Daylight
1198 Words
They set the date for Saturday. 11:30 AM. Brunch. Public. Bright.
Sarah picked the place: a patio café downtown with bottomless coffee and no liquor license. “See?” she said when Adam raised an eyebrow at the menu. “No buffers.”
He almost smiled. “You thought of everything.”
“I’ve had seven years to think.”
The rules for the day were simple:
1. No apartments. 2. No nights. 3. No secrets. 4. If either of them felt the old pull — the one that made them stupid — they said it out loud.
“Like AA,” Adam muttered.
“Exactly like AA,” Sarah said. “Except the addiction is us.” It was weird, at first. Sitting across from her in sunlight, no shadows to hide in. He noticed things he’d missed in the dark: a small scar on her left eyebrow he didn’t remember, the way she shredded her napkin when she was nervous. She was real. Not a memory. Not a ghost.
“So,” she said after the waiter left. “One day at a time. What does today look like?”
“Today,” Adam said, “looks like I ask you questions I should’ve asked in college instead of just… pulling you into closets.”
She choked on her water. “God. We were feral.”
“We were.” He leaned forward. “So. Question one. What’s your favorite book? Not the one you told me in sophomore lit because you thought it made you sound smart. The real one.”
She blinked. Then she grinned, slow and real. “The Secret History. Donna Tartt. I’ve read it six times. You?”
“East of Eden. Read it after you left. Threw it across the room when I finished because it understood me too well.”
“See?” she said. “We can do this. New data.”
They traded new data for two hours.
Her favorite road trip: Highway 1, Big Sur, alone, windows down.
His: the apartment he lived in after Denver, because it was the first place he chose for himself, not for someone else.
Her biggest fear now: dying ordinary.
His: becoming his father. Quiet. Resentful. Half-alive.
Then the past walked in.
“Adam? Holy s**t. Adam Carter?”
Adam turned. Jake Morales stood there in a polo and khakis, holding a toddler. Jake had been their RA junior year. The one who wrote them up twice for noise complaints and once for a broken fire alarm they absolutely, definitely triggered.
“Jake,” Adam said, standing. “Hey, man.”
Jake’s eyes flicked to Sarah. “And Sarah Dyer. No way. You two… together again?” He bounced the toddler. “This is my daughter, Mia. Mia, say hi to Aunt Sarah and Uncle Adam. They were legends in Thompson Hall.”
Sarah’s smile went tight. “Legends is one word for it.”
“Man, you guys were inseparable,” Jake said, oblivious. “Remember that time we had to evacuate the whole floor because someone — not naming names — pulled the alarm at 3 AM? Good times.”
Adam felt Sarah go still beside him.
“Yeah,” Adam said. “Good times.”
Jake finally read the room. “Well. We should— Mia needs a diaper. Great seeing you both. Seriously.” He backed away, then paused. “For what it’s worth, you guys were the most in-love people I’d ever seen. Even when you were a disaster. You could feel it from the hallway.”
He left.
The silence he left behind was loud.
“In-love disaster,” Sarah said quietly. “That’s us. Put it on the book cover.”
Adam sat back down. “You okay?”
“No.” She met his eyes. “Because he’s right. We were. And I don’t know if that’s a compliment or a warning.”
Adam reached across the table before he remembered the rule. He stopped, hand in the air between them. “Can I?”
She looked at his hand. Then at him. “Yeah.”
He covered her hand with his. Just that. Palm to palm. No intertwining fingers. No heat. Just contact.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” she whispered.
They stayed like that for ten seconds. Maybe twenty. Then she pulled back, and he let her.
“Rule break?” she asked.
“Rule modification,” he said. “One day at a time. Today, we hold hands for ten seconds and the world doesn’t end.”
She nodded. “Okay. I can live with that.”
No flirting. No hands. Just words.
It was the most intimate thing they’d ever done.
They walked after brunch. Along the river path, with three feet of air between them at all times. Like two magnets turned the wrong way, fighting the pull.
“Tell me something ugly,” she said. “Something you never told anyone. Rule three: no secrets.”
He thought about it. “After you left, I slept with your cousin.”
Sarah stopped walking. “Emily?”
“Yeah.”
She was quiet for a long time. Then: “Why?”
“Because she looked like you. Because I was angry. Because I wanted to hurt you even though you weren’t there to hurt.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “It was once. I was drunk. I hated myself after.”
“Okay.” She started walking again.
“Okay?”
“Okay, you told me. That’s the rule. You don’t get to decide how I feel about it.” She glanced at him. “I’m not happy. But I’m not leaving. Not over something you did seven years ago when we were already broken.”
He exhaled. “Your turn. Something ugly.”
She didn’t hesitate. “I keyed your car. Senior year. After I found out about you and Becca from the floor above. I told you a drunk guy in the parking lot did it.”
Adam remembered. The long scratch down the driver’s side of his old Civic. “I spent $400 fixing that.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
He laughed, surprised. “God, we were awful.”
“We were.” She bumped his shoulder with hers, quick, then stepped back. “But we’re telling the truth now. That has to count for something.”
It did.
He walked her to her building. Stopped at the curb. 4:17 PM. Still daylight.
“Today was good,” she said.
“Today was good,” he agreed.
She rocked on her heels. “I’m not asking you up. But… same time next week?”
“Yeah.” He hesitated. “Sarah? I’m not scared of you. I’m scared of me with you. But I’m not leaving. Not today.”
She smiled, and for the first time since Rosie’s, it reached her eyes. “One day at a time.”
“One day at a time.”
He watched her go inside. Then he went home and didn’t text her. Didn’t need to.
They’d made it through daylight.
- Writer
