Page 456 of Summer Heat
Before I can take a step toward the kitchen to toss the tissue, a message from Daniel comes in. I promise I will make it up to you.
I don’t know what to write back. There’s no way to make this right.
So instead I focus on the work that’s waiting for me and choose not to respond.
I’ve barely been active online for a week now. Instead I’ve been taking pictures. Lots of them. Some of Daniel in abstract ways. Others of little things that remind me of him from when we were younger. I haven’t posted those yet though. I’m not sure I will either. No matter how beautiful I think they are.
I haven’t answered messages or sent out any packages. I don’t even know how my sales are going. When you run a business all by yourself, you can’t afford to take time off. For years I’ve buried myself in my passion and work, although really I’d just been running from reality. From my past.
Staring at the message from Daniel, the black and white text that’s so easy to read, I can’t answer the one question that matters.
What am I doing?
***
Six years ago
“Hey … hey …”
I hear a persistent voice but I ignore it. No one in this school has said a word to me. At least not to my face.
With a tug on my shirt, I’m forced to turn around and face a boy. A boy who’s nearly a man. He doesn’t have a baby face, and I can tell he shaves, but there’s a kindness about him that makes him appear young. And likable. Which is something I haven’t felt in the last two years.
“What are you doing?” he asks me and my forehead pinches.
I lift the pencil in the air and point to the chalkboard in science class as I say, “It’s called taking notes.”
The handsome guy laughs, a rough chuckle that forces me to smile. Some people’s happiness is simply contagious.
“No, I mean tonight.”
I don’t bother to respond other than to shrug. I do the same thing every night. Nothing. My life is nothing.
“My brothers and I are having a little party.”
“I don’t really do parties,” I answer him and nearly turn back around in my seat, but his smile doesn’t falter and that in itself keeps my attention.
Shrugging, he says, “We can do something else.”
“I don’t really do much,” I tell him honestly. I don’t really feel like doing anything. Each day is only a date on a calendar. That’s all they’ve been for a long time now.
“What about the assignment for art class? We could take some pictures for the photography project?” It takes me a moment to place him, but now that he’s mentioned it, I think I did see him in the back row yesterday in art class.
“It’s not my day for the camera.” The budget for the art department is small, so we have to take turns checking out the equipment.
“I’ve got one we can use—well, it’s my brother’s.”
“Your brother?”
“Yeah, his name’s Daniel.” It all clicks when he says his brother’s name. I’ve seen him. It must be him. I’ve watched as this boy I’m talking to waits outside at the entrance to the school and another boy picks him up. Except he’s not a boy. There’s no question about that. Daniel is a man and it only took one glimpse of him to cause me to search him out each and every time the bell rings and I’m waiting in line for the bus.
“Now I know your brother’s name, but I don’t know yours.”
“It’s Tyler.” I repeat his name softly and when I look at him, I see traces of his older brother. But where Daniel has an edge to him, Tyler is warm and inviting.
“I’m Addison.”
“So what do you think, Addison?”
