It's Different This Time

by Joss Richard

Though driving is something I had to get used to once I moved to Los Angeles, the alone time in bumper-to-bumper traffic slowly became second nature. But sitting on the subway, I remember the way people are so exposed to one another here, how you can feel a sense of community.

“June,” he says, looking at the name card I drew myself with a small sunflower on the top right instead of at the book. “Is that short for anything?” “Just June.” I humbly shrug. “It’s my favorite month.” “No it’s not,” I say, a laugh escaping me. “It is,” he says, giving a single nod. “The end of school, the start of summer. What’s not to love?”

“Favorite month?” I raise my eyebrow. He stops the fast pacing of our back-and-forth and looks at me. He’s been looking at me, but now it feels different. “Still June,” he says, and I realize I’m holding my breath.

More nostalgia is the last thing I want, but being here feels exactly as it did before. It’s funny how the world turns, changes through the years, yet a structure surrounded by brick will stand still in time.

It’s then that I catch Adam in the backyard on the phone, which brings an all-too-familiar feeling of comfort. The saying “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” is proving to be true,

Adam’s acting like we can pick up from where we left off, like everything is normal. I can’t pretend it didn’t take me weeks to stop crying every night, months to try to move on, and years to forget about him.

I stg if this issome stupid miscommunication ill be so mad

Abruptly, I get off the couch and head up the stairs. I don’t bother to look back. I slam the door shut and open a window to kill the smell of garlic.

Ugh she is lowkey inssufferable

“It’s delicious, Adam,” I say sincerely, and he smiles. He smiles like every critic’s praise in The New York Times doesn’t mean anything and like his restaurant hasn’t been booked solid since the day it opened. He smiles like my uneducated palate is the only opinion he cares about.

On some level, I’ve always pushed harder to prove my mother wrong, for her to open up the morning paper and see my name in the Arts and Entertainment section, for my dad to think that maybe it was a mistake to leave. But wishing things were different is no use—people leave and people disappoint you. It’s those who have yet to realize that whom I feel bad for.

He wipes a tear from my cheek. It’s intimate, but not in a romantic way—in a way that says you will always have someone who supports you.

Adam and I walk around Rockefeller Plaza and then down to the Bryant Park holiday market, which is a few blocks away.

My dream

“Good,” he says, and his gaze shifts to our knees, still touching. “I don’t like seeing you sad.”

“You know, despite being just friends”—he pulls me up from the bench and we walk over to the skate rental booth—“this is still the best date.” “Why?” “Because I know that whatever happens tonight, you’re still coming home with me.” He winks.

Smooth haha

“Perry is home,” Adam says intently, and it knocks the wind out of me. “And I’ve always been most comfortable with you. Maybe I thought you’d feel the same way.”

I wish more than anything I had told her what it was. But I guess life gives us twists of our own…and it doesn’t wait until we get to the end.

As my eyes close, I have a frightening thought—I have no interest in lying next to someone who isn’t him.

We’re roommates, or we’re friends. But in the past few years, things haven’t felt as black-and-white, and we’re now in a foggy gray territory. We’re best friends. We’re best friends who live together. We’re best friends who live together who have a suppressed physical attraction…but definitely aren’t dating.

Situationship final boss

“Option three is it works out and you get something so much better. All I’m saying is life is short.” He places his hand over mine, and my throat begins to swell. “There’s no way to preserve anything forever. Trust me, I know. You win, you lose…but you can’t do either unless you take a chance.”

Adam’s talking about making a life-changing decision with someone who isn’t me, like I don’t matter. Since when do I not matter to him?

BECAUSE HE TRIED AND YOU SHOT HIM DOWN

Maybe that’s how life is—we do things because it’s the best decision we can make in the moment, and there’s no way of knowing if we made the right choice. There’s no way to gauge if all of it’s for nothing, or if it’s so we can have everything.

“You really don’t get it, do you? I want you,” he says. “The years I spent with you were the happiest I’ve ever been. I chased that feeling and I couldn’t find it. So no, I don’t care about a family and a marriage, or any of those things I thought were important. I care about being with someone who makes me happy. In whatever way they want to be with me.”

“June…” There’s a groove in between his brows and his eyes are darting back and forth between mine. “Don’t you know by now that it’s you? It will always be you.”