The People We Keep(46)

“You got it for a sec?” Adam asks.

“Sure,” I say. He lets go to dig for the keys. The tree is too heavy. My hands slip and it slides down the stairs until the trunk hits the wall with a thud.

“Shit,” I say.

Adam laughs. He opens the door to the apartment and then runs down the stairs to grab the tree, carrying it back up all by himself like it’s not even heavy.

“I dented the wall.” I point to the trunk-shaped gash. “I’m so sorry.”

“Hey,” Adam says, “it’s part of our history.”



* * *



We don’t have a stand, so we put the tree in a bucket of rocks and Adam moves it around the living room looking for the perfect spot.

“A little to the right,” I tell him, and he scoots the tree, shuffling his feet along the floor. “No, left.” He shuffles back. “No. Maybe if you turn it just a little and then move it to the right?”

“Are you seeing how long you can get me to move this tree around the living room?” Adam asks, grinning.

“Yes.” I run away from him and jump on the futon like it’s base and I’m safe as long as I’m touching it.

Adam puts the tree down and charges at me, laughing. He picks me up by the waist and swings me around. “What am I gonna do with you, huh?” he says.

“Love me?” I say. We haven’t said the L-word since he said he thought he might love me the other day at the falls. We’ve avoided it. But then I just blurt it out, what I want most, like those are the only words that make sense.

“I already do,” he says, and puts me down. He takes his hat off my head and looks at me. “I love you, April. I completely and totally love you.”

“I love you too,” I say, and they are the biggest words I’ve ever said.

Adam scoops me up in his arms and carries me into the bedroom, and when he lays me down on the bed and kisses me, it’s totally different from all the other times we’ve kissed. He grabs my hair in his hands, and there’s an urgent feeling between us that hasn’t been there before.

This time when he goes into the bathroom, he doesn’t run the water, and he doesn’t stay in there. He comes back with a condom. And when we do it, it’s better than everything that led up to it. It feels like more than sex. Like I finally get it—all of it—understand what the fuss is about. It’s about him holding me tightly, my skin pressed against his skin and the way he kisses my neck, how he whispers, “I love you, April,” over and over again, and it all turns into something big and powerful and so much more than just two little people in a bed.

“This,” Adam says, when it’s over, “is the most right I’ve ever felt.” His cheeks are damp against mine, and I think it’s just sweat, but then he sniffles and it sounds like he’s crying.

“What?” I ask, without knowing what I’m really asking. I don’t know the right question or if there even is a question. But I know it’s the most right I’ve ever felt too, and I don’t want to cry. I want him to be happy with me.

“Can I tell you something?” he says.

“Yes.”

“When I was fourteen, I slept with my stepmother.”

“Oh.”

“I mean, she made me. And then she held it over my head that it happened. That she could tell my dad at any moment and he would send me away. So I didn’t tell him and I couldn’t stop her. But then he found out. He caught us.”

“Is that when you were homeless?” I ask.

I can feel Adam nod his head.

“I slept in the park or hid in the library. He didn’t even care until a cop caught me sleeping on a bus bench and brought me home. Then he sent me to live with my grandparents and told them it was because he wanted me in that school district.” There’s a super-long silence, but I can tell Adam isn’t waiting for me to say something, he’s trying to find his words. “My dad didn’t even leave her. Like I was the fault. I was the problem. Even though I was fourteen. He’s still married to her, I think. I don’t know for sure, but he didn’t leave her when it happened.”

“What about your mom?” I ask.

“She’s an alcoholic. I guess my dad felt like it was easier to pay her alimony so she could sit in her condo and drink herself to death. You know, instead of getting her help or caring.”

I hug him tight like somehow it could fix things.

“In college once,” he says, “I told one of my friends. We were up late drinking and I couldn’t get it out of my head, what happened, so I told him, because maybe it would make me feel better for someone to know. But he was all, ‘Dude! Older chicks!’ like it was something I’d chosen to do. It was the worst feeling, to have my friend not get that it wasn’t a good thing, that I was just a kid. So I never told anyone else.”

I squeeze him tighter.

“That’s why I took so long to—for us to—”

I kiss him so he doesn’t have to say it. “It’s okay. It’s nice that we waited.”

“I think I’m conditioned to feel like if I have sex, something bad is going to happen. Like it’s just wrong no matter what. Scars only fade to a certain point, you know?”