They went to Waffle House the next night, because it was late and Autumn was hungry and she wanted strawberry pancakes before she choked someone. But soon things started going horribly wrong. First Waffle House notified her that they were out of whipped cream, which was a huge crisis in Autumn World. Then they started playing one of Summer’s favorite songs, To Die in Your Arms by Saviour, and Autumn’s mood sank even lower as the spare guitar chords and haunting voice drifted down from the speakers, an unwelcome burst of rain on an April afternoon. “I run from everything that loves me / I run to everything that kills me. Lord knows I’ve run you off / but it would be a privilege to die in your arms.” As Hank sat there playing on his phone, Autumn fell so deep within the feelings inside herself that it made her despondent. Hank was gracious and beautiful and smart. Why was he wasting his time with her? Why couldn’t he just let her be?
Soon Autumn was crying again, and Hank was staring, confounded once more.
“Why are you crying?” he asked. She wiped her mascara-ruined cheeks. Why was she crying? She was building her life around him and she had no idea what to do about it. She was growing petrified of how badly she would fall apart if Hank were to fly the coop, or worse, if she were to kick him out of it. And she didn’t know how much longer she could stand still without running.
She sniffled. “I’m crying because this place is all out of whipped cream and I don’t know how to be an adult and I might love you forever and sometimes it really makes me just want to lay down and die.”
He frowned, took her hand. “I knew this was coming.”
“You did? …How?”
“I just knew something was on your mind. Your eyes aren’t here. When you kiss me sometimes, they’re just…gone. And I know what’s haunting you. It’s haunting me too.”
Autumn just stared at him.
“Do you miss her like I do?” he asked in a low voice, looking away. She was silent for a moment, then she decided to play dumb.
“Who?”
“You know who.”
She stared at the wall as the truth rushed in. “I miss her so much, I’m afraid it’s going to eat me alive some days.”
They didn’t say much after that. They didn’t need to. When you find someone who understands your pain, who looks into your eyes and sees what you are feeling, you don’t have to say anything. They know.
Soon, though, he pointed at the photo of Summer on Autumn’s keychain, smiling with Autumn on the beach next to a sand castle her little brother had made on an August afternoon. “That picture,” he said.
“What? I can take it off.”
He sucked in some air, blew it out. It seemed sensual to Autumn in some weird way. “Shit, it’s not just the picture. I love seeing her. And God, I loved her, and everyone knew it. But it’s the shadow of her that gets to me.” He peered deeper into her eyes, past the things she tried to hide from him, from the world, from herself. “I’m just as deep in this thing as you are. But the thing is…how can we move forward when the past is right here, literally staring us in the face?”
She didn’t say anything. He cleared his throat. “We’ve got to let go of the Summer thing.”
“But I-”
“Let me speak, Autumn.” He rarely said her name aloud, and when he did, she listened. “You know what I’m talking about. She’s everywhere, most of all in your eyes. I loved her, but you can’t start a new fire under a shadow. If we’re going to move forward, you’ve got to get over this. And I know you know what I’m talking about.”
Tears filled her eyes. “How?” she asked, and he bit his lip until he almost thought he could taste blood.
“By admitting that she would want us to swim instead of sink. The cancer fear is bad enough for this relationship. Don’t add onto the pileup.”
Another long pause.
“Why do you even care about this so much all of a sudden?” she finally asked.
“I don’t know,” he said, almost absently. “I guess because I think about your future a lot. I kind of want to be your future, actually. And we can’t make a future together while you’re like this.”
“Okay,” Autumn finally said, after her cheeks had returned to a less embarrassing color. Now that she thought about it, she definitely felt it, too, some indescribable sense that somehow, somewhere, Summer wanted them to move on from this, that she didn’t want to watch Autumn cry in a dirty booth at Waffle House. Or was she imagining it? “I’ll try to let her go,” Autumn said. “But I’ll never forget her.”
“Come here,” Hank said, his face breaking. He reached over and twisted his arm around her shoulder, a root protectively growing around a fire hydrant, a single knob of love and comfort. “You’d be crazy if you did.”