The Adult

The afternoon is later than it feels. The sky becomes a sunsetting yellow. The kind of color a cowboy would have to walk toward. The window above my head opens, and Lee calls out to me that some game is on. I look toward the door where, always one second ahead, there is the possibility of myself. I think, Don't hurry. I stand slow. But don't wait.

Rachel kept looking up at Jones, who stood a few rows from us, at the front of the car. She put her hand on the back of an empty seat, which kept her balance as we rode. I wondered what kind of thoughts she had. During the day, did she carry her mind like a net above her head and then in evening write poetry at a desk?

"Jones is still a good teacher. And not a bad person." Her eyes reminded me of lilies because of how the petals curled back, as though overripe, as though begging. "And I don't think I'm a bad person either, and neither is Laura."

I wondered if she sounded hopeful, or if she'd decided.

"And neither are you, Natalie."

I lo

"Well-" Nora said. The cusp of leaving. I felt the beginning of absence. The beginning of myself standing alone.

"Do you think I'll see you again?" I asked.

I pressed the box of cupcakes harder into my stomach. I felt like they might press through my skin and sit as though I'd eaten them.

Nora looked at me as though I were real. &q

She took self-assured pauses, seemed not to care if we walked side by side but didn't speak. It was my inability to meet her on this silent bridge that led to her eyes pressing against mine.

Maybe doubting my intelligence, or depth of personality. I wondered if she didn't like me or if she looked at everyone this way, unable to stop herself from dee

She sat very upright. And I wondered if it was her uprightness that made the coat look so nice, expensive? Or if it was the coat itself that made her look so upright? I thought she looked the way you would expect a doorbell to sound. Bright with the anticipation of company.

I should say that I missed them, I should say that I missed Temagami. Although I wondered if those were the things that I really missed, or if I was longing for that soft spot the age where your parents look at you and you look at them back, and you're just their child. And you don't yet feel the strain of being something else. Of being yourself.