“A long way off,” he assessed.
“Someone else could still be close,” I whispered back.
“Sadie, look at me.”
His words were so delicate, they felt like a walk around a glass shop.
I looked at him and for the first time, he didn’t look away. He even lifted his mask above his eyes, which were as gray as his name.
“I want to tell you something,” he whispered.
You. Gina. Max. Jesus, did I have Tell me something on my forehead?
“Right now?” I asked.
“Right now.” He spoke loud enough to draw enemy fire. “Before I lose my nerve.”
Sweat glistened on his forehead. I stared at those tiny beads, and a barrage of paint flew over our heads. Gray rolled over on top of me to shield me.
His body on top of mine transported me back to the last time he hovered above me.
The Yaris smoked. I was on the ground. Pain.
On the island, Gray said into my ear, “Hold still.”
He fired two rapid shots and a girl walked off the dunes with pink and yellow paint on her chest.
There was blood in my mouth. There was blood, blood, blood everywhere.
On the island, his body pressed against mine. Pinched me between him and the ground. “I think she was alone,” he said.
I tried to sit up and couldn’t. Gray pressed his shirt against my face. Gray said, “Sadie, are you okay? Sweetie, are you okay? Oh God. Oh God, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m okay,” I told Gray. I wasn’t okay.
Island Gray rolled off me and whispered, “Seems we’re in the clear.”
I bulldozed those memories to the side with a steady, internal voice. I do not have a time machine.
“What I was saying before,” Gray continued. There was the sweat again, gathering on his skin. Not from the heat of the sun, but from the heat of what he had to say. “He makes you happy. Max, I mean, and—”
“Gray, stop.”
“I kissed you the other night, and I shouldn’t have . . . I wanna say I’m sorry. Anything that makes you smile, after this past year, I’m on board. Even if it’s not me.”
“You don’t want it to be you. You made that pretty clear last fall,” I said, keeping my eyes on my gun sites.
“Gina was a mistake,” he said. “There’s a reason it happened and you wouldn’t—”
“Wouldn’t what? Understand? Because trust me, I would rather understand how you and Gina ended up kissing than be left to my own theories.”
“Really?”
My answer came slowly. Eye to eye. Pain to pain.
“Yes.”
“Okay,” he said. “Here you go. Gina wasn’t driving the day of the accident. I was.”
Gray’s words sliced into me. The sharp knife of truth.
Fumbling for a response, I said, “You . . . can’t . . . drive a stick.”
“I know.” Gray rolled onto his stomach. Tears fell from his eyes to the sand. “That’s why the Jeep stalled out.”
“But—” I squeezed the trigger of my gun so tightly that several rounds fired off toward the tree line. “Why would you risk that?”
Gray buried his face in the crook of his elbow. “It’s complicated.”
“More complicated than both of you lying to me, to everyone, for a year?”
Was this what Gina meant to confess?
He caught the fear in my eyes, and lowered his head again without speaking. He still didn’t think I could handle what he had to say.
Righteous indignation overtook me. I put my mouth against his ear and gritted out two sentences. “I am not an effing china doll. Now, tell me the truth.”
“If you think about it,” he said, “you already know the reason. Trent broke up with Gina for you.”
“No, he didn’t.” That was the refrain of my life.
“You don’t know what she said happened. You weren’t in our car.” He cringed as he said that statement. “It doesn’t matter. What does matter is the truth, and that you finally know. I swear to God, I planned to tell you. We both did, but then, there just wasn’t any good way to do it. It felt like if we told you, you’d blame yourself, and I didn’t think you needed any more pain this year. But that’s clearly Not. A. Problem. You don’t even blame yourself for messing with our relationship and theirs.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “What the hell are you talking about? I don’t have to blame myself because I didn’t do anything. I certainly didn’t drive a vehicle that I don’t know how to drive.”
The fight drained out of him. He wore guilt like I wore scars. When he spoke this time, there was hardly anything left. “Sadie, you nearly died. I almost lost you. I could barely wrap my head around that. And losing Trent . . . knowing I killed him . . . can’t you see how confusing this has been for me, too? I was angry with him, and you, and then me. It’s been a damn carousel. So, hate me if you want, but I couldn’t, wouldn’t, pull another rug out from under you. And then, it was too late.”
“I . . .” The words stopped. Nothing came.
Gray wasn’t usually a crier. Now, his eyes and nose leaked in a constant stream. “What happened to you and Trent and Max . . . It’s all my fault.”
I stood up, vulnerable to the playing field.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
Two shots pounded me in the arm. Another shot exploded against my leg. Purple paint splattered against my shin. I was out. But I wasn’t playing the game anymore.
“Please say something,” Gray said. “Anything.”
“I don’t know what to say. What am I supposed to do with this?” Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. I got nailed again on my hip.
“Blame me. Hate me. Punish me. Anything you need. I just want this . . .” He balled up his fists and pressed them into his thighs. “I want this . . . to be behind us.”
I said nothing. I felt everything. I wanted to shoot him.
Gray read the cacophony of feelings perfectly. He stood up and faced me. “Shoot me, then.”
Thwack. Thwack. Someone else took care of that for me.
“Sadie, shoot me.”
“You’re already out.”
“You know you want to,” he whispered.
I did—I wanted this anger to have a target—but I argued, “That’s stupid, Gray.”
“It’s what I deserve.”
“None of us deserved any of this.”
Tears emptied out of him. “Please, Sadie.”
I’d never been able to refuse a please from Gray Garrison. From six feet, I fired a single shot at his chest. One kill shot to the heart. I dropped the gun, unable to manage more than that.
He fell on his knees and cried.
Gray wanted to be punished, and I chose words instead of more paint. “I hate you for lying to me.”
“I hated you for loving Trent.”
“Trent was gay, you idiot.”
Truth stood between us as still as a statue.
To me, that moment was like putting on contacts in the morning. The blurry world sharpened with crisp understanding. And regret. We’d lied. And lies, whether good or bad, always did irrevocable damage.
“You could have told me,” he said. “It wouldn’t have changed the way I loved him.”
Gray Garrison: liar, heartbreaker, and beautiful friend to Trent McCall.
“No.” I shook my head. “He should have told you.”
“And now he can’t.”
“Now he can’t,” I repeated.
Gray’s shoulders folded. He looked at Idaho and the scar at my mouth, forced himself to own his actions and misinterpretations.
This time, I was the one who looked away.
“I’m sorry . . . for everything,” he said.
Even though I was sorry too, I didn’t say it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Some Emails to Max in El Salvador
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Date: May 10
Subject: nitty-gritty
Max,
Whoa, where did that come from?
I promise you that Trent and I didn’t have anything going on. Ever. You are NOT stepping into his territory. You are not his replacement. You are also not a rebound from Gray. Please trust me. Oh, I wish I could explain how sure I am.
Love,
Sadie
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Date: May 12
Subject: RE: nitty-gritty
Max,
I can’t tell you, but I am positive.
Trent and I talked about it.
I know that he didn’t love me—except as a sister.
Sadie
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Date: May 14
Subject: RE: official?
Max,
Yes, I assumed we are a real couple. Exclusive.
You don’t?
Love,
Sadie
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Date: May 17
Subject: listen to “Better Together” by Jack Johnson
Max,
Just so you know, sometimes, when it takes you a while to respond, it freaks me out. Especially after I send emails like the last one.
I’m really glad we’re on the same page. It’s weird how two people often worry about the same thing, and stew over that thing, and create assumptions and fallout plans over that thing . . . without ever talking about the thing. So let me say this, loud and clear: I like you for you. Beginning and end of story. I’m going to write that down and put it in Big right now.
Thank you for what you said about my face. I grant you the freedom to change that opinion after you see me.
Okay, I’m going to hit send. Honesty is uncomfortable.
Love,
Sadie
CHAPTER THIRTY
I put my hands up in an act of surrender—for the game, for myself—and walked toward registration. My autopilot was set to the Jet Ski, and somewhere on the island, Max’s autopilot was set to me.
Gray stayed on the ground.
Back on the main beach, paint splatters covered various pirate costumes, and participants who had lost sat on the sand recounting war stories, addressing blows to their pride with Miller Lite and suggestions of cheaters. I’d never been in this crowd before, and I had no plans to stay now.
My skin swelled in the few places I’d been hit. The whelps didn’t compare to the hit I’d taken in the heart. Lies were like that. They barreled straight into deep tissue.
I made a beeline to the Jet Ski and sat down. Max appeared beside me wearing not a single fleck of paint. His hands on my shoulders, he gave me a quick hug, and looked me over, worried.
“I need to get out of here,” I said.
Wordlessly, he gathered our stuff and waved away other curious participants who couldn’t believe we weren’t staying until the final horn. Behind me, Max apologized to someone—I didn’t turn and look—saying we’d be back next year. I hated to leave Tommy and Marge without saying good-bye, but they wouldn’t want to see me like this. I didn’t want to see anyone.
Max stowed our gear in one of the Jet Ski compartments and swung his leg over in front of me, facing me.
“You want to talk?”
He was hoarse.
“I just want to go.”
Max held out a life jacket. When I didn’t react, he spoke to me the way I’d spoken to him at Trent’s funeral.
“Forward is the only way through.”
I wasn’t trying to be difficult; my arms just wouldn’t obey instructions. My brain was too busy being a washing machine, tumbling facts and histories over and over, drowning them.
They both lied to us.
I’d told Gray the truth about Trent.
I needed to tell Max.
Sliding the jacket around me, Max zipped it up as if I were five. I felt his intense gaze and closed my eyes.
“We have to push off,” he said, taking my hand.
Mechanically, we launched the Jet Ski into the water. Max drove without direction. His parents’ boat lay anchored nearby, but he whizzed past them without acknowledgment. Max didn’t flinch or answer as Sonia yelled to ask him where we were going. When we were no longer in sight of the little island or any of the boats, Max killed the engine.
“What do you need?” he asked.
“Open ocean.”
“Done,” he said, and we were driving again.
The world hazed around me.
I felt everything without feeling anything.
The puffy, happy clouds of the morning darkened like a bruise in the sky and threatened rain. Soon the threat was more than idle; we were dry one moment and under a waterfall the next. Rain plastered my bangs against Idaho and suctioned Max’s clothes against his body. Nature, at its strongest, shaved off mountaintops or threw houses into the air, but it couldn’t wash away pain.
Everything had limitations.
Max steered toward the curve of the horizon. I shivered from the wind and rain as we bumped along in the violent surf.
“It’ll be warmer if we get in,” he said, and slowed down.
When we stopped, I slid into the water, letting my life jacket keep my head above the surface. Max floated beside me, one hand on the Jet Ski, one hand on my back, as we bobbed up and down in the rain-pounded waves and searched the sky for lightning.
Max used the ocean and the rain to scrub the paint off my shoulder and arm and the tattoos from my cheeks. As if he knew I didn’t want any evidence of today left on me.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Gray and Gina . . .”
He bent toward me so I wouldn’t have to scream into the wind.
“They lied to us.”
I told Max everything Gray had told me. I didn’t know much else, and there were plenty of gaps in the story, but when I finished, Max gave a long whistle.
“There’s something else,” I said.
He swam closer to me.
“Something about Trent,” I explained. “The thing I didn’t tell you in my emails.”
I’d told Gray without meaning to, but now, the words were stuck in my throat.
“O-kay,” he said, preparing himself.
The rain hammered us. I took a deep breath, and lifted my own hammer of words. “You know that card in Trent’s room? The one under his mattress?”
Max dropped his head in a slow yes.
“It was from Callahan.”
Max looked up with questions in his eyes. He whittled those questions into a name. “Chris Callahan?”
“Yes.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“Yes.”
“I . . . Does anyone else know?”
“They didn’t. I just told Gray.”
“You didn’t tell me first.” It was both a question and a statement.
“I didn’t know how.”
“All those emails where I was worried about—”
“Max, he hadn’t told anyone yet, so it felt like a secret I was supposed to keep.”
“He told you,” he said accusingly. “And you told Gray instead of me, when I’m his brother.”
“I didn’t mean to. I told Gray in anger. I’m telling you now—”
Max finished the sentence for me. “Because you have to.”
“Maybe,” I admitted. “But I’m glad you know. Trent didn’t want to tell you.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t want to change things.”
“That asshole.”
“Max, put yourself in his shoes. It’s terrifying to live one way and then try another.”
“I could have handled it. I could have helped. You should have told me.”
But I hadn’t. And nothing changed that.
Lowering his chin to the water,
Max scooped up a handful of ocean and let it drain through his fingers. Any other words he had followed the water to the bottom of the Gulf.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
He bent his neck, his head hanging there like fruit on an overladen tree. “Sadie”—my name sounded hollow—“let’s go home.”
The tides of us changed in an instant. We came out here for me. We were leaving for him. “You okay?”
Max delivered his thoughts swiftly and quietly. “I don’t know what I am. They lied, and they have to live with it. You lied. Trent lied. I have to live with that. I need some time.”
“But Max . . .” I stopped myself from arguing, from making things worse. He had every right to feel the way he did.
Without another word, Max climbed on the Jet Ski. Robotically, I followed. He forced me to the front, sandwiching me between his body and the steering column.
I zoned out while Max drove us to the dock at his house.
I went back to the day Trent told me about Callahan.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
It was just another summer day where I was in love with my book and towel and sunblock. Trent snatched my paperback and said, “Don’t live in that fantasy world; come play in mine.”
“Does your world have motorcycles?” I said, reaching for the book.
He tugged me up from the towel. “I swear it does.”
That phrase usually led to actual swearing, but that day he grinned ear to ear. I swore for both of us, and followed him off the beach. I complained about the heat of the sand. I protested that I was at the good part of my book. I asked where we were going.
Trent never gave something away unless he wanted to.
He marched me to the Yaris and drove us to the kiteboard shop where our friend Callahan worked.
“Callahan, toss me your keys,” Trent said.
Callahan was a couple of years older. Sometimes we rented from him, but I didn’t realize Trent knew him well enough to demand his keys. Callahan threw a wink and a key at Trent and said, “Bring it back with gas, bud.”
“You were saying.” Trent gloated as we walked to the Ninja.
The challenge bit me in the ass. He shoved a helmet on my head, and I hiked my leg over the seat and held on. Through town, Trent rolled slow. His balance was perfect and easy to match. Melding with him was like singing harmony; I went wherever he did.