by Sarah Beard
“Was? What happened?”
“Got derailed.”
“By what?”
“Life.” Or the loss of it, more accurately. A bug buzzes near my ear, and I sweep it away.
She’s looking at me expectantly, as though waiting for me to say more. But there’s nothing more to say. At least nothing that won’t make her question my sanity. “There’s this thing called communication,” she says. “Do you want me to explain how it works?”
I feel a smile spread over my lips. “I don’t know. You seem like a novice yourself.”
She slugs me in the arm. “At least I’m trying.” I hear the buzzing again, but this time I see the source. A bee hovers around Avery’s neck, and it lands right below her ear. I reach out to swipe it away, but I’m not quick enough.
“Ow!” she cries, wincing and grabbing her neck.
“Here—let me see.” I move her hand away and examine her neck. There’s the beginning of a welt with a stinger poking out of it. I pull the stinger out. “That’s what happens when you smell like sugar.”
“Very funny,” she says, grimacing.
“Come here—I have something that will help.” I curl my fingers around the bare flesh of her wrist, which feels sort of like holding a live wire, and lead her through another wooden gate to a small herb garden behind Isadora’s house. I bend down and pluck some leaves from a couple random herbs. I’ve no idea what they are, but it doesn’t matter. They’re nothing more than a disguise for the remedy I’ll really be using. I put the leaves in my palm with a couple drops of water from the dripping garden hose and mash them into a pulp. It smells like mint, and maybe basil.
When I step over to her, she gives me a wary look, and I smile encouragingly. “Just … trust me.” I reach out to apply the concoction to her neck, but when I touch the welt, she flinches backward in pain.
“It stings,” she complains.
“Which is why it’s not called a bee hug. Here—” I step closer so I’m only inches away, then slide my free hand around the back of her neck to hold her still. As I apply a bit of herb goop to the sting, I gently press my finger against it. The wound is small, so it doesn’t take long to heal. But I leave my hand there a little longer than necessary, because I’m pretty sure this is the last time I’ll touch her, the last time I’ll feel the warmth of her skin. I look down into her face, letting my eyes slowly wander over it, and try to memorize every line and curve, every shade of pink, every location of every freckle. I meander from her blue eyes down to her full lips. They’re parted slightly, and I can hear her breaths growing shallow, feel their warmth on my face. The pulse in her neck is racing, and she’s looking up into my eyes, seeming to search for something there. I’m not sure what she’s looking for, or whether she finds it. All I know is that things are getting fuzzy.
I was so sure she loved Tyler, so invested in the idea of getting them back together, it never crossed my mind that she might fall for me. But from the way she’s looking at me now, I can see it’s possible. And it kills me. It’s one thing to break my own heart trying to help her. But to break hers too …
She can’t fall for me. Not now, not ever. Because it will only hurt her more when I have to leave. “Avery,” I say softly. I don’t know how to tell her. But I have to. “I don’t think I’m going to be here as long as I thought. Definitely not for the whole summer.”
“You’re leaving?” She blinks. “When?”
“I don’t know, exactly. But soon.” Her neck is healed, so I lower my hand and take a step away, creating a small distance between us. It hurts, like I’ve been stung too. Only, my sting won’t heal as easily as hers.
She absorbs my words for a minute, and I see the light slowly disappear from her face like a setting sun.
“I’m sorry,” I say, “it’s just that I … I have some other obligations and—”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to explain.” She takes a deep breath and bites her lower lip. “Well, it’s been nice knowing you while you were here. Really nice.” She looks disappointed, and her feet start doing the shuffle thing again. “And you probably have a lot to get done, and I have to get to work, so …” She takes a step back as though she’s going to leave.
“Wait.” This can’t be how we say good-bye. I have to use this last opportunity to finish what I started, to fulfill the reason I came to be with her. I step closer, undoing the gap she created. “Listen, Avery. Whatever happened that’s causing you pain and keeping you from living your life …” I think for a long moment, searching for the right words. “You need to let it go. Life is too short to stay down when we fall. Get up. Get up and keep going.”
For one second, something cold and angry hardens her face. Maybe I’ve said the wrong thing. But when I blink, it softens into something else I can’t define. “Is this the last time I’ll see you, then?” Her jaw is set firm, like she’s trying not to cry.
“I don’t know. Things are really unpredictable right now. If I can, I’ll come see you later.”
“Okay.” Her voice is small, like she’s not counting on it. “I’ll be at the shop, as usual.”
She gives a wave and a half-hearted smile, then turns and walks away. I take a couple steps after her, not wanting to let her go. But I have no choice. I have to let her go, no matter how much it hurts.
he sun is spilling a trail of gold across the rippling sea when I lock up the chocolate shop. The sight leaves me empty, because so much more than the day has ended. Kai never came to see me. And after our conversation this morning, I’m pretty sure I’ll never see him again.
I walk away from the shop, trying to figure out why it hurts so much to lose someone I only met two days ago. Maybe because in that time, he effortlessly unmasked me as though he were my oldest friend. And even though I still don’t know much about his personal life, I feel like I know who he is. He’s kind and giving, willing to do anything for a friend. He’s a great listener and an amazing musician. And there are things in his past that cause him pain. I wish he would’ve trusted me enough to share them. But now I’ll never know what they are. And something tells me that the mysteries of Kai Lennon will haunt me for the rest of my life.
The waves are flat tonight, the surf a mere curtain of foam that pulls back and forth from the beach. A group of sandpipers chases the receding water, poking the sand with their long beaks in search of dinner. Some people are packing up their beach bags, others still strolling along the wet sand or down the pier.
My phone chirps in my purse, and I pull it out to see a text from Mom.
Can you spend the night here tonight?
I stop walking and text back.
Why? What’s up?
It takes a good minute to get her response.
Please.
Maybe she’s having a bad night. Or maybe she’s been skipping her meds again and is plummeting into the valley of her bipolar coaster. I start walking again, figuring I better go check on her.
OK, I text. Stopping at Dad’s first to get some things.
But as I pass the pier, something at the end catches my eye and makes me stop mid-stride. At first I can’t tell whether it’s someone’s white hat or a head of platinum hair. With my heart and feet tripping all over themselves, I jog to the mouth of the pier and squint, putting a hand to my forehead to block the sun.
And then my heart rises to my throat. Because Kai is still here.
On their own accord, my feet move toward him. But when a wave washes beneath the pier, I stop. There’s no way I’m going out there. Not when he’s standing in the exact spot where the boy jumped from last winter to rescue me.
I look down the pier at Kai again, hoping he’ll see me and come to me. But his back is turned, his face toward the sun. He’s too far to hear my voice if I call to him, so I’ll just have to wait.
I pace for a minute, but he doesn’t budge, just keeps watching the shrinking space between horizon and sun. Mom needs me, but I can’t go to her now. Because there’s an unseen current travelin
g from me to Kai, so overpowering that there’s no getting out of it. So I surrender, shutting out everything around me—the pier at my feet, the people around me, the breeze, the surf crawling and crashing below. I focus on Kai instead, on this unexplainable need to be where he is. My feet move almost of their own will, taking slow and steady steps toward him.
The waves are far below me under the pier. But they may as well be crashing into my spine for how they make me feel. They toss me back to last winter, and I feel them sloshing around me, pounding over me, ripping from my hands the boy who saved my life. I keep my eyes on Kai, on the soft light tracing his broad shoulders, on his white hair stirring in the breeze. I hear his words in my mind. Get up. Keep going.
My mouth is a desert, and my lungs are so constricted there’s barely enough room to hold a mouthful of air. But I inch closer and closer, down the long pier until I finally reach him.
He’s leaning on the rail, eyes still on the sunset. I step to his side and grasp the rail as though it’s the only thing keeping me from a thousand-foot drop. As my arm brushes his, he turns to look at me. The golden sun catches in his sea-blue eyes, turning them a soft green. There’s no surprise in his face, as though he’s been expecting me.
“You’re still here,” I say, but my lungs are working overtime, and the words come out breathy.
His mouth pulls into a thin, slightly somber smile. Then he turns back toward the sunset. “It’s mesmerizing, isn’t it? The way the light moves across the water.”
I gaze at the water to see ripples catching and moving orange sunlight across the sea. It is mesmerizing, and beautiful. And painful. I shut my eyes and force in a few shallow breaths, trying to make myself relax. Then I look back at him. “You wanna walk back to shore with me?”
His brow wrinkles with concern. “You okay? You’re paler than a ghost.”
“I just … don’t like being out here. I’m gonna head back, but I’ll wait for you on the beach.” I try to move my feet, but they won’t obey. Maybe because they worked so hard to get me out here to Kai, and now they don’t want to leave him.
He tilts his head slightly as though puzzled by something. “What are you afraid of?” He says it like it’s something he’s wanted to ask for a long time, and only now found the right moment.
My eyes fall to his shirt, because it seems like the only safe place to look at the moment. Only it’s not safe, because it’s his Rip Curl T-shirt with a menacing wave on the front.
“What’s keeping you out of the water,” he asks, “when you used to love it so much?”
I move my gaze to a more comfortable spot, the crook of his elbow. The skin there is smooth and strangely unmarked by veins. “What makes you think I used to love the water?”
“You said at your mom’s that if I tried surfing, I’d be hooked for life. I’m assuming you know from experience. And you told me that you once had a goal to hold your breath as long as a sea lion. Only someone who loves being underwater would have a goal like that.” He turns fully toward me and cinches the already narrow space between us, then presses the pad of his thumb between my eyes. “But mostly, because of this little furrow you get in your brow every time you look at the sea.” He gently rubs it out, and then in the softest voice says, “So tell me, Avery Ambrose. What’s keeping you from what you love?”
He pins me with his soul-piercing gaze, and I’ve never felt so vulnerable. Because there’s something so sincere in his eyes, so desperate for my answer, that I know I can’t keep my secrets from him anymore. They’re crowding at the surface, rallying to be heard, spilling onto my tongue and prodding my lips to part.
“Someone drowned out there,” I say quietly, “because of me.”
I look away, down to the water, because I don’t want to see his reaction. I don’t want to see the confusion, or shock, or pity my confession has provoked. The sea is calmer out here, away from the break, and it’s a long way down. I imagine what it must have been like for the boy to jump from this high into a storming sea, like dropping into the open jaws of a frothing monster. And I wonder if, in the moment he leapt over the railing, he knew he had just exchanged his life for mine. Maybe he didn’t think at all, just saw me drowning and reacted. And maybe when he hit the water, that’s when he wondered what he’d gotten himself into.
“This is where he jumped from,” I whisper, almost to myself.
When Kai doesn’t say anything, I look at him. The wind is blowing his hair this way and that, and his eyes are full of answers, not questions, as though he already knows the story and just wants to hear it in my words. So I tell him.
“I was out here one day, surfing. I got rolled by a set of huge waves, and my leash got tangled around my neck.” My hand moves to my throat, because I’m having trouble breathing, as though the leash is still there. “I’ve never felt so helpless. Even when I managed to get my face above the surface, I couldn’t get any air. Just when everything started to go black, I felt a hand on my arm. And something sharp slipped under the leash around my neck. It hurt. But then, I was free. His hands were around my waist, lifting me onto my board.”
Kai’s wristband is glinting in the sun, and his large, strong hands grip the railing so tight his knuckles are white. The boy’s hands were strong too. But not strong enough to resist the wave that swept him from my board.
I don’t want to continue, because the hardest part comes next. The part where I dove underwater to find him and saw him beneath me, face down. If he had been conscious, he could have reached out and grabbed my hand. If my leash hadn’t been half its original length, I could have swum down farther. But he was just out of reach, and when I came up for breath and went back down, he was gone.
It torments me to know what he probably went through. I learned that day what it feels like to almost drown, and it’s not quick and painless. He must have felt the claustrophobia, the fire in his lungs, and the moment when he gave in to his lungs’ demands to inhale, and instead of air, they were flooded with liquid. And then he must have just known. Maybe in the same moment that he regretted jumping in to save me, he knew that his life was over. That all the things he hoped for and worked for would never happen. That all the people he loved would soon be weeping over his grave. Only, they can’t grieve for him, because whoever they are, they don’t even know he’s dead.
I scan the shoreline, from the mouth of the pier all the way to Port San Luis, miles of sand and rock, searching for him even now. “They never found his body,” I say. “Or even his identity.” I rest my elbows on the railing and drop my head into my hands. “The worst part is, I don’t even remember what he looked like. It was raining, and I only got a couple brief glimpses of his face. But even then, you’d think I’d remember the face of the person I owe my life to. I’ve spent hours combing through missing persons databases, hoping I’ll recognize him. But it’s no use. And every time I go near the water, it’s excruciating to be reminded that because of me, someone so brave and noble … is gone.” My stomach hurts, and my throat feels like it’s being flooded with saltwater all over again.
“Brave and noble,” Kai echoes thoughtfully, and when I look at him, there’s a trace of wonder in his expression before it turns consoling. “But it’s not your fault—”
“I shouldn’t have been in the water that day. I was being even more reckless than usual. It was storming, and I knew it was dangerous, but I didn’t care.”
“What were you doing out there in a storm?”
“That was the day my mom packed her bags. It hurt so much. And the ocean was the only place I could put it out of my mind.”
“And you’re afraid of the water now?”
I consider his question for a moment, then shake my head slowly. “It’s not the water I’m afraid of. It’s …” It’s something so complex I’m not sure I can put it into words. I try anyway. “The fear of loss. Of guilt and shame. Of what’s at risk. When that boy drowned, I realized the danger in living life to its fullest. You can get hurt. And wor
se, you can hurt other people.” I look down at the railing, running my finger along the grain of the wood, and then say quietly, “And then there’s simple reverence. The ocean is where he died, and surfing and having fun in it feels like dancing on his grave. Not only that, but I took his life to preserve my own. How is it fair for me to live my life to its fullest, when he can’t even have a portion of his?”
His face clears, like I’ve just solved a riddle that’s been perplexing him. And then it falls into agony. “Avery.” His voice catches on my name. He clears his throat and then tries again, his tone warm, almost affectionate. “You didn’t take his life. He gave it.” He reaches out and tucks a stray lock of hair behind my ear, sending warm tingles down my arm. His hand comes to rest on my shoulder, his thumb molding perfectly into the indent above my collarbone. “And have you ever thought that maybe he doesn’t regret what he did? That saving you was the crowning moment of his life?” He releases a sad sigh. “Avery, look at me.” I try, but he’s all blurry now. I feel the backs of his fingers sweeping over my wet cheek, feel more tears pouring over the place he just dried. “And did you ever think of how it would make him feel to know that after giving so much for you, you’re throwing his sacrifice away?”
I shake my head. “I’m not. I—”
“He gave his life so you could live. But you’re not living.” He lays both hands on my shoulders and leans down to eye level. His hands steady me, calm me, and the last of the sunlight is lighting the tips of his hair like a halo. “So live.”
Behind him, the sun is disappearing beneath the liquid horizon. For a moment, everything goes silent. All movement stops on the pier and the beach, everyone pausing to witness a miracle, as though the sun sets only once in a lifetime instead of thousands. And I think how maybe I’ve just witnessed my own miracle. Because after six months of being held under the waters of guilt and grief, I can breathe again.
Maybe Dad was right. Maybe sometimes the best person to talk to is a stranger.
After the sun disappears, we stay there for a long time, wordlessly watching the horizon fade. Finally, Kai says, “Come on, I’ll walk back to shore with you.”