by CC Bridges
What we saw made me ill. Instead of homes where people lived and loved, piles of wood and rubble lined the coast. Sand filled in the places where streets used to be.
“Hey, Nick, it’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.”
Until Lou spoke I hadn’t realized I’d been crying. I swiped at the tears coursing down my cheeks, embarrassed. But that island had been my home for a few short months, and seeing it like this….
“Mac wants to know if you want him to try to dock. Some people he knows did that, only we gotta be careful.” He put his hand on my shoulder and rubbed it soothingly.
“No, I don’t want to see any more.”
Lou shouted to Mac to take us back.
“What can we do, Lou? We have to do something.” My fingers itched, but there was no way I could touch that scale of destruction.
Seeing shit on TV was one thing. You didn’t have to believe it, you know? But seeing it up close from this little boat made it all too fucking real. That was the boardwalk where Lou and I ate bagels. It was all gone now. Just ripped-up bits of wood. The roller coaster belonged to the ocean now, like a monument from an old sci-fi movie.
And that house he took me to see? That late night on the beach where we slipped into private beaches like thieves in the night? That house burned to the ground in the fire that happened right after. It was all too horrible.
Lou went to tell Mac to turn around, and I stayed at the railing to watch, saying good-bye to Seaside.
Chapter 11
“MAYBE YOU can get reinstated early.” My dad’s voice came out of my car speakers through the hands-free as I drove back to Lou’s after class. Luckily he couldn’t see me rolling my eyes at him.
“Dad, I took a year off. Filed the paperwork. I can’t show up and say I want back in now.”
“Honestly, Nicholas, I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.” He sounded annoyed. I didn’t get why he suddenly needed me to change my plans right now.
“I don’t see the problem. I’ll register for classes here.”
“That makes no sense. The only reason you stayed there was because the Simmonses needed a winter tenant. Now that the house is not an option, there’s no reason for you to be there.”
Except for my boyfriend and the life I’d built here. And what about Nibbles? My mom was allergic to cats. It wasn’t like I could take him back up to her place, which was where I was living before college. Dad had a guest room for me, but it never felt like home. His main contribution was my college tuition and the rent money.
“Are you saying you won’t pay for another semester down here?” I gripped the steering wheel tightly as I turned onto Route 37. If he said no, I didn’t know what I was going to do.
“Call RU and see if you can get reinstated early. Then we’ll discuss it.” He hung up.
I slammed my fist against the steering wheel. “Fuck! Goddammit.”
My first instinct was to call my mom. But I’d learned by the time I was sixteen to stop pitting them against each other. It never turned out well.
What the hell was I going to do? I couldn’t depend on Lou’s hospitality forever. I was pushing it by asking to stay until the end of the semester. And we hadn’t really talked about what this meant for us. Yes, we were having sex now, and we’d been dating, but we’d suddenly gone to living together, and usually that didn’t happen quite this fast. I didn’t know; it wasn’t like I’d done this before.
I pulled into the parking lot of Martelli’s. The place was empty, with only Lou’s blue Chevy in the lot. All the lights in the pizzeria were out—Lou must have finished cleanup early. I looked at my dashboard clock and winced. I’d had a late night at the library, plus that call with my dad held me up.
Still, I’d never arrived late enough that I missed Lou at cleanup.
When I went upstairs, I was greeted by the sounds of muffled cursing. I pushed open the door—Lou had given me his spare key, and while I loved that, I really didn’t like that we’d been forced into this situation, that it wasn’t because he’d wanted me here.
I shook my head to try to get the thoughts out. My dad had stirred up some shit, and I didn’t know how to put it all back away again. “Lou?”
He emerged from under the kitchen sink, holding Nibbles in one hand. “Your damn cat got stuck under there.”
I dropped my messenger bag, pulled off my coat, and let that fall beside it. “Is he okay?”
Lou let out an annoyed sound. “Could you pick up your shit when you come in? I have a coatrack. This place is too small to leave stuff all over the floor.”
I took a step back. I’d honestly rushed forward so quickly to get a look at Nibbles. Did I really leave crap around? I’d tried to be careful. Scanning the room, I noticed Lou’s workout clothes and towels draped all over his weight bench.
“I see that doesn’t apply to your workout crap.”
He set Nibbles down, and the kitten scampered toward me. “Maybe I would have put my stuff in the laundry basket, if the laundry had gotten done this week.”
I winced as I bent to pick up Nibbles. It had been my turn to take the stuff down to the laundromat. “I’m sorry. I’ll take it in tomorrow.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll handle it.” He started banging around the kitchen, although I couldn’t figure out what he was doing. It was too late to be cooking anything.
“No, it’s my turn.”
“Then fucking do it when it’s your turn.” Lou stopped and leaned over the kitchen counter.
“Fine. I’ll take it now.” The laundromat was open twenty-four hours, and I really didn’t want to be near Lou at the moment.
I gathered everything and left, the door slamming behind me. Lou didn’t try to stop me or text me while I was out. When I got back, he was sleeping, and I didn’t feel like I could crawl into bed beside him.
I slept on the couch.
THE ARGUING didn’t bug me. The silence did. Lou had always had something to tell me, something about his day or about the pizza business or growing up down the Shore. But now he was quiet and working more hours than ever.
I wanted to bring up the problem of next semester, but I was afraid to, that he’d tell me to get out of his apartment as soon as I could. Fuck, how did everything go so wrong?
I headed to the library after stopping by the student center to drop off some canned goods I’d picked up on the way in. The campus had created the drop-off point to help out students who were now homeless. I knew a few kids hadn’t returned to class, and I sometimes wondered if they had no place to come back to.
Clara dropped into the seat across from me, oblivious to the crap going around in my head. We were meeting at the library to get our shit together. At least something seemed to be going well. I had two great partners for the group project.
“What’s shake and bake, Blondie?” She pulled out her laptop and a folder filled to the brim with tattered papers that were barely held together by a thick rubber band.
Once again she was dressed in color—this time bright turquoise, which was actually really great for her skin. She even had a touch of blush on her cheeks and wore a pair of swinging earrings.
“I don’t know. I think you got a better story.”
She flushed pink. “What do you mean?”
I tapped my pencil against the library table. “You seem happier. And you never told me and Ana about how things went during the hurricane.”
She fiddled with her laptop and wouldn’t meet my eyes at first. Then she let out a sigh. “You’re not going to leave it alone until I say something.”
“You know me.”
“Ha.” She shook her head. “I went to stay with a friend, and things went really well. Yeah, I’m still living with her.”
“No more sleeping in your car? That’s fantastic.” I grinned at her. “Now is this a friend? Or a friend friend.”
“I’ll let you know when I figure that out.” The blush hadn’t faded; in fact, it had turned a deeper red somehow. “But
the bigger news is that my mom called me.”
“What? As in the mom who kicked you out of her house?” I dropped my pencil.
“Yeah, well, she and my dad don’t have a house anymore. It flooded out during the storm.” Clara shrugged as if that wasn’t a big deal. “But it made them realize that people aren’t replaceable and they should really be nicer to their only child.”
She got a little quiet, which was unlike her, and I couldn’t read the expression in her eyes. “How exactly do you feel about that?”
Clara shrugged. “I’m willing to give it a shot, you know? At least I’m in a better spot right now. I don’t have to go crawling back to them.”
“I’m really happy for you.” And I was. Really. I wished I knew where I stood. I felt deluged on all sides, caught up in a tempest where I could do nothing but wait it out.
We dived into our work, banging out some semblance of a paper with her research and the stuff I’d already written. Next time we met with Ana, she’d add her red pen to the text. She loved that crap. Let her do it. I’d be happy to call my part in the project done.
“Did you register for next semester?” Clara stretched, raising her arms over her head.
“That’s a good question.”
“Yeah, I haven’t either.” She seemed to not notice the way I’d frozen up. “I’m trying to decide if I should transfer to Mercer or stick it out here till I get my associate’s.”
“How?” I forced the word out of lips that had gotten cold. “How are you going to decide?”
That seemed to catch her off guard. “Nick? Are you okay?”
“Not really.” I blinked, trying to get my vision back in focus. “I need to figure out what I’m going to do next semester. My dad wants me to go back to RU. I don’t really want to, but I don’t have my own place down here.”
“And what does Lou think about that?”
“I haven’t talked about it with him yet.”
“What?” Clara glared at me, slamming her hands down on the table. “Fuck, Nick, that’s the first person you should be talking about this shit with. Aren’t you still living with him?”
I shrugged. I couldn’t put into words the way things had gone silent, how what had been easy and free between us was now suddenly… what? Resentful? I mean, I didn’t pay rent; he’d never asked me to. And I hadn’t kissed him in a week now. What the hell? I had to do something, but I didn’t know what.
“Okay, fuck, no, you are not doing this to me. I am the worst person to give relationship advice.” Clara slumped down in the chair, like I’d physically exhausted her. “No, you know what? Screw that. I give awesome advice. Don’t sit around and mope about it. Whatever it is. Do something.”
“It’s complicated.” I rubbed my eyes, trying to get the feeling of grit out of them. I hadn’t gotten enough sleep. Or, really, I hadn’t been exactly sleeping well, not since the hurricane and the wind wailing outside. Sometimes I heard that sound in my dreams.
“As long as you get things figured out by Thanksgiving. Otherwise that would be an awkward family dinner.”
I froze. Thanksgiving was next week. How the hell had I missed that?
“Christ, Nick. You look like you’re going to throw up. Don’t do that. I don’t think they’d let us back in the library,” Clara said.
“I’m fine.” I waved her off. My stomach churned, but I couldn’t do anything about that. “Look, are we done for today? I have other classes to prep for.”
She pursed her lips and glared at me. “Yeah. We’re done.”
“Great.” I started gathering my stuff.
“But take my advice, Blondie. Just because you’re not thinking about a problem doesn’t make it go away. Trust me. On this, I know what I’m talking about.”
Chapter 12
I PROBABLY should have listened to Clara. Instead, I kept avoiding Lou, until one night I came home late to find the apartment filled with a decadent aroma. It reminded me of the first night we met, when Lou let me sample some of his homemade sauce. I breathed in deeply, taking in the scent of oregano and basil, with the warm undertones of garlic beneath it.
Stepping inside, I found the kitchen island set, with a candle flickering in the middle. Lou stood at the stove, frowning down at a simmering pot.
“It smells great,” I said.
He shrugged. “It’s been on the burner too long. Normally you want gravy to simmer, but….”
I looked at the clock and grimaced. Yeah, I’d taken to coming back later and later, and tonight I was especially late. Actually, it was a bit too late to eat, even.
“I’m sorry.”
Lou turned off the fire and tapped the wooden spoon on the edge of the pot. “Nick, what’s going on here?”
“What do you mean?” I set my bag down carefully on the couch.
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
What could I say to that? It was true. Of course I had to deny it. “You’ve been spending all your time working at the pizzeria. I don’t know when you expect us to hang out.”
“That’s not fair. We need to try to recoup some of the lost money from the hurricane.”
I shrugged. “That’s your priority. That’s fine.”
“Nick. Will you talk to me?”
“I am talking.”
“No, you’ve been sneaking in after you think I’m asleep as an excuse to sleep on the couch.”
I rubbed at my chest, trying to smooth away the tightness there. “I’m surprised you noticed.”
“Of course I fucking noticed.”
I winced. Lou, unlike me, rarely cursed.
“Look,” he said, clenching his fists and refusing to meet my eyes. “When we were going out on dates, everything was easy. I don’t know why it’s not anymore.”
“Because life is not easy,” I snapped back. “You’ve got your restaurant, and I’ve got my classes.” In the back of my mind, I couldn’t hide from the idea that he didn’t really want me here, that he was just being nice, that we’d built nothing.
“Nick, maybe we should take a step back.”
There it was. I could hear my heartbeat echoing between my ears, a roaring rush that overtook everything else. “If you don’t want me here, say you don’t….”
He was saying something, but it sounded far away. I’d have to live in my car, like Clara, to finish out the semester. And what would I do next year? I didn’t want to go back to RU. The very thought of that made the room spin.
“Nick?” Lou grabbed my shoulders. When did he get so close?
It was really hard to breathe. I gasped, trying to get a lungful of air. I saw Lou’s face above me, his mouth moving, but I heard nothing. Black dots swarmed in my vision, and then, that was it.
I WOKE up in the hospital.
It took me a second to realize what the beeping was. I was in a bed, in a really tiny room, with something hooked up to my arm. Lou leaned down close, and the first thing I saw was his smile.
“Hey. We’re in the emergency room. I told them I was your stepbrother. Shh.” He put his finger over his lips. “I wanted to make sure they’d let me in.”
Okay, that was way more information than I needed; however, it didn’t really answer any questions, like, what the hell happened? “Why are we in the emergency room?”
“You went all white and passed out in the living room. I was a little bit concerned.”
The whole stupid fight came back to me. I grimaced and tried to sit up. Lou put his hand on my chest, probably to keep me down, but I soaked up the warmth of it. I hadn’t noticed how we’d stopped touching these past few weeks. That really sucked. “Oh, thanks.”
Before we could say anything else, the nurse came back in, and that started a battery of tests, which meant that I really couldn’t look longingly at my “stepbrother.” I was going to have to tease him about that later, but hell if it didn’t give him a damn good reason to be in my hospital room. Well, cubby, really. Apparently these newfangled emergency departments gave pe
ople their own tiny rooms, instead of what you see on TV with everyone being in one room divided by curtains. It was kinda sweet.
Which was not what I thought four hours later when we finally got to leave. The doctor thought I’d had a panic attack, but apparently everything was fine now, and I could go home.
I was still shaky when Lou led me to the car, and I kept squinting up at the sun. It had been dark before I’d passed out, and it felt like I’d lost an entire day. As the engine rumbled, I put my head against the window and dozed off as Lou drove us home.
“Hey, c’mon. Let’s get you into bed.” Lou gently pulled me out of the car and up the stairs. I didn’t think. I went where he put me.
I sat on the bed and watched as he undid my sneakers and pulled them off. I didn’t remember putting them on. Was I wearing them in the hospital? This memory thing sucked.
“You’re a little sleep-deprived right now.” Lou—swear to God—tucked me in. And I let him. It was nice to be taken care of, to let someone arrange the covers around me, to make sure I was comfortable. I burrowed into the pile of pillows and breathed deeply of Lou’s scent. I’d missed this.
“Sleep. I’ll make you some food when you wake up.”
I held out my hand, unsure what I wanted, but I knew I didn’t want him to leave yet. Lou squeezed it and smiled. “It’s gonna be okay.”
I hoped he was right.
THE NEXT time I woke up, I took a moment to just be. I stared up at the familiar ceiling in Lou’s bedroom, tracing the cracks that formed a lightning-bolt pattern. My body felt better, lighter, as if once it had the freak-out, all was well. I stretched, taking pleasure in how my joints popped.
I stilled once I heard the voices coming from the next room. It sounded like Lou, but who else was up here? I got out of bed and tiptoed to the door like some cheesy cartoon character. Carefully, I cracked it open enough that I could see outside, but not enough that anyone would know I was listening.