by Sarah Beard
This pulls a smile from me, but as we approach the beach and I see the bonfire blazing, my stomach clenches again. We bounce into a bumpy parking lot across the street, and I look in the rearview mirror for one last appraisal. After work I stopped at home to change into a tank top and shorts, but with Paige texting me every five seconds to urge me out the door, I didn’t bother much with my hair. It’s still in a long braid down my back, so I undo it and shake it out with my fingers.
“You look great!” Paige says impatiently, already halfway out of the Cherokee. “Let’s go!”
I can’t pick out Tyler from the crowd surrounding the fire, but I know he’s down there. According to Paige, he’s the one who planned this whole thing. I wasn’t going to come, but Paige spent all day convincing me that if I did, it would put me on the path to winning Tyler back.
The night is warm, and the ocean breeze feels good on my skin. We follow a sandy trail down to the beach, and the anticipation of talking to Tyler sends my stomach all aflutter. I see him almost daily since he works at the surf shop down the street from Dad’s chocolate shop, but it’s been weeks since we’ve had a real conversation.
Dillan comes up and plants a kiss behind Paige’s ear, and she gives me a secret smile and mouths, “Hot,” as she slips her hand into his. I scan the crowd for Tyler but don’t see him.
“He went for a night swim,” Dillan says, looking at me as Paige twirls one of his dreads around her finger.
I search the dark waves for Tyler, and finally my eyes fall on a figure standing waist-deep in the water—along with a second, more petite figure. I recognize her instantly as the tourist Tyler gave surfing lessons to earlier today. At least she’s wised up and put on a wetsuit. I wrap my arms around my waist, trying to squeeze out the jealousy.
Paige nudges me. “Go out there! If you want him, fight for him!”
“But I—”
Paige grabs my elbow and looks me in the face, her big brown eyes offering the steadiness I lack. “You can do it. Just … focus on him, not the water. And besides, the surf is totally mild tonight. Nothing is going to happen.”
Everyone thinks it’s fear that keeps me from the water. But that’s not it at all. I’ve never been afraid of the water, and I’m not now. My reasons for avoiding the ocean don’t make sense to anyone but me, so I don’t even attempt an explanation. I swallow and give Paige a weak nod, trying to muster up courage.
Fight for him, I repeat her words in my mind. Fight.
Dillan leads Paige to the fire, and I kick off my Converse and approach the water as a whirlpool of apprehension churns in my belly. The surf reaches for me and laps at my toes, and I jump back as the chill of the water sends my heart racing and floods my mind with unwanted memories. It takes all my strength to force them out.
Tyler’s back is turned so he doesn’t see me. It’s Tourist Girl who alerts him to my presence, tugging his arm and pointing me out. He twists around, and when he sees me, his mouth falls open. It’s hard to tell with the fire casting sporadic shadows across his face, but I swear he looks guilty. The girl grabs his arm and pulls him into an oncoming wave. As the wave slams into them, he laughs and she squeals.
All I can think is how I should be the one with him in the water. I should be the one in his arms. After spending countless days last summer in the ocean together, surfing and swimming and free-diving, how can he so easily forget that I’m the one who belongs there with him?
The remnants of the wave wash up to shore and stretch toward me. Instead of stepping back, I hold my breath, clench my fists, and step forward.
Fight.
I have to show Tyler that I’m brave enough to do this—for him. I let the wave wash over my feet, and it swells until my calves are underwater. As the water recedes, sand loosens under my feet as it’s swept back to sea.
And that’s when the panic seizes me.
Every muscle in my body freezes—except my heart, which is hammering so brutally against my chest it might crack a rib. My lungs refuse to expand, and my nails dig into my arm so deeply I’m sure they’re drawing blood. Because to me, the white caps of the waves look like ghosts, the inky shadows beneath the water like silhouetted bodies. The ocean is haunted now, and the saltwater stings my raw guilt like an open wound.
I want to retreat, but my legs won’t move.
Tyler’s lips form my name as he sloshes through the water toward me, his face etched with concern. He comes over and curls a wet hand around my arm, tugging me to dry sand. Turning me toward him, he braces his cold hands on my arms. “Are you okay? Geez, Avery. You’re shaking.” Orange firelight illuminates one side of his face, flickering in the water droplets on his skin.
He’s right. I’m shivering as if it’s twenty degrees outside. I cross my arms and try to still myself. Get a grip, Avery. Get a grip.
He leans down so his face is closer to mine. Too close. “Take a deep breath. Breathe in—” He demonstrates by inhaling deeply through his nose. I follow his example; then he exhales slowly, and I do the same. “There. That’s it. One more time. In. That’s right. Now out.”
I feel my body calming, but now I feel a different kind of unease. I glance at the people by the bonfire, and everyone is looking our way. Some of them are whispering to each other.
“You came,” Tyler says softly, and when I look back at him, his lips are slanted into a sad half-smile. “That’s a big step. But you don’t have to get in the water, okay? Not if you’re not ready.”
He doesn’t understand. I want to go in the water. I want to join my friends, to be myself again. But there’s a deep ravine between them and me now, and I don’t know how to cross it. I don’t know where the bridge is. And I don’t know how to ask for directions.
Tyler glances back at Tourist Girl with a tinge of regret. She’s gotten out of the water and is heading toward the bonfire.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt your swim,” I say, gauging his loyalty.
“It’s okay. I think Gem was getting cold anyway.”
“Gem?” The name is so unexpected, it takes me a second to attach it to Tourist Girl. “Are her parents jewelers or something?”
He gives a one-syllable courtesy laugh, then looks toward Tourist Girl, who’s peeling away her wetsuit like a corn husk to reveal her bikini top. She eases up to the fire and glances our way, giving me the stink eye like I’m a stray dog digging up her new flower bed.
“Is she paying you to be her tour guide?” I ask. “Or are you showing her the ropes out of the kindness of your heart?”
He gives me a chiding look. “It’s not like that. She’s here for a couple weeks on vacation, and her parents are out doing something tonight, so I invited her to hang out.”
A breeze pushes a lock of hair into my face, and I brush it away, tucking it behind my ear. “How nice of you.” I try for sincerity, but my voice hitches on the last word, betraying my hurt.
“Avery,” he says, his brow puckering, “we’re friends now, right?”
Friends. Is it even possible for two people to be friends after ten months of dating? Ten months memorizing the lines of each other’s faces? Ten months stripping away barriers, sharing adventures and passions and pineapple milkshakes? All of those kisses and I love you’s made invalid with six little words: It’s just too much for me.
“Of course,” I say quietly, pushing sand around with my toes. Because at least with friendship, there’s a ray of hope that things will return to how they once were. That someday he’ll see me not as a weight, but as the buoy I’d once been to him.
“Good.” He leans down and plants a kiss on my forehead. It’s excruciating, a sting that spreads hot venom through my entire body. “I still care about you, Avery. I hope you know that.” He gazes at me for a moment, his jade eyes striking me again, deep inside, a wound I know will take days to heal. “Are you going to be okay?”
I divert my eyes to the fire so he doesn’t see the pain there. Everyone is still casting curious glances our way, an
d I realize they’ve been watching us this whole time. I want to leave so I don’t have to see them look at me like I’m weird, don’t have to hear them whispering about last winter, about the boy who drowned saving me. About how they never found his body, and how I’ve changed since.
“I’m fine,” I lie through a tight throat as I slide on a mask of serenity. I’ve gotten so good at it that it takes almost no effort.
“Come on. I’ll introduce you to Gem. She’s really cool.”
Lightning flashes on the horizon, and I take it as my cue to leave. “That’s okay. I think I’m just going to head home.”
His shoulders slump. “But you made such an effort to come. Don’t leave now.”
I want to laugh. Who’s he to tell me not to retreat when things get tough? “I’m really tired,” I say with honesty. “Long day at work. Can you tell Paige to get a ride home with Dillan?”
He purses his lips and stares at me for a long moment. “Sure. I’m really glad you came. I’m proud of you.”
I nod, feeling like a child, and then watch him go back to the bonfire and to Gem. She brightens as he sidles up to her and says something I can’t hear.
I grab my shoes and walk away, the crowd’s laughter and chatter fading with each step. When I reach the road, I climb on a boulder to sit and watch the dark ocean from afar. Rows of foamy waves billow and roll in like storm clouds fallen to earth, their rhythmic sound lulling me back to the memories I just ran from. A familiar emptiness spreads through me, a sort of hunger that can’t be satiated with food. I hug my knees to my chest and bury my head in my arms, wishing I could go back to last winter, wishing I hadn’t been so careless, wishing that boy hadn’t jumped in the ocean to save me. Not that I wish I’d died, but if I had, maybe he would still be alive.
If only I knew his name. Or at the very least, remembered what he looked like. If there’s one thing I can do to pay respect to the boy who saved my life, it’s to remember his face. But I can’t even recall the color of his hair.
A light wind ruffles my hair, tickles my arms and neck. It carries with it a soft sound. Not one I hear with my ears, but one that touches me somewhere deeper. Like a breath, or a whisper.
It’s the sound of my name.
“Avery.”
know what a person looks like when they’re broken. Their eyes are vacant, the way my mom’s were after being married to my dad for thirteen years. They look fragile, like a thin and hollow reed that will blow over in the slightest breeze. The way my two little sisters looked after living under my dad’s unpredictable hand their whole lives.
The way Avery Ambrose looks now, curled up on a boulder and staring at the black sea. She’s not the same girl I first saw in the ocean the day I drowned. That girl had her feet planted firmly on her surfboard as she fearlessly sliced up monster waves. She held the reins, and the ocean was her domain.
I may have saved her life that day, but I also stole it and replaced it with a counterfeit. The life she has now is broken. Because I wasn’t strong enough to swim back to shore.
Over the past few months, I’ve watched in frustration as others have tried to help her. All in their own way, with an array of tactics. And I’m not even sure that mine would produce a different result. What I do know is that Avery’s happiness has become more important to me than anything else. Because you can’t spend six months as someone’s silent companion without growing to care for them. And I care for Avery. So much that I would pay any price to repair what my death has broken.
I close my eyes and picture my mentor, Charles, and then quicken away to find him. Seconds later, I open my eyes to someplace new—somewhere dark with branches and leaves overhead.
“Haven’t seen you in a while.”
I whip around at the sound of Charles’s voice, and then see him behind me sitting on a log. He’s wearing mortal clothes—overalls and a flannel shirt that remind me of how he used to dress when we were both alive and working together in his vineyard. Beneath his baseball cap, his hair is white instead of his usual gray, which is how I can tell he’s materialized. The ring on his right hand confirms it.
“On assignment?” I ask, forcing my eyes away from the ring. I peer into the darkened mountainside to guess who he might be helping. It’s raining again, and other than leaves shuddering under falling raindrops, I see no other sign of life.
“Waiting for a couple of straggling hikers to point them in the right direction.”
“Why? The trail is pretty clear.”
“Look behind you.”
I twist around to see that the rain has washed a section of the trail away, leaving a forty-foot drop to jagged rocks. If I weren’t already dead, I’d be scrambling from the edge. I turn back to the trail, squinting through the rain. “What are they doing hiking in the rain, in the dark?”
“They must have lost track of time. They should be here any minute now.”
I’m restless, and I try not to fidget. I haven’t felt this nervous since I stole a package of chicken from the Food Mart when I was ten. I recall how cold it felt against my stomach when I slipped it under my Pistons sweatshirt, how the juices ran down my leg as I ducked out of the store and booked it all the way home.
My eyes flick to Charles’s ring again. I didn’t expect him to be wearing it. He only takes it out of his pocket every couple months when an assignment makes it necessary to be seen by mortals. But I’ve waited this long for the chance to help Avery; I can wait a little longer.
I sit beside him. He’s got his hand open, palm up on his knee, and the rain is falling into it, gathering into a little pool. I want to ask him how it feels. Not just the rain, but what it’s like to put on the ring and have your body become solid again. Whether being materialized feels like being alive, or different somehow. But I don’t want him to know how interested I am in his ring at the moment, because he might guard it more vigilantly if he does.
“Is something troubling you?” he asks.
I stretch out my legs in an attempt to appear relaxed. “No. Why?”
He gives me a paternal pat on the shoulder. “You usually only visit me when you need advice.”
He’s right, and his words cause a twinge of guilt. “I’m sorry. I just … don’t like being in Demoror. I like hanging out here on Earth. It makes me feel almost alive.”
Okay, it never makes me feel anywhere close to being alive. But it’s more interesting than hanging out on the sterile shores of Demoror, where people go first when they die. It’s like a scenic waiting room, smack dab in the middle of the afterlife. It’s pretty, I guess. But it’s about as exciting as … well, a waiting room.
Through the trees, I hear voices, and I rise. Charles stands too and steps onto the trail. He adjusts his baseball cap, then starts whistling the melody to “Blackbird.” My fingers twitch as they recall how to play the chords on the guitar. I can almost feel the strings under my fingers as they slide up and down the fretboard. With an ache in my chest, I think of my neglected guitar, stashed at the back of a shed, untouched since my death.
As the sound of the hikers’ footsteps gets closer, their voices grow quieter. Maybe because Charles’s whistling makes them curious. I realize that that’s probably the reason he’s whistling—so they’re not startled when they come around the bend and see a strange old man standing on the trail. Their flashlight beam shows up before they do, and when the young couple sees him, they skid to a stop. The girl shines the flashlight in Charles’s face. He shields his eyes, and she lowers the beam to the bib of his overalls.
“I heard you coming,” Charles says. “And I wanted to make sure you saw this drop-off here.”
The flashlight beam moves right through me to where the trail has been washed away, and the girl gasps.
“Whoa,” the boy says, taking the girl by the arm as though he doesn’t trust her to keep a safe distance from the edge. “Thanks for the warning.”
Charles nods, and the two hikers step through some undergrowth to where the trai
l picks up again. The girl pauses and gives Charles a curious look. “Are you up here alone? Do you want to walk down with us?”
“Thanks for the offer,” he says. “But go ahead. I have friends nearby.”
She gives a satisfied nod, and she and the boy continue, disappearing into the trees.
Just like that, Charles’s assignment is complete. He waits until the hikers’ voices fade, then he slips off the ring. I’ve seen him dematerialize before, but still find it fascinating. His hair darkens to its natural gray, and even though I can still see him, he disappears to mortal eyes. His clothes have changed to his slightly luminous shirt and pants, and his mortal clothes now lie in a heap on the ground. I wonder now if the stray hunting garb I sometimes found in the woods as a kid were left there by people like him.
I look away as he slips the ring into his left pocket. Nothing raises a red flag like staring at the object you’re about to steal. I step toward him, a plan solidifying in my mind. I’ve had lots of practice at this kind of stuff, so it comes easy. Distraction and a sleight of hand—that’s all it takes.
“Charles,” I say. “You haven’t heard anything about my mom, have you?” The question sounds completely sincere, because it is. The mystery of my mom’s whereabouts is something that torments me almost constantly.
Charles shakes his head, his features softening into commiseration. “Why don’t you come back to Demoror with me, and we’ll see if anyone else has.”
I nod, stepping closer and casually positioning my hand near his left pocket. “I think I will.”
As we quicken back to Demoror, the movement of my hand is so swift he doesn’t even notice it dipping in and out of his pocket.
I am not a thief.
I repeat the words in my mind before saying them out loud. “I am not a thief. I’m only borrowing Charles’s ring.” There’s no one around to hear it but me, yet I don’t even manage to convince myself.
Beneath the pier at Avila Beach, an unending procession of waves explodes against the posts. It’s still raining, the tide high and the water rough. I don’t know what time it is, but the sky is black and the streets and shops above the beach are vacant.