her, and I knew . If I close my eyes right now, I can still feel the moment I knew we were going to have a whole future together. The simple, straightforward path to happiness.
I can see it and feel it all so clearly.
It’s what I’ve always wanted.
After all, I’m a simple kind of guy.
“Does it look different?”
Freya’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts.
We turn the corner, and it’s our street.
A few houses have new coats of paint. Here and there trees have been cut down. My parents’ house finally comes into view, and my shoulders relax when I see it.
It’s the same.
Same grayish-blue walls and rust-red roof. Same white window shutters and wooden flower boxes.
I get out of the car as soon as it stops in the driveway and just look for a second. Then I glance at the house next door to see if Dylan’s already there.
I frown.
There’s a shiny black Kawasaki parked in the driveway, and somebody’s blasting electro music from one of the upstairs windows.
I turn around. Mom and Dad are already heading inside, but Freya is standing right next to me.
“When did Nina get a motorcycle?” I ask.
Freya looks at me before she throws a quick glance at the house next door.
“A motor—” She starts to laugh. “That’s not Nina’s. She sold the house a while back. They live in that glass tower they put up right above South Station. You should see the place. It’s all windows.”
She says something else, but it goes in one ear and out the other.
I’m supposed to meet up with Dylan here .
“Do you have the address?” I interrupt her.
“Sure?” Freya says slowly.
I wait.
“Just… We’re not heading there right now, are we?” she says.
My mouth is already open to blurt out that heading there is absolutely my plan, but then I close it again.
Dylan not being here with me feels wrong. Wrong to the point that it makes my skin crawl with unease. Nagging anxiety unfurls inside my chest.
He’s fine.
You don’t know that.
I’m taking an educated guess.
Fuck that.
“Can you give it to me anyway?” I’ll feel better if I had it. Less on edge.
Freya takes my hand.
“Let’s go inside,” she says.
I follow her.
In the hallway, I toe off my sneakers like I always do, but instead of natural, it feels wrong. The tile floor underneath my feet is cold, and the dark blue paint in the hallway isn’t the scuffed white it used to be.
I have a sudden urge to run away. I was desperate to get back home, but now that I’m here, I don’t feel at home at all.
The whole family is gathered in the kitchen. They all get up when I walk in. There’s a beat of silence, and then I’m engulfed in hugs. Will wears glasses now. Harriet’s usual ponytail has been replaced by a sleek bob. Hunter looks like he’s spent the last three years in the gym.
I barely recognize these people.
Who are they?
All my siblings have changed. Grown up. Moved on with their lives.
“You’re so tan,” Harriet says, smiling and crying at once, clutching my cheeks.
“You, too, can get this complexion for the low, low price of surviving a plane crash.” I meant that as a joke, but everybody falls silent, and it’s awkward as fuck.
“Well, it didn’t fix your terrible jokes.” Harriet gently cuffs the back of my head.
I laugh, and this one’s real and not forced.
Even so, for the next couple of hours, I feel increasingly like everything is happening in a dream.
I watch my family cry.
I feel them hug me.
I’m introduced to Will’s wife and Harriet’s boyfriend.
I watch my family settle back into their old rhythm of teasing each other when they talk, but all the jokes are new. For them it’s all as easy as breathing. For me, they’re connecting through inside jokes, and I’m not privy to the history.
I’m an outsider in my own family.
I tell myself this is natural. It’ll get easier. That it’d be extremely stupid for me to expect to just fit right back in like I used to after all this time.
But it doesn’t stop the discomfort and confusion whirling inside me.
And the knowing that Dylan would get it. He’d get everything without me having to say a word.
“Are you okay?” Freya murmurs from next to me, then scrunches her nose like she always used to. I feel a pang in my chest. I always found it adorable when she did that. “That’s a stupid question, right?”
I shake my head. “No. Sorry. I… It’s just a lot to process.”
She glances at the rest of my family. She tilts her head to the side and listens to the cacophony of voices, then sends me a look that makes it feel like she actually sees me. Like she gets that all of this. It’s so much.
“Do you need a moment?”