Autumn Walk (Credit: Elin Tan on DeviantArt)
Now Playing: – “Everything Falls Apart” – The One AM Radio
Waking up with Allison Graves’ head on my chest was not something I ever truly imagined. In the abstract, maybe I thought about it once or twice. Raven hair splayed across my chest, her even and steady breathing, and an arm draped across my torso as if to claim me as her own fill me with an undeniable warmth. This was easily the best sleep I’ve gotten in months. Even though I was tormented with all of my sins last night as I drifted off, the moment Allison kissed me good night silenced the unholy chorus in my head.
It feels so perfect.
Of course this morning brings its own nightmarish quandaries and recriminations. First, I am a royal asshole to officially break up with Jordan and within an hour, I have Allison in my bed. Second, what the hell are we going to tell Martin because he will have an adverse reaction in light of number one. Third, what does this even make us?
I don’t care. The morning warmth gives me peace.
Allison’s face buried in my chest causes a slight buzzing with her morning murmurs. Reflexively, I kiss the top of her head, and she holds me just a bit tighter. Last night’s ugliness gave way to fulfilling sleep and a picturesque morning. It’s the first morning I’ve enjoyed waking up since Reilly got engaged and Allison came back to town. The eye of the hurricane.
“Morning sleepyhead,” I softly greet my…best friend? Girlfriend? The layers of confusion threaten to ruin a nice moment, even as I gently tangle my hand in her raven hair. It’s silky soft and wraps around my fingers like ribbons of clouds, and it smells of rosemary. Feeling her is supremely comforting, easing an often rapid heartbeat and unsteady breathing.
“Hey,” her voice has that deep, husky, inexact, sleepy spin to it which feels glorious in its intimacy because so few people get to hear it. I barely get to see the stormy oceans in her eyes because she still hasn’t come close to waking up yet. Operating at minimum power. It’s completely adorable. She gives me a tired smile when I kiss her forehead again. Everything about waking up with her fills me with peace and contentment.
Of course, this gets interrupted by both our phones buzzing on my nightstand. Seeing as I’m the more awake of the two of us, I gently pull myself over to the edge of the bed while permitting Allison to remain resting on top of me. She nuzzles my chest in appreciation of the extra effort as I stare at the text message heralding annoying news.
“Fuck, Martin’s going to be here any minute,” I sigh. He’s going to ruin our morning cuddles. Oh shit, he doesn’t know. Martin’s going to be here any minute and Allison just slept in my bed with me. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck.
Allison bolts upright with the same panic I now feel. “Well, then we need to get dressed and look like we didn’t spend the night in each other’s arms!”
“No shit!”
The panicked adrenaline did more to wake us both up than an injection of pure caffeine. I scramble to my dresser to grab clean clothes. No heed is paid to my level of exposure as I throw on jeans and a t-shirt in front of Allison. Not exactly the idea I had as to how we’d make our presence known as a couple to our best friend, but fate has forced our hand.
“Quick, get dressed and stall getting the door for him.” Allison has a blanket wrapped around her, and I cannot tell if it’s modesty or cold.
“He has a key,” I admit sheepishly.
“Oh my god, you two have keys to each other’s houses?” Allison hisses while scrambling to find her sweats from last night. “You are so pathetic.”
“His drum kit is here! It’s for the band!” I protest in a low voice. A disapproving look informs me that my feeble attempts to convince her of anything but a somewhat intensely codependent friendship being at play are unsuccessful. She forgoes responding to me to pull on her sweats over the parts of her pajamas that stayed on all night. The front door opens, and I kick her pajama shirt under my bed before bolting to the couch. She sits on the other side, and I expectantly look at the door for him to come in.
In contrast to the two of us, Martin is completely put together. With a white cable knit sweater, jeans, and his brown boots, he looks like an archetype of a dignified coastal man, not a hair out of place. Either he has a date today or he’s just showing off. Meanwhile, we look like total wrecks, which gives me a pang of annoyance. Just can’t catch a break these days.
“Jesus, you’re already here? Aren’t you nocturnal?” Martin wastes no time with pretenses. He scans the room, narrows his eyes, and a slight disapproving scowl curls its way onto the corner of his mouth.
“Oh, I came over and we got a head start,” Allison states, unconvincingly. Even a first year high school theater kid would call that bad acting.
“Uh huh.” Martin’s flat voice makes it clear he doesn’t buy it. “If you guys got a head start on it, why are the letters still in a pile on your table.”
“We were just talking,” I sigh, rubbing my eyes for dramatic effect.
Martin remains unconvinced, but I manage to steer him towards the letters. While Martin and Allison start organizing them chronologically, I close the door to my bedroom and take down the poster for our evidence board, including the notebook. As we discuss, a pattern begins to reveal itself: mom left coded references to venues in various places, song lyrics related to her living place, and some other cryptic clues like veiled references to local locations. Our research is aided by mom’s book and Allison’s quick searching using my laptop.
We trace her trail over the last five years, starting in Grantchester, leading to Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, followed by Charleston, South Carolina. A few months later, she’s in New Orleans for close to a year, then onto Kansas City. She spends almost a year in Denver. The second-most-recent letter makes reference to mountains which can only indicate Seattle, even though the most recent letter offers no clue as to its origin.
It’s the best we’ve got. At some point during our problem solving exercise, my dad poked his head into let us know he was leaving for the bakery. Thankfully, he popped in during a tangent and didn’t get a close enough look at what we had been doing for the previous hour. The following hour went by with much more enthusiasm. After two hours of work this morning, we all make note of our grumbling stomachs. Martin suggests we take a break and find breakfast somewhere, to which a tired Allison and I concur.
“I gotta get dressed,” Allison huffs.
“You’re wearing clothes,” Martin shrugs, not seeing the problem.
Allison fixes him with a glare. “Barely. I didn’t think we’d be going anywhere.”
Martin makes some dismissive quip but otherwise ignores it. Allison gets up off the couch, grabs her bag from next to my desk, and kisses me on the cheek before heading for my bathroom to get dressed. A giddy smile springs onto my face, interrupted when I feel the puncture wounds from Martin’s laser gaze.
“What the hell was that?”
I open my mouth to make up some story when he waves me to stop talking. He holds up one finger in a rage, and his mouth twists into an irate scowl. One deep breath in, and then he lets loose. “I cannot fucking believe you two.”
“It just happened!” My voice raises two octaves defensively, which does not help my case at all. Who the fuck does he think he is, talking to me like I’m a damn child. I clench my fist, Martin flares his nostrils, we tense up to jump at each other’s throats. Martin’s cold sneer stays my hand. He could take me in a fight, and I know it.
“Did you ever think to maybe, just maybe, resist giving into your base urges and practicing some prudence?”
“What are we, a fucking poet now?”
Martin glares at me as if he was going to put me through a plate glass window. “Mother fucker, you don’t get cute with me. You don’t get to skip off with Jordan and a few hours later, have Allison stay over. It validates every single concern she had which led to Friday night.”
That’s the flat of a longsword smacked against my spine. The sonic booms return and shatter the stained glass I painted in my head of the idyllic life I was about to lead. Truth be told, I am a lying bastard who might as well have fucked somebody else myself and then spat on Jordan’s mother. Haven’t given two flying fucks about her this whole time, only myself.
Allison rejoins us with her hair tied back into a ponytail, a pair of jeans, and a blue and green flannel on, looking ready to go out into the world, and fitting some measure of New England stereotypes. Her smile is bashed to pieces when she sees Martin’s face.
“You and I had a conversation not eighteen hours ago about this!” Martin snaps at Allison, which causes her to shrink down. She tries to press herself against the thick wooden door out of shame.
“I know, I was stupid,” she barely manages above a whisper.
“You’re goddamn right about that. You both are fucking awful. So, I mean, what are you now? Is this serious? Or are you two as much of a joke as I think you are right now?”
Allison and I share an uncomfortable look. Obviously, we were planning on talking about it this morning, which then got nixed by Martin’s sudden arrival. He looks back and forth between the two of us and quickly does the math. “Oh, you morons never had the conversation.”
“You interrupted,” I growl.
Martin sighs and rubs his temples for a moment. “We need breakfast. You know what I like from the diner. You two will go and pick up breakfast. While you walk there, you will have the discussion you need to have. You will return with the food and we will discuss next steps on the focus of today’s efforts.”
Both of us go to protest, and Martin shuts us down hard with another angry glare, and a further exploration of how we were both insensitive, and doing ourselves and our relationship a disservice by getting together so quickly after Jordan and I broke up. He lands a few shots in on Allison for her own lack of restraint.
Neither of us can muster an argument against Martin’s commands, so we’re being hastily ushered out the door with barely enough time to grab our coats. I know he’s right, privately. However, I’m never giving Martin that satisfaction. He’d lord it over me for time eternal, and I cannot hear the gloating around being right about something as big as this for the next fifty years.
He opens the door and practically shoves us out of it before we can even pull on our coats. “And with all that being said, it’s about damn time, you two.”
Then he slams the door in our faces.
Now Playing: “October Sun” – Matt Berry
The sunlight is warm and comforting, but the wind carries the bite of late October. Halloween is approaching rapidly, and with that comes the Halloween parties we are duty-bound to play by virtue of being budding musicians who like to make money. If I hadn’t been party to the positive developments of last night, I’d expect this is why Allison seems to be a bit bouncier this morning. She has always said the fall is her favorite time of year. I’ve always been more of a Christmas man myself. Day after Thanksgiving, the house gets decorated, and my extensive collection of Christmas music gets broken out for the next month. But Allison lives for these Massachusetts falls, and she says it was never quite the same out in the evergreen state.
The leaves on our trees over on the better coast are a wonderful warm-hued kaleidoscope of yellows and oranges and reds with a dash of lingering green here and there. The sun is a touch golden this morning, breaking through the barest of scattered clouds to paint our hometown as about the most idyllic I’ve ever seen it. The wind carries the smell of saltwater deep into town.
“So,” Allison draws the first thing either of us have said since we left the house out to an almost uncomfortable length by the time we reach the diner.
Our hearts ushered us here, now it’s time for the brains to bring us home. We agree that we should have talked this morning, but that it was hard to break the spell of such a perfect morning together, for the first time ever in this way. Then she says how she did want to talk this morning before Martin came over which resulted in it becoming a whole thing.
“So,” now it’s my turn to draw out the word uncomfortably long.
Footsteps on sea-battered brick and pavement, the sounds of the last birds giving their calls for the last groups out of town, cars passing by as people enjoy a lazy Sunday morning, and ocean breeze shifting leaves and carrying the faintest hints of sap and sea salt, but the only thing I can’t hear is the voice I haven’t been able to get enough of since she came back.
With my stomach churning the way it is, I’m not sure I can even get food down. Hunger and anxiety are an evil combination. The twisting and writing gets eased when Allison takes my hand, even though it’s ice, I don’t care. Her soft skin on my calloused musician’s hands is all I need for the moment.
“Can I say my piece?” Allison stops and twirls around to face me. I sigh, get lost in her blue-gray eyes for a moment, and nod silently. She likes to have guts where I fall short, apparently.
“I’ve had a crush on you since we were in high school, and I have thought it about every day since I made the decision to leave. I was shitty. I never should have pursued you with Jordan in the picture, and I’m sorry I got selfish.”
“Allison, it’s okay, I promise. Look, I’ve been pissed as hell, and your timing couldn’t have been worse, but I think there has always been something here. I played dumb since you came back because it was so challenging to face. I wanted you. I almost kissed you at the point, but I didn’t want to be that guy to Jordan. I was mad that you came back, still mad you left, mad at mom and transferred it to you, and I was mad that you took so goddamn long to say anything about it.”
“Well, I’m not waiting any longer. You’re mine, Casey Adams.”
Our first real kiss takes place on a crowded street, with the Sunday morning crowd walking to their morning destinations and we don’t give a damn. There’s electricity striking on worn brick sidewalks next to a cupcake shop, and the heat from it threatens to render our jackets irrelevant. Last night was a moment of tragic desperation and an exhausted inability to deal with our emotions in a healthy way, and maybe that’s what it took to finally break the dam.
“So, what does this make us?” I ask once the kiss ends. The stormy seas in her eyes are calm and glowing in both the warm October sun and the glory of the moment. I gently kiss her forehead.
“Allison Graves, I have wanted to be your boyfriend for a long time. Whether I realized it or not at any given moment, I feel the best when I’m with you. I’m in it to win it.”
“Perfect answer, Adams.”
She pulls me into another deep, slow kiss which melts the rest of the world again. We probably could stay here all day long, but my stomach grumbles in an annoying reminder of my current hunger. The denizens of Grantchester would probably thank my stomach for its service. At my urging, we continue our trek to the diner and coordinate with Martin via text message on his order.
So, Allison is my girlfriend now. The jokes everyone used to make have now become the truth. Walking with her close to me and her hand in mine quiets the storm which has raged inside my head unimpeded for weeks. I am still strongly displeased with my own actions regarding Jordan, and she is owed a full apology in the future. When things are less intense.
It’s difficult to intellectualize any emotions I have about Allison though. She’s just Allison. The person who knows how I think better than anyone else, save maybe my father and possibly Martin. The person I know best in the world. We can never truly fight or get rid of each other, it just doesn’t make sense. It’s not that it’s such a horrid thing to think about, I know for me, it feels like when a computer hits the error for an impossible operation: the idea literally cannot be considered.
I sure hope she feels the same way.
The remainder of the walk to the diner is pleasant. Quiet, but pleasant. For the first time since she’s returned, we get to just be with each other, no pretense or subtext or uncomfortable truths we’re trying to avoid. She calls in the order to the diner, and we enjoy a few moments of peace in the late October air.
The walk back to my house is similarly pleasant, uneventful, and peaceful. The last forty-five minutes or so have been the easiest I’ve breathed since, well, probably since she left. It was as though a piece of me had been missing for so long that I only notice its renewed presence because its absence had become so achingly familiar. I love her, with all my heart, and if I have my way, nothing will ever separate us again. Even saying that just to myself is a milestone, because I haven’t consciously admitted it yet.
The one thing I still can’t get past is that Allison Graves is finally my girlfriend.
Now Playing: “Caught by the Light” – The Boxer Rebellion
Martin welcomes us back home like an amused parent watching their teenager try to sneak back inside after being out all night. I preemptively shut him down by reminding him that I have provided pancakes and if he wants any, he should mind his words carefully.
We conquer the kitchen table with an aggressive expansion of breakfast foods, including – but not limited to – pancakes, eggs, sausage, hash browns, and specialty coffees for the two coffee drinkers among us. I pour a glass of water and get an inordinate amount of grief over how boring I am.
We make small talk about the weather, and about our hometown, and everything we can to avoid crashing at Mach Jesus into the mountain looming over us from the fog. Martin finally asks how our talk went, and I delay with a bite of pancake lathered in maple syrup, to buy myself a moment longer.
“We’re officially dating,” Allison steps up to answer instead. Great, my girlfriend of all of twenty minutes has more balls than I ever will. Way to be worthy of all this chaos, Casey.
“Good. Because if this ended in a ‘Well, we’re going to wait and see, take it slow,’ and all that jazz, then I was going to be pissed,” Martin raises his cup of coffee in salute to us. “May you find joy, happiness, and the inside of a therapist’s office.”
Allison and I flip him off. In unison. With zero hesitation.
“We have another pressing concern.” My hopes to quickly move on from the nascent relationship that Allison and I have found ourselves in lead to an even bigger gauntlet to run. There’s an eagerness to leap from the frying pan coupled with a hesitancy to fall into the fire, but we jump nevertheless.
“The last place we know his mom was is Seattle.” Allison takes my hand again when she delivers the statement. She holds it tight, and I know Seattle is on her list of no-go areas, alongside St. Louis, Scranton, Houston, and the entire state of Minnesota. Except, instead of the knuckleheaded reasons like the others, Seattle is because she doesn’t want to face her father.
I know that feeling.
For all my bluster about finding mom before Reilly’s graduation party in a few weeks, my heart has been beating at a frantic pace and thunderous intensity since we worked out she was in Seattle six months ago. We are as close as we possibly can be to finding her and facing her will be the biggest challenge of the entire endeavor.
Just like Allison’s will be facing her father.
Allison takes a deep sigh and squeezes my hand so tight it threatens to cut off blood flow. “We should go to Seattle. My dad might know something.”
“I’ll be right beside you, whatever you have to face, we’ll face it together,” I reassure her.
“Flag on the play,” Martin interjects, “How are we going to pay for an expedition like this? And Casey, you and I both have responsibilities. You’ve been skipping work a ton lately. Dan loves you, but even he has his limits.”
“I’m not worried about it; we’ll figure it out.” I dismiss him.
“Dude, you’re forcing me to be the voice of reason, and it’s not a good look for me!” Martin snaps.
He’s right. None of us have the cash for this. I barely had enough for a night in Asbury Park, plus gas and tolls to get us down there. I can’t cover Seattle. Martin shouldn’t because he’s the least involved. And Allison hasn’t held a job since June. Plus, she just left Seattle a month ago.
“You’re right,” I sigh. “Maybe we can call him.”
“Or I could help.”
My father stands in the doorway with a sad smile on his face. My mouth drops, losing a piece of pancake. Allison drops her fork with a piece of sausage on it. Martin almost does a spit take with his coffee. I turn to Martin in fury.
“You never told me he came home while we were out!”
“I didn’t know!”
“I had to get some of the paperwork for the supplier coming to the bakery today, forgot it this morning. I just got back a few minutes ago,” Dad explains, entering the kitchen and leaning back on the counter, crossing his arms.
“So you know what I’ve been up to?” I ask, defeated.
“Casey, I’ve known the whole time. Hell, why do you think I gave you the car?”
“Cause you thought mom was never coming back?”
He laughs, hard. It’s off-putting to say the least.
“Because I needed a smokescreen to give you the book. If I just gave you that, you’d get suspicious. Or you’d try to work it with me, and I am still too angry at your mother to be of any use. But, I knew if I gave you the car and the book as a side piece, you’d get distracted by the puzzle. And when you couldn’t solve it alone, that you’d bring Martin and Allison into it, and you all could figure this out together.”
“And uncle Derek?”
“I pushed Reilly to let him and aunt Lucy know about the engagement. I know my brother-in-law well enough that I knew he’d text you about mom.”
Son of a bitch, my father outplayed me. The man arranged the chess pieces the whole time knowing how I’d react. How everyone would react. I’d be mad if it wasn’t so impressive.
“Other dad, you’re a crafty bastard. Respect.” Martin offers his kudos to my father in the most Martin way possible, alongside a fistbump. Which my father accepts with a smirk.
“Appreciate it, other son,” dad responds in kind. My father’s easygoing nature even in the face of all of this breaks my tension. It’s certainly going to make walking around here easier without the weight of secrets around my neck at all times.
“Did you know about the poster?” I ask. Now dad looks confused, and questions me on it. I grin proudly. “The poster. My Revenge of the Jedi poster. On the back of it was my evidence board. That’s how I tracked everything, in plain sight.”
It’s my father’s turn to be impressed. Everyone always said I take after my mother, and I think I do in many avenues. But over the years, I’ve realized that some of my father’s best traits, like his attentiveness to others, ability to stay calm, and strategic thinking were all ones he passed down to me. I would never have gotten this far without him raising me.
I get up and close the gap to give him a giant hug. “Thank you for teaching me how to be who I needed to be to do this.”
“I love you, Casey.”
“Love you too.”
“So, Seattle. We’ve got enough in the vacation fund to get some plane tickets. You three are going to go out there and follow the trail.”
I break from the hug so that I can stare him in the face because I cannot believe the words he just said.
“Are you serious?”
“Yes, Casey. Just don’t say anything to Reilly. I don’t want her getting her hopes up for something that may not happen. I’ll try to keep her distracted while you’re out of town. I’ll save the revelation that you and Allison are finally dating for when I need to give her something big to freak out over.”
Allison actually does a spit take this time. “You knew!?”
Of course dad knew.
“Allison, you and Casey have been in love with each other since you two were learning phonics. Of course I knew. And I knew you stayed over last night. I get that I’m a lot more mellow these days, but I used to get up to all sorts of dumb shit when I was younger. For the record, it’s about damn time.”
Dad’s support nets some confused but well-meaning silence. It seems that we’re headed to Seattle to meet with Allison’s father, which I know is not sitting well with her, and I appreciate the sacrifice she’s making for my sake. I’ll need some more time to process the last twenty-four hours. And if the discussion that Allison, Martin, and my father are starting to engage in, I’ll have one or two weeks until we hit the west coast to process. And then it’ll be a sprint to the finish. Maybe Seattle can give some healing to all of us.
Regardless, when all is said and done, nothing reveals what lurks beneath quite like an October Sun.
Ark of the Lost Angels 
Leave a comment