“I didn’t mean to. I was trying to find the road,” I excused, annoyed that my voice sounded breathless and weak in my ears.

Being here after all this time was doing crazy things to my head and my heart. And seeing him now, when my memories of this place were making me feel uncharacteristically vulnerable, was almost too much.

Flynn walked into a swath of light that filtered out from the back of the house and regarded me steadily.

“The road is over there,” he pointed back toward the trees in the direction I had just come from.

I laughed nervously. “Yeah I know. I had forgotten this place was here,” I answered lamely. It was a lie of course. Maybe subconsciously this is where I had been heading all along. Maybe I wanted to come here.

Because I could never forget this place, no matter how much I wanted to.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded roughly, trying to hide my growing sense of unease.

Flynn’s hands clenched together in front of him as he looked up at the large, white farmhouse. “I live here,” he said shortly.

My stomach dropped to my feet at his statement. He was living here?

“I thought it had been sold…” I began.

“No, I took it off the market last year after my mom died,” Flynn said and I heard emotion in his voice for the first time.

Then I registered what he had said and I felt an uncomfortable familiar crush of feeling.

“I’m sorry, Flynn,” I told him sincerely. Because I was. I recognized the look of grief on his face as surely as if it had been my own. I wasn’t one to empathize. It was almost impossible for me to identify with the emotions of others, but it had always been different with Flynn.

And for the first time in six years I identified and felt someone else’s feelings as if they were my own.

It scared me shitless.

Flynn’s eyes that had been shadowed and dark flickered my way and met mine for an instant. A flash of understanding arched out between us. Awareness that I had thought dead and buried under the mountain of our past.

“Thanks,” Flynn responded, his voice cracking on the one, simple word.

We stood silent. Locked in place by the weight of a thousand memories and words unspoken.

I wasn’t quite sober enough for the heaviness of the moment. It was overwhelming me. I thought I would suffocate in the tension.

“Did you do the work on the house?” I asked him, not knowing what else to say. I should probably just leave but for some reason, I couldn’t make my feet travel back the way they had come.

I didn’t want to go backwards.

Flynn nodded and looked back up at the house. I remembered that the shutters had once been yellow. I recalled flowerbeds overrun with blossoms and an apple tree laden down with fruit. His mother’s banana bread and hot cider on a cold fall night.

These memories slammed into me with the force of a wrecking ball. I hadn’t allowed myself to think about any of this in years.

But being here, with Flynn, it came flooding back whether I wanted it to or not.

“Do you want to come inside?” Flynn asked me and I shook my head. I couldn’t go in there. Definitely not now.

Taking my refusal at face value, Flynn didn’t argue, he didn’t even comment. Instead he sat down on a small bench and watched me while I raged internally.

There was always something so easy about being with Flynn. Even as I was embroiled in resentment and age-old bitterness, I couldn’t deny the effortlessness in which we were together.

An ocean of time separated us from the kids we once were together, yet I was surprised to find those people still there, beneath the surface.

“I planted some flowers. The ones you liked are there. The yellow ones with the black center,” Flynn said suddenly, breaking the quiet. I blinked in confusion.

What was he talking about?

“You used to pick them on the way home. They grew by the road near the bridge. You would wrap the stems together and then throw them in the water. You said they were too pretty. They were your favorites.” He seemed to be reciting from a book, his sentences monotone and fluid.

How the hell did he remember all this shit about me? Whereas I had made a conscientious effort to forget, it seemed Flynn’s memories were as vivid as ever. I didn’t know what to do with that.

“Black Eyed Susans,” I said softly, rubbing my temples, my head throbbing.

“That’s a stupid name,” Flynn replied.

I barked out a laugh. I couldn’t help it.

“Yeah, it’s a stupid f**king name,” I agreed tiredly.

“You shouldn’t cuss like that,” he admonished. He had always hated when I swore. Yet another ridiculous detail that had gotten stuck in my head.

Flynn got up and disappeared around the side of the building and I wondered if he had gone back inside. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had left me without another word. Flynn wasn’t one for things like closure. He was abrupt and final.

But he came back a few minutes later with a handful of yellow flowers. He held them out toward me. “Here. These are for you,” he said, handing me the bouquet an impatient shake.

I slowly reached out and took them from him. Our fingers brushed briefly and I recognized his instant recoil. His hands clasped together in front of him and I watched as he started to methodically rub them together.

“Thanks,” I said, holding the flowers limply. I knew never to be surprised by what life threw at you, but I was shocked as hell by the direction my evening had taken. I hadn’t expected to find an odd sense of comfort in the presence of the person I hoped to never see again.