Sometime in the Fall by Alexa Joyce

We’re sitting in his car listening to music and for a second I think he might kiss me. He offered to drive me home after work because he says I shouldn’t be taking the train at night. I tell him I’m a strong girl and can take care of myself. He agrees but said I’m just that, just a girl. I should’ve said that I was a woman. 

We’re in the parking lot of our job and we’re not doing anything wrong but I’m scared someone we know will see us. I want this to be just for us. It’s not the fact that he’s my coworker or the fact that he keeps looking at my lips or the fact that he keeps lifting his hand up when he talks, like he might let it rest on my thigh the way boys do when the girl they like is in the passenger seat; it’s the way he looks into my eyes that makes me think he’ll kiss me. Like, if he doesn’t look intensely enough, he’ll miss something. As if my eyes are the most interesting movie in the world. The drive is short and now we’re parked outside my apartment and it’s either now or never. For a second, I think to reach over and hug him and run out of the car afterward because I know I’ll be embarrassed. Instead, I ask if he wants me to make him a playlist. 

He’s dumbfounded. “A playlist?” 

I nod so quickly I think my head might fall off. He bites a smile back. 

Is he making fun of me?  “Nevermind.”

 “No, it’s okay, I want one. It better be good.”

 He doesn’t know how seriously I’m taking it. I give him an awkward fist bump and

promise to make it soon. He tells me he hates waiting. There is no kiss but this is so much better.

I rush upstairs and start loading up this playlist. After I add all the songs, I realize it’s

six hours long. I look insane. I look desperate. I look like I’m in love. 

I delete half of them and that cuts it to a little over two hours. Improvement. I’m ready to send it to him before I realize most songs are love songs. What’s wrong with me? So I take out most of those. I replace them with songs that could be about a romantic love but are vague enough to be up for interpretation. I’m about to hit send but then I realize it’s two in the morning and I’ll look stupid sending a playlist to someone six hours after I said I would and at two in the morning nonetheless. I’ll look crazy. I wonder if he likes crazy. I shower and go to bed and wait until morning like a normal, sane person. Like an adult woman, not a girl.

Now, the playlist has been listened to and he likes it, of course. I believe him when he

says he loves it because we’ve reached that point in our, whatever you would call it, where he

can be honest with me. Now, he drives me home every night that we work together. Not just once in a while like before. Now, we’ve developed something serious. We’re not dating and not even close to it but I know his car like the back of my hand. He only uses black ice air fresheners and he always has hand sanitizer because he’s a germaphobe. He lets me put my feet on the dash while I play air guitar to Nirvana. He reminds me that if we were to get into an accident, my knees would go into my face and I’d most likely die instantly. For a second, I think about dying next to him and how it doesn’t sound so bad. 

Today, he takes the longer route to my apartment. “Avoiding traffic.” 

I know he’s lying. He bites his lip whenever he lies, that’s his tell. I nod and

look out the window so he doesn’t see my stupid, childish smile. Tonight, we’re only hitting red lights. Before, when this would happen, he would hit the steering wheel playfully and rant about how traffic lights in Los Angeles take agonizingly long. I would agree with him even though I don’t drive and he would make fun of me for not having a license even though I’m an adult.

Tonight is different. He doesn’t complain about the red lights or the fact that they’re turning the ten minute drive to my home into a twenty minute drive. It’s almost like he’s ok with spending time with me. I could kiss him after this realization. We’re parked in front of my apartment and I think this might be it. He pushes a strand of my hair behind my ear, like in the movies. This really does it for me. I’m convinced it’ll happen now. It has to, who else pushes a strand of hair behind a girl’s ear if they weren’t going to kiss her? A psychopath. It doesn’t happen though.

Instead, he tells me I shouldn’t hide behind my hair. Somehow, this is also better than a kiss. I melt like ice cream in the hands of a child on a summer day.

Tonight, there’s a twenty four hour walk for cancer happening around my neighborhood so the roads are closed off and the ten minute drive to my home has turned into forty five. Again, no complaints from either of us. Only satisfied silence that only we understand. Both of us trying to hide our smiles. Like teenagers who just got caught passing notes in class. There’s a moment at a red light where he’s blankly staring at the car in front of him and I wonder if he’s thinking about me. I could kiss him here. I could get it over with. The worst that could happen is that he doesn’t want to kiss me and he kicks me out of the car for being a creep and I’m left stranded on the busiest street in the city. Deep down I know that if he didn’t want me, his rejection would be sweet. That makes me want him more. 

Tonight, I introduce him to Fiona Apple. He likes it. He says it reminds him of his mom and I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I switch it to something that we both like and know, Deftones. He tells me he has to take time off work to go back home and help his brother move. He only lives a few hours away but he has to take a week off. I wonder if I’ll ever meet his brother or his family or his friends. I wonder if we’ll ever get there. We are parked in front of my apartment and this is my chance to kiss him because after this he’ll be gone for a week so what do I have to lose. Maybe he’ll hate the kiss so much that he’ll quit after his vacation and I’ll never see him again. He stares at me, almost like he’s waiting for me to try something. I try to telepathically communicate that I want him to try. I’m not woman enough yet to make the first move. 

We stare at each other for an awkward amount of time and he reaches out to hug me in the tight space. As he pulls away, he kisses me on my cheek and I almost faint. On the ride up in the elevator, I rub my cheek where it burns.

On his first night back at work, he asks how the train was. It really isn’t that bad but I make it sound like the worst experience of life so that he never leaves again. So that I always have the comfort of his car and arms. He grimaces at the mention of the men on the train who stare at me and follow me. These aren’t all lies necessarily, just exaggerations. He tells me that he won’t be going back home for a long time so I have nothing to worry about. On the drive home we listen to The 1975, a band I showed him. We argue about which album of theirs is best but I win because I’ve known about them longer so obviously I know more. This is how it always goes. We bicker over music and at work, he teases me. It’s so innocent, almost like we’re teenagers in high school. Teenagers who have it so easy and whose only job is to be nice to each other and be happy. We’re stuck in rush hour traffic. This time he complains and my ears perk up like a dog’s. Is he tired of me? He rests his head on the steering wheel and starts cursing at nothing. He apologizes for his attitude, he’s just tired. He does the thigh thing. I think I’m about to burst. He rubs my thigh and apologizes three times in a row. I can’t even speak because if I open my mouth, I think my head will explode. My whole body is on fire when he removes his hand. I want to reach for it and put it back. I lean my head on the

window and he pulls my chin to look towards him. I become putty in his hands. We’re parked in front of my apartment and for once, I’m not expecting a kiss. I’ve accepted that if it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen. Then, he does the unexpected. He speaks in a serious tone. There’s no

bickering, no jokes, no bullshit. 

“I think I love you,” he says.

 I cough in his face and he laughs, from his belly. 

“You haven’t even kissed me۔,” I say. 

“You can love someone without touching them.” Then, he kisses me. And I know it’s not for me to invite him into my home, not so that I will lie on my back in the backseat of his car, not so I will compliment his music taste. He kisses me just to kiss me and it’s simple and sweet, like strawberries and honey.

Alexa Joyce is an artist from Miami, FL who is currently pursuing her BFA in Acting at AMDA College and Conservatory in Hollywood, CA. You can read more of her writing at The Dillydoun Review, Forever Magazine, or Thought Catalog. You can follow her on Instagram @alexajoycex. 

15 July 2022