Maia was back.

She came back every summer and Arch never knew how to deal with it. It seemed fitting for her to reappear with blue skies and sunshine and yet her arrival wound him into something that took weeks to undo. She never stayed long. Just a few days. If he hadn’t paid attention, he might have even missed her. Just the edge of a pretty skirt or the swing of her dark hair. The laugh. Some things never changed.

Everybody loved her. There was always a party when Maia was in town. Laughter and dancing and late nights and ice cubes clinking in half-full glasses. But Arch didn’t go. He couldn’t go. He stayed in the workshop past midnight. There was a methodical, unemotional satisfaction in doing the same things. Sawing, sanding, painting, varnishing. The smell of wood and paint and solitude. Company seemed overrated – at least it had done since Maia had left. If he let his mind run free, she’d be back there, seventeen years old and perched on the edge of the old workbench, talking and laughing and just existing. Real and alive.

They hadn’t even been friends to begin with. He knew her older brother. She was there in the pauses, the moments in-between, the flashes of possibility in endless weeks of monotony. Alone together with nothing to say. No manual on how to act. She always seemed so very female; the archetype of a girl, with dresses and braided hair and clean fingernails. Beside her he felt like something offensive. Vulgar and coarse and too loud and too far gone to change. But she watched him like he was interesting. Like he had something she wanted.

Attraction. It got stronger as they get older. He felt it climb like ivy, winding and inescapable, drawing them together until he felt so close to her he could hardly breathe.

Teenagers. Uncertainty. Everything was the first time. There was no way of knowing what to say, what to do. There was always a strange energy between them, like the moment just before magnets decide to repel. The push-pull of desperately uncertain attraction.

It was easier with other girls. To say the right things and get the responses he knew he’d get but with Maia, his lines seemed cheap and insincere even though she was the one who inspired them. She seemed to see into more of him than anyone else did.

They didn’t date. They skirted around one another, always present on the edges of everything. She glowed effortlessly brighter than every other girl and when their awkward conversations finally spilled into more, he felt like he was racing to keep up with her. But it was exhilarating. He kept pace even though it seemed impossible and she’d pause sometimes and slow down until he caught up and there was a yearning ache of gratitude in those moments. The safety of mutual, patient understanding.

Everyone else became colourless; vapid and uninteresting. Maia was everything and when their relationship inevitably peaked into the physical, he felt like the world didn’t have anything else to give. There was no conscious preparation, no plan; just the culmination of every little movement until it spilled into desperation and they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.

For the first time, Arch felt like the one in front as they fumbled through dark rooms and cramped cars, endlessly losing themselves in one another. Her body was angular and soft, her limbs long and coltish and when he wasn’t with her, he was thinking of her, the sweat-damp tanned skin and the way she leaned into him like she couldn’t live without him.

He couldn’t get enough, maybe because it was the only time he felt ahead of her. There was something addictive about making her moan, hearing her gasp his name and feeling the way her hands clung to him as he thrust hard into her. Over and over and over. They pushed harder, reckless and free, stealing every moment they could get. Everything else became sidelined until it pushed through and pulled them apart.

She left before he really believed she was going. He blamed her even though he knew he was being unreasonable. She’d always been quick and intelligent and she’d learnt everything she could from the town they’d grown up in. She left for college and though she insisted they’d stay in touch, he couldn’t bring himself to try hard enough.

Texts and phone calls seemed empty, cavernous and devoid of life. When he stopped answering, she sent letters. He’d open them and read her neat handwriting and fold them up and not reply to a single one. They sat in a teetering stack on the shelf of his closet. The last one had been three years ago and since then there were just her empty, formal Christmas cards, his name written in a rushed scrawl and her signature almost indecipherably hasty.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Loneliness gnawed at him until it became familiar. He worked. He saw other girls. But he didn’t forget. He couldn’t forget. And every summer she came home and it was like every emotion rushed back, raw and invasive.

***

Day three. He was practically out of time. She never stayed longer than three days. Arch sighed. He tilted his face up into the cool stream of shower water and still felt unbearably hot. Three days. He was going to see her. He made the decision and then reversed it. He swore under his breath. He reached for the soap and it slipped out of his hand.

She’d be gone soon and the days of monotony would resume. Everybody would talk. Everybody would tell him about her. Second-hand stories full of colourless descriptions, worn conversations, recycled jokes. Repetitive and stale and maddening and so useless that it made him want to kill himself.

He wanted to see her. There was a party at her neighbours’ house tonight, the Williamsons. She’d be there. He could go and see her for himself. Couldn’t he? Why couldn’t he? Why hide? He realised he was entertaining the idea and he frowned hard. He retrieved the soap and scrubbed himself methodically. He didn’t like parties. Didn’t like the fake familiarity, the circus of paper compliments, the cold food, the deafeningly pretend laughter. But it was the only way. He set down the soap and imagined himself walking in and seeing her face to face.

“Fuck.”

He couldn’t do it. He swallowed hard. Why was he even considering it? She wouldn’t be anything like she used to be. He didn’t believe the words even as he tried to run them on repeat in his mind.

Maia. Nobody had ever come close to affecting him like she did. It had been five years but everything was still vivid; the brush of her hair against his skin, the chasing and the in-jokes and the reluctant curl of her smile and every inch of her warm skin.  His hand went down instinctively to grip his hardening cock. Everything was heat.

The shower rained down on him and he turned the temperature up until the water pouring over him was on the edge of painful. Steam curled in the small bathroom. His fist moved up and down the length of his cock. He couldn’t even try to count how many times he’d jacked off to the thought of her. Hundreds. Maybe even thousands. It seemed obsessive, pathetic almost. The memories were always hovering, always quietly waiting for the chance to kill off every other thought until everything became her.

Arch closed his eyes and pumped harder, sucking in air. His cock felt indecent in his hand; solid and throbbing as he stroked it faster. Maia. The smell of her skin and the flicker of her tongue. He saw the edge and he didn’t stop; racing towards it uncontrollably until the abyss was yawning in front of him and he was falling hard, his cock jerking in his hand and his release spurting out of him as he swore with obscene satisfaction.

It took a while for him to catch his breath. The world swirled back into focus. He let go of his cock. He leaned his forehead against the cool tile wall and looked down at the steaming water rushing around his feet.

Five years.

Five years and he hadn’t moved on.

Too long. Too many years of dreaming, of hovering between lives, of being unable to close the door on a past dream.

Arch turned off the water and reached for a towel.

He had to see her.

***

The evening was warm and heavy, the sky a blend of summer colours. Inside the Williamson house, there were more people than Arch had expected and he half-considered walking straight back out but the swarm enveloped him, delighted to have a new subject to cross-examine. The same questions from different people.

The music was loud, the conversation louder. He tried to scan the crowd for Maia in as unobvious a way as possible but when he saw her, he couldn’t stop looking. She was as beautiful as he remembered and more so somehow in the way she held herself. Every fantasy seemed inadequate. She wore a sleeveless dark dress with a deep v-neck and it seemed to highlight every curve and angle of her lithe body.

He couldn’t stop looking. People were moving out towards the garden at the back and he remembered himself and followed numbly. The outside space was large - lit with fairy lights and lanterns and the sky was becoming deeper and darker as sunset slid in. The music played louder outside and people danced, enjoying the hazy summer evening.

Arch’s mouth felt dry. He tried to think of an opening line but his mind drew a blank. It felt surreal, seeing her after so long. She still hadn’t seen him or maybe she was doing a good job of pretending. He moved towards her. She was at the long wooden table, pouring sparkling water into a champagne glass. Her nails were painted silver.

He could still leave. Save himself the inevitable rejection. But his mouth moved without permission.

“Hi, Maia.”

There was a brief pause before she turned as though she couldn’t place the voice and when she looked at him, it was as though she couldn’t believe he was there. The eye contact hit him harder than he’d expected. Edges. His mind rewound to the fracture of dawn beneath his bedroom door, the faint crack of pain beneath every laugh, the slanting spill of sunshine through the fall of her hair. He could have lived in her shadow for eternity.

“Hi,” Maia said, finally. Her voice was steadily cool. “I haven’t seen you for years.”

She reached up her arm as though to hug him and he guessed it was out of habit because halfway through, she seemed to second-guess herself and began drawing back. He stepped into her before she could pull away and put his own arm around her, trying not to notice how her skin felt against his.

“It’s been a while,” he said noncommittally and he let go of her before she was ready, too aware of all the eyes that were watching them. All of a sudden, he couldn’t look at her.

“You look nice,” he said, still not looking at her.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” she said and the statement was almost an accusation.

“Yeah, well,” He focused on the bottle of sparkling water behind her. “I really wasn’t planning on it. And then I figured, why not, you know?”

He risked a glance at her but she was moving already, threading through the crowd of people back towards the house.

“Maia.”

It felt strange saying her name out loud; his mouth wasn’t used to it anymore and yet the syllables curled beautifully on his tongue. She must have heard him but she didn’t stop. Nobody was paying them any attention and he followed her into the glowing house, through the kitchen, into the now-empty hall.

“Maia!”

She stopped finally and turned.

“What?”

He blinked, suddenly speechless. Face to face. She stepped closer, uncertain, gracefully awkward. She was wearing makeup and it added an angular edge to the face he’d never forget.

“What do you want, Archer?”

She seemed vaguely angry and it caught him off guard.

“Why’d you come back?” he asked, finally, stupidly.

She looked at him like he was insane.

“Because this is home. This is where my family is.”

Arch looked at her. The distance between them felt like everything. It’d been too long. Too much time alone to build up resentment and assumptions and anger. Too long. He opened his mouth, his insides so full of emotions they seemed like they must be able to spill out into words. But nothing came out. He blew out a long breath. He ran his hands through his hair. He walked over to the wide open window beside the front door and looked out at the street.

“Why are you even here?” Maia asked and her voice was softer now but still painfully defensive. “You never come. I spend every summer wondering if you’ll show up and now you’re here and what do you want? What do you actually want?”

“I wanted to see you.”

“Why?” she asked.

He glanced back.

“To see if you’d changed.”

She seemed like she was about to laugh but something stopped her. She walked to stand beside him and looked out of the window.

“Have I?” she asked and her voice was quiet, almost like something on the very edge of his consciousness. The kind of soft disturbance pulling him back from sleep.

He looked at her; the angle of her cheekbone and the faded gloss on her lips and he knew he should say she was the same as she’d ever been but it wasn’t true. She seemed more reserved somehow. More adult. More adept at hiding spontaneous emotion.

“Not in a bad way,” he offered and he felt her smile and wanted to hold onto that moment of feeling forever. He knew her. He could feel her without touching her and it felt precious, untouchably precious. Her hand was resting on the windowsill and he wanted to grasp it. He didn’t. He looked at her nails, the rings on her fingers. Everything about her brought back racing feelings of desperately insatiable hunger. Her dark hair was pulled up into a loose braid and her eyelashes looked disarmingly delicate.

“You look at me too much,” she said unexpectedly. “I used to think all boys must do it but it was only you.” She turned to him. “Always looking. Anyone else does it and I think there’s something wrong with me but there’s a way you do it that fills me with heat.” She looked away, pained by her next sentence. “You know, I missed it.”

“I missed you,” Arch said. “More than I knew was possible.” He looked out at the sky, trying to find real words. “It’s constant. You can’t cut it off.”

“So why didn’t you come see me?”

He avoided the question. “I’ve been thinking of you all day. You know, I think of you every day but today was more. It’s always more when summer starts. It’s like the heat gets under my skin. Everything’s brighter, more reckless and then I hear you’re back in town and I can’t sit still. I feel like I have all this energy, all this life and nothing to expend it on but you.”

She was looking at his mouth.

“I get that,” she said.

“You do?”

“Just – the hot nights. Sleepless. It always comes back to you, Arch,” Her eyes searched his uncertainly before she spoke again, her voice rushed and breathless. “Every time I come, it’s always your name. Every time.”

He was sweating now, her words going directly to his cock. His mind was already slipping out of control, out of order.

“You say my name?” he asked, the question miraculously well-formed. “Even when you’re with other guys?”

Her eyes flicked to his momentarily, like she was confused at the softness of the question. It should have been harder, more jealous but it didn’t sound that way. Arch didn’t even feel that way. All that mattered was the moment. It was him now. No one else.

“Every time,” she said, and then, “It’s become quite inconvenient.”

He laughed hoarsely. He stepped closer to her, so close that she had to back up against the wall. He swallowed hard, his mouth dry, and Maia’s eyes went to his throat.

“How’d you make yourself come?” he asked. “How often?”

She looked at him even as her cheeks flushed red.

“I don’t keep count, Archer.”

His hand caught the skirt of her dress, the material bunching in his fist. She touched his hand, stopping him from dragging it upwards.

“Arch – I can’t. I really can’t.”

“Why not?” His hand didn’t move and she didn’t move away though she looked up at him reproachfully.

“Someone could come in.”

“Nobody will. Everyone’s outside.”

She shook her head.

“I’m not staying. I’m leaving in the morning. This is – pointless.”

“You don’t know that,”

Voices filtered through from the kitchen and he let go of her dress. There was a small utility room off the hall and he pulled her through the door and shut it behind them. He heard her scrabble for a light switch but he caught her wrist.

“Leave it.”

A small window filled the room with a dark blue hue from the night sky.

“This is crazy,” Maia said. “This is – so you, Archer. You never do things right.”

“You’re the one who left,” he said. “You’re the one who always leaves.”

He had his back against the door and she paced the small room, exasperated.

“Will you stop?” she asked suddenly.

“Stop what?”

“Stop looking at me!”

“Why?”

She exhaled slowly.

“It feels wrong. It feels indecent.” She leaned against the tumble dryer and pressed her legs together hard. “It’s just too much. You were always too much.”

“Too much what?”

“Everything. I always wanted you way too much.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

They appraised each other silently.

“You never called back,” She was open now, soft and accusatory and channelling years of hurt. “You never visited. You never wrote. I tried, Arch. I tried so hard it made me feel humiliated. But you just ignored everything. It’s like you never even cared.”

“You’re the one...