The Way I Am Now (The Way I Used to Be)

I wait until I’m out of the shower, in clean clothes, sitting at my desk in my bedroom, calm and collected, before I finally look at his texts.

It was nice to run into you tonight. I’ve

missed talking to you.

I’m sorry if I made things weird with your

boyfriend. He seemed pretty pissed. I

hope he understood . . . the way things

are between us. Do you want me to tell

him there’s nothing going on? I will if you

need me to. I just want you to be happy

Can I see you again before I head back to

school?

I’ve missed talking with you too

You didn’t make things weird, they just . . .

were

Tell me when/where. I’ll be there.Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

I wait an hour. I even call. I wait another thirty minutes. As I’m walking up to his house, I’m going over all the times I’ve done this before. In the dark. In the cold. Their house never changes. His cat darts off the porch as I approach, prancing down the steps like she was expecting me. When I reach down to pet her, I see something in the crack between the steps and the shrubbery. And as I get closer, I can tell it’s a phone. I pick it up and turn it over in my hands. Josh’s phone. The screen is cracked; the power is off.

The door swings open before I have the chance to knock.

“Oh!” I yelp, jumping back, nearly dropping Josh’s phone.

“I’m sorry,” the man who is basically an older version of Josh says. I’m momentarily muted as I take in the similarities. Same stature, same build, same facial structure, same eyes. If not for his weathered features or his salt-and-pepper hair, slightly different nose, this is Josh. “Can I help you?”

“Oh, um, I found this,” I tell him, holding the phone out. “It was lying in the walkway. I texted him, but I guess he didn’t get it. I called, too. Obviously this is why he didn’t answer.” I’m rambling now, and I can’t seem to stop myself. “But I thought maybe I should just come to see him instead. I wasn’t sure how long he’ll be staying in town and didn’t want to miss him.”

“Eden?” he asks, squinting at me as he takes the phone.

“Oh, right. Sorry, yes. I’m Eden.” I fidget as I stand there, getting so nervous—I hadn’t thought about his parents being here on a Saturday morning. Parents tend to hate me. Like they can smell trouble on me, fear that I’ll rub off on their kids.

“Matt,” he offers, pointing at himself, and I immediately think of the time Josh told me his middle name. Joshua Matthew Miller, he’d said, and I thought that sounded like the best name in the world. “The dad,” he adds when I don’t respond.

“Right, of course. Hi,” I say stupidly. “Is, um, is Josh home?”

The door opens wider, and his mom steps forward. I saw her only once before, when she was picking Josh up from school one day, but I immediately see Josh in her too. The same nose, same pretty mouth. But there’s a tightness in her features, a sharpness in her jaw as she meets my eyes.

“This isn’t a good time,” she tells me.

“Oh, sure. Okay, yeah.” I fumble with my words. “Can you let him know I stopped by?” I ask, and instantly regret it as his mom levels me with the most intense glare I think I’ve ever received from anyone and turns away without another word, leaving his dad there.

“S-sorry,” I stutter involuntarily, as I back away from the door. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”

“No, wait,” his dad says, and steps out onto the porch, pulling the door closed behind him. “There’s no need to apologize, you just caught us on a rough morning here.”

I nod. Of course I understand. I’m having a pretty rough morning myself. I don’t say that, though. I look around, trying to get my bearings, and that’s when I realize his car isn’t here. “Is Josh . . . okay?” I ask, my eyes setting anew on the shattered screen of his phone in his father’s hand.

“He’ll be fine,” he answers, which worries me even more.

I feel my hand go to my heart as it starts racing with my darkening thoughts. “His car’s not here. Nothing happened, right? There wasn’t some kind of accident or—I mean, he’s all right. Right? He’s not hurt or anything?”

“No,” he’s quick to answer. “God, no. Nothing like that. He’s just nursing a pretty wicked hangover this morning.”

“Josh is?” My voice squeaks. None of that makes sense. “But I saw him last night. He wasn’t drinking. He doesn’t drink,” I tell his father, who continues looking at me in a way that’s eerily similar to how Josh looks at me when he seems to think I know more than I’m letting on.

“Well,” he breathes. “He sure did last night.”

“Oh.” I exhale and let my hand fall to my side. “Okay. Will you tell him I came by?” I ask again, pretty sure his mom isn’t going to let him know.

“I can see you care about him,” he says. “Don’t you?”

“Yeah, I care about him more than . . .” I feel a little embarrassed at my honesty, but it makes his dad take another step toward me and I think maybe he’ll tell Josh I’m here after all. “Anyone,” I finish.

But he doesn’t let me in; he nods somberly and sits down on the top step of the porch. “You got a minute?” he asks.

I nod. He gestures for me to sit down. I do. He doesn’t say anything at first, and I start to wonder if I’m supposed to be speaking. I really don’t know the parental protocol here. He pats his shirt pocket and pulls out a soft pack of cigarettes, which looks rumpled and crushed like it’s been around for a while. “Do you mind?” he asks me, tapping the pack against his palm, a lighter tumbling out.

“No,” I tell him. “It’s okay.”

He plucks a cigarette from the pack and brings it to his mouth. He lights it, and as the smoke swirls around us, I feel my heart pounding, craving that relief, the immediacy of it.

He inhales deeply and says, while holding the smoke in his lungs, “Always trying to quit, but . . .” and then turns his face away from me to blow the stream of smoke out of his mouth. I’m suddenly so tempted to ask him for one, but then he immediately stubs it out against the concrete step after only that one long, deep drag. I’m not sure I’d have that kind of self-control.

“I remember when Josh was a kid, he loved comic books.” He pauses, smiling as he looks out into the yard. “We’d always read them together.”

I smile back, but I’m suddenly entirely unclear about where this conversation is heading.

“Every superhero has a fatal flaw,” he continues. “The thing about Josh is . . . he’s always been one of those people who cleans up well, if you know what I mean. Always so together on the outside, it’s easy to forget it doesn’t mean that’s how he really is inside. I’ve always thought that was sort of his fatal flaw.”

“I know,” I tell him, and he looks at me like he’s trying to figure out whether I really do know that about Josh or if I’m only agreeing for the sake of being agreeable.

“He’s turned into such a good person—no thanks to me, I’m sure you know that, too,” he slips in, but quickly continues. “I’m so proud of him, but I’m worried about him,” he admits. “He just cares so much about everyone else. He wants everyone to be okay. But I think he can get so consumed with worrying about other people, he isn’t caring enough about himself right now. Which scares me.”

I hold my breath, then exhale a short, nervous laugh. “I can’t tell if you’re blaming me or asking me to help.”

“Neither,” he says, standing up, bringing the shorted cigarette with him. “I just thought you should know.”

“Okay.” I stand up too. “Thanks for letting me know.”

“It was nice meeting you, Eden,” he tells me.

“Yeah, same.” I take only a couple of steps before I turn around. “Um, maybe don’t tell him I was here, then. I’ll just—I can catch up with him some other time, I guess. A better time,” I add, thinking of his mom’s words.

He gives me a classic crooked Josh smile as he holds up the phone. “I’ll make sure he gets this.”