The Truth About Jack (Entangled Crush)

by Gehrman, Jody

  Part of the reason Will and I got along so well was because we were both loners by nature, two misfits who found solace in each other’s company. After Will died I saw Miles taunting some other skinny kid just like he used to torture Will, and I lost it. I mean seriously lost all connection to logic or reason. Next thing I knew I was standing over Miles. His face was covered in blood and his eyes were shut tight, bracing for the next punch. I walked away then, but it was too late. My high school career was over.

  Mom hired Attila and homeschooled me after that. I guess between Will’s suicide and my first real fight, she became convinced high school, even a private Catholic one, would either kill me or put me on the fast track to prison. I didn’t care enough about anything right then to argue. Without Will around, school seemed pointless. I had no allies there; I had nothing to prove to my enemies. I could learn more reading on my own than sitting in some classroom listening to a teacher drone on without passion. Back then, the only time I could pierce the darkness Will’s death had plunged me into was when I sat down at the piano and played so long and so hard I forgot everything, even my own name.

  I turn back to the counter. Miles’s face manages to convey friendliness and condescension so intricately intertwined it’s impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. “What can I get you?”

  “Just a refill.” As I’m handing my money to Miles, some crazy instinct rises up in me before I can choke it down.

  “You know that girl who just ran out of here?” I infuse my voice with all the insouciance I can muster.

  “Who, Dakota? Little blonde with the cute ass?”

  Dakota. The three syllables roll around in my head; I decide I like the sound of them. A girl named after a state. I try to ignore the “cute ass” comment and the weirdly protective pang it stirs in me. I don’t even know her; why should I care how he talks about her? Probably I’m just eager for another excuse to break his nose. “She live around here?”

  “Uh-huh. Over in some hippie commune off Joy Road. She’s pretty hot, huh?” His eyebrows arch as he hands me my change.

  I take a step away from the counter, clutching my cup and stuffing the change into my pocket. The last thing I want to do is discuss this girl’s “hotness” with Miles Asher. It actually makes me sick to think of him ogling her ass. When I don’t answer, he waves me off with a dismissive gesture, like my refusal to discuss her butt makes me unworthy of his time.

  The coffee thermoses are lined up near the door, so I walk over there, glad to escape any further conversation. I refill my paper cup with coffee and pop a lid on. Miles Asher is the opposite of the beauty I’m looking for. He’s the anti-beauty, the embodiment of everything I’ve spent the last three years trying to forget. Dakota—even thinking her name is exciting—feels everything thoroughly, I can tell. She shines with the uninhibited, raw beauty I need to surround myself with if I’m ever going to heal the jagged scar Will’s death carved into my center.

  It feels right to turn my back on Miles and push out the door, coffee in hand, face tilted toward the sun as it breaks out from behind a cloud.

  Chapter Three

  Dakota

  I’m driving too fast and I know it, especially since I can hardly see through my tears. The dappled light washing over my windshield and the curves of Bodega highway lull me into a reckless complacency. How could they do this to me? How could they— God! There are no words for how I feel. I scream as loud as I can, enjoying the burn in my throat. I imagine screaming with such force that my windows rattle, then shatter. This is the only sound that makes sense right now.

  By the time I get to Bodega, I’m not screaming anymore, and my tears have dried. I roll down my window to feel the wind on my face. The smell of eucalyptus trees and salty ocean air makes me feel clean. Soon, though, I’m shivering in my thin T-shirt, so I roll the window up and head north on a winding road that skirts the coast. I slow down a little; the perilous hairpin turns lined with crumbling cliff faces feel plenty dangerous without adding speed to the equation.

  The road leading down to Luna Cove seems to go on and on. Finally I park the Volvo and turn off the engine. Slipping my laptop out of my bag, I slide it under the passenger seat. I check to make sure I’ve got my journal and a pen in my bag, get out of the car, and lock it. Softly mounded dunes block my view of the ocean from the parking lot. I can hear the waves crashing and hissing beyond them, though, beckoning. The phrase between the devil and the deep blue sea pops into my mind. I’ve no idea what it means, but it seems to fit. I can feel my demons scorching the air just behind me, waiting to catch up with me and flood my brain with terrible pictures: Cody and River laughing; Cody and River kissing; Cody and River doing a thousand things he and I never did.

  I march toward the dunes, determined not to cry. I wade through the pampas grass and up the hill, feeling the soft sand slipping under my Converse. About halfway up I yank off my shoes and socks. There are a couple cars in the parking lot, a shiny black pickup truck and a tired looking station wagon. The sky’s blue and the sun’s shining, but a fog bank sits a little way offshore, chilling the air. Just as I crest the dune, a monstrous wave crashes onto the beach. White foam spills up onto the glossy wet sand like tufts of meringue.

  I can see the whole beach from up here, all the way down to where the Russian River gushes into the ocean. The water’s choppy and chaotic there, where the sinewy river currents slam into the raw, angry waves. Another wave smashes against the shore, making the sand tremble under its force. That one must have been twenty feet high. I feel so grateful for the violence of the sea today. It matches my mood precisely. Under my breath I whisper a little thank you to Poseidon for being as pissed off as I am.

  I walk until I find an inviting nest in the pampas grass. Then I sit and pull my journal from my bag. The smooth leather cover feels soothing and familiar in my hands. Uncapping my favorite blue pen, I begin to scribble a furious, punctuation-free diatribe, a patchwork quilt of memories and questions and rants. Soon the whole side of my hand is blue with smeared ink and tears are streaming down my face again, but I don’t care.

  I write about the first time Cody kissed me on the swings at Ives Park, how I told River all about it afterward and how she said we were perfect together—me with my sculptures made of old bedsprings and broken TVs, him with his silkscreen designs of bicycle gears and typewriter keys. She said we had matching vibes, artistic souls that complemented each other perfectly. I wonder what she’d say about that now. Does she think she’s perfect for him? She’s not creative at all—she’s a sociology major. How does she justify coming between two perfectly matched “artistic souls”?

  I picture her bright pink hair and her dark eyes, try to imagine myself yelling at her, screaming at her. I try to imagine the shape her mouth would make, the look in her eyes as she withstands my abuse. I can’t do it, though. The picture goes blurry, fuzzes out like an old TV with bad reception. She’s my best friend, always has been. The thought of me turning against her is laughable. She’s always been the brave one, the brassy one, the one in the lead. Growing up, she was my default older sister, the one who made up the games when we were little, informed me in no uncertain terms about which music was cool, which clothes were lame. After Mom and Dad got divorced five years ago, River became my best friend, my older sister, and my mom rolled into one. The very idea of me yelling at her goes against nature, like a butterfly hissing at a snake.

  I think of the letter from RISD sitting on my bed at home, all innocent and happy. I am delighted to inform you it keeps crying to the empty room, perky and clueless as a cheerleader. I am delighted to inform you! What am I going to do with that offer now? Can I seriously go to heartbreak central and expect to get an education? RISD has been reduced to rubble by one sentence: Cody and I started seeing each other.

  Thanks for the nuclear bomb, River. Thanks for completely destroying the entire eastern seaboard for me.

  Okay, yes, I’m being a little dramatic, bu
t that’s what you do when your best friend hooks up with your boyfriend. This is no time to be reasonable.

  River’s email opens old wounds. Mom sitting me down when I was twelve, her normally pretty face splotchy with crying, her eyes puffy from lack of sleep. You know I love you very much, but your father’s making me crazy. The wild gleam in her eye, like a caged animal. The way her nostrils flared, her dark hair standing up in hectic disarray. She made it painfully obvious how much she hated her life. She couldn’t be in the same room with Dad and not pick a fight. Everything between them had gotten twisted into knots, a pile of ropes too hopelessly tangled to ever come loose. Mom came to despise Luna Cove and everything in it. The tree houses were unstable, she said, the yurts ugly and ungainly. The garden had no rhyme or reason, the residents were all crazy hippies. Nobody there understood her, she complained. We all had our little compounds, living like animals in our dens.

  She packed a few boxes and left one day at dawn, moved to a gated community in Tennessee. Apparently she’d been seeing a guy named Sean for months before she left, a realtor with stiff, gelled hair I’ve met only once. For the first twelve years of my life she was into art and yoga and meditation. Then, seemingly overnight, she transformed. Now she answers phones at Sean’s office. I’ve seen her four times in the last five years. Each time it felt more awkward, like having lunch not with my mother but with a character from a sitcom I used to watch when I was a kid.

  Human beings are incapable of lasting love. My parents’ disastrous marriage should have taught me that much. A natural optimist, I refused to get the message. Now, Cody and River’s betrayal proves it. If I ignore the evidence this time, that’s not optimism, it’s flat-out denial.

  I’m giving up on love, simple as that.

  I put my journal down for a moment and stare out to sea. A massive wave pounds the shore, then pulls back in a lacy tumult of foam. Something in the midst of the white backwash catches my eye: a flash of green. Whatever it is glints in the sunlight. Something glass?

  On impulse, I stand and run down to the water, wade into the ankle-high surf. The water’s freezing and the sand sucks at my bare feet. There it is, bobbing in the shallows—a green glass wine bottle with a cork in it. I roll my jeans up to my knees and dart forward, gasping as the cold water closes around my naked calves. My fingers grip the neck of the bottle just as a fresh wave starts to crest. It rears up like an icy blue beast gathering strength before an attack.

  For half a second I think of how sorry River and Cody will be when they hear I’ve drowned. I picture how guilty they’ll feel, knowing I died just an hour after getting River’s email. The sound of the wave hitting the beach makes my chest thrum with fear and excitement; it snaps me out of my stupid little death-wish moment. I grip the bottle tightly and run as fast as I can. The surf chases me, licking at the backs of my legs, but I’m fast, and even though the sand seems to liquefy beneath my feet, I still beat it. For just a second there, I feel something like happy.

  Walking back to my nest in the dunes, I study the bottle. I’d hoped it might have a message inside, but no dice. Working the cork free, I take a tentative sniff. It’s dry inside and smells only slightly of wine and salt. The cork looks relatively fresh. It gives me an idea.

  I settle once again beside my bag, pick up my journal, and tear out a page. Everything that sucks in my life seems to come from a glowing screen. River’s toxic email. Seeing acquaintances on Facebook having awesome college lives while I’m stuck in Luna Cove. Mom’s occasional generic group text wishing me a Merry Christmas or a Happy Valentine’s Day.

  Maybe it’s time to go low tech—pen and paper, glass and cork, no Wi-Fi required. I want to send a message in a bottle. I want to write something true and launch it into the universe, a plea to the gods, an offering.

  Who knows? Maybe someone will find it, and I won’t feel so alone.

  …

  Jack

  She’s sitting in the dunes way down on the other side of the beach. The sight of her white-blond hair and her yellow T-shirt peeking out of the pampas grass makes my breath catch in my throat. I’m not a mystic or anything. Fate has never struck me as an especially appealing concept. Most of the time I’d much rather think I’m in charge, even if I’m fooling myself. But when I see her there, some goofy romantic part of me believes this is meant to happen. That I was supposed to see her this morning in that café and just happen to choose this beach and find her here. Like, what are the odds? Okay, maybe the odds aren’t that extraordinary; it’s a beautiful day, a beach day, and we’re not exactly hundreds of miles from that café, but still. It’s weird, at the very least, and somehow that makes me happy.

  Aside from a couple of kayakers tooling around in the river, we’ve got the entire beach to ourselves. She must have parked in the other lot because I didn’t see her Volvo when we drove up. Do I have the nerve to talk to her? As soon as the question forms, I know the answer: No way.

  I wasn’t always like this. Freshman year, I dated the cutest girl in school, Lucy Hazelwood. She was a sophomore, president of her class—an older woman. She made that prim pleated skirt and those bright white knee socks look positively illegal; everyone at our Catholic school lusted after her. I fell hard for Lucy, and I thought she fell for me. After Will died, though, she avoided me, as if having a dead best friend might be contagious.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if what she’d really liked about me all along was the legendary wealth of my family, the prestige of the Sauvage name. Between my mom’s massive inheritance and the success of Sauvage Vineyards, everyone in Sonoma County equates my family with big money. Lucy was always hinting about expensive jewelry or handbags she coveted. If I didn’t take the hint she’d pout for days. I was fourteen years old, not exactly rolling in expendable cash. Besides, it felt weird having to prove my love with expensive trinkets. My suspicions about Lucy were probably right, because two weeks after I left Saint Mary’s, she hooked up with Todd Bellagio, a senior who drove a tricked out Porsche. I pretty much swore off love after that. Losing my best friend and my first love in the same messed-up month was enough to send my heart into deep freeze.

  Dakota stands suddenly, yanking me back to the present. The tall, pale grass whips around her legs. I can see she’s rolled up her jeans and taken off her shoes. There’s something in her hands—a wine bottle? Is she drinking? It’s not even noon. She walks with quick, purposeful strides down the sloping dune toward the ocean, her legs moving quickly. There it is again, that determined gait, like a little solider marching into battle. On impulse, I hide behind the nearest rock, ducking down and peeking over the top. I know, lame. The old me, the pre-Lucy me, would just stroll right up to her and introduce myself. Something about the situation feels too private for that, though, like I’d be intruding on her solitude.

  From my hiding place, I watch her run toward the ocean like she intends to charge right in. Of course that’s ridiculous. She’s fully clothed, the waves are monstrous, and the water’s so cold she’d probably die of hypothermia. Still, the way she hurls herself down the beach, shoulders tipping forward, legs flying, it’s easy to believe she’ll launch herself into the churning surf. To my relief, she stops abruptly just as her bare feet touch the water’s edge. Then, as the wave retreats, she runs with it, chasing the foam. I can feel myself smiling as I watch. There’s something childlike about her movements, the emphatic stomp of her feet as she splashes, arms outstretched as if preparing to take flight. She moves with the grace of an animal, unselfconscious, sensual. I’ve never seen anyone quite like her, someone who doesn’t think before she acts. I wonder what it’s like to feel that free.

  Just as a fresh wave begins to crest, she pulls back her arm and launches the bottle into the sea. It arcs through the air and lands with a splash in the smooth water beyond the surf. Then she turns and hauls ass back toward the beach. She’s fast, but not quite fast enough. The wave catches up with her, soaking her rolled-up pant legs to mid-thigh. She lets o
ut a little squeal, something between a scream and a yelp. I let out the breath I didn’t even realize I’d been holding. The last thing I want to do right now is plunge into that chaotic surf to save her. It’s more than selfish relief, though. For the second time since I laid eyes on her this morning, I find myself feeling strangely protective of this girl I don’t even know.

  She must be freezing. Her pants are all wet. I cringe in sympathy—I hate the feel of wet clothes, especially jeans, the way they chafe. The fog bank lurking on the horizon keeps inching closer every second, like a white cat stalking its prey. The air grows crisp and cold. I think of the thick, warm down blanket I keep in the trunk of the Rolls, consider offering it to her. Then I imagine the impression I’ll make, jumping out from behind a rock with a blanket and a cheerful offer to relieve her of her pants.

  But before I even know what’s happened, she’s gone.

  Just like that—popped back over the dunes and disappeared. After a few minutes, I spot her Volvo chugging up the hill toward the highway. Regret rushes through me and I feel vaguely sick. How could I have been so stupid? Who knows if I’ll ever see her again? Here I was, here she was, rugged beach as our backdrop, and what do I do? Blow it. Just this morning I claimed I was looking for beauty. Life hands me exactly that twice in one day, and I do nothing except watch from afar.

  I trudge down to the damp sand and stare out to sea. Attila’s in the Rolls reading Dostoyevsky. I wonder what he would say about my cowardice—Attila, not Dostoyevsky. I’ve only seen him with a girl once. She was hot in a scary, over-the-top Paris Hilton way. Maybe I should ask him how he meets girls, what he says to them. If I could just get started, I think I’d do okay. I’d feel a little pathetic begging my driver for chick advice, though. The truth is, I can’t think of one other person I’d ask. No way would I bring it up with my dad. Ever since Will died and I left St. Mary’s, I’ve been pretty cut off from people my own age. Sometimes I like it that way. Mostly I don’t.