by Nicola Yoon
“Thanks, that’s very thoughtful of you, Xavier Darius Woods,” I say, laughing.
“Anyway, me and Pops would do these little concerts for the rest of the family at Thanksgiving and Christmas and stuff.”
“What kind of music?”
“I like to think we defied genre labels,” he says.
“That means you were terrible, doesn’t it?”
He laughs. “Worse than terrible.”
A waitress comes over and refills our water glasses.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to bring us down with all that about my pops,” he says after she leaves.
“No, it’s okay. I know how you feel. I used to be close to my dad too.”
“Yeah? What happened with you guys?”
I hesitate. The only other people who know about this are Martin, Sophie and Cassidy.
“No worries if you don’t want to get into it with me,” he says. But I do want to talk about it with him. He knows what it’s like to miss the way things used to be.
“He cheated on my mom and I caught him doing it.”
He sits up straight. “Jesus, Evie.”
I tell him the whole story. It’s hard to look at him and talk about it, so I look down at my plate instead. “Anyway, it’s been around six months since I last saw him.”
“Does your mom know?”
“Yeah, but my sister doesn’t.”
“Jesus,” he says again, but quietly.
“The weirdest thing is, Mom and Danica both seem fine. It’s like this big bomb went off in our lives and I’m the only one who got hurt.”
I make myself look up at him. His eyes are full of understanding. “Well,” he says, “I still think I win the sad story contest.”
At first I’m too shocked to react. That is not what I expected him to say. I expected sympathy and comforting. I didn’t expect him to judge how sad my story was against his.
He busts out laughing, and then I do too.
After a while we stop laughing, but our eyes meet and the moment lingers until I realize what’s happening and look away. “Why don’t you sing the song for me?” I ask.
He looks confused for a second but then pulls out his phone and plays the backing music track.
He starts singing. “Everything burns / Everything crashes / And some-thing some-thing some-other-thing.” He stops with a laugh. “I don’t know that third line yet,” he says.
“You’re very good at mumble-singing, though,” I say. “You just need something to rhyme with crashes.” I twirl my braids around my finger and think until a line comes to me. “And our love just turns to ashes,” I say.
“Oh, that’s good.” He types it into his phone and looks back up at me. “All right, the next line slows the tempo way down, but I only have half of it. “You’re the black box, some-thing, some-other-thing—”
“Falling to the sea,” I say, interrupting him again.
“Good, good,” he says, typing fast. He leans forward, eyes glittering. “Let’s keep going.”
“Okay, but we need actual paper instead of just your phone.”
I ask the waitress and she brings us over a few sheets and a pen. He writes down what we have so far and then keeps singing. “A black box, preserving history.”
I shake my head. “One last history, instead of preserving history.”
He writes it down.
Both of us are grinning now, trading the pen and paper back and forth. By the time we get to the end, the sheet is a mess of crossed-out words and arrows pointing every which way.
“Wish I had my acoustic,” he says, pulling the sheet closer. On the phone, he restarts the backing music track and sings the whole thing.
I close my eyes so I can really listen and not be distracted by his face. It’s strange but nice to hear his voice singing words we just wrote together. Somehow when he sings the words they gain more weight. It makes them feel more true. When he gets to the final three lines, my eyes fly open. His voice is so raw, so filled with wishing for something he can’t have back, that I have to see his face.
“You’re great,” he says. “At writing songs, I mean.” He rubs his hand over the back of his head.
“We wrote it together.”
“I’ve never written a song with another person before,” he says. “Not even Clay.” He shakes the sheet of paper at me. “Can I use these?”
“They’re already yours. You helped write them.”
“It was mostly you,” he says.
I shrug. “I’m really good at understanding heartbreak. It’s my superpower.”
CHAPTER 22
“Black Box,” Lyrics by Evie Thomas and Xavier Woods
[Verse 1]
Everything burns
Everything crashes
And our love just turns to ashes
You’re a black box, falling to the sea
A black box, one last history
[Chorus]
Open you up
Look inside
Already know
Just what I’ll find
Nothing survives
Nothing survives
Nothing survives
[Verse 2]
The you that I knew
Sinks down out of sight
I’m left with nothing
And yeah nothing is fucking all right
Black box, at the bottom of the sea
[Chorus]
Open you up
Look inside
Already know
Just what I’ll find
Nothing survives
Nothing survives
Nothing survives
[Bridge]
It’s all in my head
Just an illusion I said
And know that you’re gone
Everything is all so beautifully wrong
All wrong, all wrong, all wrong
[Chorus]
Open you up
Look inside
Already know
Just what I’ll find
Nothing survives
Nothing survives
Nothing survives
CHAPTER 23
Fabulous, Excellent and Copacetic
“Me,” Martin, Cassidy and Sophie >
Me: I invited X to our bonfire tonight
Martin: Okay
Cassidy: K
Sophie: Ok
Me: Huh
Me: You guys don’t have anything else to say?
Cassidy: Nope
Cassidy: Why?
Cassidy: U have sumthing else 2 say?
Me: Nope
Cassidy: Fabulous
Martin: Excellent
Sophie: Copacetic
Me: I don’t even like you people
CHAPTER 24
Not a Date, Part 3 of 3
DOCKWEILER STATE BEACH is one of my favorite places in the world. The beach itself is beautiful, with wide stretches of (mostly clean) sand and an always-churning dark-blue ocean that seems to fall off the end of the world. There’s a bicycle path and a picnic area and even showers. My favorite part, though, are the fire rings that line the beach. If you get here early enough, you can claim one and have a bonfire with your friends underneath a darkening sky while listening to the Pacific crash all around you. It might be the most perfect place on earth.
“Is that him?” Cassidy asks.
I look up from the fire pit to see X wobbling across the sand.
“It’s easier if you take off your shoes,” I yell to him.
He stops to take them off and then wobbles a slightly steadier wobble toward us.
“You’re X,” Cassidy says when he gets to us. “Evie’s friend.”
I don’t know if I’m imagining the small pause between “Evie’s” and “friend.”
“I’m Cassidy,” she says. “I’m the rich, wild, parentally neglected friend. I got you booze.” She picks up one of the five bottles of white wine she brought. Earlier when I told her we didn’t need that many, she said, “My parents won’t even notice they’re missing.”
“I’m Martin. I guess I’m the sensitive one,” Martin says to X. “I got you a chair.” He points to the beach chair nestled in the sand next to mine.
“And I’m Sophie,” Sophie chimes in. “I’m the steady, boring one,” she says.
Cassidy takes a sip of wine. “You’re not boring,” she says.
“Thanks,” Sophie says, smiling. She turns back to X. “I brought you the most delicious sandwich in all of Los Angeles.”
X waves. “Thanks for letting me crash.”
“Evie says you’re incredible,” Cassidy says.
X’s eyebrows shoot up.
I rush to clarify. “Incredible at making music. What Cassidy means is that I said you’re an incredible musician.”
“Yes,” says Cassidy, looking back and forth between us with a gleeful smile on her face. “That’s exactly what I meant.”
I give her a look at says no one will find your dismembered, fish-gnawed body at the bottom of the sea.
She ignores me. “Anyway, you can play to thank us. Every good bonfire needs a hot guy playing guitar.”
“You don’t have to play,” I tell him.
“But you still have to be hot,” Cassidy says.
“I don’t mind doing both,” he says with a grin.
Martin tells him to sit.
Sophie tells him to eat.
Cassidy hands him an almost overflowing cup of wine.
Instead of sitting with everyone, I tend the fire. I’m the group fire starter because I’m the only one who’s good at it. I learned my technique—crumpled newspaper nestled under a shallow, three-log pyramid—from Dad. The four of us used to come here at least once a week every “winter.” The quotes around winter are Dad’s. He’s originally from Washington, DC, where winter is a real season, with snow and ice and weather-induced tears. Here in LA, the temperature rarely drops below fifty. When it does, it’s just an excuse for us to wear fashionable scarves and sheepskin boots and pretend to be cold for a few days. Dad loved our bonfires because the beach at night in winter is the coldest LA ever gets. It reminded him of home.
The last time the four of were together out here was a few months before Mom and Dad told us they were getting divorced. If I’d known it was going to be the last time, I’d have memorized all the details. All I remember now are probablys.
Probably Mom made a stew, oxtail or beef, and packed Tupperwares for each of us. Probably Dad poked at the fire obsessively. Probably we all laughed and called him a pyromaniac. At some point, he and Mom would’ve started drinking wine, and they’d have laughed more and touched each other more. Probably they told embarrassing stories about when Danica and I were toddlers. Probably Danica and I smiled at each other in the firelight and pretended to be embarrassed. The next day, we probably all smelled like smoke and stew and ocean. I’m sure we found sand in our clothes.
“Everything good?” X calls to me from his beach chair. He’s really more observant than he needs to be.
“Yeah,” I say, and just like Dad, I poke at the logs, which absolutely don’t need any poking.
“Pyromaniac,” X says.
It’s the perfect night for a bonfire. The temperature is just right—cold enough that you want to sit next to fire, but not so cold that you’d rather be in the fire. Even the wind is cooperating, swirling so gently that smoke drifts straight up into the air instead of gusting sideways into our faces.
I toss another log on and listen while the four of them chat a get-to-know-you chat. X tells them where he’s from and about his band and about dropping out of high school. Cassidy is really impressed with that last part.
I try not to watch X as he talks, but I can’t help myself. Firelight flickers across his face and lights him up. He does a lot of grinning and chuckling. I decide I like people who are generous with their laughter.
Once X realizes the three of us have been friends since middle school, he begs for funny—meaning embarrassing—stories about me. I threaten to douse the fire. Cassidy declares herself impervious to cold. She tells him the story of when I peed on myself while running up a very long staircase in first grade. X laughs and tells the story of how he peed on himself on the school bus in second grade and how he sat and waited until everyone was off the bus before getting off and running all the way back home.
Eventually we get to the Tipsy Philosophicals portion of the evening. This is when we’re all just tipsy enough to ask and answer pseudo-philosophical questions. We’re allowed at most once short sentence to explain ourselves. We can answer “I don’t know” only once.
Martin starts us off: Is seven years too long a time to be unrequitedly in love with someone?
Martin: No amount of time is too long for true love.
Me: Yes, especially if that someone is related to your best friend.
Cassidy: All my loves have always been requited.
Sophie: Yes, unfortunately.
X: Yeah, I don’t know, but I think I might be finding out soon.
I’m next: If you could find out when and how you were going to die, would you?
Martin: No.
Cassidy: Nooooooo.
Sophie: No.
X: No way. Imagine all the dread you’d feel waiting for it to happen. It’d take the fun out of being alive.
Me: Yes, it’s always good to be prepared.
Next is Cassidy: Is unconditional love real?
Martin: Of course.
Cassidy: Absolutely not.
Sophie: Yes.
X: Yeah, for sure.
Me: No, and also shouldn’t there be conditions?
Then Sophie: Is there such a thing as happily ever after?
Martin: Yes.
Cassidy: No.
Sophie: Yes.
X: Absolutely yes.
Me: How long is Ever, and when is After? What I’m saying is “no.”
And finally, X: Is there life after death?
Martin: I don’t know.
Cassidy: God, I hope not.
Sophie: No, not according to science.
X: I don’t know, but I hope so.
Me: I don’t know and I don’t want to know.
We play a few more rounds. Martin asks if love can last forever. Cassidy and I are the only ones who say that it can’t. Cassidy is just being her ornery, cynical self.
I, on the other hand, have actual proof that it doesn’t.
Despite our rule about not getting into long-winded discussions about the answers, we do anyway. X can’t believe that I’d want to know where and when I was going to die. “It’d be terrible,” he says. “You’d have a huge existential cloud of doom hovering over your head all the time.”
Everyone gives Cassidy a hard time for saying she hopes there’s no life after death. “Once is enough for me, thank you very much,” she says. Eventually, though, she relents and says it’d be okay if she “ends up where all the cool, fun people are.” It’s not clear to any of us if she thinks that’s heaven or hell or someplace else.
After a while we move on to gossiping about our classmates, which means we gossip about their love lives. I know for certain that the next topic will be our own love lives.
I’m not sure I’m ready to hear how active X’s has been. “I have to pee,” I say, too loud from tipsiness.
“I’ll walk you,” Martin says, as he always does. The bathroom is too far away and too isola
ted for us to go alone, so we use the buddy system. Martin’s always the buddy.
“I need to go too,” says X.
Martin sits back down and winks at me.
We walk along for a little while, not saying anything until X breaks the silence.
“I like your friends. Thanks for inviting me.”
“They like you too.”
“Cassidy is pretty funny.”
“Yeah, it’s too bad her parents suck.”
“Did she and Sophie ever used to go out?”
“No…why?”
He shrugs. “No reason. They seem close, is all.”
“We’re all pretty close. We survived the orgy of awkwardness that is middle school together. We’re bonded for life, like war soldiers.”
He laughs. “So you were awkward in middle school?” he asks.
“Wasn’t everyone?”
“Nah, I’ve always been this cool.”
“You’re not that cool,” I say, but neither of us believes I mean it.
We get to the restroom and stand guard for each other before making our way back.
It really is a perfect night. One of those that make me feel lucky I get to live in a place as beautiful as this. The beach is bright with the light of other fires. Every fire pit has its own group of people laughing or dancing or just warming themselves. I press my toes hard into the damp sand. For some reason, I want to leave a mark.
We’re halfway back when an enormous plane passes overhead. Air France. We both stop walking to stare up at it. The engine temporarily blots out all other sound.
“Paris would be nice,” I say after it’s gone.
“Pretty happy right where I am,” he says.
I don’t know when he stopped looking up at the sky and started looking at me instead.
“So you think Fifi’s right? We’re gonna dance better now we’ve gotten to know each other a little?” he asks.