What I Thought Was True

by Huntley Fitzpatrick

  “Sleeping with Spence,” I say.

  His eyes, so straightforward and honest a second ago, go distant again. He picks at his thumbnail, jaw tight. When he finally says something, his voice is so soft I have to lean forward to hear it.

  “Yeah . . . you . . . uh . . . what was that about?”

  “Aside from me just being idiotic?” I sigh. “I was . . .” Drunk. Scared. Hurt. Feeling out of place. Crumble lined. All true, but . . . “Trying to hurt you.”

  He’s had his head bent over that fascinating nail, but now he looks me in the eye, his voice flat and hard as his eyes. “Mission accomplished.”

  My stomach clenches.

  I felt stupid about what happened with Alex. I ached about how things ended at Cass’s party. I was ashamed about Spence. But in this moment, it’s as though I have never truly experienced, or cared about, any of those emotions before, as though the volume has been cranked up on all of them to the Nth degree. I’ve been dumb with boys. Thoughtless, casual, stupid. But I was mean to Cass.

  All this time I thought what stood between us was what he did to me. How I couldn’t and shouldn’t forgive it—him being that guy. When all along I was ignoring what I did back to him. How I didn’t want to admit that I’d been that girl.

  I feel my nose tickle, tears prick the back of my throat. My voice is thick. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  It’s quiet all around us. So hushed. I can hear my own heart.

  His head’s ducked. I can see the flicker of his pulse in the hollow of his throat, marking out the seconds of silence between us.

  Then, slowly, he raises his head, takes his thumb, touches away my tears, smiling just a little, and I know this time it is a romantic gesture because my mascara is long gone.

  “Me too,” he says.

  I take a deep breath, as though I’m about to leap off a bridge. That’s exactly what this feels like—catching my breath, holding it, leaping, sinking down, trusting something will propel me back to the surface.

  “So . . . I hurt you. You hurt me. Any chance we can get past that?”

  Cass looks down for a moment, takes a breath. I hold mine. “Well . . .” he says slowly. “You’d have to promise . . .”

  I nod.

  Yes.

  I do.

  I promise.

  “. . . that you really are past the lobsters.”

  I smile. “Lobsters? What lobsters?”

  Cass laughs.

  I wait for him to lean forward, but instead he inclines back, raises an eyebrow at me.

  My turn again.

  After everything, still, it takes every single bit of courage I have to do what I do next. But I take it, use it, and tip forward to kiss first one dimple, then the other, then those smiling lips.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The sky’s gone clear, washed with stars that glitter like mica. The night feels clean and peaceful. Cass is walking me home. Of course. We’re both tired and yawning by now, quiet, but a whole different quiet than on the walk to the beach, or back to the Field House. Strange how silence can do so many different things.

  We’re close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating off his body, but not touching, not holding hands the way we had up the hill. I find myself waiting for that again, for him to take my hand. Something that simple. A bridge between us.

  Instead, he tips his head to the deep bowl of the night, where the clouds have already scudded away. A tiny light glitters in the distance, flickers. Fireflies. Like stars around us.

  “The first maps were of the sky,” I quote.

  “That’s right,” he says. “You remember that?”

  Yes.

  “That you had your theories on why. You thought they’d have been too busy escaping the mastodons, or whatever, to look up and want to draw what they saw.”

  “Maybe it reminded them there was more to life than mastodons?” Cass says.

  I move a little closer, graze the back of my hand against him. But still, nothing.

  More to life than what you are scared of. I reach out, this second time, no mixed messages, interlace my fingers with his.

  I don’t know if Cass knows that pulling off my shirt was easier for me to do than this . . . or apologizing about Spence.

  But I think he might, because his fingers tighten on mine. Now we’re crunching up my driveway. The lantern outside the door is tipped crazily to the side, one orangey bulb lit, flickering, the other burnt out. I can hear Nic’s voice in my head, “Gotta fix that.” And Dad getting on him for not having done it already.

  Cass leans down, turning to me. I feel a buzzing in my ears. One ear, actually. He brushes his hand next to my cheek, into my hair, pulls.

  “Ow!”

  “Sorry.” He opens his hand, smiles. “Firefly. You caught one.”

  The dark spot on his palm stays there a moment, then gleams and lifts into the sky. Then Cass pulls me slightly to my tiptoes, as though I’m much shorter than he is, as though I weigh nothing at all, and kisses me thoroughly. “G’night, Gwen. See you tomorrow.”

  It’s Christmas.

  Or it feels like it.

  The instant my eyes snap open, I get that jolt of adrenaline, that tight thrill, the sense that this day can’t help but be magical.

  Except that waking up on December twenty-fifth on Seashell generally means listening to the pipes bang as Mom showers, hearing Grandpa Ben explain once again to Emory why he has to wait until everyone else gets up to see what Santa brought, hearing Nic call out, “Gwen, I don’t have to wrap this thing for you, do I? I mean, you’ll unwrap it in two seconds anyway.”

  But now, warm summer smells blow through my window. Beach roses. The loamy sharp scent of red cedar mulch. Cut grass drying in the sun. I can hear Grandpa singing Sinatra from the small backyard garden. Mom echoing from the kitchen. “Luck be a lady . . .”

  I stretch luxuriously. It feels like everything is new, even though I’m in the same clothes I fell into bed wearing last night, and here’s Fabio, as usual hogging the mattress, legs outstretched, paws flopped, breathing bad dog-breath into my face. Still, it’s like all the atoms in everything have been shaken and rearranged.

  If I keep on this way, I’ll be composing the kind of embarrassing poetry that appears in our school literary magazine.

  But it’s the first time I’ve had a “morning after” that felt delicious, not nauseating—even though it wasn’t “after” anything but a lot of talking and some kissing.

  Amazingly, Nic has left some hot water in the shower. I wash my hair, then spend a ridiculous amount of time rearranging it different ways, finally ending up with the same one as always. I yell at Mom because my dark green tank top is missing. She comes in, does that annoying Mom thing where she finds it in five seconds after I’ve been scrabbling through my drawers for ten minutes. Then she lays her hand on my forehead. “You all right, honey? You look feverish.”

  “I’m fine, Mom. Do you think I should wear this green one? Or the burgundy one? Or just white?”

  My nerves are jumping, like sparklers that light, ignite, flare, fizzle. She’s all serene. “I’m sure Mrs. Ellington won’t care, honey.”

  I hold up one, then the next, then the next. “Which looks the best? Really, Mom—you need to tell me.”

  An “aha” expression flits across her face. But she says simply, “The green brings out the emerald in your eyes.”

  “My eyes are brown.”

  “Tourmaline with gold and emerald,” Mom corrects, smiling at me.

  I smile back, even though they really are just plain old brown.

  I turn my back, pull on the green tank top. “You got through the storm okay?” she asks, beginning to refold the jumbled clothes in my drawer. “I didn’t hear you come in. Musta been out pretty late.”

  “Um, yeah. We, uh . . . watched a movie. Made popcorn.” Kept our hands to ourselves.

  “That Cassidy is a nice boy,” she offers mildly. “Such good manners. You don�
�t see that much in kids your age.”

  This is one of the things about feeling this way. I want to grab on to every little bit of conversation about Cass and expand on it. “Yeah, he’s always been very polite. He’s so . . . so . . . Do you think I should wear the khaki shorts or the black skirt?”

  “The black one is a little short, don’t you think? Mrs. E. isn’t as conservative as she could be, but you wouldn’t want to push it. I thought he’d be full of himself. Kids who look like that usually are. But he doesn’t seem that way at all.”

  “He’s not,” I say briefly but dreamily. Embarrassing poetry, here I come.

  I glance in the mirror over my dresser, put on lip gloss, remember Nic telling me guys hate it because it’s sticky, wipe it off. Mom comes up behind me, puts her arms around my waist and rests her chin on my shoulder, staring into the mirror.

  Dad’s always saying how alike we look, and generally, I don’t get it. I see nitpicky things like the gray scattered in Mom’s hair, or the way my eyes tip up at the corners like Dad’s, the crinkles at the corners of her eyes, the fact that she has a dust of freckles and I have none, that my skin is darker olive than hers. But today, the resemblance hits me as it never has before. I’m not sure why this is until I realize: It’s the optimism in our smiles.

  All good, but I don’t know what to do with myself in the land of sunshine and butterflies. By the time I’m clattering down the steps in heeled sandals I never wear, my nerves are buzzing.

  What if things are different in the light of day? How do I handle this, anyway? Do I run up to him when I see him mowing? Or is he going to want to keep things professional around the island?

  Does this come easily to most people? Because I have no idea what the hell I’m doing here.

  I listen for the sound of the lawn mower but can’t hear anything. No handy arrow pointing to a yard to say “Cass is here.”

  Over-thinking. I’ll just get to work. I pick up my pace, then nearly scream when a warm hand closes on my ankle.

  “Sorry!” says Cass, sliding out from under the beach plum bush by the side of the Beinekes’ house. “I was weeding. You didn’t seem to see me.” He slides back, stands up and beams at me.

  Suppress goofy smile. “Um. Hi. Cass.”

  He brushes off his hands—still gloveless—and comes around to the gate, slipping through it. Today he’s in shorts and a black T-shirt. “You can do better than that.” He loops his arms around my waist and pulls me to him.

  “Where are your gloves?”

  “Better than that too.” He drops a kiss on my collarbone. “Good to see you, Cass. I dreamed about you, Cass. . . . Feel free to improvise.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be wearing those work gloves? When you’re working? Because otherwise your poor hands won’t . . .”

  Gah. I sound like Mom, or the school nurse.

  I’m no good at this.

  Luckily, Cass is good enough for both of us. “I missed you, Gwen. It’s good to see you, Gwen. I dreamed about you, Gwen. Yeah, haven’t gotten around to the gloves. More important things to focus on. Want me to tell you what they are?”

  “Can I have a do-over?” I ask.

  He nods. “Absolutely. Thought we got clear on that.” He shifts his hands over my back. I want to tell him not to do that, it’s got to hurt, but I’m not going to be the nurse anymore.

  I trace the scar in his left eyebrow. “How’d you get this?”

  “My brother Jake threw a ski pole at me in Aspen when I was seven. In fairness, I was making kissing noises while he helped his girlfriend put her boots on. Back when he had girlfriends. You were saying?”

  “I—I—” Give up. “I don’t have any words today.”

  “Good enough.”

  Lots of kissing after this. Apparently too much, as a pair of ’tween boys walking by whistle, though one of them mutters, “Give her the tonsillectomy in private, man.”

  Laughing, Cass pulls back, his hands still locked around my waist. “I have a bad feeling the yard boy is going to be more useless than usual today.”

  “As long as you steer clear of the hedge clippers, it’s okay, Jose. I can think of a few uses for you.” I graze the corner of his mouth with my lips, nudging it open.

  “Killing spiders,” he mutters, kissing back wholeheartedly. “Opening jars.”

  “And so on,” I whisper.

  “Look,” he says, pulling back after a while, for the first time seeming awkward. “I can’t see you tonight. I have another . . . family thing.”

  “Oh, yeah, I understand,” I say hurriedly. “No problem. I have to—”

  He catches my hands and waits till I turn my face back so I’m looking at him.

  “This got set up before you and I figured things out—a command performance kind of deal. I’d much rather be with you.”

  “Your grandmother?”

  “And a few trustees from Hodges,” he says. “Fun times.”

  Dad slams the screen door behind him that night, brandishing a crumpled piece of paper, laundry bag over his shoulder. “What exactly is this?” He drops the bag, flicks his hand against the paper. Irritation crackles off him as palpably as the smell of fryer grease. It’s eleven o’clock at night, so Castle’s must have just closed. Not his usual laundry drop-off time.

  “What’s it look like?” Mom asks, unperturbed, barely glancing up from her book. “It’s a flyer for my business.”

  I click off the television, looking from one of them to the other.

  “You clean houses. That’s not a business.”

  “Well, it sure isn’t a hobby, Mike. I clean houses and I want to clean more because We Need the Money. Like you keep saying. So I’m advertising.” She plucks the paper from his hand, running her finger across it. “It came out good, didn’t it?”

  Dad clears his throat. When he starts speaking again, his voice slows, softens. “Luce. You know Seashell. They see these posted around, get the idea you’re hard up for work, for cash, and next thing you know, the minute something disappears, some little gold bracelet from Great-Aunt Suzy, every finger will be pointing straight at you.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Fabio hurls himself onto the couch, gasping for breath from the effort, climbing into Mom’s lap. She ruffles his ears and he snorts with pleasure, eyeing the melting ice cream in her bowl, ears perked. “My clients know me better than that. I’ve worked for most of the families on Seashell for more than twenty years.”

  Dad collapses next to her on Myrtle, rests elbows on his thighs, bows his head into his hands. A streak of white skin gleams at the back of his neck above the sunburn he probably got last time he went out on the boat. “Doesn’t matter. When the chips are down, you’re not in the Rich Folks Club.”

  “Mike, you’re such a pessimist. Have a little faith in human kindness.” To my complete amazement, she ruffles Dad’s hair, nudges him on the shoulder. I don’t think I can ever remember seeing them touch, much less exchange an affectionate gesture. It actually gives me a lump in my throat, especially when Dad looks up, his hazel eyes big and pleading, a little lost, so like Emory’s.

  “You never get it, do you, Luce? You still think that the whole damn world is full of happy endings just waiting to come to you. Haven’t you noticed Prince Charming hasn’t showed up yet?”

  Mom’s voice is dry. “Yes, honey. That I’ve noticed.”

  Dad actually cracks a smile.

  I’m almost afraid to breathe. My parents are having a minute of truce. An instant of genuine connection. For a moment (honestly, the first in my life) I can understand why they got married (besides the me-being-on-the-way thing).

  There’s a loud knock on the door. “Betcha that’s him now,” Mom says, smiling at Dad.

  But it’s Cass. He grins at me, then looks a little sheepish. “I know it’s late,” he starts.

  “Almost midnight.” Dad comes up behind me. “And who the hell are you?”

  Cass introduces himself.

  “Aid
an Somers’s son, right? Coach Somers your brother? Lobster roll, mayo on the side, double order of fries?”

  Cass blinks, momentarily confused. “Uh . . . Yeah, that’s Jake.”

  “Bit late for a swimming lesson.” Dad surveys Cass, who is wearing a blue blazer, a tie, neatly creased khakis. “And you’re not exactly dressed for one, kid.”

  “Don’t be silly, Mike. He’s come for Gwen,” Mom says, sounding as though this is the most natural thing in the world.

  “I wondered if she’d want to take a walk with me,” Cass explains. “I know it’s late,” he repeats in the face of Dad’s glare.

  “I’d love to,” I say instantly, grabbing his hand. “Let’s go!”

  “Wait just a second,” Dad says. “How old are you, Cassidy?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “I was seventeen once too,” my father begins unpromisingly. “And I took a ton of girls to the beach late at night—”

  “That’s great, Dad. You can tell us all about it another time.” I pull Cass out the door as Mom says, “A ton? That’s a bit much, Mike. It was just me and that trashy Candy Herlihy.”

  “Are we ever going to leave my house without me having to apologize for my family?”

  “Not necessary. I’m the one who showed up late.” Cass yanks at his tie, loosening it, hauling it off, then shoves it in his jacket pocket, opens the door of the old BMW, which is parked in our driveway next to Dad’s truck and the Bronco, pulls off the jacket and tosses it in. Then starts unbuckling his belt.

  “Uh, strip in our driveway,” I say, “and Dad’s definitely going to think this is a booty call.”

  He laughs, tosses the belt in, followed by his shoes and socks, pulls his shirttails out, bumps the car door shut. “Just felt like I couldn’t breathe in all that. I was headed home, saw your lights on . . . just wanted to see you.”

  He takes my hand again and we head down the road. I love nighttime on Seashell . . . all the silhouetted figures of the houses, the hush of the ocean. It feels like the only time the whole island belongs to me.