“Jesus, imagine if tourists found this spot,” one of the girls said, poking the fire. “I’d be sick!”
“Only locals know the spots to avoid.”
I’m so caught up in the conversation that I didn’t notice Hunter sneaking behind me to tickle my sides. We chase after each other, dancing under the starlight, floating through space, our own world once more. How could I ever board a ferry back to who I was, leaving who I really am behind?
“Aye! Get a room you two,” Jake said from somewhere, his voice like nails on chalk.
Hunter smiled at me. “Come on, let’s join the party.”
We walked hand in hand back to our spot. More people had showed up, more kids I would see in the halls of my new school next week. Didn’t he have any Black friends?
I tuned into a debate Hunter and a few of the other guys were having.
“No bro, the best rapper out of all of them was Mac Miller! RIP!”
Hunter shook his head. “Bro, you’re nuts. Best rapper dead or alive is Jay-Z!”
Jake cackled. “HA! Yeah! See, that’s why you my nigga for real bro. Always got my back!”
I slipped on my shoes, preparing myself, unsure what could go down.
But Hunter just stood there, the same smile on his face. They tapped their beer cans together and continued on as if nothing had happened. I blinked at Hunter. Surely we weren’t staying after this white boy dropped the N-word.
“Something wrong?” Hunter asked, measuring my face. I could only stare back.
“Hey Candice,” Jake said. “Are you gonna let my bro smash tonight or what?”
With the blazing sun on my back, I ran through a group of seagulls before I’m yoked back.
“Gotcha!” Hunter wrapped his arms around my bare stomach and lifted, carrying me closer to the sparkling shore. Hunter knew all the best beach spots where it could just be the two of us. On our own island, in the middle of the sea.
“Ah!” I giggled, snuggling into his chest. “Put me down!”
He set me down right at the water’s edge, kissing the back of my neck. I blushed, squirming, but never wanting him to stop.
“Hey, hey! Look! Out there. You see that black shape coming out the water?”
I followed his finger pointing out to the dark ocean, a shadow popping up then disappearing.
“Whoa, yeah! What is that?”
“That’s a seal. Around here, we call them shark bait.”
I gulped. “Sharks?”
His dusty blond curls flew in the wind. “Yeah. Especially seals that hang out alone. That’s an easy TV dinner for a great white. You know that movie Jaws? It was based here. My great-uncle worked on the film.”
I swallowed, biting the inside of my cheek. “Really?”
He laughed. “It’s okay babe. We’re safe. Just stay out of the water during their dinnertime and you’ll be fine.”
I stared at the boundless sea. “I thought sharks liked to eat all the time.”
The hours passed by with more crude jokes about tourist conquest and Hunter didn’t seem to notice that I hadn’t uttered a word. Just sat beside him, stewing. Somewhere after midnight, Hunter packed up our chairs and cooler, saying goodbye to his friends, the fire now a roaring blaze, casting an orange glow on their pale faces as the anger sizzled inside me.
We drove in the dark through the sand dunes, the other side of Katama Beach empty and black.
“Okay, here’s the fun part,” Hunter said, driving fast, his headlights only going so far in the blackness. He turned up another road to another sand dune.
“Okay, everyone off the ride!”
Hunter lifted me out of the truck and set me down in the dark sand.
“Sheesh, you’re so tiny.” He laughed then straightened. “Hey, something wrong?”
I shook my head.
Hunter shrugged and didn’t push it, and I quickly realized he never pushed anything. He seemed so insistent upon always catching me before I fell, how did I not notice his missing spine?
Hunter grabbed the blankets from the truck bed and led the way. We climbed up the sand dunes, through the brush, my eyes adjusting to the dark, until we reached another clearing.
“We’ll be out of sight here,” Hunter said as he laid out the blankets. I stood frozen, listening to the waves crash on the shore and thinking about all the great whites ripping seals apart, blood bleeding into the dark water. I wanted to save them, but it’s impossible. No matter where they go, the sharks will always circle.
Hunter sat on the blanket and offered his hand. “Hey, come here.”
I joined him, looking up at the sky, and it felt as if we were hiding under a blanket of stars.
“Okay, so there’s the North Star, and the Little Dipper . . .”
Hunter loved studying the galaxy as much as he loved the sea. He continued, trying to point out all the constellations, playing with my hair, kissing my temple, and I tried to pay attention, but all I could hear was Dad’s warning and the N-word ringing in my ears.
Hunter sat up, staring down at me. “What’s wrong?”
“Huh? Nothing.”
“You’ve been quiet. What’s going on? Are you having second thoughts?”
I sat up, hugging my knees. “You . . . just let him call you that?”
“What? Who?”
“Jake.” I paused, hoping I wouldn’t have to elaborate further but he only frowned. He really had no clue. “He called you . . . he called you the N-word. Did you not hear him?”
Hunter cocked his head to the side then laughed. “Oh, he was just messing around.”
“You think the N-word is funny?”
Hunter straightened. “Hey, it’s no big deal. He was joking.”
“No big deal? Are you kidding me?”
“Black people say it all the time! He’s just copying what he hears in rap songs.”
“That doesn’t make it okay! And that’s not his music to copy.”
“Music is music! It’s color-blind.”
I snort. “Did he tell you that?”
We argued. Well, I yelled, words cutting but not cruel, while he rolled his eyes. We had gone an entire summer not seeing each other’s dark sides, making us almost unrecognizable in this moment. I never expected Hunter to be so flippant and unbothered. If I were in his shoes, I’d make them sorry for ever thinking they could call me the N-word. I’d make them pay!
Hunter rubbed his face, exasperated, then held his hands up to surrender. “Okay, I’m sorry. Can we move on?”
“Do you even know what you’re sorry about? You have nothing to be sorry for! He should be apologizing to you!”
“He doesn’t have to apologize. He’s my best friend. We’re like brothers.”
I looked at the time. Two a.m. Seven and a half hours until the ferry leaves.
“Can you take me back home now, please?”
Hunter’s shoulders slumped. “Hey, let’s not let stupid shit ruin our night.”
“It’s just late, and I have stuff to do tomorrow,” I said, my voice cold.
“Stuff? What stuff?”
Since we started, we knew each other’s every move. I wouldn’t be able to hide it for long so I had to just come clean.
“I’m heading back to New York. For good.”
Hunter stared at me for ten painful seconds.
“I thought you said . . . you were moving here?”
There was a devastation in his voice I wasn’t prepared for with my last-minute decision. I wasn’t even sure if it was the right decision or a fleeting thought fueled by anger. But I couldn’t let him know that.
“I was, but . . . things have changed.”
“Your dad?”
I wrapped my arms around myself. “Yeah. And other things.”
“Oh god, tell me this isn’t about Jake.”
“It’s . . . part of it.”
He rubbed his face again. “When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow!”
More arguing. More aggression. More . . . more.
“Okay, fine. Well, we can just . . . do long-distance,” he offered.
“How can we do distance when we have trouble when we’re together?”
He shook his head. “I thought we were happy.”
My heart tugged in both directions, body splitting in two at the crack in his voice. Happy, yes, I was happy. Never been happier. But fantasies aren’t dreams.
I sighed. “Yes, happy pretending the real world doesn’t exist. But it does. Once we go to school, I’ll be the lone Black girl again, and you’ll go back to passing just to make your life easier.”
Hunter was silent. He stood away from me, his back turned. I flopped back on the blankets to stare up at the sky.
“Okay. I’ll take you home, if that’s what you really want.”
We piled into the truck. The night had drained us both dry.
“I’m . . . sorry,” I whispered as he started the ignition. He didn’t say anything. We remained silent, the truck rumbling beneath us. He revved the engine and took off, shifting gears, catching air over the high sand dunes.
“Slow down!” I shouted, but Hunter didn’t listen.
At the next incline, the truck engine choked, and Hunter jerked the clutch. The wheels spun, spitting up sand like a tornado before the truck tipped violently to the left, and we lost gravity.
“Oh shit!”
The truck flipped. Once, twice, three times.
When I came to, my head rang and I tasted copper on my lip, blood dripping in my eye. The windshield was shattered, headlights pointing into white sand. The truck had landed on its side, leaving me suspended in the air.
“Hunter,” I cried. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Hunter groaned with a cough. “You okay?”
The seat belt squeezed into my rib cage, pinching my lungs, and I struggled to breathe.
“I can’t move. I’m stuck!”
“Can you reach your phone?”
I wiggled around, patting my pockets. All empty.
“No, I don’t know where it is! Can you?”
“I can’t move my arm,” he hissed through clenched teeth.
Hunter made a gurgling noise. He looked bad. My neck hurt from hanging sideways but if I tried to free myself, I’d land right on him, crushing him even more.
Panic made a home in my chest as a sob bubbled up. I glanced at the time on the dashboard. Two thirty-five. No one knew we were out here. Eventually, people would start coming to the beach. But morning was light-years away.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Hunter said, pushing at the horn, the sound an ant’s cry in the abyss.
“No one’s coming,” I cried, my head throbbing.
Hunter let off the horn and coughed.
“Okay. Just stay calm. Night patrol will hopefully see the headlights when they make their rounds. Just . . . try to relax for now. Relax and listen for a car or anything.”
We fell silent with only the sounds of waves to comfort us.
“Do you . . . really want to go back to New York? I thought you hated it there.”
“Now’s not the time for this!”
“Only time I got and I’m going to take it,” he said, sounding winded. “You don’t want to go back there.”
“I . . . I want to go to Yale,” I shoot back.
“Yeah, but that’s not your dream and you know it. You just want to go to say you went. To prove someone wrong.”
I licked my lips, thankful he couldn’t see the bubbling tears. “That’s . . . that’s not true.”
“You said it yourself, ‘Gotta get into Yale so they know Black girls are smart.’ But aside from proving a point, then what? What happens then? You find another point to prove? When does it end?”
I bit the inside of my cheek. My own words sounded ugly in his mouth. “What do you know about what I want?”
“I’ve seen you come alive here. When’s the last time you did something just for fun in New York? Meaningless fun?”
I blinked then blinked again. Longer. Three forty-five. I jumped and a shock of pain blasted through me.
“Gah,” I gasped, taking in my injuries again. “Hunter? Hunter?”
Hunter was quiet and I prayed he’d just passed out like I did. The chilly breeze swept through the broken windows. The smell familiar and homelike. That’s what I loved most about Martha’s Vineyard. The crisp ocean waters that reminded me of when I was a kid. Playing in the backyard with Dad, going to Inkwell Beach, standing in line for donuts. All the moments I loved . . . most of them being with Hunter.
The thought of Dad made my ribs throb. If I didn’t show up to the ferry in the morning, would he give up on me, just like he’d given up on Mom? Mom didn’t fit into his plan so she was easily disposable. Was that me? Was that why I was able to tell Hunter I’m leaving in the morning without a proper goodbye? Was I that heartless? What would happen if I let go of the mission to be right and just be free?
“Candice?”
On instinct, I reached for him, clawing at the air. “Hunter! Are you okay?”
“Candice?” he whispered.
“Yes! Yes, I’m here,” I cried, relieved to hear his voice. “I’m here!”
His eyes were closed, skin pale and gray. “Don’t leave, okay?”
Four twenty-one a.m. An hour or so before sunrise and we still hadn’t heard a single car or a human. It was as if we’d fallen off the planet. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to see Hunter in the light of day when he looked so terrible in the glow of the dashboard.
“Hey, try honking the horn again,” I suggested.
Hunter pushed with his one good arm. Over and over, fifteen minutes straight. Nothing. Hunter started to cry, banging on the horn, screaming.
“Hey, hey, hey. It’s okay it’s okay. Just . . . relax,” I said, reaching for his shoulder. “Try to relax. Just . . . listen to the water.”
Hunter gave the horn a break and we fell silent, the waves seeming closer.
“Candice . . . I want you to know . . .”
“Nope! Don’t you dare give me some kind of goodbye-I-love-you bullshit speech.”
He chuckled. “No, although I do love you. I was just . . . thinking about what you said. About Jake. There is stuff he says that bothers me. Lots of stuff. But . . . he’s my friend.”
“Friends don’t hurt each other.”
He sighed. “It wasn’t until you came, that I really saw that . . . I guess. You don’t run. You stay and fight.”
The sky began to lighten, the sun nearby. I listened to the waves, my teeth chattering, the morning fog enveloping the car.
“Don’t . . . don’t . . . go,” Hunter mumbled. “You are home. My home.”
Tears crawled down my face. Hunter wasn’t making sense anymore, he needed help. I pushed at the horn, then at the door. Stuck. I screamed and yelled. Wasn’t there anyone on the beach?
“Don’t run,” Hunter mumbled again.
Why should I run away from an island that brings me so much joy? Why should I let one stupid white boy run me off?
You’re bigger than that island.
Even if I am, the island can handle my weight.
“Hunter, you . . .”
There was a noise in the distance, like a bark. A dog . . . no, much sharper. I gasped.
“Hunter, do you hear that? Seals!”
Silence.
“Hunter? Hunter!”
Hunter didn’t answer.
A Place to Start
by Nina LaCour
A few hours ago, the sun setting and the sky a purple-pink behind her, my mother took my face in her hands and kissed me on the lips. “Goodbye, my sweet,” she said to me. Her hair was swept in a bun, a style she never wore, and even though her dress was mauve instead of white it was still unmistakably a wedding dress, all tight and lacy. The
re was a new ring on her hand, the hand I’d held forever, and I had to blink back tears because it felt like she was saying goodbye for good.
Behind us people whooped and clapped from the front steps of a stranger’s fancy house. It was all marble stairs and manicured lawn, alarmingly perfect. I smiled, pretending I was just so happy.
“I’m excited for you, Mom,” I said.
“My beautiful daughter. You’ll always be the love of my life,” she told me, but that just made it worse.
And then she was in the car with Macey, my stepmom as of that afternoon, and our station wagon got farther and farther away with pink-and-white streamers waving behind it, the words Here come the brides! painted across the rear window, and I stood there as everyone cheered, tears streaming down my cheeks like a little kid even though I’m going into my junior year of high school and generally have a decent level of control over my displays of emotion.
I still don’t know who decorated the car. Our car. My mom’s and mine.
I turned and found the crowd dispersed. Most of the people were probably back inside the house eating tiny bites of fancy snacks. I followed because I didn’t know what else to do.
“Claude!” said the stranger who lived there. “Did you get enough to eat? How are you holding up?” Her arm squeezed my shoulders a little too tightly.
“I’m good,” I told her.
She wiped a spot under my eyes and I remembered that I’d put on mascara earlier in the morning. It was probably all over my face now.
“Sweetie, you can talk to me,” the stranger said. “We’re practically family now.”
Across the sprawling kitchen, its surfaces so shiny they hurt my eyes, I saw Jamie look at me and then look away.
“I’m just tired,” I said. “I think I’ll go home now. Unless you need help cleaning.”
“Oh, no, nobody’s going to lift a finger tonight. Tomorrow morning a service is coming and it will be like there never was a wedding at all.”
“Perfect,” I said.
I thought about my yellow front door and my soft bed, the rack where I’d place my shoes before stepping onto the carpet. And then I remembered that the cabin was gone now. It was rented to someone else. So, I slid out of the stranger’s hug and crossed to Jamie. They turned to me and didn’t look away this time.
Up All Night Page 14