Polaroids

3: NOW

I blink away the memory and move toward the side door off the kitchen. This house has so many doors it is kind of ridiculous. Mom is still chattering away that she only notices my latest state of insanity when I reach the door.

I yank open the inside door and then shove the screen one into the side yard. He is already in front of the house diagonal from mine. He casts a look over his shoulder, and even from thirty feet away I can see the familiar light burn in those green eyes. Green eyes I never thought I'd see again; never thought I'd be allowed to see again.

"Hey!"

He pauses, face turned down the street.

"Are you just going to loiter outside my house and not say hi?" I step out of the house and into the grassy side yard. The blades tickle my feet, but I hardly notice. I am intent on ensuring that this isn't some grand hallucination my brain concocted to remind me of all I lost when I left here.

We stand there facing one another, just observing like he does so well, like he taught me to do. He looks different but the same. Older in the face, a few more lines that I want to comment on but can't find it in my heart to joke about at this moment. His hair appears fuller on top than anything I've ever seen. He is still lean and wound tight, his outfit reminiscent of the one when I first met him.

I wonder how he sees me. My hair is much shorter than before, falling in one wavy auburn sheet just above my shoulders. Is my face older? Do I appear more tired than the last time we saw one another? Do I finally look like I grew into my own self? Standing in my worn yoga capris and a paint stained tank top, not much has changed, yet everything has.

I don't know how to close the distance between us. I'm vaguely aware of my parents standing at the side door, calling after me. I barely hear them. My sole focus is Sherlock. How do I greet someone like Sherlock? How do I convey how much I've missed him without scaring my parents? How do I apologize for the way we left things? How do we pick up after everything that happened?

Then another thought rails into me. What if he's read the book? Fuck. Is he going to hate me? Did he hate it? Oh god. I can't even form a coherent concern that doesn't revolve around me having a panic attack. He was never supposed to read it. Hopefully no one ever bothered to tell him I published a book.

Taking a deep breath, I settle my nerves and shove all worries aside.

I know it must be me to make the first move. It was always me. For some reason, when it came to me, Sherlock became uncertain, and an uncertain Sherlock is as rare as flying pigs. Our mutual friend Kitty told me this one evening when she was visiting me in Brighton. It was just a few months before everything blew up in England and I had to escape.

"You frighten him," Kitty said that night, twirling a wine glass in her hand.

I eyed her lazily, half-listening and half paying attention to the painting I was ruining. Painting helped with creative flow for my writing. Didn't mean I was decent at it. "Nothing frightens Sherlock. We both know this."

She leaned her elbows onto the table and ran a hand through her dark wavy locks. "Not in the I'm-terrified-of-you sense. More like he is proper frightened by how you make him feel, of how he acts around you."

Still only partially listening to her, I shrugged one shoulder. "He acts the same around me as he does you or anyone else."

She shook her head adamantly and dropped the wine glass onto the table with a soft clink, which finally drew my attention. Her dark eyes were insistent. "You've really gotten under his skin, Zo. You don't live with him. You don't see it like I do."

"What are you saying?"

"This is the first time in my life I've ever seen Sherlock uncertain of anything."