Fissure

by Nicole Williams

  “Okay, so now that I achieved my goal of showing you up,” she said when my head popped above the surface. “Can we get back to you teaching me how to surf?”

  “You know what they say about payback?” I asked, cutting through the water toward her.

  She didn’t move when my partially submerged face was a breath away from hers. “I know what they say,” she said, “but I wonder what a gentlemen would say about it.” She smiled like a wicked angel at me, knowing she had me.

  “You are the most innocent looking conniver I’ve ever met,” I admitted.

  “It just comes so naturally when I’m around you,” she said, flicking a splash of water at me.

  “Sure, blame me for your vices. I don’t mind,” I muttered, patting the board. “If you’re finished cheating me out of some sweet revenge, climb aboard.”

  “That’s it?” she said, examining the incoming waves and our proximity to the beach. “Climb aboard? Nothing else?” Her voice was gaining some speed, a tad high with panic. “How about a few pointers, or maybe a couple warnings, or I don’t know, something more than climb aboard?” she shouted, patting the board like I had, although she was smacking it.

  I grinned. “Surfing’s all about being at one with the ocean,” I said. “Just get on and do what feels natural, whatever comes to you. That’s the best piece of advice I can give you.”

  She looked at me like I was speaking a dead language.

  “Listen, I’m not going to break this down for you into steps for you, telling you where to put your feet and where not to put your feet, how to stand and how not to stand, because that’s not what surfing is. Surfing isn’t listening to someone else telling you how to do it—surfing is listening to what the ocean’s telling you to do. Sound easy enough?”

  She stared at me with an open mouth. “Okay, those brownies the hippies down the way were handing out earlier weren’t meant to be eaten by the tray full. Just say no next time someone’s selling brownies by the kilo.”

  I coughed, trying to keep the laughter contained. “Are you surfing, or aren’t you? This stalling act you’ve got going on by flirting with me underwater and batting your wet eye lashes at me while accusing me of tripping on some pot brownies has run its course.”

  She grabbed that board from me so fast, peppering me with a few choice looks, I knew I’d gotten under her skin. Just where I wanted to be and needed to stay, although I’d prefer to be there in the good under-her-skin kind of way, not the narrowed-eyes-of-death way.

  “Just tell me when to climb aboard,” she spat over her shoulder, “if that won’t insult the ocean and my oneness too much.”

  I glanced out at the water, stepping into her. “There’s a perfect baby wave coming in three, two,” I counted, positioning my hands over her hips, “one! Go, go go!” I yelled, lifting her up on the board and letting her and the wave do the rest.

  The baby wave was more of a surly tween and both it and Emma raged towards the beach like the fuming pair they were. The unexpected rise in the wave surprised me less than Emma riding it like a moderately seasoned pro. She managed to pop top, stay there, and ride that sucker all the way to the . . .

  Emma realized too late she should have jumped off before she was still standing on a board moving with some momentum in ankle deep water. The board caught in the sand, coming to an abrupt halt, sending Emma flying in an abrupt spill.

  I had the gifts of foresight, speed, and teleportation on my side. I caught her a beat before she nosedived into compacted sand.

  “Emma?” I asked, adjusting her vertical again.

  “I’m fine,” she said, guessing at my silent question. “How the heck did you get to me so fast?” she asked, flipping her head back to free the streaks of wet hair glued to her face.

  “Murphy’s Law,” I answered.

  Rolling her eyes at me, she said, “So? How did I do?”

  “Awesome,” I answered, freeing my board from the half foot hole it’d dug into the sand. “I can’t believe that worked.”

  “What?” she shrieked. “You used me as the guinea pig for all that oneness mumbo-jumbo crap?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted, “but it worked, didn’t it? So you can’t be angry at me. You were surfing like you knew what you were doing.”

  Running her hand over the board, she stopped in front of me. “That had everything to do with the inherent awesome inside of me and nothing to do with your tried and true words of wisdom.” Her brows peaked halfway up her forehead, challenging me to speak.

  I bowed out of the challenge.

  Shouldering past me, I turned to watch her cross the rest of the distance to our beach day pad. I watched her walk away a little longer before saying, “One wave? You’re calling it a day after one wave?”

  Waving her hand dismissively back at me, she said, “Onto bigger and better things.”

  “Like lounging,” I said, picking up my board and debating which direction to spend the remainder of the daylight in.

  “Exactly like lounging,” she answered, reaching for the sunscreen as she lowered herself onto the blanket.

  East or West, the age old question for man. A timeless question, but an easy one for me to answer. It’d always seemed East felt a little more downhill than West. A little less like fighting an uphill battle. I went to Emma, leaving the waves for another day.

  “It shouldn’t be physically possible for your stomach to be able to fit that much food in it,” Emma said, chucking the second empty pizza box on top of the other one.

  I went all out and made reservations at the best place in town, the beachfront bonfire pit in front of my house. A couple of the works pizzas with double cheese from the local surfer hangout, a couple pints of milk, one cozy beach blanket, and we were in business.

  It was a late dinner. A late late dinner, like midnight late, but by the time we’d finished lounging in the sun, packed our crap back to the house, showered up, and hmmmm’ed and haaaa’ed over what to order, it was well past my neighbors’ bedtimes.

  “It’s all in space efficiency and compression. Think of a garbage truck and all that junk that fits inside that small space. One would be overflowing after half a mile if it wasn’t for a well designed compression system,” I said, folding the crust of the last slice of pizza and stuffing it in my mouth.

  She shook her head, tossing her crust into the fire. “Anyone ever tell you that you draw really odd parallels?”

  I gulped down the wad of dough in my mouth. “All the time.”

  “Glad I’m not the only one.”

  “Moving onto dessert,” I said, grabbing a paper bag.

  She stopped in the middle of pitching her paper plate into the fire. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “I never kid when it comes to dessert.” Upending the bag, the makings of s’mores spilled between us.

  “Peanut butter cups?” Emma said, picking up one of the dozen packages. “I’ve had s’mores all of one time in my life, but I distinctly recall a square of chocolate bar sitting between the graham and the mallow.”

  “One square of chocolate?” I said, making a face. “Who were the chocolate bar Nazis you were with?”

  “My parents,” she said, looking into the fire.

  I was a spew-the-first-thing-that-comes-to-mind idiot. “Em, I didn’t mean . . .”

  “Patrick, it’s fine. Really. I’m not going to break down bawling because I remembered something from way back when.” Grabbing the bag of marshmallows, she tore an end open. “The last thing I want you to do is treat me like I’m this fragile thing you need to tip-toe around, okay? Just treat me like you treat everyone else,” she said, stuffing a marshmallow whole in her mouth. “Think normal when in doubt,” she advised through a gob of mallow.

  “Got it,” I said, offering her a roasting stick. “Normal, I think I can remember to treat you like that.”

  There was that word again. The wedge that was driving the fissure between us deeper. Soon there’d be a valley split t
oo wide for either of us to cross.

  “So you use peanut butter cups instead of chocolate bars in your s’mores?” she asked, tearing open one of those too. We were a couple of sugaraholics in confection heaven.

  “You’ve never lived until you’ve tried it.” Although, I had to die and exist another hundred some years before peanut butter cups were even on the market.

  “So what would our esteemed psychology professor say that says about you? Because we know he’d have something juicy to say.” She bit a morsel of peanut butter cup.

  “He’d probably say it means I’m uber cool, a great catch, and hands down, the best kisser on the western seaboard.”

  “That’s very creative of you,” she said, squishing up one side of her face, “but I think he’d say it highlights your propensity for non-conformity, your life or death need to stand out in the crowd, and, let’s not miss the big one, the triple crown underlying reason . . .”—she exchanged a conspiring look with me—“you really like peanut butter cups.”

  Shaking the last cup out of the package Emma had opened, I peeled back the wrapper and popped it in my mouth. “Golly-gee, I do like peanut butter cups. What do you know?”

  “I know, my drug store diagnosis is most impressive.” She smirked at me as she speared her stick into a mallow.

  “No, really, all jokes aside,” I said, breaking a couple grahams in half. “I know you’re undecided and everything, but you should strongly consider majoring in Psych. That was some professional sounding stuff for someone who’s sat through a few weeks of an intro class.”

  “We’ll see,” she said, turning her stick over in the fire. “I suppose one trainwreck can relate with another, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said, feeling another darned if I do, darned if I don’t predicament, “I’m not going to answer that.”

  “Smart man,” she said under her breath, pulling her stick from the fire. “S’more me,” she said, settling her mallow above the peanut butter cup topped graham.

  Sandwiching it all together, I smashed it tight. “Enjoy the ride,” I said reverently, handing the masterpiece over. “You can thank me later.”

  She thought I was exaggerating, I could tell from the tilt of her neck, but all that changed one bite later. “Holy crap,” she said, taking a heftier bite.

  “Don’t say anymore,” I said. “I get it. The crazy insane is strong with this dessert,” I said in my best Yoda voice.

  “This is like a party in my mouth,” she said in between bites number two and three. “And not like some little kid birthday party at the roller rink—this is a full-blown, bead throwing, mask-wearing Mardi Gras party in my mouth.” She looked at me like I’d just saved the world from nuclear disaster. “You are a genius.”

  Bowing my head, I replied, “Good of you to finally admit it.”

  Taking the last bite, she flopped back onto the blanket like she was exhausted. “That was incredible,” she said, touching her forearm to her forehead.

  I couldn’t tell if she was being intentional or accidental about the way she was reacting to the s’more, but either way, I didn’t miss it.

  “Why thank you,” I said, stacking another s’more. “I got another one here with your name on it.”

  “Thanks,” she said, lifting her hand, “but I’m going to have to pace myself here. Too much of a good thing is—”

  “A great thing,” I said, adding my sentiments.

  I munched away on my s’more, savoring it, which wasn’t generally my thing. I tended to devour the things I was most attracted to—savoring took too long, was too permanent. Emma stayed quiet for so long, I had to check to make sure she hadn’t fallen asleep.

  Her eyes were open wide, the fire’s reflection scattering over her eyes. She was looking at me.

  “Thank you, Patrick,” she said. “The past twenty four hours have been . . .” she paused, hanging on an unspoken word, “perfect. I didn’t think anything close to it existed in this life, but you’ve shown me I was wrong. So, thanks.” Her face lined in a grimace as she sat back up. “I know that sounds incredibly lame, but that’s the truth. And I know how important honesty is to you.”

  This was my opening, my segue, my in, if ever there would be one between Emma and me. This was my chance to open my mouth and tell her everything I was feeling, everything I’d felt, everything I wanted to feel forever.

  But that’s when she slipped her hand into mine, studying our entwined hands. And then her conflicted eyes flickered to mine and there was only one thing to say. A single thing I was capable of in that emotion charged stare.

  Scooting over a barricade of boxes and wrappers, I didn’t stop until the length of my side was running down hers. Her eyes held mine, but there was a shift in what they were conveying. I didn’t care—it was too late for me. It had been too late for me one first day of class and one sweet smile ago.

  Forming my hand over her cheek, I closed the space between us. The final space between us, letting my lips take the lead.

  My mouth was greeted with a swish of air and a tense cheek where a pair of lips had been one bad decision ago.

  “I can’t,” she whispered into the fire. “I mean, I could, but I’d regret it in the morning. And so would you.” She glanced at me from the side. “I couldn’t stand anything ruining this day when I look back and remember it.”

  “Em,” I started, not knowing where I was going with this.

  Shaking her head, she said, “I wish I could be that girl I see reflected back to me in your eyes. But I can’t. It’s a mirage, what you see.”

  “No, it’s what you are,” I replied, folding my hands together, but I didn’t move a sliver away from her. I wasn’t going to make this easy on her. She felt something too; I was now convinced of it. I couldn’t let it escape.

  She exhaled the breath of a person who doesn’t believe a word being spoken. “If you didn’t devour them all, could you toss me a peanut butter cup?” she asked, everything about her voice and expression pretending nothing significant had happened between us.

  I fumbled around for one and handed it to her, feeling the pricks of numbness entombing me. This had been the first time I’d gone in for a kiss and been denied, and I was surprised it didn’t only suck, it hurt like a cannon had just blasted out a crater in my gut. It ached because this had been the one kiss above all the others where the intensity of my feelings for the other person were guiding me. This wasn’t just sheer physical need, this was an expression of everything I felt at the core of my soul.

  It had been rejected.

  And that hurt.

  Biting into a cup, Emma tossed the rest of the carton aside, staring unseeingly into the fire. I didn’t know what engineering feat could build a bridge long and strong enough to cross the distance keeping us apart, but I wouldn’t give up. I never would, as long as there was hope of my feelings being reciprocated.

  And from the tears I saw about ready to spill down her face, I knew there was just enough hope to keep me going. When they fell, Emma swiped her arm over her face before they could travel far, but fresh ones replaced the vanished.

  “Hey,” I said, nudging her, “you want to talk about this?” I motioned between the two of us and whatever she was or wasn’t upset about.

  Shaking her head, she sniffled. “Definitely not.”

  “All right then,” I said, wrapping my arm around her and tucking her close. “Let’s just let the stars and silence do the talking for us.”

  Her head nodded beneath my chin.

  The embers of the bonfire were smoldering when her breathing steadied from the passage of sleep. Tucking the blanket around us, I leaned back into the driftwood log behind me, just needing to catch a few winks. A few minutes of recuperative sleep to wake up refreshed and ready to continue the fight of forcing Emma to admit there was something special between us.

  And then I fell into the deepest sleep I had in decades.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  As peacefully as I’d
lost myself to sleep last night, I jerked awake as violently. I didn’t need to check the location of the sun in the sky, or consult my cell phone, to know what time it was: 7:12 a.m. Too bad I’d forgotten to place a wake up call with my internal clock.

  “Emma,” I said, shaking her arm. She hadn’t moved from the shape she’d taken curled around me last night. Her face was a kind of tranquil that was sacrilegious to break, but I also knew missing class was a more unpardonable sin in her eyes. “Emma,” I said again, louder.

  Her eyes snapped open, taking in the scene around us like she didn’t remember how she’d found herself the better side of horizontal, in my arms, wrapped in a blanket.

  “Good morning,” I said, sliding a piece of hair behind her ear. “It’s after seven. We better get moving if we’re going to get you to class by nine.”

  Horror chased away the confusion lining her face. “My first class is at eight!” she yelled, scrambling out of my arms and bolting upright.

  Of course she’d be a member of the one percent of college students who elected to take the earliest class they could take. “It’s going to be okay, Em,” I said, popping up with less zeal. “The world will continue to turn if you’re fifteen minutes late.”

  “Not if I miss a test that starts promptly at eight on the dot,” she snapped, running towards the house like she was an impala being chased by an army of hungry lionesses on the Discovery Channel.

  “Crap,” I muttered. I didn’t need to give her any more reasons to stay her distance from me. “Okay, go get changed and grab something to eat and I’ll meet you at the car,” I yelled across the sand at her, tossing empty wrappers and crushed graham crackers into the paper sack.

  “No time,” she yelled. “Meet me at the car now!” She paused in the doorway, sending a warning look at me. “Or else I’m stealing it.”