He fell into step beside her. She knew he was walking slower than usual. To keep pace with her.
She watched the ground in front of them. Fat, round seedpods from the trees lining the road littered the sidewalk. “I have a calendar hanging in my room. Otherwise I’d have no sense of it being June.”
“You’re pretty insulated inside Fresh Pine. Probably natural for it to feel scary leaving it.”
Natural, perhaps. But she still felt silly having admitted it.
She tucked her hair behind her ears and picked up her speed a bit. Again, he kept easy pace beside her.
“My father used to get annoyed with my mother because she didn’t walk as fast as he did.”
“You remember them?”
She kicked a pod. Deliberately this time. “I remember some things.”
“Their names?” His question sounded neutral. When she glanced up at him, he was looking across the street.
“No.”
“Do you want to know their names?”
She didn’t even have to think about it. “No.” She’d reached the seedpod again and kicked it once more. A little harder. It bounced off the sidewalk and into the street just in time for a slow-moving car to roll over it. “My mother’s gone anyway. That I’m sure of.”
He made a sound. “If you can’t remember their names, I wouldn’t be so sure.”
“Did you know them? When we were not being serious?”
“I met them when we graduated. That was it.” He closed his hand lightly around her elbow when they reached the corner and directed her to follow the sidewalk around the bend.
She shivered when his touch fell away again. She made a point of buttoning up her cardigan even though she wasn’t cold.
“I’m sure they’re worried about you,” he said after they’d walked a while further in silence. Past more houses, larger and more neatly maintained than the other side of the block. The green yards were tidily mown and flower beds beamed with brilliant color.
Her stomach was starting to roll again. There were more seedpods on the sidewalk. She angled her foot toward a particularly fat one and stepped down on it, feeling it snap and pop beneath the sole of her shoe. “I told you—”
He lifted his hand. “Relax. You’re a grown woman. It’s your decision whether you want to contact your parents or not.”
She made a sound that even she didn’t know how to interpret. She spotted another fat pod and stepped on it, too.
He looked amused suddenly. “You look about ten years old doing that.”
She darted in front of him to smash a third pod. “It’s amazingly satisfying. You know. Like popping bubble wrap.”
His lips quirked. “If you say so.”
She smiled and they continued on in silence. There was more traffic on this street, and no more trees. Down the long block to the corner, a grocery store seemed to be doing a brisk business if the number of cars pulling in and out of the parking lot was anything to go by.
She fiddled with the bottom button on her cardigan. Undoing it. Then buttoning it again.
“What’s churning around inside that mind?”
She started guiltily. “What?”
“If you have questions, ask them.”
She made a face. “I have so many questions I don’t know where to begin.”
His only comment was the scrape of his boot on the cement as they walked.
She chewed the inside of her cheek again and watched the ground some more. “Why did you come to see me?”
His pace slowed. He didn’t answer immediately.
She stopped altogether and watched him take several more steps ahead of her. “Did Dr. Granger ask you to?”
He stopped then, too, and she could see the tension in his shoulders beneath the blue shirt. He turned around to face her. “At first, she just wanted me to identify you, if I could.”
“And then?”
“Then she said she wished there was more time. But you were being released soon and she was concerned that it was premature.”
She tugged at the button again, not liking his words. “So you just decided to come and see the ol’ ex-girlfriend even though it’s been nearly ten years?”
He pushed his fingers into his front pockets, which only succeeded in making his broad shoulders look even wider. “Dr. Granger and I talked on the phone twice,” he allowed finally.
She peered at him. She’d had the impression he’d been ready to say something else. “About me.”
His eyes were dark and watchful. “Who else? You knew I was familiar from the news story. She speculated that a longer...exposure...might prompt even more memories. And I know she explained this to you, too, or you wouldn’t have agreed to let her talk about your health with me.”
“You said I have a fiancé. And how’d you even know about him if our paths went different ways?”
“Because the world is a damn small place sometimes,” he muttered. “I told you it was complicated.”
“You told me it was convoluted,” she corrected.
“That, too.” He pulled his hands out of his pockets and looked around them. “There. We’ll go there and sit down.” He pointed to a small building crouched on the opposite corner between a two-story house and a gas station. A rustic sign stuck in the grass in front said Coffee, simply enough.
She didn’t want to sit. She wanted to break through the veil draped across her mind. But she nodded, and when they reached the corner, he took her elbow before crossing the street.
Was he old-fashioned? Or did he think she was incapable of staying safely within the crosswalk?
Regardless, his touch left her discomfited. Tingly. Vaguely edgy.
When they reached the curb again, he let her go.
She couldn’t decide if she was relieved or not.
He pulled open the door to the small building and waited for her to go inside.
It was crowded nearly wall-to-wall with customers. The line moved quickly, though, and it wasn’t until Adam was at the counter giving his order to a scowling young barista with chin-length hair colored in fuchsia, violet and
