Unbreak My Heart

by Melissa Walker

  When I don’t say anything, she asks, “See the water out there?”

  “I’m not blind,” I say.

  “It’s blue and cold and wonderful, and it’s gently rocking us as we make a family dinner,” she says.

  “Are you about to break out in song?” I ask.

  “No,” she says, putting her arm around me and turning me back to face Dad and Olive in the kitchen. “I just want you to see out there, where it’s blue and wild and full of adventure. And then I want you to see in here, where there’s a warm yellow glow and your family is making dinner and your mom and dad are dancing and your little sister is hoping that you’ll throw a smile her way. This is the good stuff, Clem.”

  “Now that the Hallmark commercial is over, can we put that dish in the oven already so dinner will be ready by bedtime?” I ask.

  I understand what Mom is trying to do, but I’m so not in the mood.

  I start heading to my room, but Dad stops me.

  “I just want to grab the e-reader,” I say.

  “As long as you read it out here,” says Dad.

  “Fine.”

  I get the e-reader and sit down at the end of the couch. Olive pushes in next to me and looks up at my face while I’m trying to read.

  “I’m trying to read.”

  “Can you braid me?” she asks.

  This is how she always asks me to fix her hair, even if she means two ponytails or just a brushing—she always says “braid me.”

  She holds up the brush in her hand.

  “A real braid, please,” she says.

  “Your hair’s too short,” I say, not looking up from the novel.

  “Not for a little one,” she says. “Pleeeeease, Clem?”

  I sigh and put my reading aside. Then I take Olive’s shoulders and turn her around so her back is to me. I collect three short pieces of hair and make a tiny braid.

  “There,” I say. “You’ve got a braid.”

  I’m reaching for the reader when she says, “More, please.”

  I sigh and start again, taking three more short pieces and turning them into a second braid, then repeating. By the time dinner’s ready, my little sister has near dreadlocks. But she looks insane instead of cool. She runs to the mirror in her room, though, and comes out smiling like I’ve just made her ready for the red carpet.

  “I love it,” she says, and she puts her arms around me. “I look like a rock star.”

  “One of the crazy ones,” I say, patting her back.

  “Those are the best kind,” she says as she pulls out of the hug, and I can’t help but smile at her unique, secure sense of who she is. She’d probably wear those braids outside if Mom let her.

  We sit down to dinner, and I feel okay for a little while. Olive shakes her head around, showing off her wild braids, and Mom and Dad talk about the rest of our route and how we’ll be able to go swimming soon when we get to a spot where the currents aren’t so strong.

  Dinner ends up tasting decent, and Olive says it’s because of the cheese we added. Mom admits that she doesn’t love cooking, even though she volunteered for the position, and she looks at me pointedly.

  “I don’t want to cook,” I say, pulling four pudding cups out of the mini fridge for dessert.

  I sit back down and pull the seal off my pudding. Then I lick the top.

  “I think it would be a nice thing to do,” says Dad. “Maybe you could relieve Mom every other night.”

  “It would be a nice thing to do,” I say. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to do it.”

  “What do you want to do, Clem?” asks Olive, sticking her spoon into her pudding cup so it stands straight up. She looks at me, and her crazy braids make her seem angry.

  “Nothing,” I say, not wanting to get any further into this conversation, which suddenly feels too charged.

  “Well, you’re already doing that every day,” says Mom.

  She’s smiling, but she’s not happy.

  “Why are you all on my case?” I ask.

  Mom and Dad look at each other, and Olive keeps staring at me, her eyes hard. She hasn’t even started eating her pudding, and I know chocolate-vanilla swirl is her favorite.

  I give her bug eyes back to let her know that I don’t appreciate the staring.

  “You’re not Clem anymore,” she says quietly. Then she takes her spoon and starts eating slowly.

  “What?” I ask her.

  “You’ve changed,” she says, pronouncing “changed” like it’s a distasteful word not fit for her mouth.

  I stand up and throw my crumpled napkin on the table.

  “Olive, you don’t even understand what happened to me this year,” I say, trying to fight back tears. I can’t believe my little sister is getting to me like this, but I feel like I’m about to explode.

  “I know what happened,” she says. “Something with Amanda.”

  “Oh, I’m glad you have such in-depth understanding of the situation,” I snap.

  “Does it matter?” asks Olive. “What’s happening now is that you’re like a big dark piece of thunder over our whole summer when you’re supposed to be fun. You’re supposed to be Clem!”

  “Thunder is a sound!” I shout back at her.

  I look at Mom and Dad, but they’re just quietly eating pudding like they’re watching this scene on TV or something, like I’m their evening entertainment.

  “Aren’t you going to say something?” I ask Dad.

  “She’s right,” he says.

  “Oh, well, I guess I’ll just change my mood and my entire emotional being to accommodate you guys,” I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “Yeah, that’s it, I’ll just flip the happy switch and forget about the fact that I’m a terrible, deceptive person who has no friends and who doesn’t deserve a minute of happiness this summer!”

  By the end of my shout, my voice has gone high and started to crack. I didn’t expect this.

  Mom stands up and reaches out to hug me. “You don’t think that,” she says. “You don’t really think that?”

  And then I start to cry. I put my hands over my face, but I don’t retreat into my room for once. I know they’d just follow me in there anyway, and it’s crowded enough as it is in the main cabin. There’s no way to get away from my family, so they might as well see me, see how I’m feeling, take a good long look at the wreck of a person I am inside.

  I cry for what feels like an hour in that heaving, gushing way that spills onto everything around us. First it’s Mom’s shoulder, then it’s Dad’s sleeve as he reaches to hand me a napkin. Finally, it’s Olive’s braided head as she joins the family hug-huddle and a ball of snot drops from my nose.

  It’s so incredibly gross, but it makes me giggle through a sniffle as Olive steps back.

  “Snothead,” I say, embarrassed and feeling weak but relieved, like something came out of me just now, and not only a green glob.

  “Clem, you know we love you so much,” says Mom.

  “We do,” says Dad. “And you’re not a bad person. You’re just trying to figure out who you are.”

  “Believe me,” says Mom. “If this thing with your friends is the worst thing you ever do, you will have lived a very saintly life.”

  I shrug. It’s hard to believe your own parents sometimes. They don’t even really know what happened.

  “I will always love you,” says Olive, who has to join in with her own proclamation.

  “Thank you,” I say, and I sigh a big breath.

  I think I just let a little bit of what happened go. And it felt good.

  chapter twenty-four

  “Whatcha readin’?”

  I look up and see James standing in front of me, blocking my sun. He’s wearing a dark green polo shirt and tan shorts. His legs are superlong, but his calves are somehow both skinny and muscular. His boat shoes must be a size 20 or something. They are huge. And yes, I did just give him a full body scan. But I was discreet.

  “Beloved,” I say, glancing down
at the e-reader screen. “It’s on the summer reading list for school.”

  “Ooh,” he says. “You must go to a good school. We don’t have a summer reading list.”

  “I guess,” I say.

  “Do you hate it or love it?” he asks.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Your school,” he says. “Your summer reading list.”

  “I guess I’m indifferent,” I say.

  “You’re doing a lot of guessing today,” says James. “Can I sit down?”

  “I guess,” I say, smiling up at him.

  I’m actually glad he’s here. We’re docked near Paducah, Kentucky, and it’s the Fourth of July. Mom, Dad, and Olive went on a mission to find groceries and sparklers, which meant they had to walk a mile into the main part of the town. I opted to stay here, on the dock, and read. For once, no one pushed me to come along—they realized that I need a little space in between all the together time.

  James sits down next to me, and his feet hang down, like, half a foot more than mine do over the water.

  “You look better,” he says.

  “I do?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” he says. Then he holds up his two thumbs and pointer fingers and makes a rectangle to peer through. He frames my face with it, just like Henry did when we were making his movie last year.

  “Why are you doing that with your hands?” I ask him.

  James doesn’t move, just looks at me. “Sometimes to really see something, you have to reframe it,” he says.

  “What do you see?” I ask.

  “Your mouth is relaxed, like it might even smile without any effort from you.”

  I grin.

  “There we go!” he says. “I knew it.”

  “Well, maybe I had a good last few days,” I say.

  “Maybe you’re getting into the rhythm of sailing life,” says James. He looks out at the waves that are rolling in to lap against the dock. “You know, the tides going in and then out, the wind blowing east and then west, the high of a perfect day out on the water, the low of a thunderstorm or a wind that won’t go your way.”

  As he talks, his hands move fluidly to express each condition in some sort of nature pantomime. It makes me laugh.

  “Oh my gosh!” he says. “Did Clem Williams just LOL?”

  “Please do not use abbreviations like ‘LOL’ in out-loud conversation,” I say sternly.

  “I know,” he says. “OMG, I can’t believe I just did that.”

  I frown harder, trying not to crack up.

  “I did it again!” he says. “This is just OOC.”

  I laugh. “Okay, you have to stop,” I say.

  “For you, my darling,” he says, “Anything.”

  “Ooh,” I say. “Please also stop with the ‘darling’ thing. If you start singing the song, I’ll stand up and leave.”

  “Okay, first, I wasn’t referencing any song,” says James. “And second, where will you go? We’re on a dock surrounded by water, and I’m guessing you don’t have the authority to man The Possibility alone.”

  “You’ve got me on number two, but I know for a fact you were referencing the ‘Oh My Darlin’’ song,” I say. “Everyone does that with me. I get it, it’s natural, my name is Clementine. No problem. Just don’t sing it.”

  “Actually, I thought of a different song when you told me your name,” he says.

  “Oh really?” I ask. “What song is that?”

  “It’s an Elliott Smith song,” he says. “It’s fantastic, and it suits you.”

  I’m surprised. I’m intrigued. I have to look up this song later! But I’m not going to tell James any of that. So I just say, “Oh. Cool.”

  “You’re impressed.” He fake-pops his collar.

  “No,” I say. “I’m not.”

  “It’s okay—I can tell. Besides, I’m kind of a music guy, so I know all these songs that other people don’t. It’s kind of my thing. That’s one of the hardest parts about being out on the water, actually—not being able to update my playlists and being out of the loop about new music coming out. I always have to catch up in September.”

  For a second, I think of Ethan and all of his music, but than I push him out of my mind and say, “Being off-line sucks.” As soon as I hear myself say it, I’m not sure it’s true.

  “I think it’s nice, actually.”

  “Me too.”

  “But you just said it sucked.”

  “Yeah, but right when I said it I realized I didn’t really think that,” I say. “Does that ever happen to you?”

  “Yes.” James closes his eyes and nods his head, smiling like he knows exactly what I mean. “It’s almost like you have to hear it out loud, even from yourself, to realize it’s not what you think. It’s just what you think you think. Maybe because other people would think that way or something. Right?” He opens his eyes and looks at me.

  And as roundabout and confusing as what he just said was, I get it. “Right.”

  “But you and I, we are freethinkers!” He throws two outstretched hands in the air.

  “What is that, the freethinker power gesture?” I ask, reaching up to pull his hands down.

  “Don’t hate on my freethinker power hands,” he says. “What’s up with that?”

  He holds his palms straight up in the air, and try as I might, I can’t get his arms down. I stop trying. He keeps his arms up and looks at me expectantly.

  “What?”

  “Where’s your sense of solidarity?” he asks.

  I make a show of rolling my eyes and then I put my arms up in the air too.

  “Limp arms!” he shouts. “Get them up there, loud and proud! The freethinkers aren’t slouches!”

  I push my arms ramrod straight, open my palms to the sun and stare right at him with the most serious face I can muster.

  We both crack up and drop our arms.

  “Seriously, though,” says James. “I do think we need more freethinkers in the world. Be on the lookout.”

  “Yes, sir,” I say, saluting with a smile.

  “Make that ‘Aye-aye, Captain,’ ” says James.

  “In your dreams,” I say. “You’re not my captain.”

  “We’ll see about that.” James smiles at me like he’s half joking, and I feel something light up inside of me.

  “What are you thinking about?” asks James.

  “Isn’t that kind of a girl question?” I regain my composure and try to forget that I just thought about kissing this boy who’s less than a foot away from me.

  “Isn’t that kind of a gender-biased question?” he asks.

  “You’re right,” I say. And then, because I’ve thought of something to pretend I was thinking about earlier, “I was thinking that I like being off-line because it makes things feel slower, in a good way.”

  “Totally,” says James. “You don’t have to keep up, and life goes on even without status updates.”

  “I know,” I say. “People act like they can’t live without social networks.”

  “Well, I act like that most of the year.”

  “Yeah, me too,” I admit. “It just seems so important in real life.”

  “Real life, yeah,” says James.

  “But actually,” I say, the thought forming as I say the words, “this feels more real to me.”

  “What does?”

  “Being here.” I look out at the waves. “On the dock, in the sun, with the sound of the water …”

  I pause, and I can feel him looking at my profile.

  “Hanging out with you,” I finish. I almost said “Being with you,” but then I played that in my head and it sounded all serious and weird, so I changed it at the last second.

  “Thanks,” he says. He knocks my knee with his and my skin buzzes where we touched.

  Then he starts talking about how the other hard part of boat life is that his dad snores a lot and he used to have trouble sleeping when they first started going on these long boat trips, but now it’s like the white noise tha
t helps him sleep.

  I laugh. “How does your mom deal with it?” I ask.

  As soon as the question comes out of my mouth, I know I’ve made a mistake. His head drops and he stares at the water, not looking at me at all. It’s like his whole body changes.

  He sits there like that for a minute, maybe two, hunched over the dock. Just when I think he’s going to crumple entirely, he straightens up again and pulls his shoulders back.

  “She used to say it was like a lullaby,” he says, and he lifts his head up toward the sun and squints really hard like it’s hurting his eyes.

  “That’s nice,” I say, thinking that it is a nice way to feel about your husband’s snoring, and also glad he looks okay again.

  James smiles and glances down at his tote bag. He reaches inside.

  “Hey, do you mind if I draw?” he asks.

  I flash back to the picture of me he sketched—the one where I have such sad eyes.

  “I don’t want you to draw me,” I say, suddenly serious. For-real serious.

  “Whoa, egomaniac,” he says, laughing at me. “There’s a really cool water scene in front of us. I was thinking of sketching that.”

  “Oh,” I say, feeling silly. “Sorry. That was dumb, huh?”

  “Nah,” says James, looking right into my eyes again. “You’re a perfect subject. But later.”

  “Later?” I ask. “When later?”

  “Just later,” he says. “Whenever I see you again.” Then he turns to the water and zones out, the way I do when I have my journal in front of me and I’m pouring my heart into the pages. He’s much less of a spaz than I originally thought.

  By the time Olive and my parents get back to the dock, I’m almost done with Beloved. James is still by my side, finishing the shading on his drawing. I snapped a phone pic of him—he didn’t even notice—and I’ve been peeking over his shoulder periodically. It’s turning out really well. He’s capturing the view from this marina perfectly. He started the perspective right from the dock and even drew our shadows in the water. Mine is holding a book, and his is holding a pencil.

  “Hi, James!” Olive runs up to us and shows off the Double Stuf Oreos she got to replace the ones we’ve been snacking on since day one.