Chapter 7

The shuttle ride back to their office was quiet--an exhausted, crash-after-a-sugar-high kind of quiet. Sutton could feel everyone slipping back into normalcy, leaving the excitement of the retreat behind them.

She sat by herself and leaned her head against the window. She stared at the back of Ada's head several seats in front of her. Ada had pulled her dark curls back into a tight bun again, like she did every day for work. She had headphones in her ears. She was shutting the world out. Shutting Sutton out.

They hadn't so much as looked at each other since that moment on Jacob's Ladder. Sutton had landed back on the ground with a leaden heaviness inside her. She had let Ada answer their colleagues' disappointed questions about why they'd given up. She didn't try to hide the sadness she knew was evident on her face.

She gave in to that sadness now. Curled up in her seat, dug her temple further into the window until it hurt, and told herself to feel.

The shuttle bumbled into the Cyntera parking lot around two o'clock. Everyone departed with tired, lethargic goodbyes, ready to go home to their families and pets. Sutton muttered her own "See you" to the general group, then walked off toward her car. As she pulled open the door and stuffed her overnight bag inside, she glanced across the parking lot to where Ada was getting into her car. Turn around, she pleaded, not even understanding why she wanted Ada to look at her.

Ada did not turn around.

Sutton got into her car and stuck her key into the ignition, but did not turn it. There was a heaviness in her throat, in her esophagus, in her gut, and she wanted to feel it in the silence.

Her parents weren't there when she got home. She trudged up to her old bedroom and dumped her bag on the floor. Wilson Phillips looked up from her spot on the bed, her eyes curious.

"I'm home," Sutton told her, sprawling out on the bed next to her.

Wilson Phillips started purring. She allowed Sutton to stroke her head, her eyes closing in satisfaction. Sutton lay there with her head on one arm, her other arm extended to stroke WP, and her throat clogging until she could hardly breathe.

They start kissing regularly. It happens on weekends, mostly. Some nights they go over to Ada's house because her subdivision juts up to the greenway that sprawls through their suburb. In the daytime, people sweep past on the greenway, training for half-marathons or biking with their kids, but at night, no one passes through. The grassy field stays empty. They can walk down Ada's street, through a cul-de-sac, and out onto the expansive earth.

It's always dark, and now that first semester is drawing to a close, it's chilly. They wear hoodies and thick socks. Joey wears beanies over his messy hair. When they inhale from a joint that Derek passes around, they get a taste of the air, and it's crisp and lean.

On one of these nights, Joey and Derek bring girls with them. They're underclassmen, but they're nice enough. Sutton and Ada mostly talk to them for the boys' sake.

After a while, once Joey and Derek have taken several hits, they stop talking and fade into making out with the underclassmen. Sutton looks at Ada, who shakes her head with a small smile.

Then Ada takes Sutton's hand and leads her away from the others, farther out onto the grassy field.

They lie on their backs, hips touching, fingers intertwined. For a long time--maybe a full five minutes--neither one of them speaks. They've perfected being in silence together.

"How's it going at home?" Ada finally says. This is her way of asking Sutton about her parents. She knows everything has been harder on Sutton over the last year and a half, ever since her brother went off to school.

"They didn't fight at all this week," Sutton says.

"That's good."

"It's tolerable."

Ada squeezes her fingers. "You're so much like both of them. I can see what each one of them gave you. It's hard to fathom that they don't, like, connect or whatever, when they're both really great people who made such a great person."

Sutton draws a belly-deep breath. "I wish they could be in love, like your parents."

Ada picks at her eyes--Sutton can tell she's adjusting a contact. "Yeah," Ada says, her laughter hollow, "Not that their being in love makes any difference to either side of the family."

Sutton sighs. "That's so dumb. Why do they care as long as your parents are happy? And you're happy?"

Ada rolls onto her side so she's looking at Sutton's profile. "I don't know. But let's talk about something less depressing."

Sutton rolls over to mirror her. "Like what," she smiles.

"Like...what we're gonna do over Christmas break."

"Eat and sleep."

"I was thinking we should do our movies challenge."

"Yeah..." Sutton breathes. "How many free rentals have you saved up at Blockbuster?"

"Only two," Ada laughs.

"That's a start, though."

"Yeah."

"Ade?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think...we could rent some, like...girl-on-girl movies? Not porn, but like...just romance or something?"

Ada lets the silence build, but only, Sutton knows, because she wants to give weight to Sutton's need.

"Of course," she says gently.

"Thanks."

"Sutton...I don't think you need to stress about this so much. Whatever you want to define yourself as is just semantics. It's just a label."

"It matters to me."

Ada is quiet again. "Okay," she says. "I'm sorry."

Sutton knows Ada is not placating her--that Ada always wants Sutton to have the things she needs. Still, Sutton can't understand how Ada doesn't worry about this stuff.

"Don't you think about the label?" Sutton asks.

"No."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want the finality of a label. Labels are for making other people comfortable."

"But what about us?"

Ada holds her hand again. "What do you think about us?"

Sutton smiles despite the seriousness. "I think...I like kissing you."

Ada laughs. "And snuggling."

"Yeah," Sutton says, "and the other stuff."

"Definitely the other stuff."

They ditch the boys. Ada gives Joey an extra key to her basement door and orders him to lock it after he and Derek are inside for the night. Then Sutton and Ada walk home, both of them nestling their hands in their hoodies.

They tiptoe up to Ada's bedroom. They put on their Old Navy cotton pajama bottoms and choose t-shirts with their favorite bands' names on them. Sutton laughs inwardly because she knows they'll be sneaking their hands under these clothes anyway.

They come together in bed and start kissing right away. Ada whispers silly things in the darkness to make Sutton laugh. Sutton lets her hands roam beneath Ada's t-shirt and enjoys the husking noises Ada makes. It's only been a few weeks since Sutton first witnessed these sounds, and they're still thrilling to her.

They cuddle up to each other after they've both come. Ada kisses Sutton's forehead and tries to soothe her into sleep, but for the first time in her 17 years, Sutton is awake.

Sutton existed in a zombie-like daze on Monday morning. She drove down into the city, nursing a thermos of coffee her mom had brewed for her--her mom could always tell when she was out of sorts, even at 25--and listening to NPR. She never listened to NPR, but she thought hearing about other events in the world might distract her from this collision with her past.

But she couldn't help but think of Ada. What would Ada be doing right now? Where was she driving in from? Sutton didn't even know where she lived.

She wondered if Ada would be drinking coffee. Ada had hated coffee when they were in high school--she had rolled her eyes every time one of their friends suggested Starbucks as a hangout spot--but Ada had said on Saturday morning that she sometimes drank it now. Did that mean every morning?

What would she be listening to? Was Radiohead still her favorite band? Was she playing Pandora or Spotify or her iPod? Or was she one of those people who made phone calls in the morning, rather than waking up with music?

Sutton negated that last thought as soon as she processed it. Ada had always hated talking on the phone.

There was one thing Sutton did know about the current Ada, and it settled onto her chest as she rolled her car into the Cyntera parking lot.

Ada did not trust her. And probably never would again.

It was one of those mornings where Sutton couldn't bring herself to do any work. She refreshed her Facebook newsfeed at least seven times before the 9:30 Monday meeting. To her right, she saw Wyatt's desktop screen: he was doing the same thing.

Marta must have sucked up everyone else's energy and swallowed it down into herself--surely that's why she was practically bouncing around the room while the rest of them keeled back against their chairs like shriveled up old people. Marta took them through a review of the "company pillars we erected this weekend" (Mikey P. snorted audibly), which included teamwork, accountability, creativity, and a persistent focus on the future. Sutton was restless through the meeting, crossing her right leg over her left, then her left leg over her right, then stretching out with her legs in front of her in completely un-ladylike fashion ("Piggish!", her mother would say), then slumping forward with her head on her hand.

Ada sat upright and still through the meeting, that haughty expression back on her face. Sutton wanted to outright throw something at her--a pen, a paperclip, anything--but whether to get her attention or just make her flinch, she didn't know.

"I am so out of commission right now," Wyatt said when they were back in the legal nook. He dragged his hands down his face and shook his hair like a wet dog. "You know what I need? Donuts. A dozen sugary, fattening Krispy Kremes. That's what we all need. You wanna come, Sutton?"

She did.

They traipsed out of the office, Sutton following Wyatt's lead of looking like they were doing something important. Marta didn't ask them any questions as they wound past her office.

"Easy," Wyatt said when they reached the elevator bank. "You see the strategy? As long as you produce stellar work 90 percent of the time, then no one asks questions when you wanna dick around for the other 10 percent."

"Genius," Sutton said flatly.

"Well, it works for me, anyway."

The sun was scorching when they stepped outside. It beat down on them as they strolled up the sidewalk, both of them resigned to the mid-morning heat.

"How was your Sunday night?" Wyatt asked.

"Fine," Sutton shrugged. Her feet were sweating in her flats.

"I was exhausted. I picked up my dog, went home, and crashed for hours."

"Well," Sutton snorted, somewhat meanly, "I guess you had reason to be exhausted."

"Huh?"

"You and Debbie? Up late both nights?"

She had expected him to cast it off with a cocky grin, but he blushed. He dipped his head as his cheeks colored with more than Southern summer heat.

"Debbie's a nice girl," he said shyly.

"You like her?"

Wyatt frowned at her. "Well of course I like her. Why else would I be--er--like you said--up late with her?"

"Oh. Yeah. I just thought, maybe you were--you know, having fun. You seem like the type."

"Oh," Wyatt said, suddenly understanding. He was quiet for a beat. "So you think I'm a douchebag."

"What? No."

"You think I'm the asshole guy in the office."

"No, I don't."

Wyatt held the door for her when they reached Krispy Kreme. She stepped inside and looked pointedly at the counter, wondering how she'd stumbled into this stupid conversation. Wyatt passed her without saying anything, heading straight for the counter. She stood silently, burning with embarrassment, while he ordered a dozen donuts.

On their walk back, with Wyatt carrying the box in front of him like a platter, Sutton tried to apologize. Wyatt frowned as she tripped her way through "I'm sorry" a couple of times.

"Did you know I used to have a fiancée?" he asked her.

She stared hard in front of her. "No, I didn't."

"Caroline. She was my college girlfriend. Lived in my freshman dorm. Smartest person I ever met." He paused. "I was really in love with her."

"What happened?"

"She called it off. We went to meet with a caterer, for the wedding, you know, and when we were walking back to the car, she started crying and said she couldn't do it. She gave me the ring back and I drove her home to her apartment while she cried."

"Wow. I'm sorry."

"We were supposed to be married next month."

"I'm sorry."

"Debbie's been one of the few people I could talk to about it. All my college friends, my law school friends--it's hard, 'cause they know her. They love her. But Debbie, she's like a breath of fresh air. She listens and asks questions and believes me when I tell her how I feel. I know you don't like her, but I do."

"I like her fine."

"Have you ever been in love, Sutton?"

The sun beat down on her.

"Once," she admitted. "I had my heart broken, too."

"It sucks. It's like lying in the road and having someone run over you with a monster truck."

She laughed mirthlessly. "Yeah, it is like that. Even years later."

"I'm trying to move on," Wyatt said as he led her toward the elevator bank. "I think there will always be a piece of me that loves Caroline, but I'm trying to look past it. I'm trying to make my heart work properly again. If our hearts can work properly after we lose our first love."

Sutton said nothing.

"Anyway," Wyatt said, sighing as they stepped into the elevator, "I only told you all that so maybe you'd understand me better. I don't care to be put in a box."

The elevator doors shut and Wyatt jabbed the 11 button with his thumb, and Sutton was swept upward in a storm of feelings.

In March, after track practice, they decide to go to Atlanta Bread Company for food. Ada has recently started eating vegetarian and she likes the salad options at ABC. Sutton loves their soups, so it's a win-win decision.

They're both sweaty and still wearing their damp track gear. Ada wears a runner's headband that Sutton finds weirdly adorable. While they stand in line, waiting to order, Sutton reaches up and brushes the damp curls off the back of Ada's neck. Ada looks back and smiles at her in that new way she's been smiling, with this depth in her eyes that makes Sutton's stomach heat.

"Did you ever finish that Powerpoint for Mr. Feist?" Sutton asks while they eat.

Ada shakes her head while she chews a spinach leaf into her mouth.

"Wait," Sutton laughs, "so did you turn anything in?"

"No."

"Ade!"

"What? Don't give me that look. His class is bullshit, anyway."

"Your parents are gonna be pissed."

"They won't find out."

"What if he calls home? Or what if he e-mails your dad like he did sophomore year?"

Ada chews and swallows. "Why are you worried about this?"

"I'm worried about you."

"Don't be. I'm fine."

Sutton hikes her eyebrows and looks down to her onion soup.

"Hey," Ada kicks her foot under the table. "What did the duck order with his soup?"

Sutton waits a beat, still mildly irritated. "I don't know. What?"

Ada's mouth slips into a grin. "Quackers."

Sutton laughs through her nose. "So dumb."

Ada brushes her ankle against Sutton's. Her eyes have turned self-conscious. "I just wanted to see you smile."

"You see me smile all the time."

"Doesn't mean it gets old."

Now Sutton truly smiles, her cheeks warming from something other than the soup.

"Sutton?"

"Yeah?"

"Are we...like..." Ada huffs, frustrated with herself. "Um," she says, collecting her words, her salad fork stilled against the bowl. "Joey asked me to prom."

Sutton's heart clenches. "I thought he wanted to take Julia?"

Ada shrugs. "I guess that fell through." She pauses, breathes out. "I mean, I know he only wants to take me as a friend, but..."

Ada lapses into silence. Sutton sits in silence, too.

"I guess I wanted to talk about..." Ada starts, "whether or not you and I are...a thing. And if so, what that means for prom."

Sutton looks away from her. She swirls her soup around the bowl. "Do you consider us to be a thing?"

Ada flips her fork back and forth, playing with a spinach leaf. "I think...that's how I've been thinking about us in my head. I don't know when I officially started thinking like that, but I guess things have built to that point."

Sutton raises her eyes carefully. Ada makes fleeting eye contact before she looks back down to her salad.

"But..." Sutton says. "You still don't think you're--um--a lesbian?"

Ada's eyes show her surprise. "Well, no. I told you that."

"But you just said all that stuff about you and me."

"I don't feel right calling myself that," Ada says. "Not when I like guys, too."

"But why does it matter if you're with me?"

Ada watches her carefully. There is pity in her eyes, and it makes Sutton feel ashamed.

"Because that's--like--oversimplifying it," Ada answers. "It doesn't make me feel like that's the real me. It's like when people want me to tell them I'm black or I'm white, and the thing is, I'm both and I'm neither."

"That doesn't make sense."

Ada's face falls. "It does to me."

Sutton's throat burns. "I thought about telling my brother. About me."

"Maybe you should. Do you think it'd help you feel better?"

"Yeah."

"You should do it. Maybe he could help you stop fixating on the label."

"I'm not fixating."

"It's like I told you before, there's no reason you have to define yourself. It's kind of naive, to be honest."

"I told you it matters to me."

"Okay. Sorry." Ada picks up a spinach leaf and rips it along the stem. "I do think you should tell your brother, though."

"I probably will."

"But Sutton? Can you leave me out of it? I don't want to give people another reason to label me."

Sutton's throat burns. She knocks her spoon against her bowl. "Okay. Fine."

They sit in silence, an awkward post-script to their conversation. Then Ada, adjusting her headband, asks, "Wanna head out?"

"Yeah," Sutton agrees.

They leave half their portions on the table.

She saw Ada during the few minutes when everyone swarmed the donuts. Wyatt paraded the box into the office like he was Rafiki carrying Simba, and everyone abandoned their desks and met at the conference table just outside the break room to feast.

"I so needed this," Debbie gushed, sighing into her chocolate glazed donut.

"I had two and a half of these for breakfast," Javier munched, "but it's still hitting the spot."

Sutton looked past them, trying to catch Ada's eye. Ada was talking to Marta inside the break room. She was taking bites of a donut with rainbow sprinkles. She must have felt Sutton's eyes on her, for she glanced up after a minute and met Sutton with a steady gaze.

It seemed she was reading her. Like she was trying to understand why Sutton was looking at her. Sutton held her eyes, but after a good few seconds, Ada turned away.

She went out of her way to interact with Ada after that. She walked to the sales nook to ask Debbie pointless questions, only because she wanted an excuse to smile hello in Ada's direction. She busied herself in the break room, making coffee she didn't intend to drink, only because she wanted to catch Ada's eye while Ada worked at her desk. She joined Debbie, Wyatt, and Javier for a one o'clock lunch, hoping Ada might eat with them, too, but Ada left the office and didn't return for an hour.

She called Amber, her best friend from undergrad, on her drive home from work.

"You sound shitty," Amber said. "Tell me what's been going on."

Sutton told her. She went on and on for long minutes, her mind slipping away to the retreat lodge. She told Amber about Ada tending to Debbie, about their moment outside the cabin when Sutton thought they might kiss. She told her about Ada getting her lunch. She told her everything leading up to the moment on Jacob's Ladder, but when she got to that moment, she stopped abruptly.

"But I don't get it," Amber said, "you had all these moments together--it sounds like you were repairing your friendship--and then she just freaked out when you were one rung away from the top?"

"Yeah."

"I don't get it."

Sutton's heart beat fast. "I do."

"You do?"

"That's the twisted part, Amb. It's like, even when she's hurting me, or staying just out of my reach, I understand why she's doing it."

"Why?"

Sutton exhaled a long breath. "Because I hurt her."

Amber was silent on the other line. After a beat, she said, "Sutton--you haven't come to terms with some of this stuff. I know you haven't because you've never given me the full story. What are you hiding from?"

The words echoed in Sutton's brain. On impulse, she pulled her car into a McDonald's parking lot and threw the gearshift into Park.

"If I tell you," she said, "will you promise not to judge me?"

"Of course," Amber breathed.

Sutton leaned her head against the window and pulled the memories to life.

They graduate in May. Sutton's mom makes plans for the Friday morning ceremony, asking Sutton all sorts of nagging questions. The way she talks, it sounds like she expects Sutton to ride to the graduation with her.

Sutton laughs at that suggestion. She rides to the ceremony with Ada instead.

They speed through back roads and play Jack's Mannequin so loud that Sutton's ears hurt. Sutton looks over and watches Ada sing the part about boxing the stars, and in that capsule of time, she knows the whole world belongs to them.

After they receive their diplomas, Ada hugs Sutton so hard that Sutton gives up on trying to breathe.

"We're--fucking--free," Ada says.

Sutton laughs and presses joy into her.

Ada's parents host a graduation party for her that night. Ada tells them they don't have to, but they insist.

"Professor Dad is just relieved I'm not a dropout," Ada tells Sutton. "I think it's more his party than mine."

Sutton and her parents drive separately but get there around the same time, on the early side of the party. Her parents stand near each other at the snack table and act like a real married couple for once, acknowledging each other in conversation and using the pronoun "We" when they talk to other people. Sutton's brother comes, too, but only because he's bored and he loves Mrs. Cosgrove's baking.

Sutton and Ada magnetize to each other during the party. Ada introduces Sutton to all the middle-aged people Sutton doesn't know, most of whom are Dr. Cosgrove's colleagues. "This is my best friend," Ada beams, like Sutton is more important than anyone else at the party. "She's the smartest person in our class. She's going to Duke."

Ada says it with unchecked pride. Sutton blushes and ignores the looks of Dr. Cosgrove's colleagues, who are clearly trying to understand why Ada isn't going to Duke, too.

"School's not my thing," Ada says when one of the professors asks her as much. "But I'm going to college anyway, just to have the experience of it--have you heard of Willard, down in Florida?"

Very few of the professors have heard of Willard. Sutton watches their fake expressions and wonders why Ada doesn't feel embarrassed, and why she herself is feeling embarrassed.

After the party ends, Sutton and Ada sit on Ada's bed and open her graduation gifts. When Ada unwraps the ruby fleece blanket from Sutton's mom, she holds it up to her face and sighs into it.

"I helped her with the color," Sutton smiles.

"I love it."

Sutton takes it from her and unfolds it so it spans the width of the bed. She pulls it up around their bodies, enveloping them both in its soft warmth.

They lie down, facing each other. Sutton sees a burst of feeling in Ada's eyes.

"Can I tell you something I've been thinking about?" Ada says.

Sutton smiles into the pillow. "Of course."

Ada waits a beat, her eyes locked seriously on Sutton's, and then she says, "I love you."

Sutton breathes fast.

"Not like a best friend," Ada explains. "I mean, like that, too, but--I love you like I'm in love with you. Like I understand the point of everything now."

Sutton cannot find her voice.

Ada waits patiently, her eyes big and nervous like that day in eighth grade.

Sutton swallows, hears the words in her head, feels the hollowness in her esophagus.

Too much time passes, and Ada drops her eyes to Sutton's shoulder.

And still Sutton cannot find her voice.

"Um," Ada says, rolling out of the blanket.

"Ada--"

"I'll be right back."

"Ada, I'm sorry, it's just--"

"It's fine," Ada says, shaking her head too fast. "I have to pee. I'll be right back."

Sutton swallows the burning in her throat. Ada stays in the bathroom for a long while, and before she comes back, Sutton leaves.

She lasts a day and a half before someone notices she's out of sorts.

Of all people, it's her brother.

"Where's Ada been?" he asks, when it's just the two of them home alone on Sunday afternoon. "I can't remember a summer yet when y'all haven't been obsessed with each other and hanging out every day."

Sutton freezes with her hand on the TV remote, and before she can control it, she's crying.

"Whoa, Sutton, what the hell?" her brother says, moving in front of her, blocking the TV.

The words are out before she decides whether or not she wants to release them. It's like they hijack her, like she had been controlling them for so long that they've finally mutinied. She tells him all her feelings, all her confusion, her fear of these words and definitions.

And then, with the sick satisfaction of picking a fresh scab, she tells him about Ada, even though Ada's request rings behind her eyes.

"Sutton..." her brother says.

He sits down next to her, looking entirely overwhelmed, and volleys back her words. The hollowness in her esophagus starts to fill out, but the pit in her stomach grows in contrast.

She calls Ada in the dead of night, feeling sick with herself. Ada doesn't answer.

She texts her the next morning. Ada doesn't reply.

On Monday afternoon, while their parents are at work, she goes to Ada's house. Ada answers the front door with half of her hair straightened, half of it hanging loose in springy curls. There is pain in her eyes, but she lets Sutton in.

Sutton's not sure how to explain. She tries to rationalize her lack of response to Ada's I love you, but nothing she says sounds adequate, and Ada's eyes stay sad.

"It's just--" Sutton tries. "It was--disarming. When you said. I wasn't prepared."

Ada rubs her thumbs over the hem of her t-shirt. Without looking at Sutton, she asks, "Not prepared like--you hadn't thought about it? Or like--you weren't prepared to let me down?"

Sutton shifts her weight.

"Do you not love me back?" Ada asks, bravely meeting her eyes.

"No, Ade, of course I do, but I just--this relationship has made me confront myself, made me decide who I am--and it scares me that here I am, ready to admit that I'm gay, and yet I'm sharing this experience with someone who isn't ready to admit that. Don't you think we should be taking that step together?"

"Sutton, I have told you how I feel about this--"

"And I think it's a cop-out. I think you're being childish when I'm trying to be mature--"

"Childish? Are you kidding me?"

"Would it be that hard to believe? I mean, you have that kind of attitude about school! 'Oh, I don't like it, so I just won't try--'"

"Don't you dare talk about me and school. You have no idea why I am the way I am about school--"

"You're trying to hide. You're trying to shirk responsibility--"

"You're trying to make me someone I'm not!"

"Oh sure, put it on me. Put it on me, like you do everything else. I don't know why I'm surprised, my brother said you would do this--"

"Your brother?!"

"That's what I said. My brother. I told him about me yesterday. All the shit I've been going through. And he was awesome about it. Better than you've ever been. And you know what else? I told him about you. I told him you're a lesbian who won't admit the truth to herself, and you know what my brother said? He said you're dragging me down, that I've always been braver than you--"

"SHUT UP! YOU SHUT UP!" Ada's eyes are mad, her expression is livid. "Get out of my house. Get OUT! And don't you ever talk to me again!"

"Childish! You are so childish!"

"You don't know what I am! Or who! I thought you did, but you don't! You don't and you--you--you never have--"

Ada collapses into sobs. She lays her half-straightened hair on the counter and cries unrestrainedly.

And Sutton, whose heart is still pounding with fury, goes weak. Her muscles slacken and her head grows heavy with pressure. She watches Ada in a kind of dazed exhaustion, waiting for her emotions to direct her.

After a near minute, Ada chokes out, "Leave."

Sutton exhales. Then she pivots on her heel and walks to the front door as if she's detached from her body.

As promised, Amber did not judge her. She listened to Sutton's remorse and soothed her through the phone.

"Tell me I'm not a bad person," Sutton asked.

"Of course you're not."

"I feel like I am."

"Listen. Maybe Ada knows the scared, mistaken Sutton from high school, and I guess that impression is sticking with her, but I know the current Sutton. You are not the same person you were at 17. Okay? You're not. And you need to figure out how that changes things."

"What do you mean?"

"Stop dragging the weight of your past around. Stop talking to Ada with your teenage self in the back of your mind. Go talk to her as your current self. And figure out what you want to mean to each other."

When Sutton got home, she went upstairs to her bedroom and found herself searching through her closet. Not through the clothes she had hung in there last month, but through the pile of boxes she had tucked away on the shelves before she'd left for college seven years ago. She found her yearbook from 2007--the year she had graduated--and sat down on the carpet, her legs crossed like a child, her hands heavy with these paper memories, her throat heavy with their repercussions.

She opened it and flipped through the pages, searching, searching.

She found their senior portraits first. She and Ada were on the same page--Ely and Cosgrove were so close in the alphabet--but she placed her palm over Ada's portrait and forced her eyes to take in her own portrait first.

She looked different from the way she looked now. Her face in this portrait was skinnier. Her hair was shorter--just shy of shoulder-length, rather than a few inches past her shoulders like how she wore it now. Her smile was radiant, unmarred by regret.

She stared into her own eyes and tried to understand the person behind them. She looked so young. Young and impervious to heartbreak.

She moved her eyes upward and removed her palm from the page.

Here was the Ada from her memory, smiling with her perfect white teeth, her flawless sepia skin, her bony clavicle. Her eyes held something daring and mischievous in them. There was nothing guarded in her expression.

Sutton wanted to dance her fingers across the glossy page, to tap them over this younger Ada whom she ached for so badly. But she didn't let herself. She sat still and looked and looked.

Then she flipped to the signings at the front and back of the yearbook. She read the notes from her friends and classmates, from boys she had kissed, from all these people who had filled the space around her while she was growing up. Their messages sprinkled the pages in pink Sharpie and green gel pen and blue ink, but she couldn't find the handwriting she was looking for.

She flipped through the pages of the yearbook, searching, searching.

And then she found that perfect, funky handwriting, dotted in purple ink on the one blank page that had been printed in error. She remembered, with sharp, burning accuracy, how embarrassed she had been when the yearbooks came in with that one messed up page--a canvas of white in the middle of the extracurricular section, breaking up the easy flow from FBLA to French Club. She had felt like she'd botched her entire career as yearbook editor.

But there was Ada's yearbook signing, and Sutton remembered, like she was drawing the memory from the bottom of a lake, what Ada had said about it.

It's not an error, you dork. It's the perfect place for me to sign! You can't expect me to write something in the middle of all those other people, as if I'm not your best friend or something.

This time, Sutton did allow herself to touch the page. She trailed her fingers over the lines that formed Ada's words, trying to imagine 17-year-old Ada sitting in her childhood bedroom and penning this message, her eyebrows scrunched, that look on her face that most people mistook for anger but which Sutton knew was concentration.

She read the message.

The first paragraph held a litany of inside jokes--jokes Sutton couldn't remember anymore. It stretched on and on, rehashing some of their best days and nights.

The second paragraph was short, but reading it was a punch to the gut.

You know I'm not as good with sappy stuff as you are, but believe me when I say I'm going to miss you so much. So much. No matter what happens in college, no matter how far apart we are, you will always be my best friend and I will tell that to the whole world.

Sutton's throat burned.

And then it burned more.

Love you always,

Ada

She snapped the yearbook shut, clutched it to her chest, and blinked the burning tears from her eyes.

Something nestled into her gut on Tuesday morning. She felt it taking up residence there, felt it light a small fire on the lining of her stomach. She had a feeling all day like she was gearing up to do something. Like the fire in her stomach was going to burn its way up her throat, out of her mouth, and into the world.

She was strangely focused on her work that day, even though she didn't have much to do. She accomplished everything she needed to do and then cleaned out her e-mail inbox on top of that. When four o'clock rolled around, she swiveled in her chair to face Wyatt, and the two of them sat there in the legal nook and shot the shit for an hour.

But when Wyatt stood to leave, Sutton stayed seated.

"I'm gonna let traffic die down a bit before I head home," she told him.

"You're just gonna sit here?"

"Yeah."

She could tell Wyatt didn't believe her, but he didn't press her. "Alright. See ya tomorrow."

"See ya."

He left, swinging his messenger bag over his shoulder. Debbie trailed after him. Everyone else left, too. Everyone except Ada.

She had guessed Ada would stay late. To work. To get ahead. To do all these things the teenage Ada wouldn't have done.

Sutton clicked around on her computer, pretending to work, listening for sounds from the sales nook. Around 5:45, she heard Ada pack up.

So she did the same.

"Are you following me?" Ada said at the elevator bank. It was the first thing she had said to Sutton since Sunday.

Sutton looked straight at her. "Yes."

Ada breathed in, then sighed. She stepped into the elevator; Sutton stepped in behind her.

They rode down to the lobby in silence. Crossed to the parking lot in silence.

"Are you going to say anything?" Ada said.

Sutton swallowed. Her throat burned with the words she could not say.

Ada's body wilted. She looked away from Sutton, her eyes defeated.

"Get in my car," she said.

"What?"

"Just get in the car, Sutton."

"What about my car?"

"Have we not left your car here before? Jesus, just get in."

Ada shut herself into her car and Sutton stared after her, gawping, before she gave in and plopped into the passenger seat on the other side.

Ada drove them in silence. She didn't play music or talk on the phone. She sat there next to Sutton, her expression stormy, her foot heavy on the gas pedal while they sped up 400 North. Sutton swore she could feel the waves radiating off her.

When they turned off for an exit, Sutton got an inkling of where they were going.

Ten minutes later, Ada turned into their high school.

"What are you doing," Sutton said.

Ada didn't answer.

The car coasted into the high school parking lot, and the buildings that had played home to Sutton for four years loomed out of the pavement, taunting her, saying, We're still here. So are you.

It seemed only fitting that Ada parked in her old spot in the upperclassman parking lot. She turned the ignition off and the peaceful silence of the deserted school filled the space around them.

"Fine," Ada said. "We clearly need to talk about unfinished business. So here we are. Back where it all started."

"It started in eighth grade."

"It escalated here."

Sutton looked through the windshield at the huge trees that had shaded them after school every day. "Fine," she repeated.

"Fine."

They sat in silence.

"So talk," Ada said.

Sutton huffed. She crossed her arms tight over her stomach. "Fine," she said. "I miss you. There it is."

"You miss me."

"Yes."

"That's it?"

Sutton rounded on her. "Are you fucking serious? What do you mean, 'That's it'? That's a big fucking thing to say to the person who gave up on you seven years ago."

"Oh, God, Sutton, I didn't give up on you."

"You did!"

"Oh, okay, and you were innocent? Are we not going to talk about what you did?"

"I messed up! I messed up big time! But I was a confused, overwhelmed, desperate kid, and I was in love with you, Ada, even if you couldn't pick up on it!"

"Jesus, Sutton," Ada hissed, slamming her right hand on the steering wheel.

"Didn't you know that? Didn't you know how I felt about you? Did you neglect all that just because I couldn't tell you how I felt in the exact moment you wanted me to? God, Ada, I'm so mad at you for not giving me another chance! For still not giving me a chance!"

Ada was glaring daggers at the windshield. Her jaw was clenched tight. She huffed hard, in and out, her breath moving audibly through her nose.

She slammed her hand against the steering wheel again and tore out of the car, slamming the door behind her.

Sutton chased after her, following her stalking path toward the school. "That's right, shut it down!" she yelled. "Just fucking push me away again, Ada, push me away instead of working it out, just like you did that summer--"

"What did you want me to do?!" Ada roared, spinning around in madness. "The person I trusted more than anyone in the world fucking betrayed me, and then she blamed me for not defining myself the way she wanted me to!"

Sutton wilted.

Ada stared her down, her chest heaving. "I'm talking about you, Sutton, in case it wasn't obvious."

"I know."

"You tried to make me someone I wasn't," Ada said, her voice shaking. "My whole life, people made me into something foreign, and I wondered if they were right. Then I met you and suddenly I felt normal. I felt loved for who I was. Didn't you understand what that meant to me?"

Sutton's breaths were coming fast. "I'm starting to understand." She paused. "I want to understand."

Ada sighed, shook her head. "It doesn't matter. My life is easier without you in it."

Sutton's heart stopped. She stared hard at Ada, the blood rushing to her head. "Are you serious? After everything that happened on the retreat? Can't you see there's still something between us?"

Ada drew her hands up to her head and squeezed her fingers together, like she wanted to strangle something. She stomped her foot on the ground and turned away from Sutton, breathing hard.

"Ada?"

"God," Ada huffed, her teeth clenched. "I hate being around you."

"Fine," Sutton growled, stung. "That's just fine. But why don't you do us both a favor and articulate why you hate being around me?"

Ada huffed some more, her breath moving in and out of her nostrils. Sutton waited for her to regain control.

After a long 30 seconds of Ada struggling, Sutton let her hands fall to her sides and spread her palms out on the air. She let the anger slip from her voice when she spoke.

"Just talk to me, Ade."

Ada's head jerked instinctively. "God, that fucking nickname--"

"I know," Sutton said, gently. "I know."

Ada took a deep, measured breath and turned back to Sutton. "Alright," she said, her voice neutral. She swallowed. "It is difficult--for me to be around you--because you throw everything into imbalance."

"Okay. Can you explain what you mean by that."

Ada swallowed again. She moved her jaw around. "When you're not in my life--when I don't let myself think about you--it's very clear to me how I feel about relationships. It's very clear that I like men. I like how handsome they are, the way their arms look, the way they smell, how they take care of me...I like men, Sutton, okay? I wouldn't hesitate to check a box if someone asked me whether I was straight or gay. But then you show back up in my life, and suddenly I have all those old questions again."

"What old questions?"

"Do I really have to spell it out for you?"

"I need you to. Please, Ada."

Ada closed her eyes in frustration. She took another long, measured breath, and after she exhaled, she opened her eyes and stared hard at Sutton.

"I have feelings for you. Alright? They've always been there. You know I had them in high school. After everything that happened, I thought they went away--I hoped they had--but now I know they didn't. The space you occupy in my heart--it's not like other girls." Ada paused and sighed like she was exhausted. Her eyes met Sutton's in a resigned, inevitable way. "You are the one fucking exception to the rule."

Sutton's muscles tingled. She plopped down on the sidewalk and let this confession spread over her.

"Do you see why I hate being around you?" Ada continued. "I thought I finally had my life figured out. I thought, after all those wasted years in high school, that I was finally on track. I have goals now. I wanted to get an MBA, meet a guy at some point, get married in the next few years--but then you showed back up, this person from my past, this person I loved so much--and now my whole world is off balance."

Sutton sighed and wrapped her arms around her calves. "Mine is, too. The only reason I was able to keep my world in balance these past seven years was because I forced myself to stop thinking about you."

Ada looked at her, her eyes bare. "It was like cutting off a limb."

Sutton laughed flatly. "It was like cutting off all my limbs."

Ada smiled sadly. She ducked her head and dug her toe into the pavement, like she was deliberating something. Then she looked back up and, after a half-second's hesitation, she walked over to Sutton and sat down next to her.

"I want you to understand something," she said, staring across the parking lot. "I took this sociology class in college. We learned about identity concepts. How everyone carries around these nouns and adjectives in their head, and we keep them in a hierarchy to define who we are. We had to make a list and I remember staring at my paper and wondering why there were so many words on my paper and why I couldn't sort through them all. I couldn't even figure out which one to prioritize. Woman? Student? Agnostic? Biracial? Black? White? 'Mixed'? And the professor said we should think about our relationships, too, and you know what I thought of? 'Sutton's best friend.' That's what came into my head. Two years after we had stopped talking."

"I'm sorry."

"Then I thought about how you would have wanted me to put one of those sexuality categories on there. Lesbian, bisexual, whatever. I hadn't thought about that in over a year. And I felt just as paralyzed thinking about it then as I did when we were in high school."

"Ada, I'm sorry. I really am," Sutton pleads. "I never should have pushed you to define yourself. I think I was just--I was so hyper-anxious about my own sexuality, and what it meant, and whether or not I had to tell people, and I just--I panicked that you weren't serious about us, that you were just with me because we were best friends and it was fun and it was easy, but I thought as soon as I did something definite, as soon as I came out and said 'I'm gay,' you wouldn't want anything to do with it anymore."

Ada smiled wryly. "I told you I loved you, Sutton."

Sutton felt her heart speed up. "I know. I loved you, too. I wish I hadn't let my own ignorance get in the way of that."

"I wish I had forgiven you."

Sutton let go of her calves, splayed her feet out in front of her. "I know you didn't trust me when we were up on Jacob's Ladder. I know what I did in the past gave you reason not to."

"It wasn't just that," Ada sighed. "It was--all of it. Everything hit me when we were up there. I looked over at you and you just--you looked so adult, asking me to trust you. And it kind of hit me, like, this is who she is now. And that I missed seven years of it. Seven years that we can't recover, Sutton. And I thought, on impulse, it would be easier to cut my losses and move on. That it would be too hard to wade back into the past and try to piece things back together."

"I know what you mean." Sutton paused, steeled herself. "But the thing is--I do miss you. I think I missed you all along and just stopped recognizing that feeling for what it was. Ada--I want you back in my life. If you'll have me."

Ada looked hard at her, reading her. It was the closest proximity they had had in seven years. Sutton let herself enjoy Ada's eyes for those infinite seconds, losing herself in the familiar curved shape, the dark umber color she had always loved, the disarming, arresting expression.

"Okay," Ada said.

They scanned each other's eyes for an extra second, then they broke contact. Sutton cleared her throat and faced forward again, staring at the buildings of their old school.

They didn't speak for a minute. It felt like they were letting the weight of the conversation settle--like they needed to create space for digestion. The longer they sat in silence, the more contented Sutton began to feel.

The sun was still blazing high above them, extending the feeling of summer. It was dinnertime and there were people all over metro Atlanta settling in at the kitchen table, at restaurants, in the drive-through line. But Sutton, though she was starving, was bursting with gratitude to be sitting here on the hot sidewalk of her high school, sweating through her work clothes, alone in the world with her old best friend.

"What do we do now?" Ada asked.

"What do you think we should do?"

"I think...we should go slowly. Start by being friends again. Let each other in again."

"I agree."

"There's all this stuff I don't even know about you. Like, you have a cat now? What the hell? You used to torture Joey's cat."

"I know," Sutton laughed. "And the crazy thing is, I really love my cat."

"I want to meet her."

Sutton grinned. "Okay."

"And I want to hear about Tennessee, and Duke, and your friends--"

"I want to see your apartment--"

"I want to see you practice law. I want to watch you in a courtroom."

"I want to hear more about your MBA plan."

Ada smiled her triumphant smile. "Alright," she said. "So we'll go slowly."

"We'll go slowly."

"Good." Ada started to laugh. "That's much better than rushing back into a relationship. I mean, how would that even work? We'd buy each other dinner, fall asleep in each other's beds, call each other baby?"

Sutton blushed. "I wouldn't want to call you 'baby.'"

Ada laughed. "Why not?"

"Because--do you know how long I've waited just to say 'Ada' again?"

It was one of those truths she didn't realize she knew, but there it was: blazing and raw. Ada's eyes took on a deep, longing look.

"Sutton," she said.

"Yeah?"

There was a beat of silence. "Nothing. I just wanted to say it."

Sutton smiled. "It feels good, right?"

"It does. It's felt good for weeks."

"Hey--this is kind of weird, but since we're laying out all our cards--could I please hug you?"

Ada broke into a grin--her old trademark grin full of wonder and disbelieving joy.

"God, yes," she said, and she reached forward and wrapped her arms around Sutton.