Autumn leaves have tangled themselves into her hair, orange and yellows twisting themselves over between her dark braids. A sweatshirt colored blue and gold drips from her fingertips, two sizes too large but comfortable enough to wear. It was once her brothers, I believe. She sits on cold grey steps, guarded by flower plants and the pumpkin positioned between her canvas shoes. Watching her, with cold breath, seems almost wrong, like I’m bothering a moment meant for one.

“Hi Jess.” I say, a chatter between my lips. She doesn’t answer and I feel my shoulders shrink back. With an exhale of nervousness, I leave a handprint on her front gate and lead myself up her driveway.

“Hi Jess.” I prompt a noticeable effort this time. 

She looks up and smiles with ivory teeth, the two front pulling her lower lip in.

“Hi Elliot, what’s up?”

“Just hanging out…you already got a pumpkin?” I ask, looking sideways at the September ground.

She shrugs and continues carving the top off, stopping every second or two to readjust the flimsy orange knife. We stay like that for a moment longer, with me watching her dig nails and knife into melon skin, the silver air biting exposed cheeks and ears.

“Uh, um, I was wondering if you wanted to go back to the pond with me?” My voice trails off as I speak, uttering words that I swished around in my mouth for half an hour. I let my sneaker drag on the pavement, moving woodchips and small grain, waiting for a simple answer.

The pond was the first place where I met Jess when my family had moved in so many summers ago. Really just a simple creek that cuts through at the tip of the property lines, it’s grown wider within the years, invading playing space and memories.

“Yeah, okay,” She answers, standing and picking loose pieces of pumpkin off her pants. Gingerly, she places the pumpkin behind her porch swing, pushing it back until it hits the cream colored siding. She raises her eyebrows in silent motion and walks next to me, that fifty foot stretch to our spot.

“I was out here last night, you missed it… I’ve never seen so many lightning bugs.” Jess says her voice placid in the still air.

I check my watch and note the time. 7:34.

“They’ll be out again soon enough,” I declare.

“No but that’s the thing, it’s cold now, so why were they out? They hibernate don’t they?” She asks, with green eyes that seemed to reflect the dew in the grass.

I clink my eyebrows together, bite the side of my cheek and ponder for a moment. Tasting words over and again to craft a complete sentence.

“Maybe it was a surge, one last dance before the energy died for the season.” I answer.

“Well…that’s kind of sad.”

“Just be glad you got to see it,” I reply, watching for her signature gleam.

She stops for a moment, looks up at the blue sky, and seems to only pay attention to the way the clouds effortlessly twist in form. Breathing in the sap stuck to their air, she exhales, a light sigh, “Yeah. That’s a nice way to think of it.” She looks down at the still solid earth and back at me, smiling and shoving me with her left shoulder. I allow myself to bounce off her push, playing a game we seem to have recently picked up.

She has a yellow tint to her hair today, like the sun beamed down through fog and mist, and decided to brighten her dark curls. It only makes her look happier, I think, not different. We walk in a small silence, my eyes on her brown boots, watching the tattoos they imprint into the padded dirt. It’s easy not talking to Jess. Although most believe it should be the opposite. Except she’s my neighbor, my best friend, and the girl I’m in love with. The times we don’t speak I relish in, enjoying the moments between voiced words and coffee breath. Just the feeling of her company is enough to keep me functioning for the week.

Feet move from grass to wood, stepping on the bridge one of our dads put up years ago. Careful to mind the aging floorboards we sit back to back on either side; feet hanging off the oak planks like the railing wasn’t put there for a reason.

“There’s no fish today,” She teases, as we haven’t seen fish in here since Kevin Johnson dumped his pet goldfish in here two years ago.

I laugh and relax my shoulders, even though the cold wills me to draw them back up again. “There’s no one out either.” Meaning no neighbors starting bonfires or grilling late night dinners on the back porch, a Saturday night left to us alone.  

I hear Jess draw her legs up over the bridge, her shoes scraping against the dried planks. She shifts herself over to my right side, and rests her head on my shoulder.

“It’s so nice out tonight; I thought it would be colder.” She says, her voice reflecting warmth and the sweetness of honey.

I squeeze out a “Yeah.” And pull my shirt sleeves over my fingers, trying to avoid frostbite at seventeen.

The conversation drifts from the weather to movies, the strange man across the street to college plans, to my dog and school. Like that we slide from conversation to conversation, conventional, simple, perfect on a cold night. An outsider would think we just met, talked up a cloud of random things, and popped the bubble above our heads. Talked to fill the void the air made when we inhaled oxygen. But the simple talk is what I crave the most, the lovely words and letters that seem to spell themselves across our spines, like cough drops all lined up.

The small tuck of woods around us goes quiet as the night draws a blanket over our heads. The creek pops and bubbles, spinning life that goes unnoticed, untouched.

“Eli?” Jess’s voice breaks over the waters rush. A sound I was focused on, the water spilling over thoughts and worries, drowning out the wild air.

“What?” I answer, my voice mellow and weak in the crunches of the wind.

“Can I tell you about someone I like?”

I freeze. A shrill chill breaks steadfast down my spine, moving over my shoulders and down to my already blue toes. Jess and I don’t talk about these things. Dating, boyfriends, girlfriends. We don’t. She’s my best friend but I mean we just talk about other stuff. We don’t-

“Sure.” I sputter, voice cutting off mental thoughts. I swallow visions of Jess and I at the school dance in March, at the restaurant on 9^th street, at the movies, everything we do now, just…not as friends. 

“Okay,” She gives a happy sigh, “Okay so he and I are really close, he’s in a couple of my classes and I really like him, I just don’t know how to tell him. I don’t want things to get weird.”

My blood runs cold and I can’t feel my hands anymore. Which I’m not sure if it’s a result of the cold nipping at my hands or the adrenaline and embarrassment coursing through me.

Jess, the girl I thought I knew to a tee, has just pulled one of those romantic movie scenarios on me. A sweatshirt right over my eyes. Like this one movie she forced me watch where the guy likes the girl but the girl likes another guy. Except in that one the original guy and girl end up getting together. How I wish to crawl back into that rainy day.

I sigh hard and lick my lips. Running my tongue over the backs of my teeth, searching for words engraved between them.

“Um,” I stand, shaking Jess off of me, “I think, uh,” I choke back a sentence and clap the dirt off my hands and jeans, “Just tell him Jess, just tell him how you feel I guess.” My head grows light and I’m no longer sure if I’m moving, I have to look down to make sure.

Willfully, my footsteps pound blades of grass, black shoes crunching soil, pretending they are my once felt emotions. I try hard not to go back in the same path we came from, not to walk back defeated, alone. But it’s nearly impossible, my legs are drawn this way…it’s the way we always come down to the pond. Down the split between our yards.

“Eli, wait!” Jess calls, running up to my side, grabbing at my sleeve to slow my pace. She’s practically running to keep up, until she moves in front of me and puts a hand on my chest, left there for a single pause.

“Elliot.” She says, her voice slow, with a spoonful of moonlight. Her voice is calm, steady; she’s not at all fazed by the emotions I know appear on my face. I slow my pace, pushing her backwards for a step or two before I finally stop, stuck to the mud it seems. Looking to my side I can’t quite look her in the eye, I didn’t know things could change this quickly.

 “Jeez, Eli, I didn’t think you would be MAD that I liked you…” her voice trails off, dipping low and swinging off monkey bars, playful, light.

I freeze, except this time the blood clots disintegrate and the numbness in my fingers is disregarded, a loss of senses that I don’t care to mind. The solid rocks in my belly have turned back to knots, twisting out of nervousness and the feeling of happiness.

“You like me?” I ask, sounding like a nine year old who just found out the bully on the playground has a crush for him.

“Yeah, Eli,” She says, “But you wouldn’t let me finish.” She smiles and looks down at our shoes, covered in splats of mud and ribbons of grass marks.

“Good, because,” I pause, “Because I’ve liked you for a while now.”

“Well, you never said anything…” her voice trails off, and for a minute I think she’s hurt, until she gives me a small nudge, rocking me back until I catch myself.

I look down at the ground and let out a small laugh, “Let’s go finish your pumpkin,” I say, “And then maybe we can talk more about this boy you like.”

“Deal.” She says, her voice neat and sharp.

We take slow steps back to her front porch, where the air has turned a purple hue and tints of grey have collided. A fruitful palate. Conversation flows freely as we take our places on the front stoop, with me drawing circles on the cement while Jess revisits her pumpkin. Slow chugging noises fill the space between her words, as she explains something about an astronomy project.

I turn an orange leaf over in my hand, playing with its stem and warped veins as Jess rattles on, stopping every now and then to lock eyes with me. Somehow she can continue the conversation, as if nothing is different between us. I slide words across my tongue, playing with their individual weight and attempting to piece them into sentences. The normalcy of this moment is frustrating, but as I look at Jess, and back to the leaf, I stop straining to read the paragraphs on my eyelids.

Locked in a moment between the hourglass, we sit here, on cold grey steps, a single grain of time. For a moment I try to press pause, to relish in this instant. But Jess interrupts my thoughts, touching my shoulder lightly.

“I think I’m going to go inside, I’m cold.” She says, already positioning her pumpkin into its new spot.

“Oh, okay, I’ll see you tomorrow then.” I answer, forcing words out monotone, trying not to garble them.

“Okay, see you tomorrow.”

Walking away from her white house, and down the ten feet of driveway, my pace slows as I reach my front door. Hand extended for the doorknob, my fingers stop, inches away.

The feeling before the impact, the collision, the seconds before you realize everything’s real, courses through me. As if a pump of adrenaline is being systematically fed to my heart, swelling with the methodical beats. Jess and I have not crafted a storybook of pages, filled with memories and adventures. We have only chapter books of friendship, and I’m sure somewhere my mom has a scrapbook or two. But tonight is different, it marks the beginning.

If it were possible, to wrap myself like a wire around a single juncture of time, I would be tempted to redeem it now. Not the feeling of knowing she’s mine or I as hers. Not in five months or ten days, but now, when I can relish in this moment before anything’s begun.

The color of the inside cover, the author’s name, the simple flick of the page,

That captivating instant before the story…our story…begins.