Chapter 4 #2
He closes his eyes briefly, as though I’m the one who followed him to his car, accusing him of trying to scam my grandparent.
He glances around, for what reason I don’t know, and when his blue eyes land on mine, I break the contact immediately by focusing on his Adam’s apple as he swallows.
“Why did you first start bringing Gramps food? Why do you keep doing it, huh? What—what’s in it for you?
” Now he looks concerned, and I can see that under his hardened exterior, beneath the frown, the crossed arms, the tense jaw, there is a protectiveness.
He wants to protect his grandfather. And I get that. I do.
But it doesn’t make up for the last time he and I spoke. In the parking lot of Teal’s ex’s wedding that we all attended last summer.
I don’t do crowds or loud music. They both make me feel like my skin is going to vibrate right off into a pile on the floor, and after about thirty minutes of this sensation, I feel raw, like I need to hide under my comforters, or in the darkest part of the forest, for several days until I feel like myself again.
So I had escaped from the reception to the courtyard, where I found friends—chipmunks, tiny and soft, little white stripes on their bodies so delicate it was like they were painted on.
Pigeons were there, too, cooing and chatting.
As I held one of each in the crooks of my arms, Adam walked out, saw me, and blinked.
It was so similar to the time it appeared like he saw me as a ghost, it took my breath away, so much so that I couldn’t speak.
And then he furrowed his brow and said, “Is that a pigeon?”
He spent the next ten minutes scolding me for handling wild animals.
He went over diseases and ticks and infections, referencing work trips he had made to jungles in Brazil and Bolivia and the old gods know where else…
not noticing once that I was shrinking into my skin, feeling smaller and smaller as he treated me as though I were an especially stupid twelve-year-old who should know better.
That wasn’t the worst part, though.
I was feeling too defeated to return to the reception.
So I wandered around the beach instead, wanting to allow the seagulls to land on my arms and shoulders but feeling ridiculous for it, thanks to Adam’s condescending rant.
I sat on a bench facing the parking lot, and that was when I heard him again.
“I just saw the fucking craziest thing…Yes, a chipmunk. Who does that?” Adam’s voice came in and out, and then I heard a woman laughing in response.
“Oh my God, you didn’t know about the Freak of Cranberry? Literally everyone says she lives in the woods like a dirty old hag and talks to animals. It’s insane. You should do a story on her.”
Adam had laughed uproariously. “There’s no way. My career would be ruined.”
“Oh, shh, shh,” the woman said between giggles. Her hair shone copper red in the sunlight, and she was just as toned and lean as my sister Teal. “There she is. Don’t say anything or she’ll, like, growl at us or something.”
They walked by me briskly, neither one even glancing my way. By the time they got to the woman’s car, they were laughing about something else, and then they hopped in and she drove them away.
To say I was devastated was an understatement.
I couldn’t have kept my tears in even if I’d tried.
A seagull landed by my hand, pecking very lightly at my fingernails, in the same way a cat might nip at their owner, asking something like What’s up?
Why are you so sad? Or, you know, knowing seagulls, it also might’ve been Hey, can you sneak me a big grilled steak from the party?
My sister Teal came out of the reception hall right then. “Teal!” I called, hoping I could bum a ride with her, since the last thing I wanted was to spend another second thinking about how the man I’d idealized for the last year had just laughed when someone called me a freak.
But she didn’t hear me. She was quickly followed by Carter, her soon-to-be husband, though I certainly didn’t know it at the time. They yelled at each other over his car for about a minute, and then they got in and sped away, too.
So I sat there for a while, as the sweet seagull hung out, leaning against my forearm. I realized that this crush I’d been nurturing on Adam for so long was, well, pure delusion. This was a painful truth to acknowledge. I swallowed many times to keep from bubbling tears again.
Adam wasn’t into me, like, at all. And the thing is, it’s fine for someone to not be sexually attracted to someone else.
I get it. Adam didn’t owe me interest or flirtation or anything like that.
But it was still a hard, hard blow to the ego, considering that up until then, I’m still embarrassed to admit, before I fell asleep at night, I’d imagine the way his face would look when he fell in love with me.
I’d think about our first kiss, how he would be so into it, he would make some kind of awkward-yet-hot sound when our tongues touched.
I’d fantasize in vivid detail about when he realized that the ghost he saw that one night at his grandfather’s wasn’t a ghost at all, but a real woman with real desires and real powers.
I truly thought the old gods had connected us in some cosmic, world-defining way, because there was no way a man could make eye contact with my lonely, wandering spirit twice in a row and it wouldn’t mean something.
But it really didn’t mean anything at all. He dismissed me like I was nothing.
I hate being dismissed like I’m nothing. I hate being reminded of the feeling of being as inconsequential as a ghost who only appears when her eldest sister decides to cry.
Adam’s still waiting for a response. I shrug. “What’s in it for me? Well, obviously I’ve spent the last year meticulously searching for his birth certificate so I can steal his identity.”
Adam runs his hand over the stubble of his chin. “This isn’t a joking matter.”
I scoff. “You made it into a joke by accusing me of hurtful things with no evidence whatsoever.” I dig in my purse for my keys.
This conversation needs to be over, like, yesterday.
“Why don’t you ask me if I’ve exposed him to squirrel germs or chipmunk ticks while you’re at it?
That’s what you were so concerned about last time we spoke. ”
His eyebrows furrow, etching a deep line between them. “Pardon me?” He shakes his head. “Squirrels? What the hell does any of what you just said mean?”
I narrow my eyes as I process all of this information. “You don’t remember me at all, do you?”
He blinks. “I—uh. Remember you? Like, we—” He kind of gestures his hands around and my stomach sinks when I realize he’s asking if he and I had ever had sex.
His smile fades away when he sees the disgusted look on my face.
He blinks, then snaps his fingers. “Right. Nate Bowen’s wedding.
You had the animals.” He chuckles to himself and then glances at me up and down quickly.
“You look…” He clears his throat. “Different.”
I don’t even understand what we’re talking about anymore.
He’s just wasting my time on a whole new level now.
I sigh and say, “You want to know what’s in it for me, Adam?
” I lift my hand and gesture toward William’s home.
“I know what it’s like to be lonely and forgotten, and your grandfather knows what that’s like, too.
When I bring him dinner—” I can’t help it.
My eyes well over and tears, probably stained with eyeliner and mascara, make their way down my face.
A jaw-dropped Adam trails their movement.
“What I ‘get out of it’ is I am a little less lonely and forgotten, too. Okay? I’m not trying to steal William’s savings or get him to be my sugar daddy or whatever the hell else you’re thinking, because, ew, but it’s not entirely altruistic, either. Are you happy now?”
Adam says nothing. He opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again.
I honestly think I have rendered him speechless.
I do not have time for speechless, so I nod and say, “I have a shift at work now. I already reminded William. You’re not invited, by the way.
” Trying to hold my poise, despite the makeup certainly smearing my face, I get in the vehicle and only stop just short of squealing my tires on the way out.
The sky is settling into a glorious sunset as I make my way to the library, with the clouds shaped like roses and tulips and dinosaurs, each one dipped in yellow ocher and tangerine and rose gold.
Early summer in Cranberry is my favorite.
Always has been. But the beauty of the sky meeting the distant lines of evergreens and tulip trees can only do so much to improve my mood.
I can’t believe I cried in front of Adam Noemi. Of all the things I wouldn’t want to do in front of that man, weeping may well be at the top of the list.
I was supposed to be like a goddamn pinecone!
Not stand there and basically unzip my skin and let him see every single feeling coursing through me.
A second wave of embarrassment hits me as I pull into the library parking lot, and when I stop the car, I bury my face in my hands and let out a long, painful groan.
Oh well. At least he’ll for sure leave me alone now.