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Adam Parrish is on fire. And he isn’t here to see Ronan, despite what he may tell you.
It had barely been a decision, really. Just a craving, and an aching in his chest, and that pulsing, rushing feeling that blurred the edges of his vision and told him that something was wrong here– that he was wrong here.
It is barely four am when he speeds past the gaudy white sign that proclaims in huge, clinical, block letters that “Virginia is for Lovers.” He didn’t love it here. He wanted to get out. He had clawed and thrashed until his every muscle burned and his fingers were bloody and raw. He had succeeded.
Adam Parrish doesn’t know why he’s here. But he feels that turning back now might kill the last bit of him– the him who didn’t bother hiding the stark contrast between his sun-weathered neck and the creamy white of his torso with stiff, ironed shirts; and the him who, on dazzling, golden days, when he stank of sunscreen and freshly shorn grass, and the summer heat had leeched every ounce of insecurity from his bones, would let his words run into each other– consonants colliding and sliding against each other like a forest stream bubbling over rocks. He had clipped away most of that person himself, habits and inclinations trimmed away like dead branches. Why he kept it alive at all… he doesn’t know that either. But the remnants of that person are beating against his ribs. He wonders if this is how Ronan feels when the nightwash threatens to choke him. Maybe it’s contagious. Maybe he’s had it all along, but it’s laid dormant, sleeping somewhere in him, silently curling around his vertebrae and creeping closer to his optic nerve. Maybe that’s why everything feels so fuzzy. This place is poison, but maybe so is the leaving of it.
By the time Adam passes into the National Park, it’s nearly six. He slows briefly at the gate, just to confirm that there’s no park ranger in the booth. He knows there won’t be. It’s fifteen dollars to enter, unless you make it in before seven. He’s always made it before seven. Just past the gate, there’s a sign that reads, in red, electric letters “DEER RELATED ACCIDENTS THIS WEEK: 5.” Before he can help it, laughter bubbles up in his throat. He parks his car in the middle of the deserted road and doubles over the steering wheel, wiping away the fat tears that roll down his cheeks with the sleeve of his flannel. He takes a few deep breaths and puts the car back in drive.
He straddles the center line as he winds up the mountain. He is careful and slow, driving at least ten under the speed limit. There is no one here to rush him. Not yet. He stops at every overlook just to stand on the stone barrier and extend his arms, fingers spread like tree limbs, reaching out into the darkness. There is a thrumming here and there is a thrumming in him, and for just a moment, Adam Parrish remembers that he is magic. That here, he is something ancient. Here, no change is made when he hacks desperately at his roots, ripping even the smallest fibers out of the soil. Here, whether he likes it or not, he will always regrow.
It is one of those perfect mornings where the clouds settle heavy over the valley, a thick white blanket separating each peak and hiding the towns below from sight. This morning, Adam Parrish allows it to be perfect.
He’s selected his favorite trail for this perfect morning. The Little Stony Man parking lot isn’t much more than a gravel patch. His car is the only one there, and he feels a deep relief in this. Shoved under the passenger seat, is his old pair of converse. He bought a new pair before he left for Harvard– still secondhand, but missing the frayed slice in the left shoe, and the spot where the black dye had faded into a muddy brown, and the precarious slant to the back of the soles, formed from years of reverting to his natural duckwalk whenever nobody was watching. At Harvard, there is always someone watching. He slips these on, tossing the cleaner, flat-soled pair in the trunk.
On the way up, his muscles burn. The trek is not long, but it is steep, and it is cold. November has just begun, and any warmth to be found here is fleeting, and gifted only in the light of the sun. He presses his palms to his angular cheeks, rubbing feeling back into his face, then pulls his flannel tighter around himself.
By the time he reaches the summit the light is just creeping over the west side of the mountain. He tucks himself into an alcove near the cliff's edge, pleased to find that the surrounding boulders shield him from the wind. Up here, he can almost see what Gansey sees. Each new acre that is illuminated reveals more shades of crimsons and golds, and shadows settle into previously unseen folds in the geology. There is something beautiful to Henrietta, he muses, at least at a distance. But how Gansey looks at the harsh seams of the place– peeking under rotted floorboards, picking at chipping paint, and fiddling with rusted nails– and still finds something worth loving, he doesn’t know.
Once he’s off the mountain, Adam stops at a little diner in McGaheysville, a small town about twenty minutes out from Henrietta. It’s trendy now, renovated and carefully marketed, a usual entry on tourist guides and internet lists, but he remembers when it opened, vaguely. It wasn’t much back then. He wasn’t much back then either, and he was also a whole lot more. Back when he was young, when things were good (or before he knew that they were bad), his mother would take him here sometimes, and the old waitresses (They’re all much younger now, he notices when he steps inside) would fawn on him, pinching his cheeks and making him pancakes that were shaped like Mickey Mouse.
It’s early enough in the morning that he doesn’t have to wait for a table. He likes that. He’s given a booth by the window. He likes that too. From his seat, Adam can see the mountains and the fire department that holds a charity lawn party every July– like a mini county fair, with poorly amplified country music, and fried food that steals any hydration from your mouth, and rides that they probably get at a discount. He had loved going to those until a rat-faced boy at Aglionby had called it “white trash fun”. He thinks Ronan would probably like it. Blue has probably been.
He orders chicken and waffles and a London fog. After he’d gotten his license, he’d come down here a few times. He’d gotten a London fog every time. It had started because he thought the drink sounded sophisticated– the type of thing ordered by people with means, and momentum– people who had been to places other than the Shenandoah Valley. To his surprise, the drink wasn’t bitter or herbal at all, like he’d been expecting. Instead, it tasted a bit like Fruit Loops– pleasantly sweet and lacking much depth. Now, he’d ordered them at a few coffee shops around Cambridge, and had been disappointed to find that they weren’t anything close to the same. After a few weeks, he gave up and switched his order to a plain latte.
His food is delivered and he tells himself he should call Ronan. That must be why he’s here, after all. That would give him a good reason. He misses him. Of course he misses him, but as he takes a sip of his drink, relishing the way it warms him, he is unable to shake the feeling that to make Ronan the reason for his visit would cheapen something about all this– whatever this is.
In the end, Adam doesn’t call Ronan, but he does leave himself where he’s sure to be found. He doesn’t even flinch when the BMW comes to a screeching halt just in front of him, stopping completely before awkwardly ambling into the long grass on the side of the road.
“Parrish!” Ronan yells as he climbs out the driver’s side door, still in his church clothes. “The fuck are you doing here?!”
Adam had seen him only a week before– Ronan had driven up to Cambridge so that they could celebrate Halloween and Ronan’s birthday together, but he looks different here. His posture is a little looser, his eyes a little sharper, the creases between his brows a little shallower. Adam doesn’t answer.
“Parrish.” Ronan repeats, softer now, and closer. There’s barely half a foot between them and Ronan hesitates for a moment before placing his hands on Adam's upper arms, his thumbs rubbing gentle patterns into the flesh there, just barely digging in. “Are you alright?”
Adam meets his eyes. Adam is a liar. Untruths spill from his mouth easily and with great skill, coating his tongue like cough syrup and escaping as something smooth and shiny– something that will glint enticingly as he turns it over in his long, slim fingers. Something on Ronan’s face immediately cleanses him of this proclivity. What escapes from his mouth instead is a choked sob, metallic and grating as it tears itself from his throat. He gathers Ronan’s shirt in his shaking fists and drags him close, tucking his face into the other man’s neck. A strong, calloused hand winds itself in his hair and Ronan rocks him, whispering warm and lovely things against his temple.
“Shhh…” Ronan whispers. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”
And for once, Adam finds himself grateful that “here” really is here. In Henrietta. He loathes it so much he could scream, but even so, he knows that in the past six hours, he’s been able to breathe better than he has in months, and that as hard as he’s tried to cauterize it, there’s an open wound, somewhere near his heart (because it can’t possibly be his brain), that still feels relief at coming home. This is his home. Maybe he’s sick, or maybe he’s delusional, but as he cracks open his bleary eyes and watches the wind whip multicolor leaves around the two of them; and as he grinds his shoes into the damp grass below, he allows himself to entertain the thought that his place worth leaving may also be a place worth coming back to.