And tomorrow, Adrian would be there.
I kept thinking one ugly thought.
What if Noah wanted him?
Not instead of me.
I knew better intellectually.
Emotion does not care much about intellect.
What if biology reached into fourteen years of work and demanded equal billing?
By five in the morning, I gave up pretending to sleep.
On the bookshelf was a photograph of Noah at five.
Missing two front teeth.
Holding a plastic basketball.
I picked it up.
“You better know what you’re doing, kid.”
He didn’t answer.
Photographs rarely do.
By seven that evening, Evermere High School Gym was packed.
Red-and-white banners.
Students with painted faces.
Parents squeezing into bleachers.
Pep band warming up loudly and badly.
I sat in the first row behind the team bench.
Same seat I had occupied almost every home game for years.
My coworker sat one row behind.
“You look sick.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
Then I saw Adrian.
He looked nothing like the man who disappeared fourteen years earlier.
Or maybe he looked exactly like him, only more expensive.
Dark coat.
