Just Like That

by Cole McCade

  “Summer.”

  He caught her with an oof, rocking back on his heels before righting himself and wrapping her up in a tight hug. “Hi, Mom.”

  “I was wondering when you’d get in. You didn’t call, you just—”

  “Sorry. I stopped by the school first.” He grinned wryly. “It’s burning again.”

  “Oh, it’s always burning. The fire chief doesn’t even bother unless they actually call anymore.”

  She pulled back, gripping his arms and looking up at him with a measuring gaze, blue eyes bright against the dark twist of her hair; when had those jet-black locks started to fade to iron gray?

  When had she become so frail, the bones of her hands pressing into his skin?

  But her presence was still larger than life, as she gave him a once-over and clucked her tongue primly. “Look at you. Have you been eating? You’re too thin.”

  He laughed, taking her arm and nudging her toward the door. “I’m twice the size I was in high school.”

  “And you were too thin in high school, too. Too thin times two is still too thin.” Suddenly she was the one tugging him, and he let himself be marshalled along without protest. “Come. Sit. I’ve just finished baking.”

  Summer only smiled, as his mother practically dragged him inside. The house was as warm and open inside as it was the outside, all weathered, unvarnished wood everywhere and sprigs of herbs strung up along the walls and ceiling, the aromas of her latest concoctions making the entire house smell earthy and clean. Familiar. Safe.

  And as she ushered him to a place at the kitchen table, he was finally able to breathe again.

  Even if he had no appetite for the orange crème muffins she piled on a plate in front of him; he still wasn’t going to tell her that, not when she watched him like a hawk.

  “Go on,” she said. “I know they’re your favorite.”

  “And you made them just because I was coming home?” He chuckled and picked off a bite of one steaming muffin, plucking it between his fingers. “Today’s really not special, Mom. Within a week you’ll be sick of having me underfoot.”

  “I could never.” She dropped herself down into a chair opposite him, propping her chin in her hands and watching him fondly. “And knowing you, you’ll probably still never be here what with living up at that school.”

  “It’s mandatory. I’ve got to do my part as dorm monitor.” He made himself swallow a bite; even if he’d loved his mother’s orange crème muffins since he was old enough to talk, right now it tasted overly sweet, cloying, lodging in his still-tight throat. “Though I may just end up moving in with you and looking for a new job. I...uh... I kind of screwed up.”

  Her eyes sharpened. “Now how did you manage that when you’ve not even started yet?”

  “...nothing. I didn’t do anything.”

  “So you managed to screw up by not doing anything?” Her brows lifted mildly. “That’s unlike you. Usually when you screw up, you’re at least trying.”

  “Funny.”

  “Darling, what did you do?”

  He winced. “...IkissedProfessorIseya,” he mumbled under his breath.

  “Try that one more time, dear. With air.”

  “Oh God.” Summer let the muffin plunk back to the plate and dropped his face into his hands. “I kissed him. Professor Iseya. I just...kissed him.”

  His mother gasped. “Fox Iseya? Oh dear.”

  “...I don’t think ‘oh dear’ really covers it.”

  She made an odd sound, before pressing her fingers to her mouth—but that didn’t stop her lips from twitching at the corners. “Oh—oh, darling, I still remember you doodling his initials in your notebooks. And learning how to read those—what were those letters?”

  “...hiragana...”

  “...yes, that. Just so you could write his name the proper way.”

  “Oh my God, Mom, stop.” He pressed his burning cheeks into his palms, closed his eyes, and told his churning stomach to calm the hell down. “I was seventeen.”

  “And it was adorable.” She chuckled fondly. “But whatever possessed you to kiss him today?”

  “He pissed me off.”

  “One, language. Two, that is highly unexpected, coming from you. My mild-mannered boy.” She patted his hand, and he cracked one eye open on her warm, indulgent smile. “Three, most people don’t kiss people when they’re angry.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m weird. We’ve always known that.” He sighed, dropping his hands and folding his arms on the table. “He didn’t even give me a chance. He just told me I haven’t changed and I’m not fit to teach a class, which makes me wonder why he even agreed to work with me. Then he challenged me to like...assert my authority or something just once every day, if I want to prove myself. So... I kissed him.”

  She clucked her tongue. “Well, that is certainly quite assertive.”

  “I can tell you’re trying not to laugh.” Groaning, he dropped his head and thudded his brow against his forearm, burying his face in his arms. “Go on. Get it out.”

  “I wouldn’t laugh at you, darling.” Her small, warm hand rested to the top of his head, weaving into his hair...and it struck him with a quiet ache just how weightless her hands were, as if her bones had turned hollow as a bird’s. “I take it, though, it didn’t go over well.”

  “How did you guess?”

  “Because it’s Fox. Not because of you.” His mother sighed gently and tucked his hair back with a lingering touch. “You were too young to know him before his wife died. We were actually fast friends, he and I, before he shut everyone out and isolated himself.”

  Professor Iseya’s...wife? Summer lifted his head sharply, staring at his mother, his heart thumping in erratic sick-lurch rhythm. “He was married?”

  “For some time when he was close to your age, yes.” She smiled, blue eyes dark, soft. “He was really the kindest, sweetest man...but when he lost Michiko, well...” She shook her head. “Loss and grief can change people.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “When you were...about four or five, I would say. Terrible tragedy, truly. She fell asleep behind the wheel one night on her way home from her job in Medford, and lost control of her car on the bridge over the Mystic. Her car sank right to the bottom of the river.” His mother bowed her head, lines seaming her round, soft features. “Fox was never the same after that.”

  “I...oh.” Guilt plunged through Summer in a hard strike, sinking deep as a spear into his flesh. He knit his brows. “Why haven’t I ever heard about this?”

  “You were quite young, dear, and it was grown-up business. And over time, the whole town learned to stop speaking about it out of respect for Fox. I don’t think the man’s ever stopped grieving.”

  Or he never allowed himself to grieve in the first place, Summer thought with dawning realization.

  And just like that, far too many things fell into place.

  When he’d been a student at Albin, all he’d seen was Professor Iseya—aloof, untouchable, mysterious, his icy armor all the more fascinating for the secrets it promised. As a boy it had been too easy to daydream about being the one to tease past that armor to discover everything hidden inside; to be the special one the cold, somewhat frightening professor defrosted for. There’d been a touch of the forbidden, too, when Iseya had been nearly forty by the time Summer graduated, and that stern, subtly domineering demeanor had inspired a few whispered thoughts of just what he might do to Summer in private when Summer was young, vulnerable, inexperienced.

  But those had been childish fantasies, entirely inappropriate and impossible, and suddenly that frigid exterior took on a wholly different meaning when seen through older eyes.

  When it was the defensive shield of a man in pain, struggling to find a way to function in his everyday life, fighting his pride to keep from putting his grief on display
for all the world to see.

  Yet if Summer had been four or five years old when Iseya’s wife had died...then Iseya had been shut inside himself for twenty years, now.

  And maybe Summer was reading too much into it, thinking a few psychology and education courses gave him any insight into the workings of a distant man’s mind...

  But he wondered if Iseya even knew how to find his way out, anymore.

  Or if he was trapped inside himself.

  And completely alone.

  Summer sighed, rubbing his fingers to his temples. “I’m an asshole.”

  “Language.”

  “I’m twenty-five.”

  “And I’m still your mother, and this is still my house.” She reached across the table and curled her thin, papery fingers around his wrist; her skin was cooler than he remembered, and brought back that pang, that quiet unspoken fear, the entire reason he’d been willing to take a job in the town he’d once been so desperate to escape. “You didn’t know, Summer. Now you do. It’s up to you what you do with that information.”

  “Yeah...yeah. I know.” He smiled and caught her hand, squeezing it in his own. “I’ve got to think for a bit, but... I think I know what I need to do, in the end.”

  “What’s that, dear?”

  “I,” he said, holding her hand just a little tighter, as if he could give her his warmth to hold and keep, “am going to do something brave.”

  And he couldn’t think of anything that would take more courage than walking up to Fox Iseya...

  And apologizing to him flat out.

  * * *

  Fox sat on the shore of Whitemist Lake and watched the sun rise over the spires of the school.

  The mist always made sunrise at Albin Academy a strange and silvered thing, when the thick blanketing layer of fog rose almost to the treetops and captured the sun to glow strange and ethereal about the edges. The mornings tasted cool as rain, and every blade of grass around him clung on to condensation like dewdrops, soaking it into his slacks. At times like this he often felt as if the threshold between one world and the next had somehow blurred. And if he looked hard enough, stared deep into the clouds weaving tendrils through and about the trees...

  He might somehow see through to the other side.

  But this morning there was nothing to see but his reflection, as he looked down into the water and watched the ripples spread while, one at a time, he plucked up clover flowers from the grassy shore and tossed them in. If he followed with the legend of Isabella of the Lake, he was supposed to weave the clovers into a crown for her to wear, down in the watery deeps.

  Yet this morning, his mind wasn’t on Isabella.

  It was on Summer Hemlock, and yesterday afternoon’s bizarre encounter.

  Whatever had possessed such a shy, timid young man to actually kiss him—him, of all people?

  And why, for just a moment, had something sparked inside him when he had neither needed nor wanted such things for nearly twenty years?

  You are a case study in denial, Fox.

  That was what the grief counselor had told him, a decade ago.

  Then again, she’d also told him he was a pain in the ass, considering most psychotherapeutic methods didn’t work on someone who knew them by heart.

  He plucked up another clover flower, its stem cool and crisp against his fingers as he began tying a delicate knot—only to still at the faint sound of footsteps at his back, rustling in the grass. Probably one of the boys; they liked to make wishes in the lake, throwing flower crowns down to Isabella and asking her for better grades on their midterms or for one of the students at the public school one town over to go out with them. Fox prepared himself to shut away behind the mantle of authority and excuse himself, drawing silence around him like a cloak.

  Until a soft “Hey” murmured at his back, and Summer Hemlock sank down to the grass at his side.

  Fox stiffened, eyeing Summer sidelong—but as always, Summer wasn’t looking at him. He never looked at anyone, and not for the first time Fox wondered just what had ingrained that particular behavior. That fear. For Fox direct eye contact had other implications, ones few around him understood...

  But Summer seemed to be carrying some weight on his shoulders, that bowed his head and kept his eyes downcast.

  Summer settled with one leg drawn up, draping his arm over it and leaning back on his other hand. He still wore the same close-fit T-shirt and jeans as yesterday, albeit as rumpled as his hair, and an odd, quiet little smile played about his lips even if it hardly reflected in pensive blue eyes that looked out across the lake as if he, too, could see something in the mist.

  Fox looked away, letting the clover flower fall to the grass and leaning on his hands. “Mr. Hemlock,” he greeted. “I presume, since you’ve not changed your clothing, that you returned to fetch your personal effects.”

  “No,” Summer answered quietly. “I came to say I’m sorry.”

  Fox arched a brow. “For...?”

  “You know what.” That smile strengthened, strangely cynical and self-mocking. “But you’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?” Summer turned his head toward Fox, almost but not quite meeting his eyes. “I’m sorry for kissing you yesterday. I’m sorry for not asking first. I’m sorry for crossing your boundaries. And I’m sorry for running away.”

  “I hardly expected you to be so forthright.”

  “One brave thing per day, right?” Summer let out a breathless, shaky laugh. For all that he had grown into an athletic young man, there was a softness about him, a gentleness, that made every laugh, every gesture a thing of uncertain sweetness. “This was my brave thing. Apologizing to you. I’ll figure out what tomorrow’s is. And Monday’s...if I still have a job.”

  Fox realized he’d been watching Summer—the way his lashes lowered to shade the oddly deep blue hue of his eyes, the nervous curl of square, strong fingers—and diverted his gaze to the lake, pressing his lips together. “Why would you not have a job?”

  “Because what I did was an asshole move?”

  “And I don’t have the authority to fire you. I’m tenured, not all-powerful.” With a sigh, Fox relented and added, “...but I hadn’t intended to discipline you in the first place. It was an impulsive kiss. Not the end of the world. And I should likely apologize as well, for needling at your nervous tendencies and subjecting you to anxiety-inducing scrutiny. Not that I understand why that, of all things, was the choice you made to show your courage.”

  Summer let out a sudden low laugh; like his voice, it was a quiet thing that always seemed just a touch breathless, whispering deep in his throat. “I guess I wasn’t as obvious back then as I thought.”

  “Obvious...?”

  “I was in love with you when I was a student, Professor Iseya.”

  Fox blinked. His chest tightened. “You most certainly were not.”

  “I thought I was. At least, with who I thought you were. I know now that’s not actually who you are...so I guess you’re right that I wasn’t.” Another laugh, startled and hesitant. “God, this ‘being brave’ thing sucks. I can’t believe I just blurted that out to you, and you’re still sitting there with that same empty expression like I just told you it’s going to rain.”

  “You’re speaking of feelings you had as a child. They have no bearing on now, or on our professional relationship as adults. Am I supposed to react any other way?”

  “No...no, I guess not.” Summer’s laughter faded into a sigh, and he glanced at Fox—for just a moment really looking at him, Summer’s dark eyes half-lidded, messy hair framing his gaze in black tendrils. “But I do still find you attractive. And you made me angry. So I kissed you to make you stop saying those things about me. I still shouldn’t have done it.”

  Fox opened his mouth.

  Then closed it again.

  Then scowled, a most disquieting f
eeling of uncertainty settling in the pit of his stomach, light and strange. “This has to be one of the most bizarre conversations I’ve ever had.”

  “Me too.” Summer tilted his head back, looking up at the sky, lips curling. “But this is me, Professor Iseya. And I guess you need to know that if we’re going to work together. I’m a walking bundle of anxiety waiting to trip into a panic attack, but every once in a while I hit a break point and just...do what I have to do, and say what I have to say.” His shoulders shook with silent laughter. “Don’t worry. Once I leave I’ll probably hyperventilate.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t. Challenging you to be brave was never meant to upset your anxiety.”

  “Sometimes I want my anxiety to be upset. Sometimes I... I...” He trailed off, lips remaining parted, before he shook his head. “Nevermind. It doesn’t matter. Do you want to just put this behind us?”

  Fox watched Summer from the corner of his eye; the way the rising light fell over his profile—his straight, somewhat awkward nose, the stubborn set to his jaw, the softness of his mouth. In this moment he looked older than his mid-twenties; not in his fresh, clean-shaven face, perhaps, but something about the way he carried himself, some tiredness that spoke of long hours of thought, of introspection, of weary self-awareness that he carried with him heavily.

  And Fox didn’t quite know what possessed him, what it was about that soft quiet air about Summer, that made him ask, “...first... I’d like you to answer a question.”

  Summer was silent for some time. And it was in that moment that Fox realized Summer might actually refuse him; he didn’t know when it became a foregone conclusion that people would simply do as he said, but...

  When his only human contact was with children or other teachers who were intimidated by him, it became too easy to stop seeing others as...

  Others.

  As entities who existed outside the thin shallow projections by which he defined their presences, ghosts he could banish at will.

  He couldn’t banish Summer at will, he thought. Couldn’t summon him at will. Couldn’t compel him to speak.