by Ward, H. M.
The huge parking lot is empty. The wind blows hard, tangling my hair behind me. When I see the beach, a new set of memories floods my mind. Sean. His hands, his touch. Oh God. I wish I never met him. I wish he ignored me that night, like every other person on that road. Why’d he have to help? Why’d I ever talk to him? Every time I blink, I see Sean’s eyes and hear his voice. His smile comes racing back. Everything from the kite hitting his head to the way his lips pressed against mine comes back in a rush.
“You okay there, Avery?” Mel says, staring at me.
My eyes are wide. I haven’t blinked. I’m gazing at the sandy boardwalk leading out to the beach. Clutching my hands into fists, I work my jaw and say, “I’m fine. Let’s go.”
We spend the next hour looking through the sand. Basically, we wander the beach, barefoot and sweep the sand away looking for something silvery and glittering beneath the surface. As it gets closer and closer to time to leave, my heartbeat turns panicked. Where is it? Eventually, I give up trying to locate it with my feet. I’m sifting through the sand on my hands and knees, but I can’t find Mom’s necklace. It’s the last piece of her that I have. My brow is pinched with remorse. It doesn’t matter where we look or how far we fan out.
Mom’s necklace is gone.
I sit back on my knees and look up at the sky. It’s gray with streaky white clouds. Pressing my eyes closed, I stop thinking.
Mel watches me. I feel her eyes on my face. A moment later, she’s standing next to me. I feel her hand on my shoulder. I open my eyes and look up at her. “It’s not here, Avery.”
I stand and brush the sand off my jeans. I’m frozen to the core. I look out at the waves pounding into the sand. I wish my heart would freeze. I wish I didn’t feel so much. I can’t handle this. I can’t bear what my life’s become.
Mel snaps her fingers in front of my face. When I don’t react, she grabs my shoulders and twists me toward her. “It’s not here, but that doesn’t mean you won’t find it.”
“You’re too nice.” I breathe, still numb.
This can’t be happening. My heart races as I glance around, looking at everything, but seeing nothing. Panic is strangling me. I feel it, but I don’t let it overcome me even though I want to, even though I feel the need to fall to my knees and scream that life isn’t fair. My hysteria gets shoved back into its box. One day it’ll spring on someone like a crazed jack-in-the-box and scare the shit out of them.
Mel’s laugh pulls me back to the present. I glance at her. Mel has a doubtful smile on her face. “Too nice? That’s not something I hear every day.” Mel sighs. Tilting her head, she says, “Come on. Nothing good is going to come from sitting out here and freezing our asses off. Let’s go to class. I’ll help you pull apart your room later. I bet it fell behind the dresser or some dumb shit.” Mel’s words are kind, but I hear it in her voice—she knows I lost it. She knows the necklace will never been seen again, and she’s worried about me. She thinks I’m coming unglued, that I’m about to fall apart.
Swallowing hard, I follow her back to the car. As we walk, my eyes scan the sand dunes, the spaces between the boards, and finally the sandy parking lot. Nothing. My mother’s cross is gone. The wind whips my hair into my face and stings my skin. I wish to God that I never came out here with Sean. I lost so much that day, more than I could bear to lose.
I refuse to fall apart. I refuse to succumb to the sensations choking me, to the stabbing pain in my hollowed-out heart. I won’t turn to dust. This will not destroy me. I am strong.
Sucking in the cold air, I let it fill my lungs until they ache. I hold it a beat longer than I should and let it out slowly. My breath makes a long, white cloud. My fingers ball up at my sides as I wonder why I can’t give up, why I can’t simply fall to the ground and die. I’ll survive this, I know I will.
That necklace wasn’t holding me together. Something else is—something strong—but I have no idea what it is.
5
Time passes painfully slow. I stare, not looking, not listening. Lectures blur together and I move through campus like a robot. I smile when I should, wave at my friends, and basically go through the day on autopilot. It isn’t until my lab with Marty that he calls me on it.
“Avery,” Marty says, leaning in and pinching my arm.
“Owh!” I finally glance at him and actually see him. For the first time since we left the beach, my eyes focus and I actually see him. “What’d you do that for?”
“You’re mixing the wrong stuff together. Snap out of it! You’ve had this glazed over look on your face all day.” He watches me for a second.
Surprised, I flinch and look up at him. His brown eyes are like big candies. He’s nothing but sweetness and I’m nothing but bitter. “Sorry,” I say, and tuck a curl behind my ear. I reach for the lab sheet and confirm my mistake.
“There’s nothing to apologize for—well, not unless you blow us to kingdom come. Why don’t I do the lab and you fill out the sheet?” I smile weakly at him and sit down on my stool, taking the paper in my hands.
“So,” Marty says, his eyes darting over to my seat occasionally, “What are your plans this weekend?”
The corner of my mouth pulls up. It’s a lame smile, the kind that covers how stupid I feel. “I’m working.” And not getting paid, because I’m an idiot and threw all my money back at Sean. Why did I do that?
I push the thought away, knowing that if I was given the chance for a do-over, I’d repeat the entire night just as it was. Some kind of resolve swirls in my stomach and I feel it creep through my body. I won’t live my life halfway. That’s why I’d do it all over again. That’s why I’m a moron. I’d tell Sean that I loved him, that he scares me to death, and then I’d stand there and wait for him to reject me. Maybe I’ve got a martyr complex. I rub my fingers against my temples, trying to fight off the headache that’s closing around my brain like a vice.
Marty mixes something together. I write down the quantities on my sheet. After a moment, he says, “Ah. Do you know what you’re doing, yet?” Marty doesn’t look at me. His hands have a slight tremor, or maybe I just imagine it.
I jot down the next answer and say, “No. I’ve been demoted. So it shouldn’t be anything major. Probably a date or something.” I tick off a few more things on the sheet. I’m not sure how much Marty knows. Mel filled him in at least a little bit, but he hasn’t spoken to me about it.
Marty doesn’t look up at me. Maybe it’s me, but he seems really tense. His fingers wrap around a beaker and he holds it too tight. The glass shatters in his hand. I jump from my seat at the same time everyone in the class looks up. Marty’s fingers uncurl one by one. Streams of blood drip from his palm. Without thinking, I grab my sweater and pull it over my head so that I’m only wearing my tank top and jeans. I take the sweater and brush away the glass that’s sticking to the blood on his hand. I grip his wrist tightly and pull his hand up over his heart. Marty watches me, his dark eyes don’t leave my face. I don’t think. I just react. There’s no TA, no prof. I look around the room, but no one offers to help.
I tug Marty away from the lab table, and say, “I’m taking him to the health office. I’ll be back to clean that up.” No one answers. They watch me lead Marty out of the room.
Marty’s eyes are on my hand, watching my hold on his wrist. He swallows hard, like he might faint. I grin at him, suddenly worried about what to do if he does pass out. Marty is way too big for me to carry to the nurse. A hysterical image of me dragging the giant guy by his ankles, through the grass, all the way across campus, pops up in my mind.
I smile and glance at him. “You’re not going to pass out, are you? Because I don’t think I can carry you. I’ll have to drag you to the nurse’s office, and I’ll probably ruin that shirt you love so much…maybe even nag your head around.” I grin at him, but Marty still looks at me with a super weird expression.
We walk down the hallway and I’m trying to hold his wrist up by his shoulder. My sweater is turning red. I
t’s wrapped around his hand. Damn, that’s a lot of blood. He must have continued to squeeze the glass after it shattered.
Marty blinks a few times and gets the wry smile on his face that he’s usually wearing. He pulls his wrist free from my grip. “I can do that. I’m not going to pass out, either, so stop thinking about rolling me down that hill by the cafeteria.”
I laugh nervously. There’s something about the look in Marty’s eye, the way he won’t meet my gaze for more than a second. Marty stops at the exterior door at the end of the hall. I push it open and we walk outside. Glancing in the direction of the hill, I say, “We should do that anyway. I mean, when’s the last time you rolled down a hill just for the fun of it?”
“When I was five.” He smirks. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s been too long. If I wasn’t hemorrhaging, I’d make you do it now, but alas, I’ll have to take a rain check.”
“Alas?” I tease. “Really?”
Marty shrugs. “Sure, why not? I think I may speak in medieval talk all day tomorrow. I’ll make sure to raise my hand in each class so I get called on. The professors love it when I do that. A few weeks ago I talked like an 80’s dude all day. They loved that.” Marty blinks hard and grits his teeth. “I think there’s glass in my hand.”
“Yeah, there is. Don’t squeeze it!” I snap at him and make him hold his hand up by his shoulder. His shirt is getting a red blot. The cut must be deeper than it looked. I want to scold him. This seems so stupid, so unusual for him. It almost seems like he did it on purpose. “What made you do that, anyway? This isn’t like you.” It’s not like Marty at all. He’s normally meticulous to the extreme. Breaking a glass in his hand was the strangest thing he could do, shy of eating it.
Marty doesn’t look over at me, works his jaw and stares straight ahead. “I don’t know. It just broke.”
Smiling, I say, “Glass doesn’t just break—”
“Well, it did. Damn, Avery. Back off. Shit breaks sometimes.” Marty keeps walking, taking his long strides, but I stop. He’s never spoken to me like that before. Marty is always all gossip and smiles. He never raises his voice. If he swears, it’s for drama. He’s never sounded like that before. I find myself standing still and my feet won’t move.
After a few paces Marty stops. Looking at the dead grass beneath his shoes, he says, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to…” His voice trails off. Lifting his gaze slowly, Marty looks at me. There’s something there, something that doesn’t make sense. He’s looking at me with this raw expression on his face, like I was the one who shoved the broken beaker into his hand and made him bleed.
“It’s been a rough couple of days.” He smiles at me and whatever I thought I saw is gone, concealed behind the mask of smiles and laughter. “I’ll take care of this on my own. If you could go back and grab my books, that’d be great. I’ll get them from you at breakfast, okay?” Although his tone makes it sound like he’s asking me, I know he isn’t. For some reason Marty doesn’t want me around right now.
Confused, I nod. I wonder what I did that bothered him like this. I can’t think of anything, but I don’t press him. “Sure. I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry about anything. I’ll finish up the work and turn it in, too. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Marty nods curtly. He turns and walks away without looking back.
6
The night seems to take forever. It seems like the sun will never rise. I get up before dawn. I can’t sleep anyway. I pull on jeans and a sweatshirt.
As I yank my hair back into a sloppy ponytail, Amber stirs. She groans, “Where are you going, freak? It’s not even 6:00 am.”
“Go back to bed, Skankzilla.” I glance at her. Amber isn’t really awake. I doubt she’ll even remember talking to me. I yank on my sneakers as she rolls back over and disappears under her covers. I wish I could sleep like that, but I can’t. I hardly sleep at all anymore. There are too many thoughts racing through my head, too many memories that flash just as I close my eyes. My body aches, tired from lack of sleep—tired from life.
Grabbing my wallet, I shove it in my back pocket, take my book bag, and fish my keys out of my purse. I walk down the hall alone. No one is awake. The kids that stay up forever are passed out somewhere. The only sound I hear is the hum of the florescent lights overhead. Adjusting my bag on my shoulder, I run down the flights of stairs, and push open the door.
Frigid air blasts me in the face. It feels like I walked into a freezer. I welcome the onslaught of sensations, the way the air pricks my skin, stinging it. It reminds me that I’m alive and I need that right now, I need that today.
After getting my car started, I drive to the beach. I’m not searching for the lost necklace today. That’s not what this is about. I need to hear the waves and feel the sand. I need the peace that eludes me and I know that I can find it there, despite everything that’s happened to me.
The roads are fairly empty once I hit Ocean Parkway. No one goes to the beach this early, not when it’s freezing outside. I shiver in my car, as I drive along, watching sea and sand fly by my window. It isn’t until I pull into Field 5 and step out of my car that I feel like I can relax a little. It’s too cold. I know I can’t stay long, but I can’t shake the crushing grief. It snuck up on me in the middle of the night and wouldn’t let go. For some reason, sitting and watching the waves makes me feel better. This is my security blanket, the one thing that makes me feel better even on the worst days.
I walk onto the sand and head toward the water. Glancing up and down the beach, I see no one. Seagulls screech overhead and fly away when they see I have no food. I sit on the dry sand and stare out at the waves. The sea is smooth today, like a sheet of black glass. It laps at the shore, almost hugging it as if they were friends. Solace finds me and an unexplainable inner-warmth swirls within my stomach.
Everything will be okay.
I stare, unblinking at the sea, allowing the wind to chill my skin until it’s numb. I wrap my arms around my knees and pull them to my chest, locking my fingers. I breathe, and blink. Sometimes it’s the little things that help me get through the big things. Taking one moment at a time, one breath at a time. It seems manageable, even when my life is not.
The sun is creeping over the horizon, lazily spilling orange and pink streaks across the sky. It isn’t until the sun is halfway up that I see someone dressed in a heavy coat down the beach. They’re standing so far away that I can’t see their face. The man is speck on the horizon, a black dot in a warm coat.
My throat tightens. I react to him. I know it’s him. I sense it. The wind ruffles his dark hair. The man turns his head as if he can feel my gaze. My heart beats harder. I wish it would still. I wish Sean didn’t make me respond this way.
I ignore him. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s some other guy. I can hope. My tongue presses against the back of my teeth as I lock my jaw. I try to relax and ignore the man, but I can’t. I stare at the slow waves and the next time I look down the beach, the man is gone. The tension lining my spine softens and I breathe in deeply.
I blink and decide to fall back in the sand. The urge to lay back and look at the sky overwhelms me. Things like the sky and the sea calm me. They remind me how small I am. Maybe that makes other people feel lost, but it makes me feel like maybe my problems aren’t so large, like maybe I can really survive this life and all the things that have happened to me. If a grain of sand can stand to be pounded by the sea, then I can take the beating I’ve been handed.
Sucking in a deep breath, I smile and fall back onto the sand. When I look up, I expect to see the colors of the sunrise painted across the sky, but I don’t. I see a man’s upside-down face, looking at me. I screech and push up on my elbows, crab-walking away from him a few paces, until my brain registers that he isn’t here to kill me—that I know him.
“What the hell, Ferro?” I grab my heart through my sweatshirt. I can’t breathe. I don’t look up at him. There’s something about his eyes that will make me believe whatever he has to say.
I can’t be here, not with him. Not now.
Sean looks down at me. I can feel his gaze on my cheek. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to startle you. I was—”
“Well, what the hell were you doing, standing that close if you didn’t mean to startle me? I mean—fuck—could you be any creepier? Damn, Sean.” I stand up and brush the sand off my shirt and my jeans. I walk away from Sean before he answers. I don’t want to hear it.
Sean’s behind me, following me. “Avery, wait. I wanted to tell you—”
But I don’t stop. I’ll never stop—not for him—not ever again. Sean’s mouth is filled with lies. His voice makes deceit sound like music. If I stop, if I look at him, I’m screwed. I’ll cave in and hear Sean out and I don’t want to. There’s nothing he can say that will fix what he’s done. He flambéed any chance we had for anything. I walk faster, but my feet just sink into the sand. It fills my sneakers, but I don’t stop.
“Avery!” Sean calls behind me. “I need to give this to you. Wait a second.”
I hear him running up behind me. As I step onto the boardwalk and off the sand, Sean catches up with me. He manages to grab my elbow. I whirl around, heart pounding. Everything he does puts me on edge. Sean can’t speak without my pulse roaring in my ears. My brain registers the touch as pain. My arm sears like he’s burned me. I yank it back, hard, and then swing. I throw my shoulder into the punch, not holding back.
Shock flashes across Sean’s beautiful features swiftly. My fist is on a collision course with his face. At the last second, Sean steps to the side. My punch lands on his shoulder. He grabs my wrist and holds it tight. Sean looks down at me like I’ve lost my mind. “What are you doing?”
I try to pull away from him, but he doesn’t release me. Every inch of my body is shaking with rage. It courses through my veins and I feel like I’m going to explode. Still, I don’t look at his eyes. He’s a goddamn snake, a viper. He’ll steal my soul and devour me.