When you lived in a nation in flux, there wasn’t much you could count on to remain the same. Every week, businesses locked doors that had been open for years, and iconic signs were dim from blown-out bulbs. It was as though everything I knew had shifted, creating a disconnect between past and present. I hadn’t realized how visual my memories were until they were jarred by disjointed pictures forever altered by a changing landscape. Contrary to my family’s beliefs, I didn’t think of myself as a creature of habit. I’d always done things that worked rather than doing things that didn’t, so I often did the same things. It was as simple as that. I could not deny I found solace in the constant: the blue of the lake, the sounds of the street, even the turning leaves. Though I couldn’t predict the colors they would become, I knew they would transform from green to an autumnal hue before flitting to the dry grass below. I understood bare tree limbs and crunchy, crumpled leaf heaps, moved by feet and gusts of wind. It was a change I could predict, one that made sense in the cycle of the seasons, a tangible promise when everything else felt just out of reach. Taking a fistful of fallen foliage in my hand, I squeezed, allowing the rough edges to dig into my palm, ground me.

“Leave the leaves alone,” Cal teased as we lay in our usual spot of Bughouse square. It was a beautiful day, one with a clear cerulean sky and temperatures chilly enough to have us bristled by the breeze but not too cold for comfort. I could have pictured him there, even if he had not been, his face etched into my mind like a painting that wouldn’t fade over time. I wanted to believe he was a constant too. “What did they ever do to you?”

“I like the sound,” I defended, giving my handful a squeeze before tossing the particles toward him. Though his actions were difficult to anticipate, I had earned the finger, and when he flipped me the bird, I was oddly proud to be right. He laughed through the gesture, as if I would think him serious without the levity. Cal was very southern that way, careful not to offend when he was doing something offensive. It was downright charming, and since I stopped chiding myself for being taken with him many moons ago, I smiled a smile I was sure was quite goofy and nudged his shin with my booted toe. I was a bonafide flirt and he liked it.

“You,” he said as if it was so much more than a word.