He kissed the back of my neck and hugged his body close to mine in bed. I could feel the sun shining through the window behind us. It was too hot to stay under the blanket, but we let our bodies bake in our morning cocoon a little longer anyway.

"Let's get away today. Just the two of us," he said. He hugged me closer and slid his hand down the front of my underwear.

"Charlie!" I laughed. I turned over and kissed him on the mouth. "Where do you want to go?"

"What about that place you're always talking about? The train morgue?"

"The trolley graveyard," I corrected. I laughed and got out of the bed. "Now what do you want to go somewhere like that for?"

He grabbed me and pulled me back into the bed. He smothered me in kisses and explored my body with his hands. The white sheets caught around us as we wrestled. "I want to see the place where you used to make out with all the boys from across town."

"It was only two boys," I said.

"Well, I want to make it three." He was on top of me, my legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him closer. He kissed me again on the mouth, wide open, our tongues desperately searching for more––more of this feeling, more of each other, more time––just more.

Eventually we pulled apart from each other like reluctant magnets and remained on opposite sides of the room as we resumed our new routine, only occasionally crossing the boundary to steal a kiss or grab the lotion. We got dressed and made the bed before heading downstairs. It was Darren's first day back at work and he was already gone. Anna was with the baby. They were in the living room when Charlie and I finally emerged around nine. Anna's hair was in a messy bun, last night's curls fighting to be free. She winked when she saw me.

"Morning! We're heading across town later," I said on my way to the kitchen. "Let me know if you need anything while we're out."

Noah raced in while we were making eggs to show me a book. He dropped it at my feet and with no explanation, ran back to the living room before I could pick it up. We ate our breakfast––Charlie drank his coffee and I had my tea––mostly in silence, looking out at the freshly-cut grass in the backyard, the oak trees swaying in the morning breeze, our legs tangled around each other under the table.

It took about fifteen minutes to get across town due to traffic and sunny weather. Everyone in Windber was out and about, running errands, either walking or driving, and often stopping to interact with each other. Charlie switched the radio station from country to R&B, exclaiming he had had enough of smalltown indulgence music. We passed The Windber Hotel and glanced up at the employees' heads poking up above the ledge, cleaning, preparing for another night of drinks and drinking games gone wrong.

We hadn't discussed the game. Or the evening, really. After Darren and I had left the roof, it was a fairly normal double date. Charlie and Anna did most of the talking––Anna was so curious about New York City living and Charlie was as equally fascinated at the idea of wanting to spend all day surrounded by children. He couldn't relate. Darren and I had stolen a glance at this moment, but I had chosen to ignore it.

The dinner was delicious and uneventful. We each ordered a different seafood dish and one more drink. I think Darren and Charlie were both trying to be good after drinking too much wine the other night. Anna, on the other hand, had too many beers and the night had ended when she asked Darren why he never followed up on their date. He politely responded that now was not a good time for him––plus Noah––and then had asked for the check.

I let Charlie turn up the volume of the R&B station and searched for a parking spot. It was always difficult to find something at the center of town as there were more cars than people and more people than town. Finally, we parked the car and put on sunscreen. We walked to the trolley graveyard hand in hand. I couldn't help but look around to see if anyone was watching. I never did that when we held hands in the city, but somehow, in Windber, it felt like I was getting away with something. I was a teenager the last time I had walked in those woods. Back then, I never could have imagined a moment like this one or a man like Charlie.

There were rows and rows of old trolley cars hidden in the woods on tracks that went nowhere, over a hundred feet long, abandoned, falling apart, rusted, overgrown with weeds and bushes, becoming one with the earth. Each car had a mosaic of graffiti––greens, yellows, reds, pinks, blues––painted in zigzags and bubble letters, artistic and nonsensical, sometimes faded, from generations of bored teenagers passing through. Doors were off their hinges and windows were missing glass.

Inside the cars, there was trash and leaves and cigarette butts and lipstick. Old light fixtures and wiring hung from the roofless tops like an electrical jungle, sometimes so open that the trolley was caving in on itself, weathered with age, and swallowing itself whole. It looked like the graveyard stretched for miles into an unknown fantasy world just waiting to be discovered. The early afternoon sunlight shone through the window frames and projected colorful light onto the metal cars like stained glass.

We were completely alone.

Charlie pushed me up against a trolley car and kissed me. Physically, it was like a sequel to our morning in bed. He touched my cheek and pressed his hips into mine. He kissed me and it was wet and warm. But it wasn't like this morning. Something was different. I was in my head after passing the restaurant and thinking about last night and the roof.

Suddenly, it wasn't Charlie kissing me, but Darren. I imagined his hands and how he always smelled of pine, even when he sweats, and the taste of his wine-soaked lips. In that moment, I held onto Charlie like he might float away and kissed Darren. We moved hastily around our bodies as if the skin underneath our shirts was too hot to touch for more than a second. And then I stopped. He looked at me like he was reading my thoughts. I took a deep breath and smiled to reassure Charlie, everything was fine, and then pulled him away from the trolley car. We walked in the center of it all, between two tracks with dead cars, and eventually, I let go of his hand.

"Did you mean what you said last night?" I asked Charlie. We were both exploring on our own side of the track.

He pushed a large stick out of his path. "That I prefer Downtown to Uptown? Absolutely! The Lower East Side is the real Manhattan."

"No, I mean about kids."

There was a long pause. I could hear the crunch of debris under Charlie's feet as he thought about what to say, a cacophony of hard and soft sounds, natural and man-made, yes wrestling with no.

"I never pictured myself with kids."

"Well I never did either," I said.

"Until Noah."

"Until Noah," I repeated. We looked at each other and then went back to exploring. He went inside a trolley car while I walked along the outside. I could hear how deep the debris was as each foot traveled down through the crunchy sludge.

"This isn't about Noah, is it?" he asked. He didn't look at me, but continued to push things out of his way inside the car.

"What do you mean?"

"Never have I ever been in love with my brother's best friend."

I stopped in my tracks. I didn't dare look at him. He knew. Of course he knew. It had been so obvious. I should have said something as soon as the game was over. We shouldn't have played the game at all. Or before that, I shouldn't have let Darren kiss me or drink wine. And before that, I should have kept my phone with me so Charlie wouldn't have had to come find me. Because Charlie belonged in New York. But where did I belong?

"Charlie..." I said.

"Don't bother." Suddenly there was a loud crash in the trolley car. He groaned.

"Charlie!" I screamed. "Charlie?" I couldn't see through the windows above me.

When he didn't answer, I ran back to the trolley door. I continued to shout his name as I walked up the steps, brushing away leaves and glass and scraps of metal. Once inside the trolley, I saw him in the back, buried by a pile of leaves, holding onto a hanging wire. He was laughing.

"That's not funny, Charlie!" I said. "I thought you were hurt."

"I tripped over this torn seat. I'm fine." He tried pulling himself up, but he was tired. I walked to the back of the trolley and sat on the unstable seat next to him. I almost fell myself.

"It's not what you think," I said.

"I know what I saw." He paused. "I thought the game was weird, but then again, you both have a long history I don't exactly understand, so I let it go. But then when I came back to the roof..."

"You came back?"

"I saw you two."

"But nothing happened. We talked and I spilled my drink."

"I could see it. From across the roof I could see it."

"But what about this morning? I love you, Charlie."

"You love me," he repeated. "But are you coming back to New York with me?"

I thought about Windber and the house and Noah. And Darren. And my brother. I didn't know what was best for anybody and I didn't know what the right thing was or what I wanted, but I knew going back to New York right now was not an option. There was still too much to do. If I was being honest, I didn't know how much of that had to do with Darren.

I held out my hand and pulled Charlie up. We exited the trolley and walked a few feet apart in silence. Finally, I said, "Charlie, I can't go back to New York right now. But that doesn't mean––"

"It's ironic," he said.

"What is?"

"This was supposed to be the week we figured out if we could live together. It only took a few days in Pennsylvania to get our answer."

I didn't say anything. Instead, I stopped to read the graffiti on the trolley car in front of me. Under a green word bubble in shaky handwriting, it said Andy has a big dick, but it smells like spoiled milk. I was hoping for an answer from the universe, but you never get what you want. Especially in a trolley graveyard. 

Author's Note: I've never been to Windber, but I've been excited about writing a scene in the trolley graveyard ever since I discovered it on Google Maps for chapter one! There's no better setting to kill a relationship than a trolley graveyard, right? Thanks for reading!

What do you think is best for Ryan? Did he make the right choice?