It’s better than I remember. My hair and my lungs are full of salt and the breeze is burning my eyes, but I don’t care. I want to absorb all of it.
Cole and I don’t talk while we eat. We both stare out at the changing landscape of white beach and blue water as darkness drips steadily down the sky. The juice from the gyro runs over the foil onto my fingers and my legs drift back and forth beneath me like I’m sitting on a porch swing.
The moment is strangely perfect.
I know that it all sounds romantic—the beach, the water, the quiet—but it’s not. Not really. It’s comfortable and I can’t even think of the last time that I felt comfortable.
Once—no—twice, I look over and catch Cole watching me. The second time, my eyebrows go up and he drops his face.
“So…” I say, swallowing the last bite of my gyro.
Cole’s head comes up. He squints out toward the water. “Blue. Inception, Caddyshack, and Total Recall. The original one, of course. Mainly rock, but sometimes I mix it up with rap.”
I feel like I’ve been dropped center stage and I’ve forgotten what my line is. My bottom jaw is bobbing. “Did I miss something? What are you talking about?”
Cole laughs at my expression. “Last night you said that you wanted to know a few things: my favorite color, what my three island movies are, and the type of music I listen to before a race.” He shrugs his shoulders. “I just told you the answers.”
“Okaaaay…” I scrunch up my face. “I haven’t seen Caddyshack or Total Recall.”
Now it’s time for Cole’s mouth to hang. “What are you talking about? How is that even possible?”
“I don’t think it’s that strange. Those movies were made before we were even born, right?”
“Um, yeah, but you were actually born, weren’t you?”
I roll my eyes. “Obviously.”
“Then you should have seen them by now. No excuses,” he says in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Fine. I should have seen them and maybe I will eventually. I guess that I’m not really a movie person unless it’s got Ryan Gosling or Chris Hemsworth in it.”
Cole grins and nods his head. “Ah, so blonds are your type, yeah? Lucky me.”
Wow. I stepped right into that one.
I chuckle and flush furiously as I reach to the ground for my bag. “If, um, we’re jumping right into the interview questions, let me just get my notebook and a pen so I can keep track. I wanted to ask you if—”
“Not yet,” Cole cuts me off. His hand brushes my arm and I can’t even pretend that I don’t feel the heat from his skin radiating to every part of my body. “I think that it’s my turn to do the asking.”
“Alright.” I sound apprehensive and nervous even to my own ears.
“I only have one question for you, and then I’ll let it go.”
I balance myself. The fingers on my left hand dig into my jeans and my heart chugs uncertainly. “Okay.”
Silence.
“Did you have fun tonight?”
Cole’s question is so unexpected that I have to look at him again to make sure that I heard him correctly. He’s got a tentative half-smile playing across the lower half of his face like he knows something that I don’t.
I nod my head carefully.
Cole’s smile deepens. “That’s what I thought.”
After a minute of quiet, I comment, “You seem awfully pleased with yourself.”
Cole leans against the back the bench. He brings one foot up to rest on his knee and crosses his arms over his head. “I am. I feel pretty fucking accomplished right now. It’s not every day that I get a girl like you to smile.”
I wouldn’t be able to keep the grin off my face even if I wanted to. “The arcade got me. I haven’t done that in years and I guess that there’s something to be said for the sound of a bunch of kids throwing away their quarters with reckless abandon.”
Cole looks at me, and I mean he really looks at me. For a long, stilted moment I think that he’s going to kiss me, and my mind is wringing out all kinds of thoughts and I can’t be sure whether or not I want him to close the space between us. But before I work it out in my head, he lifts his hand to wipe the side of my mouth with the pad of his thumb and everything thundering inside of me just stops.
“You had something on your face,” he says.
I think that I nod in response but I’m not really sure because my nervous system is jammed into overdrive. I can’t seem to get enough air into my lungs.
And then Cole is talking again like nothing out of the ordinary just happened and I’m listening and trying to catch my breath. After awhile, we make our way down to the dark beach and I curl my toes in the cool, wet sand and revel in the feel of the salty water licking at my ankles. And for a few minutes, I’m not pretending—I’m just happy.
Cole drives us back in his old truck and when we’re in front of my place, he kills the ignition and turns his body toward me. “The Princess Brie,” he says.
I need a second to think of one. “Jurassic Ark.”
“War and Pace.”
“The Bile.”
He laughs and then he asks, “Hey, are you going to the football game tomorrow?”
I know that there’s a football game because Mara’s been talking about it all week and today, in a show of school spirit, at least half of the students on campus were wearing green shirts.
I shake my head. “I wasn’t planning on it.”
Cole skims his hands across the dashboard. His jaw twitches like he wants to respond in some way, but he simply nods his head and tells me that he’ll see me around.
Around?
As his truck pulls away, I hate that I’m watching, and I hate it even more that I already miss him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Cole
Somehow I wind up stuck with Kate. She shows up at our house around noon wearing a green halter-top and a skirt so short that it should probably be illegal. I don’t want to look at her ass and her tits, but I do because I’m a guy and I have a pulse and a dick and apparently no self-control.
Kate acts like she belongs here and I don’t tell her otherwise when she helps herself to a beer from the refrigerator and plops down on the couch next to me. She crosses her legs and bends forward so that I have a direct line of sight to her boobs.
The girl knows that she looks good and that should be obnoxious but it’s actually sort of a turn-on. Not that I’m going there with her today or tomorrow or ever again. Kate Dutton’s hot and she’s convenient but that ship has sailed, so to speak, and I’m over it.
I try not to dwell on the reasons that I’m passing up an easy lay because when I let my brain go in that direction, it gets all jammed up with thoughts of blue eyes, the water lapping at my feet, vanilla cupcakes, and all kinds of crazy-ass shit.
Kate jerks me out of my head by placing her hand flat on my leg. Fuck me. I twitch uncomfortably. I was hoping that she’d get the hint that I’m no longer interested when I stopped texting her back and told Brady to give her a call, but I guess I was wrong.
Right on cue, Daniel makes his first appearance of the day. He’s got on a team shirt and a backward green baseball hat, and when he sees me on the couch with Kate, his eyes go a fraction wider. He doesn’t say anything but I can see it coming and I know that he’s thinking about Aimee.
I duck my head and cough into my curled hand. I know that I don’t need to worry yet because Daniel’s not the type to ask questions right here. He’ll wait until he’s got me trapped by myself in some corner where he thinks I can’t give him one of my bullshit excuses.
There are four of us that live in the house. Nate and Daniel and I are all teammates. Somewhere along the way the three of us picked up Adam and we couldn’t quite shake him. It’s all good though. Adam keeps things interesting around here. Like right now he’s asking my advice on how to sneak weed past the security guards into the football stadium. And I know for a fact that he’s already got two little plastic
bags of vodka tucked into the inside pocket of his shorts.
“What the fucking hell?” I laugh. “You’re already blazed. Are you going to light one up in the stadium?”
Adam gives me a don’t-be-crazy look. “Hell no, Everly. I’m not a fucktard.” He lifts his shoulders. “But I’m not gonna make it home before I go out tonight and I want to be prepared. I just have this feeling that tonight is going to be a shit storm. It’s in the air or something. Don’t you feel it, man?”
Like I’m some kind of expert on shit storms. Just then, Kate squeezes her fingernails into my thigh and I realize that maybe I am. Maybe I am.
Aimee
Jilly used to do this thing right before a run. She’d huff loudly and pop her arms in the air while she bounced up and down on her toes like a boxer. She did it to make me laugh and it usually worked.
I haven’t gone on a run since she died.
That was more than fifteen months ago.
I don’t run anymore. I don’t swim anymore. I don’t go out with guys anymore. And on the bad days I’m not even sure that I exist anymore.
Today is a bad day.
I don’t know why. I just wake up with a head full of cloudy grey skies and thoughts that bounce off the ceiling and land heavily in the pit of my stomach. Maybe it has something to do with how I couldn’t fall asleep last night after Cole dropped me off. I don’t really know and I’m not sure that I want to start analyzing it right now.
My sister is worried. She’s been watching me all morning and I can tell that she’s wavering about what to do. She disappeared into her room awhile ago, and anyone that knows Mara would tell you that it’s a pretty good guess that she’s in there making a pros and cons list about whether or not to call Mom. When she finally reappears, I have to sit her down on the couch and assure her at least five times that it’s not like it was in June.
I would know.
That’s what I say to get her to leave it alone, but the thing is—I’m not sure what it means.
Know what?
What would I know?
Mara is still uncertain. She’s going to the game and she begs me to go with her. Even Jodi’s going, she says. And when that doesn’t work, she pulls out the big guns. Isn’t Cole going to be there? As if being in the same place at the same time as Cole Everly has become the end-all and the be-all of my life at the moment.
I want to be irritated, but I give her some slack because she doesn’t get it. Not really. The two of us give our mom a lot of hell for being the person that she is, but in a lot of ways, Mara is the same—she’s just less annoying and primitive about it. Deep down, both Mara and our mother think that if I want it bad enough, I can decide to move on. They think that second chances and new beginnings are something you just do, but I know the truth. Those are things that you have to earn.
I try to explain to Mara that the thought of being confined in a stadium with thousands of people crushed against me and the noise splintering my head is enough to make my stomach convulse. She doesn’t like it, but eventually she gives up and leaves me on the couch staring at the TV.
Hours later I’m still sitting here and I don’t even know what I’m watching. It’s one of those completely bone-numbing made for TV movies that airs on Saturday afternoons in between infomercial cycles. I can’t even explain the plot. All I know is that it has something to with a girl falling in love with a down-on-his-luck prizefighter and that he’s doing the signature air-popping warm-up move.
It makes me think of Jillian and our runs Monday and Thursday afternoons and on Saturday mornings when we didn’t have a swim meet. We always started at her place and looped around to the north side of the neighborhood because there were fewer cars. Sometimes we’d talk and other times we’d pop in our earbuds and just go. And even if we weren’t saying anything to each other and the only thing in our heads was the music, it was still better to be together than alone.
Before I know what I’m doing, I’m on the floor of my closet looking for my running shoes and I’m lacing them up and stretching my legs out on the sidewalk.
Back when I did this kind of thing, I could go far. Maybe even nine or ten miles on a day that wasn’t too hot or humid. But that was when my body was strong, and when Jillian was next to me to push me for the last stretch.
Everything is different now. My muscles—the few that I have left—don’t do what I want them to do and I’m in pain before I judge that I’ve gone more than a mile. I try to kick it in—to get my legs to listen to my brain and forget about the way that my heart is bursting behind my ribs, but it’s no use. I crack and I’m off on the side of the road, hunched over with my hands bolstered on my knees. Air wheezes in and out of my lungs painfully, and beads of tangy sweat drip into my eyes and my mouth.
A car driving past honks its horn and some jerk leans out and shouts something at me but I’m too focused on not falling down to even care.
Cole
“So what do you want to do?”
Kate’s voice pulls me back to the truck. I shake my head and glance over at her. “What did you say?”
She turns to look at me. It’s dark in here but I can tell that her eyes are narrowed and her mouth is pursed. “Cole, you’ve been acting really weird all day. You barely paid attention to the game and you’ve been ignoring me. What’s with you?”
I push a hand into my hair and shake my head.
What’s with me?
“Nothing,” I say and I want to believe that it’s the truth, but it’s not and I know it. I’m annoyed that Kate’s in my truck in the first place, sitting in the exact spot where Aimee sat last night. And I want to gag because her perfume is so strong that it has me wondering if she’s trying to attract bears or some shit. “I’m just tired or whatever. I have a headache.”
“Well then…” Kate leans over the console so close that her moist breath pricks my skin. She lifts her hand to my chest and walks her fingers slowly downward until they brush the waistband of my boxers. “Maybe we should skip the party tonight and you know… get you in bed.”
I push my back against the seat and briefly squeeze my eyes shut. Despite the overpowering perfume and everything inside my head tonight, Kate’s touch on me doesn’t feel terrible. Her fingers coast lower and I almost don’t stop her. Almost.
“Kate,” I say her name slowly so that she knows that I’m being serious. “I’m going to take you home now.”
Her intake of air is audible and I can tell that she’s pissed by the way that she jerks her body away from mine. Not that I’m surprised. Girls generally don’t like to be rejected. It makes them irritable.
“You know what?” Kate spits out. Her voice sounds the way that Sour Patch Kids taste. “Take me to Brady’s place instead. Last week he mentioned that he was having people over after the game. I wasn’t going to go, but I think I’ve changed my mind.”
“Okay,” I say, glancing in the rearview mirror and switching lanes. I know that she’s trying to make me jealous and a part of me feels bad that she’s bothering to make the effort because it’s not working very well.
The rest of the ride is awkward. Kate’s unasked questions sit like a living, breathing thing lodged into the space between us. I think about explaining myself, but the truth is that I don’t even know how to begin. So, there’s this girl…
Later, I’m home and trying to get some work done for school, but my mind is still elsewhere—a few miles away with a girl that I know isn’t thinking of me.
I’m remembering how she looked last night while we were walking on the beach, and the way the moonlight shimmered like moving water in her hair. And her smile—that one is the killer.
I check the clock on my phone. It’s close to midnight but I’m not even thinking straight anymore. I’m grabbing my keys and looking for my shirt and the DVD case that I know I spotted last week.
Seven minutes later, I pull up to her place and find an empty street spot to parallel park in. The exterior lights are off and the f
ront windows are dark. I hesitate before knocking, but I’ve come this far and I decide that I’m not going home without making this last move.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Breathe.
No worries.
No thoughts.
There’s a sound like footsteps and a light comes on and then the door is being unlocked. I take a deep breath and start talking before I can see who it is because, somehow, I know that it will be her and not her sister. “I know that it’s late but I couldn’t sleep knowing that you haven’t seen this.”
Aimee stands in the doorframe looking back and forth between the Caddyshack DVD in my hands and my face.
I try pretending like I don’t notice the redness around her eyes or the fact that she’s in just a pair of very short shorts and a sports bra and that her hair is pulled up into a messy ponytail and I can see her face like I’ve never seen it before, but it’s no use. I notice all of it and before either of us can stop me, I’ve got her folded up in my arms and I’m talking low into her hair.
Aimee’s arms curl in and her head presses against my chest. I can feel her heartbeat thundering under her bare skin and I wonder if I’m going to be able to keep all of the pieces of her inside.
Aimee
Regret. When it happens, and I mean really happens to you, it’s like discovering a new sound.
I tried to explain this to my therapist when I first moved to Portland last year. Aimee, what if, she asked, you decided to let go?
And I wondered if she’d been listening to me at all.
Because all I do is let go.
CHAPTER NINE
Cole
Maybe I’m officially crazy. That’s what Adam tells me, and some days I think he’s right. Maybe crazy is exactly what it takes to cut off your balls and hand them over to a girl.