Out of the Shallows

  Mom nodded. “She understands me.”

  “I don’t… I’m so confused.”

  Misunderstanding me, Mom gave me a sympathetic smile. “We couldn’t lay you to rest together, sweetie. You and Andie. Not after everything. It would be hypocritical.”

  “What?” I gasped. “We’re not dead! We’re not dead!”

  Her face clouded over. “I’m sick of this. You have to face up to your mistakes.” She frowned. “What is that noise?”

  What noise?

  “Do you hear it?” She stood and stamped her foot. “This is a cemetery! What is with that incessant noise?”

  “Mom?” I watched her stride away. “Mom?”

  I stopped. I could hear it too now. I whirled around, looking for the source. Was that Bastille?

  THIS IS THE RHYTHM OF THE NIGHT!

  My eyes slammed open in the dark and I gasped for breath.

  It took me a moment to come out of the dream and realize what had woken me up—the ringtone on my phone. Lunging across my bed, I whacked my hand off the corner of my bedside table before snatching the glowing phone. I squinted against the blur of sleep-fogged eyes and tensed at the caller ID.

  Jake.

  Why was Jake calling me at… five in the morning?

  Too tired to fight, too unsettled to deal with whatever it was he was planning to throw at me after weeks of radio silence, I ignored his call and rolled back over.

  Seconds after it stopped ringing, it started again.

  Huffing, I grabbed it back up. This time it was Lowe.

  Did Jake really think I was that stupid?

  I slammed the phone down and closed my eyes.

  It started ringing again.

  “Jesus effing Christ,” I hissed and snatched up the phone, ready to decline the call when I noticed the caller ID now said Denver.

  Worry instantly shot through me. Denver never called.

  “Hello,” I answered, hastily sitting up and leaning over to switch on my lamp.

  “Charley, it’s me,” Denver said quietly. “We’re sorry to be calling so late, early, whatever, but we’re looking for Beck.”

  Hearing the concern in his voice instantly quadrupled my own. Denver was pretty laid-back. If he was worried, then there was cause for worry. “I haven’t spoken to Beck in weeks,” I told him. “Not since Lowe’s party. Neither has Claud.”

  “Are you sure? Charley… Beck’s dad died. And now Beck’s missing.”

  “Oh my God.” I closed my eyes, feeling an ache deep in my chest.

  From what I’d gathered from Claudia and Jake, Beck’s mom and dad split along time ago. Beck lived with his mom and a stepdad he didn’t get along with, and he visited his father whenever he could. His dad lived not far from where Jake’s parents settled in Chicago. He was a musician who lived off the royalties of a couple of famous radio and TV jingles, but he was a raging alcoholic and not the best role model.

  “We tried to call Claudia but she’s not picking up.”

  “I’ll check,” I told him softly. “Just give me a second.”

  I put on my slippers and robe and hurried out of my room, down the hall to Claudia’s. “Claudia,” I knocked loudly.

  The door opened a few seconds later and I was surprised to see her awake and so alert. My eyes drew past to her bed and I stilled at the sight of Beck lying sprawled out across it. He was fast asleep.

  Claudia slipped out of the room, and followed me back to mine.

  I picked up the phone before she could say anything. “He’s here,” I told Denver.

  “Thank God.”

  I jerked, surprised to hear Jake’s voice. “Jake…”

  “I’m coming for him. Keep him there.”

  He hung up and I stared at the phone a second too long.

  “That was Jake?” Claudia asked, her voice a little hoarse.

  I nodded and slumped down on my bed. “When did Beck get here?”

  She ran a shaky hand through her hair. “He turned up at the door about one. He was hammered and crying—” She choked on the word as she rubbed at her eyes. “Oh God, Charley. How do I handle this? He lost his dad and he needs me but—”

  “There are no buts.” I drew her in for a hug. “You’d hate yourself if you didn’t give him the comfort he needs.”

  My friend clung to me. “I know you’re right. But I’m scared. How selfish is that?”

  “It’s not selfish,” I promised her. “It’s natural. But Claud… the worst thing in the world just happened to him and you’re the one person he sought out.”

  She processed this and I felt her arms tighten around me.

  Although Claudia was skipping class, she insisted I go to mine. I decided not to argue with her because I thought it might be best if she spent the day alone with Beck. She’d managed to get the story out of him before he passed out in her arms the night before. His dad’s death was completely unexpected—a heart attack.

  What made it worse was that he’d been dead for almost twenty-four hours before a neighbor called police because his stereo was playing loudly through the night. Claudia said Beck was agonizing over the fact that if the music hadn’t been playing, it could’ve been days before anyone found his dad.

  He blamed himself for not visiting enough, for not trying to take better care of him.

  Guilt. Blame. Those were things I was pretty familiar with lately, and I’d be there for him, no matter his connection to Jake or our history. Honestly, though, it was pretty clear by his presence in West Lafayette that Beck only wanted one person to see him through this.

  Despite Claudia’s misgivings, despite her resentment, I could see her concern for Beck overtaking everything. She found strength I didn’t think I could’ve had to see the bigger picture… and just… be there for him.

  I left her making him the homemade soup she’d finally perfected.

  I had one class in the morning and I didn’t register a word of it. Afterward, I hurried over to the library where I split my time working on my thesis and studying for the LSATs. My exam was only a week away but my mind wandered, and by the time I walked across campus to my law and society class, I’d processed about ten minutes of work in all.

  Every five minutes I glanced at my phone in case Claudia texted but I heard nothing, so I sat through class, foot tapping impatiently, waiting for it to end. All I wanted was to hurry back to the apartment to check on my friends.

  Finally, our professor dismissed us and I stuffed my notebook in my bag, preparing to run back to the apartment. However, Alex stopped me in my path.

  He had attempted to hang out with me whenever he could. He asked constantly to tell him what was wrong, but I never confided in him. I knew he was frustrated but he kept at it, trying to be there for me even though I was a miserable asshat to be around.

  Go figure.

  “I called you this morning. You didn’t call back,” he said in greeting.

  I winced apologetically. “Sorry. I’m not having a great day. I meant to call but…”

  “Oh?” He held the door open and we walked outside into the cold November air. “I can help with a bad day.”

  “How?”

  “Waffles and chocolate milk.”

  I laughed. “Not tequila?”

  “Puhlease,” Alex scoffed. “That shit is for pussies.”

  Chuckling, I nodded. “You’re right, that helped.”

  “Charley!”

  I blinked, jerking my gaze from Alex’s affectionate one to across the lawn. Hurrying toward me from the sidewalk was Claudia and Jake. The breath whooshed out of me at the sight of him.

  It was like I was a recovering addict and I’d just taken my first hit in years. The rush of feeling that flooded through me held me frozen.

  “Charley!” Claudia yelled again, running up the stairs toward me. Her eyes flicked to Alex. “Hey, Alex. Sorry, I have to borrow her immediately.” She grabbed my arm and hauled me down the steps toward Jake before Alex could even open his mouth to p
rotest.

  Her frantic behavior yanked me out of my Jake fog. “What’s going on?”

  Jake shoved a hand through his hair. It was really getting long now. “Beck’s gone.”

  “Gone?” I gaped at Claudia. “How did that happen?”

  She shook her head, her chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. “He was fine. I mean, not fine, but he had some soup and he was sobering up. He wasn’t talking but he was sitting with me and I thought… anyway, he eventually said he needed some aspirin and we didn’t have any so I ran out for some and when I got back, Jake was there and Beck was gone.”

  I rubbed her shoulder, trying to soothe her. “Take a breath. He can’t have gotten far. In fact…”

  “In fact what?” Jake asked impatiently.

  I ignored his tone. “My bet? He’s out somewhere getting hammered again. And since he’s only been here once before, it would make sense that he’d try to find somewhere familiar.”

  Claudia threw her hands up in annoyance. “I’m so stupid. He’s at The Brewhouse.”

  “I think it’s worth checking out.”

  Some students were kicking around The Brewhouse but not a lot given that it was afternoon. The gorgeous, tragic-looking rocker certainly stuck out.

  Beck sat on a barstool, head bowed, hand on his head, the other wrapped around a glass of scotch.

  “He’s hitting the hard stuff,” I murmured.

  “Wouldn’t you?” Jake said.

  “I’m not really into numbing my pain with self-medication.”

  “That’s probably because you have a high pain threshold,” he muttered dryly. “Some of us actually have feelings.”

  I blinked, feeling my cheeks heat with hurt and anger.

  Claudia threw me a sympathetic look as Jake pushed past to get to Beck. I waved her off and she hurried after him. Trailing at the rear, I reached them as Beck told Jake to go fuck himself.

  “Beck, you don’t want to do this.” Claudia pressed in on his other side, her arm sliding around him. I watched as his body instinctively moved into hers. “Drinking isn’t going to help.”

  “Isn’t it?” He shook his head and that ache in my chest hurt harder than before at the pain in his voice. “I was a shitty son. I wasn’t there for him. I should’ve been there for him.”

  “Beck,” Jake said, “he wasn’t exactly father of the year. You can’t blame yourself.”

  “Seriously?” Beck swung around to glare at him. “He’s fucking dead, man.”

  This was getting us nowhere.

  I gently nudged Jake out of my way. “Beck.” I took hold of his glass and forcefully tugged it out of his grasp, scotch spilling over the sides. “I get it,” I told him quietly. “It doesn’t matter what anyone says, or the reasons why you didn’t see your dad a lot. The facts are you didn’t. The facts are he died and you never got a chance to fix everything between you.” His eyes clung to mine, dazed and desperate. “I get it. The guilt. The blame. Believe me, I get it. You don’t like yourself so much right now. You wonder if you ever will. Well, you don’t know the answer to that, but I do know you’re not going to find it in a glass.” I leaned into him, clutching hold of his hand. “I can’t promise you anything and I’m not going to give you platitudes—you’ve got to work out all those feelings yourself. But I can tell you that you’ve got three friends here who will do anything they can to help you get through this. Anything but watch you drink yourself under a table.”

  Our eyes seemed to hold for a long time, a deep understanding passing between us.

  Finally, Beck nodded and made to stand up.

  I felt Jake and Claudia relax a little. Claudia tucked herself into Beck’s side so he could hold on to her. Jake paid Beck’s tab, and we walked back to the apartment, shrouded in Beck’s grief.

  The mug of coffee felt soothingly warm between my hands. I curled my legs underneath me and stared out our balcony window, wishing I wasn’t feeling the hush of grief fill every space in the apartment. It didn’t seem so long ago I was suffocating under that feeling.

  “He’s sleeping,” Jake said as he walked into the living room. I followed him with my eyes, somehow unable to look away after weeks of being deprived of him. “Claudia’s staying with him.”

  I nodded, unsure what to say. An angry tension radiated off Jake and I knew I was partly to blame for that.

  Jake yawned and collapsed into the nearest armchair.

  The silence between us grew steadily harder to deal with.

  “Listen—”

  “His dad was from San Francisco,” Jake cut me off, his voice brittle. “His favorite place was Baker Beach.” He looked at me directly for the first time. “He wants the four of us to take his dad’s ashes out there. A road trip.”

  I felt sick with nerves at the thought of going on a road trip with Jake.

  As if he sensed my instant dislike of this plan, he smirked unhappily. “You were the one who promised him we’d do anything.”

  Did he think I’d break that promise just because I didn’t want to be subjected to Jake’s anger and my own longing? “I’ll do this for him.”

  “So will I.”

  I looked away. A road trip with Jake.

  Beautiful… just beautiful.

  “What you said to him,” Jake said, his tone a little softer, “is that what you’re going through right now?”

  I didn’t know what was worse, his anger or the concern in his voice. More than anything I wanted to confide in Jake, and only Jake. Funny, how he was actually the last person that I could confide in.

  “I’m hungry. I’ll order pizza.” I got up and walked past him, my face perfectly blank. “Pepperoni, right?”

  Our hotel was in the center of Barcelona on Plaça de Catalunya. As promised, Claudia’s mother had hooked us up with first-class plane tickets and the hotel was cool and modern with French windows that offered amazing views over the plaza and the city. I shared a room with Claudia while the guys shared a room next door.

  We were all excited and ready to explore the city that night. Before we’d gotten on the plane, Claudia had asked me to sit with her so she didn’t have to sit with Beck. I couldn’t understand why she wanted him there if she planned to avoid him, but I was going with it for her sake. Beck wasn’t going with it. He’d insisted on sitting with her and when I’d glanced across the aisle, I saw he was listening quietly to her as she talked about her parents. She was a wreck about meeting her real dad and no matter what her head was telling her, I knew her heart was telling her she needed Beck.

  I guessed when it counted, he was there for her, which made it difficult to be mad at him for being a part-time ass.

  Jake and I sat together, discussing all the places we wanted to visit—Le Sagrada Família, Park Güell, Mount Tibidabo, Barcelona Cathedral, Casa Calvet, Gaudí House Museum…

  There was so much to see, we knew we couldn’t cram it all in. But we’d certainly try.

  “Tomorrow’s the big day.” I smiled reassuringly at Claudia as I shimmied into my best skinny jeans for dinner that evening. The next day we were going to be taking Claudia to meet Dustin at his apartment. From the few emails they’d exchanged, Claud had discovered Dustin lived in an area of the city called El Raval. Apparently it was popular with artists and musicians and creative types. He’d given us his address, warning us that his “quirky” apartment building didn’t have an elevator and he lived on the top floor.

  Claudia seemed to ignore my comment as she zipped her dress.

  “Claud?”

  She smiled at me. “You and Jake are so good together. It’s amazing to see you this happy. Has your dad spoken to you yet about possibly giving in?”

  I frowned at the subject change. “We’re in Barcelona… for you. I’d really rather talk about that.”

  “And I really rather wouldn’t. I feel like I’m going to upchuck. I spent the whole time on the plane talking to Beck about meeting Dustin and now I just want to try to forget about tomorrow’s life
-changing moment and enjoy this beautiful city tonight with my good friends.” Her chin jutted stubbornly, almost daring me to defy her.

  “Fine. If that’s what you want.” I pulled on a light cardigan over my thin tee, not knowing how chilly it might get. “Things are still bad. And Andie and I still haven’t spoken. We’ve never been this angry at each other or for so long.” I rubbed a hand over my chest unconsciously, right over the spot where I ached every time I thought of the discord between my sister and me.

  “And the cop thing?”

  I grimaced. “We’re still butting heads. I told them I’m not taking the LSATs.”

  “That’s pretty much taking a stand.” Claudia grinned. “I’m proud of you for going for what you want.”

  “It’s like this huge weight off my shoulders, I can’t even explain. I mean, can you imagine? In the end I would’ve made a terrible lawyer.”

  “Actually, I can imagine you as a litigator. It’s all about championing someone. Or prosecuting a bad guy. That’s you through and through. Why am I taking the LSATs again?”

  I made a face. I had no idea why Claudia was sitting the LSATs but that was a conversation for another time. “Being a lawyer is stuffy suits and papers, and I’m more of a polyester-uniform-and-action girl.”

  Claudia snorted. “Okay, true.”

  The knock at our hotel door made me grin. Claudia smirked. “What?” I asked as I strode toward the door.

  “Nothing.” She laughed lightly. “I’ve just never seen you like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “All giddy and loved up. It’s cute.”

  I know she said it to annoy me so I didn’t give her the satisfaction. Instead I opened the door to reveal my gorgeous boyfriend and his sexy best friend, and I grinned, refusing to give up the giddy. “Hey, handsome.”

  “Hey, yourself.” Beck flashed me a wicked smile before brushing past into the room. His low-lidded eyes swept over Claudia. “Lookin’ good, babe. How you feeling?”

  “Like I don’t want to talk about my father tonight.” She grabbed her purse and looped her arm through Beck’s. “Let’s just have fun.”

  Jake wrapped his arm around my waist, and I leaned into him as he gave me a smoldering look. “I can do fun.”