“It’s nice coming here,” Kasen said. “Hasn’t changed a bit.”
Strange. Kasen had been so adamant that he didn’t want to live in Coleman Creek because it was “boring” and “nothing ever happened.” Now, he sat across from me, apparently nostalgic about a place that epitomized the town’s slow pace and everybody-knows-everybody aesthetic.
“How long are you in town for? You’re staying through Christmas, right?”
“It’s open-ended. I can work remotely with my job, so I’m lucky there.”
“Yeah, it was a surprise when you texted that you’re doing that now. I’m shocked Myerson lets you work at home.” When we’d lived in Portland, Kasen had worked as an artist for a demanding graphic design firm that provided lots of opportunities for advancement but almost none for work-life balance.
“Um, I actually left Myerson a while back. Couldn’t keep doing the hours. I’ve been working for myself about three years now.”
“Oh.” This news drove home the point. I didn’t know Kasen anymore. “Well, congratulations on that.”
“Thanks.”
“I guess five years is a long time?”
“Honestly, Marley, five years is a lifetime. And a lot can happen in a lifetime. That’s kind of why I wanted to meet up.” He scraped a hand through his hair. “I don’t want to dump things on you when we’ve only just started talking again. But you need to know that I’ve changed my mind about a lot of stuff. Realized things I’d like to tell you. If you’ll let me.”
Eyeing his face, I dragged my gaze along the three freckles on his left cheek—the place I’d laid my first tentative kisses at age fifteen. I’d been wrong a moment ago. I did know Kasen. Not talking didn’t erase the knowing, the history. The eyes that had watched me drive away from Portland had been unsure. The ones looking at me now shone with regret.
But did he want to apologize? Or did he want to take back his decision?
There was no way.
“Kase—”
“Let’s not get into specifics right now, if that’s okay. I was just hoping to have a nice meal and learn about what you’ve been up to. I’m…grateful to be here with you.”
An immediate response eluded me. Time passed, and things changed. Wounds healed. But I liked his idea. Having a meal with Kasen—catching up—and maybe working our way to being friends. I realized I didn’t want to forget about him entirely.
The night stretched into dessert and a second round. Then a third. He laughed when I talked to him about work, and especially about the teachers who were still around from our own school days—now my colleagues. Kasen almost spit out his beer when I told him how I sometimes moved old Mr. Bailey’s lunch bag from one shelf in the staff fridge to another, just to mess with him. Eventually, we progressed to reminiscing about my mom. Kasen relayed how she’d helped him pick out the corsage he’d given me for our junior formal. For the second time that night, I had misgivings about asking him to stay away from the funeral.
We stayed until almost midnight, and he gave me a quick hug in the parking lot after walking me to my car.
“I know you’re away for the weekend, but maybe we can meet up again sometime?” he asked.
“Maybe. Let’s play it by ear.” I didn’t want to make any commitments without knowing how this weekend would go for James. “But you can text me.”
“I’ll do that. I had a great night.”
“Yeah. It was nice catching up.” He opened the driver’s side door for me, and I slid onto the pleather seat. In the rearview, I noticed him still standing there, watching intently as I drove away.
On Friday morning, we dropped the dogs off with Travis and Vivienne for the weekend before heading to Seattle and the reunion. James played deejay the whole way. He loved early 2000s indie bands, and I enjoyed the musical education as we traveled west along I-90.
Nerves were coming off him in waves, but he did his best to maintain steady conversation, including filling me in about his family.
“My parents are great people and we’re close. I’m sure they knew how things were for me in high school. Even though I tried to fool them and put on a brave face. Looking back as an adult, I can see that the situation was tough on all of us. They did their best to compensate by making our home life as good as they could. They didn’t embarrass me with questions about why I had nothing to do on the weekends, or why I didn’t bring friends over. I cooked food with my mom and fixed small machines with my dad. We always had in-progress games of Monopoly or Risk on the dining room table. My brother Leo is five years older, so he was away at college while I was at Seattle Elite. But he’d been the same as me—the scholarship kid at our school—so he understood some of what I was going through. Even though it wasn’t as bad for him. Whenever he came home to visit, we always hung out together. He was probably my best friend.”
My heart squeezed again for teenage James.
We arrived in Seattle before the sun set and pulled into the driveway of a cream-colored split-level home in the north end of the city. The small structure looked slightly out of place between the larger modern houses on either side of it.
James explained the incongruity. “Mom and Dad got the house in the eighties, before Leo was born. But most of the neighbors came in the past few decades. They bought up the little houses like ours and knocked them down to put up huge ones.” He pointed toward a small walkway between his parents’ lot and the one to the left of it. “It’s hard to blame them for building up. Much better view.”
I followed to where his finger pointed and saw we were on top of a hill, the steel blue water of Puget Sound visible in the distance.
We’d barely pulled our suitcases from the trunk when the door opened and a man who could only be James’s father filled the entrance. His beard mirrored James’s, except tinted gray. He was large in the middle and, well, everywhere. And maybe it was just the season, but his wide smile and kind eyes gave off distinct Santa Claus energy.
