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    Nic came home from the Marines in June. I was 19.

           Jonah, Zach, and I met him at the Atlanta Airport at 5 pm. We hadn’t seen him since we had graduated high school a year ago.

           A year ago.

           Our words talked over each other, trying to catch each other up while also trying to impress.

           “No, dude, we had this crazy party, you should’ve been there,” Zach said, shoving his palm into Nic’s chest. Nic's face fell for a second before Zach added, “I mean. I wish you could’ve been there. Would’ve been crazier with you.”

           Jonah mentioned the motorcycle he and his father had been restoring. He brought up the annual Thanksgiving gathering that Nic had missed that past year, the first one in five years.

           Nic didn’t say much; he never had.

           I felt like I had nothing to add to the discussion. I hadn’t seen Nic in a year and I was 19. What was there to say?

           

        Sophomore year, I was dating a guy when I met Nic. My boyfriend was the one who introduced us, but when he and I broke up, Nic became one of my closest friends.

           I didn’t like him, but I wanted to. I thought I would try, at least, to like him, so I let him take me on dates and I let him joke about the menu at El Parillo and I let him hold my hand when we saw a movie. His hand was cold and he ate milk duds with the other. We went back to his place and walked around the lake in his neighborhood, trying to understand each other better.

           We sat on a bridge in the middle of the running trail and he kind of held my hand, but hesitated in grabbing it fully and strongly, like someone who is confident about women and life. I knew he wanted to kiss me and I ignored the fact that I didn’t know if I wanted him to, but I still let him. I thought of my mother and how her first kiss was in an ice rink. His kiss reminded me of what she must have felt like: frozen skin and the need to be warm. It was February.

           He stopped and put chapstick on. I think I laughed. He kissed me again with waxy lips. I told him I felt sick, could he take me home? Of course, he said, and kissed me again. I can still remember the taste of depression on his lips: metallic and hard.

           I was 19 and there he was in his Marines garb, looking too attractive and looking at me with eyes that I could love. I reminded myself that I couldn’t. Not again.

           “How are you?” He asked.

           He hadn’t asked anyone else and no one had asked him. I gripped the sign I was holding that said, Welcome home, f****r in glittery paint. We had thought it was funny, but now it just seemed hollow, awkward, a booming voice in a library.

           “Okay,” I said. It came out loud. We were used to reading our voices on Facebook.

           “You?” I asked, after too long.

           “Okay,” he replied.

           We got to Dalton’s house for Nic’s welcome home party. I was 19. I had drank a few times, but someone brought Jack Daniel’s and now I can never drink it without remembering the pain of it expelling from my throat and nostrils like a scream.

           I had five shots in the first hour. We played games and sat on couches. Music played and for some reason, I felt like I was not even there. I didn’t think it was the alcohol, but something else in the air: some sort of emptiness that made me feel like I was talking and walking through a frosted window or my ears had gone out, as if someone had exploded too close to me and all I heard now was the ringing. We all struggled to find commonality in the year we had spent apart. We lingered towards our anchor: “Remember that time…” reminiscing on high school. To say it was uncomfortable isn’t right. I felt like I had outgrown my friends, like the jeans I had loved in 6th grade. So we drank, hoping the slur would remove the awkwardness.

           I was sardined between two guys on a couch: Dom and Dalton. They stared at me as stories spilled from me that had no truth. Why did I tell them about sneaking onto the roof of the Baptist Church during winter break? That was not my story. It was someone else’s. I didn’t know those guys and suddenly I realized how close they were to me. I started to sweat, so I stood up quickly and began looking for Nic.

           I wandered outside to find most of the party in the dim porch lights smoking cigarettes. It was a habit I never took up, but I accepted the one offered to me nonetheless. I puffed, numbly, letting their words entwine with the smoke I exhaled. The words meant nothing to me, but I still watched them blow away with the smoke. There I was again - ears ringing, hiding behind some frosted window. But it was always winter, even in the hot, deadly months. Always winter and I was 19.

        Examining the slow burn of paper and tobacco, I wondered if my mother would be able to smell the smoke on my clothes when I got home. I began thinking of a believable lie to tell her when Nic came up to me. I wasn’t sure what to say.

           I was afraid I would vomit.

           We had talked a few times while he was gone. He had told me how much he hated the Marines and wanted to leave, but it was his only option; his parents couldn’t afford to send him to college.

           I admired his red hair and we stood there, looking. He pulled out a joint. Smoked the whole thing right there and I thought about what it would be like to run away with him, what it would be like if we really decided to leave and start over with only each other. We had talked about it once. But, I was 19 and really, we barely knew each other.

           Eventually, he walked away. I held my cigarette butt, letting it burn the tips of my fingers, turning them into crispy leaves. I looked out into the yard, wishing it were fall.  

        The strange dichotomy of fall always reminded me of my mother - her warm sweaters, encompassing her, her branches hidden beneath cashmere and wool. My mother, with her chestnut hair, was a changing season. She was the leaves on the ground and she was the leaves on the tree, waiting until the last day to give up, to surrender. Worn slippers left next to half - empty glasses, salt from the ocean burning your lips, and the soft stirring of tea at morning and at night - that was my mother. I loved her because I let myself love her. I let her in. I thought about that often - the love of a mother and how difficult it was to reciprocate. I always figured I had mother-like love. And that is why I was so confused why I did not love Nic. Maybe I couldn’t love. Maybe I was not like my mother at all. Maybe she was autumn and I was the rainy cold in the dead of winter.

        Thinking about my mother always exhausted me and made me feel guilty for a reason I couldn’t decipher. I decided to leave the group that I hadn’t said a word to and head back inside.

          

        I think it was late, but it may have been early. Someone offered me a drink as I walked inside. My ears were still ringing, but the sound was duller, calmer. In a strange way, it reminded me of being inside the womb, listening to the gentle rhythm of heartbeats as it surrounded you - warm; home.

But that was only in my ears; my body was cold in Dalton’s basement.

          

        I found a blanket and I decided to lie down. A minute or several went by before Nic came over and told me they were going to pick up beers - or, maybe it was weed. I told him to stay.     

Please.

He left.

           I was 19 and it was cold in Dalton’s basement.

           I was lying down. I thought of my mother and I promised myself, probably for the sixth time that week, to spend time with her. I thought of Nic and how maybe I would try again, to love him. Maybe. I started to remember things: my mother teaching me to dance in our small kitchen and making pancakes late at night, just because. My mother, telling me she loved me, every day, as I left for school - and me, never saying it back.

       

        I don’t know when I fell asleep, but suddenly I was awake. It was dark and I felt a body next to mine and I couldn’t see him, but I smiled at him anyway and scooted closer for the warmth. I could not tell or feel if my eyes were opened or closed - it was all dark.

           I awoke to hands. There were fingers and a noise. A voice. I can’t remember. I think I tried to speak. He told me to hush. I said Nic. It was dark. I was cold. I found a blanket. His fingers found me. He was not cold. I was 19.

           Eventually he stopped. I got up. I found Nic passed out on the floor on the other side of the room and I fell down to him, shaking. He woke up and put his arm around me. I was not cold anymore, but I did not feel warm or like this was home at all.

           I got up, found a toilet, and vomited.

           I walked outside where the dew had sprinkled over the grass and no one was awake yet. I drove, silently and I counted the white lines over and over -

One. Two. I wondered what my mother would say when I got back home and -

- three.

One. Two. I didn't want her to ask. I didn't want her to know.

Three.

I would tell her. One. Two.

I would tell her. If she asked.

Three.

If she asked.

One. Two. The space between my legs was itchy.

Three. I was 19.