Late Afternoon

Max came by in the late afternoon, just before dusk and dinner time, a few days after he sent his letter.

"Hey, Joanna, some kid out here's lookin’ for a Joanie, is that who you are, today?" Sam shouted to me from the porch as I sat poised on the scarlet-colored antique sofa.

"Depends, is the kid's name Max?" I half-joked, but part of me refused to speak to anyone else.

"Hang on!" she put her head outside the door again. Her muttered conversation with the unknown was inaudible. She brought her head back inside the door and smiled at me, “Yeah, he says his name is Max." I stepped out onto the porch. Sam eyed me and retreated to the door slowly. I grasped the handle of the door and closed Sam inside.

She smirked at me, averted her eyes and clicked her tongue as she moved away from the door. I turned towards the warmth that caressed my back. It might have been the setting sun, but whatever it was, it was scorching me. I felt a warm breeze kiss my cheeks, “I was just thinking same old, Max-" I said to the door not turning around, still thinking Sam was playing a trick on me.

"-Jo, my chest, I mean my heart” When he said heart, I thought I might fall over. I turned around towards the voice, and there he was. “It is beating harder than when I ran track," he asserted his words in a hoarse whisper. "See?" He took my hand and put it to his chest.     

“Mmhmm." I held in a blissful sigh trying to save face. "I can feel that," His heart was, in fact, racing, and I felt my legs shake in step. He felt bigger than before, even stronger.

 "Joanie, I'm so-"

"-So-" I whispered.

"-So afraid this will be the last time we see each other…"

 My heart shattered so riotously, I feared that he might have heard it, but again, the new Joanna saved face. “We haven't seen each other in two years, it’s almost like it's the first time," I proposed this, reassuring him, for some idiotic reason, as I mentally put the pieces of my heart back together.

"That’s lovely. You’re so much better with words, I knew I was gonna fuck this up,” “I’m sorry Jo."

“Sorry for what?”

“I missed your birthday.”

I shrugged, “Nothing special happened.”

“Did your friends,” he says this and pauses as he eyes the screen door. “Take ya out?”

“Yeah, you know, we went drinking, but that’s nothing special,” I laughed through more idiotic words filling up this beautiful dream-like reality.

“Oh, Heart, I’m sorry I wasn’t here.” I heard him call me heart, but I pretended not to hear him and kept laughing. Then, I just started talking, absent-mindedly before I had the chance to realize what I was saying.

“You were, I thought about you the entire time.” I caught myself saying these words too late. I gasped with embarrassment.

“Really?” he chuckled.

“Uh, no! Why would I do something stupid like that?” I stopped talking and we locked eyes, and his smile ran away.

“Well, so, I'm moving to D.C.-”

“-So, you said, er, I mean, wrote.” I looked down uncertain.

“Might stay there if I, you know, get a job there and-"

I nodded and finished his sentence, "get married- "

"-What?" His voice cracked. “That’s not what I was going to say-”

"-Hmm?" I looked up absent-mindedly. My whisper buoyed on his pain. He said nothing just reached out and hugged me. His tight embrace squeezed tears out of my eyes. "I'm sure I'll see you, again, though." My lips shook as I let the words fall. I moved my arms free and clung to him, but my mind couldn't catch up, I no longer wanted time to keep moving forward, and I wanted a way to make it stop. I tried to swallow the words before they came out and moved the air and space about me, but it was too late. He pulled back and his eyes were so close I noticed the green flecks in them again.

“At the reunion?" He chuckled; his eyes were glossy. As he clutched my shoulder, I realized he was holding a book in his other hand. Before I could answer he spoke with conviction. "Take this; read it."

"Mm-kay," I said as I swallowed my tears.

"It's your birthday present."

"Oh." I began to have a vocabulary malfunction, the words twisted around my tongue.

"Go to school; do something brilliant, so crazy brilliant that you consider forgetting all about me,” his eyes met mine with intent and he stared at me until I knew he wasn’t kidding, “But it has to be brilliant enough that it’s worthy of forgetting me, and then you know just consider it. Don’t actually…” He smiled trailing off and the shakiness in his voice pulverized me. I could do nothing but nod as I looked at my feet. He touched my chin and lifted my head to make sure I was looking at him. “Don’t waste your life here.” He shot me a look that wasn’t sweetly reassuring, but deadly serious. The juxtaposition of the two looks reminded me he was two people. He left my side and ran back towards his car. It was the same car from before. It really was him. I watched him run and noticed the pained look on his face. Suddenly the words came back to me.

"Max!" I shouted at his back, in a way I thought knocked over the surrounding trees.

He stopped dead, turned around and looked up at me startled.  "Yeah, Joanie?"

“I-”

“Yeah?” he approached.

“I was just going to say the dumbest thing.” I was reaching out my hands, realized this and stuffed them in my pockets.

“Go ‘head?” he smiled and got a little bit closer, like he was trying to sneak up on me before I ran away.

I growled at myself and sighed looking at him. “When you do come back, we should go to the fair.”

“I’d like that.” he smiled, suddenly remembering his promise.

“…and Max?”

“Yeah?”

"You, too."

He shot me a disappointed look, but then nodded like he understood. He waved once, his arm making a circle in the air, he wiped his eyes with his arm, smiled and got inside of his car.

Sam walked out onto the porch as his engine was starting. "Who was that?" She posed inquisitively.

"Just an old friend." I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and thumbed through the book I realized was in my hands.