“Dyl—”
But she cut me off.
“My life is your worst nightmare. I get it.”
“No, it’s not like that,” I said.
She looked out the window. “Forget it.”
I opened my mouth, but what the hell could I say? I slumped down in my seat. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
I closed my eyes and listened to the slap of tires on the road and Sean’s gurgles. A heavy, suffocating silence settled over us, louder than the shouting match we’d just had. Was this what it meant to grow up, to move on?
JOSH
You play chess? That’s the first thing you ever said to me—well, first thing after Private, you better get that hair into regulation. We were still in the States, back when I thought I was the shit. You were holding your chess set and I’d been a smart-ass, said something like, No, sir, I’m no ninety-year-old grandpa, and you just stared at me with that look you get—all Clint Eastwood and shit, until I said, No offense, sir. You laughed. I can’t believe I only knew you for a year and a half—how can one person change you in two football seasons? But you did. You didn’t give up on me. Told Command I had promise. Promise. No one had ever said something like that about me before. And they believed you, let you show me the ropes, teach me what it really means to be a Marine. You were a good soldier, the best, and you cared about all of us, even that little dick, Panelli. I’ll never forget how before we went out each day, you’d tell everyone in our squad that we were cocksuckers and we better not die or we’d have to look up from hell and watch you screwing our sisters and wives and even our mothers. So most of us, most of us, didn’t get dead. Chess and you taking a picture of me reading Slaughterhouse-Five, telling me I’d need proof someday because nobody in Creek View would ever believe I had actually read a goddamn book, let alone five. Talking about God and why there’s evil in the world and bitching because the Steelers won the Super Bowl. Camp Leatherneck, me not missing home at all and you missing it like crazy, always talking about going to college and how when you had leave you were gonna marry Hannah. And you wanted kids, and I said I didn’t because people like me, we just end up disappointing one another and I’d probably be like my dad, and you told me I had to get over it, get over my dad and my mom and how screwed up everything is because you said, Josh, you’re gonna have it all. I know it. You’re gonna have it all. And for the first time, I’m almost believing that.
chapter twenty-two
“Okay, so remember, the queen is the best piece. You gotta guard her with your life.”
Josh was pointing to the carved chess piece on the board in front of me, and I nodded, trying to keep all the rules he’d taught me in mind. Playing chess by the pool had become this thing we did every few days, when it was almost twilight and the heat of the day had dwindled to a bearable warmth. It was one of those perfect summer evenings—the sky looked like someone had thrown a can of pink paint onto it, and the crickets were playing their reedy symphony. One of my baskets of strawberries sat between us, washed and still warm from the sun, and if I leaned forward, I could catch a bit of their sweetness in the air. But I couldn’t look at them without thinking about everything that had gone down with Chris and Dylan. It’d only been a few hours, but the fact that neither of them had called didn’t bode well.
“And she can move in any direction?” I asked, prolonging my inevitable loss. I didn’t want him to go home and leave me to wrestle my demons alone.
“Right,” he said. “She’s your nuclear bomb.”
“Uh-huh.”
Whichever way I went, he’d be saying “checkmate” within a few moves. My finger hovered above a rook, then a knight. Undecided, I sighed and pushed forward a pawn he’d be able to capture in his next move.
“You okay?” he asked. He put his hand on my knee, for just a second. If I’d been a different Skylar, I’d have put my hand over his.
The pact. The pact.
“Sorry,” I said, busying my hands with remaking my ponytail. “Just … stuff’s on my mind. It’s fine.”
Everything I was doing was like this chess game—full of second guesses, indecision, waiting.
“You want to talk about it?”
“Not really,” I said.
“Fair enough.” He looked at where I’d moved my pawn, then sat back, studying the board. “Hmmm.”
“Just kill me and get it over with.”
“You’re not so good at the patience thing.”
“And you are?”
“Oh, yeah. In the military, it’s all hurry up and wait.” He leaned over the board. “Hearts and minds,” he murmured. “Hearts and minds.”
“Huh?”
“Just this thing they told us overseas. How we were there to win the hearts and minds of the Afghanis. Every day, some commander would say it. Or you’d see it on this sign above the entrance to our camp.”
“Are you good at it?” I asked.
“Winning hearts and minds?”
I nodded.
“Don’t really know…” He looked up at me, his eyes mischievous. “Yet.”
I stopped breathing, and he made his move, a blatant murder of one of my rooks.
“Damn. I forgot about him.”
“Gotta watch your troops.” He leaned back and popped a strawberry into his mouth, stem and all.
“Dude. You’re not supposed to eat the green part.”
He shrugged. “Nutrients. Trust me, once you’ve eaten camel balls, you’ll eat anything.”
“Eww. Seriously?”
He laughed. “No, but you totally believed me, didn’t you?”
“Jarhead.”
“Yep.”
“Okay, stop distracting me,” I said. “I’m trying to annihilate you.”
“Good luck with that.”
“You know, I’m only pretending to suck at this. I’m letting you win.”
“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”
“I have to pay for your mechanic services some way.”
As promised, Blake had sent the tow truck out to pick up my car. A few days later, it’d been sitting in the Paradise lot good as new. Josh had not only fixed the radiator, which had been the last straw for the Prizm, he’d also managed to replace or mend several other things. And he wouldn’t let me give him a dime.
“Oh, that,” he said. “I just put it on your tab.”
“I have a tab?”
“Uh-huh. We’ll discuss payment at a later date, but I’m thinking homemade chocolate chip cookies, back rubs, that sort of thing.”
“Do I look like the kind of girl who makes chocolate chip cookies and gives out free back rubs?”
He held up a finger. “Not free.”
“Well, I don’t bake. Especially not for boys.”
“What about men?”
I shook my head, blushing. “I have the distinct feeling you’re trying to rile me up so I’ll make a dumb move and hand you this game on a silver platter. True or false?”
“I plead the Fifth.”
“Of course you do.” I couldn’t look at him, not when he smiled at me like that, so I stared at the board, chewing my lip.
Josh cleared his throat. “So, uh. There’s this thing tonight. Down by the creek. Just a couple of people, a bonfire. You should check it out.”
“Check it out? Like it’s an art exhibit or something?”
He rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. It’d be good for you to … have fun.”
“I have fun.”
He gave me a look like, Sure you do. “Well, anyway. I’ll be there. If you get bored, call me and I’ll come pick you up.”
Was he asking me out? I always thought he’d be direct about that kind of thing. The old Josh Mitchell would have grunted, cavemanlike: You. Me. Creek. Sex. Or something.
“Thanks. I’ll think about it.”
I wished I could call Dylan to make sense of it. My heart felt like it was running a marathon—God, could he hear it? I looked up after I made my move, and he smile
d at me before turning his attention back to the board.
“You’re getting better at this. It’s taking me longer to massacre you, anyway.” He grimaced as he took my pawn. “Rookie mistake. You could have moved your knight here—” He pointed to a square on the side of the board. “Or you could have—”
A sudden crack pierced the air, a car backfiring on the highway, and Josh froze. Then he stood up, his sudden movement causing the chessboard to topple over and the pieces to scatter. He stood still for a minute that seemed to go on forever. Then he let out a long breath, shook his head a little.
“Fuck,” he muttered. He took a few steps toward the pool, his back to me.
I stood up slowly, walking on eggshells. “Josh?”
He didn’t turn around, just stared out at the pool with his hands on his hips.
“Hey,” I said. I stood in front of him and reached for one of his hands. When our skin made contact, he gripped my fingers, and I shifted closer, careful not to move too suddenly. He looked past me, like there was a slow-motion car crash happening over my shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
I shook my head. “Nothing to be sorry about.”
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple pushing in, then his arms went around me. He smelled like baked bread, the way skin does when it’s been out in the sun, and I bunched his T-shirt up in my fists as I held him to me. After a couple minutes, he let go and looked down at the chess pieces scattered all over the patio.
“Shit.”
He started to lean down, but I held up my hand. “I’ll get them.”
“I can do it.”
“Josh—”
“Sky. I’ve got it, okay?” he snapped.
I nodded and stepped back. “Okay. I’ll just … I’m gonna grab a Coke. Do you want anything?”
“No.”
I walked toward the glass door, my eyes smarting as he struggled to reach down for the pieces. I prayed none had fallen into the pool. Knowing him, he’d rip off his leg and dive in after them. I pulled the glass door open with trembling hands.
“Hey, sweet pea.” Marge was standing just inside the lobby, her hands tucked into the pockets of one of her tropical-island-themed muumuus. From the look on her face, I could tell she’d been watching the whole thing.
“Hey. He’s just—”
“You don’t need to explain to me, hon.”
I pretended not to notice the long look she was giving me, but when I started to walk past her, she gently grabbed hold of my arm. I had the sudden urge to lean into her thick body and sob, but I just cocked my head to the side and waited.
“You okay?”
I nodded, but my chest felt tight, and nothing, nothing, nothing was making sense anymore.
She frowned. “Just be careful. I’m glad he has you, but you have to look out for yourself, too. You get what I’m saying?”
If only she knew how much he’d been taking on for me. What was I doing for him? Nothing. It wasn’t like I could go into Josh’s brain and alter his memories. Take the war away. Give him his leg back. I’d never felt so powerless in my life.
“Yeah. Totally. Um. I’m gonna…”
I pointed to the front door and walked out, then ducked around the side of the motel, to the orchard surrounding it. I lay on the grass and closed my eyes, collaging against my eyelids. The Golden Gate Bridge. Josh in uniform. My trailer. The angel from the Paradise sign. Strawberries.
I didn’t get up until I heard Josh’s truck start, then peel out of the driveway.
JOSH
Marge comes up to me and hands me a cold beer before I leave the Paradise for the day, which is cool of her since she probably knows I just made a total ass of myself. I put your chessboard in my bag, and we sit there for a while, just watching the sun set. Don’t know where Sky went, and I’m scared I screwed everything up. I’m starting to realize that she’s my only real friend in the world right now. I can’t lose that. I’ve tried so hard to play it safe with her, and I thought I was doing okay until I went all wounded warrior on her and … fuck. Marge says, Josh, and I say, Hmmm? and she says, Sky is like a daughter to me, you know that. And I say, Yeah. Then she says, Be careful with her. She’s a tough cookie, but you could hurt her real bad. And I say, I would never hurt her, and I really mean it because this feeling I have for her—man, it’s like absolutely nothing I’ve felt before, which is freaking my shit out, and Marge goes, She’s a good girl, and I say, Yeah, I know. And then she’s all, What does your therapist say about her? and I have to admit that I haven’t talked to him about Sky and she says, Well, maybe you should, and I get that what she’s really saying is This isn’t such a good idea, you have one leg and your mental evals from the Corps were shit, weren’t they? And I want to tell her I don’t give two fucks what anybody thinks, but that’s not true so I just say, Yeah, I hear you, Marge. She gives me a little hug and says, I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, the two of you. I’m just saying to be careful is all, sweet pea. And after she leaves, I start thinking about the wives and girlfriends. When I was at Walter Reed and later in the Wounded Warrior Regiment, they’d come and try to help their men, you know, and the dudes would be telling me how hard it is for the relationship and shit, and I start thinking about Sky, like, if this becomes something—which it probably won’t because I’m too much of a pussy to make a move (I know, can you believe it?)—I’m just thinking about what I’m asking of her. If we get together. I’d be asking her to, like, deal with my shit. Like what happened today. She doesn’t need that in her life; she has enough problems. And I start picturing her trying to help me do stuff because I can’t man up or whatever, and everything turns dark and wrong, and I’m back in that shitty place I was in when I first woke up and saw how the hospital sheet lay flat against the bed when there should have been a leg under it. I need your help. I need you here with a six-pack and your goddamn wisdom. This is your territory. What am I supposed to do when I’m bad for the one good thing in my life?
JOSH
You know, I don’t even need you to answer that, bro. Marge is right. I gotta back off.
chapter twenty-three
My fingers moved over the piles of paper on my bed, like brushes in a can of rainbow paint. I’d spent the past hour tearing up the colors I needed for the next installment of my collage for Marge. Didn’t matter that it probably wasn’t a going-away gift anymore. I still wanted to finish it. I had about half of it done: the highway snaking through the whole piece, the creek, the strawberry fields. I’d decided to begin working on the orchard behind the Paradise, so I was going through the old magazines from the lobby, tearing out all the brown and green. My hands were sticky with glue, and I hummed along to Sia, playing in the background. I loved taking these pieces and making them part of a whole, giving them a place to belong. More beautiful than when they started.
I pieced together a trunk, branches, leaves. With this collage, I could remake Creek View, transform it into something beautiful and clean. Under my hands, it breathed with new life.
I forced my mind to stay on the collage, giving every bit of my awareness to it. I wanted to pretend for a few hours that it was still May and Mom was fine and I was going to San Francisco and Josh Mitchell was only the memory of a kiss on a cheek. I found my groove and stayed there. It was warm, wombish and a little melancholy, but in a good way. The making pulsed through me, like someone was guiding my hands over the paper.
I didn’t hear the knock on my door at first. But soon the tentative taps became purposeful rapping.
“Just a sec!” I called.
I ran into the bathroom and rinsed the glue off my hands. When I opened the door, Dylan was standing there, wearing a miniskirt, a skin-tight tank top, and platform sandals.
“You’re getting together with Josh Mitchell tonight,” was the first thing she said to me. “I’ve decided it’s the only way to save your shitty summer—you need a hot fling with that sexy one-legged boy. Sex is the ultimate de-stresser.”
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I looked down at my baggy pajama pants and oversized T-shirt. “I don’t think so.”
“Well, I do.”
Dylan swept past me, and I caught a glimpse of Amy at the reception desk before I shut the door behind me.
I turned off my music and gestured to a chair. “You want to sit?”
Dylan plopped down and crossed her legs. I didn’t know what to say after our fight that afternoon. How did you apologize for years of belittling someone? We sat there looking at each other until the silence became unbearable.
“The collage is looking pretty good. The strawberries look real,” she said.
“Thanks. I used this metallic red paper I found in an old book.”
“Cool.”
The seconds ticked by, and the silence was so silent it turned into a high-pitched whine. I grabbed an M&M’s ad and started tearing the brown parts out. I set the paper back down and finally looked her in the eye.
“Dyl … I’m sorry. I honestly don’t know what else I can say. I love you, and I think you’re an amazing person, and I’ve been an asshole.”
“Okay.”
“That’s it?”
“What, you thought I was going to hold a grudge? That’s Chris’s style.”
She was right. That was Chris’s style. Which explained why Dylan had come over and Chris had not. I’d already tried to call him, but I refused to try more than once.
“There is one teeny, tiny catch, though,” she said.
I raised my eyebrows. “What?”
“There’s a party tonight by the creek. I have it on good authority that Josh will be there. Ergo, you will be there.”
“I know. I’m still not going.”
“How do you know about a party?”
“Josh told me.” She lit up, and I shook my head. “It’s not what you think. It got weird and—”
She held up her hand. “My forgiveness after years of insults will only be given to you if you come out with me tonight. Hooking up with Josh is strictly optional, but encouraged.”
I shook my head. “This is a seriously complicated situation.”