Page 12 of Just One More Thing

Only ever.

My hands are shaking badly enough that I flatten them against the brick and focus on the grit scraping my palms. The roughness. The sting. Anything but the impossible fact that after ten years, one nickname from him can still undo me.

“Don’t worry,” Mrs. Kravitz says from somewhere to my right.

I open one eye.

She’s standing just beyond the patio fence in a floral blouse with her sunglasses pushed up in a way that says she saw everything and has already categorized it under Important Local Developments.

“I promise,” she says kindly, “everyone has a moment like that eventually.”

I blink at her.

She smiles. “Some of us just have witnesses.”

I still don’t say anything.

“Toot. Toot.” Then she walks off.

I let my head thump lightly back against the wall.

I knew this would happen.

Not this exactly. I didn’t specifically predict being taken out at the knees by a nickname in a coffee shop, but him. Seeing him. Hearing him.

And he didn’t look angry. That would’ve been easier.

He didn’t look distant either. That would’ve hurt, but at least it would’ve made sense. It would’ve matched the story I’ve told myself for years.

The one where I made a mess of everything and Jake moved on.

But he didn’t look at me like that.

He looked at me likethere you areinstead of where have you been.

And the way he said my name. Not Emory.

Mo.

Like it still belonged to me.

Like it still belonged to us.

That almost undid me.

I should leave. I should go anywhere else. Back to Holey Moley. Into the bay. Whatever gets me away from the fact that I just walked past Jake Wheeler the way I did ten years ago.

I push off the wall just as a seagull lands in front of me with a slap of webbed feet against the crushed shell.

He slides one foot, low and weird, like a tiny feathery bull preparing to charge. Then he starts squawking and pumping his wings up and down.

I stare at him.

He stares back.

“You do not want to start something with me today.”

He puffs up and slides a foot again.