by Wendy Mills
I let a breath out I did not realize I was holding.
“Let’s get back, it’s getting late,” Jason says as if he didn’t just have his hand practically in a shark’s mouth. The sun is gone, the quiet water holding on to its memory in soft tangerines, pinks, and yellows glowing in the surface ripples.
On the way back he lets me drive the boat, and the feel of the boat dancing beneath me as we skim across the surface of the water, trailing a pod of leaping dolphins, feels like flying.
“Do you think,” I say later, after we have eaten and are sitting staring at the fire, “having this BRCA mutation makes us defective? I feel like something’s wrong with me, do you?”
Jason stirs the fire with a stick. “Species wouldn’t be able to survive and adapt without mutations. Mutations fuel evolution. When they’re good, they get passed on so the entire species is stronger for it.”
“So, what? If the mutation is bad, we should do the species a favor and die off quickly?” I’m offended, though I know I was the one who asked the question.
He shakes his head. “It’s hard to know whether a mutation is good or bad until generations later. The gene mutation causing sickle-cell anemia is both good and bad. People with one of the mutated genes have protection from malaria; people with two mutated genes have sickle-cell anemia. I read one study suggesting the BRCA mutation may encourage neural growth, so people with the BRCA mutation might actually be smarter because of the gene. What if it takes someone with the BRCA gene mutation to figure out how to cure breast cancer? It’s a stretch, but you never know. Not until it’s over.”
I’m quiet. I don’t know what to think about that.
“What about guys?” I ask suddenly. “I mean, I know what having the gene means to me. But what about you?”
“It’s different for us. No ovarian cancer, obviously, but increased chances for prostate, pancreatic, and skin cancer, and of course, breast cancer.”
“I didn’t know men could get breast cancer.” I’m horrified and fascinated all at the same time.
“Well, yes, we can.” He looks uncomfortable. “It’s rare, but having the BRCA gene mutation ups the chances.”
“Do you think people with this gene should have children?” I ask after a while. I’ve never really thought about children, but I guess if asked, I would say I planned on having one or two. That’s what people do. But do I really want to pass this mutation on to a child?
“Do you think your mom should have had you?” he counters.
I open my mouth, then shut it. Who can answer no to that question?
“I don’t know what to do,” I say. “Women are cutting off their breasts and taking out their ovaries so they won’t get cancer. And I understand it, I do, because I can’t imagine going through what my mom is going through. But on the other hand …” I can’t go on, because what I want to say is, I only got my period four years ago! I’ve never had sex! How can I cut off my breasts and take out my ovaries? What guy would ever want me? And even if I don’t, what guy would want me if he knows I have this mutation and that I might die?
“On the other hand?” Jason is looking at me closely, the firelight all tangled in his curly hair.
“On the other hand,” I say slowly, looking at him directly, “is there any guy who would want me if he finds out I’m … defective? That I might have to cut off my breasts? I know I could have them reconstructed, but they would be fake. They wouldn’t be real. Would I feel real?” Like a real woman?
“I don’t think you’ll have any trouble finding a guy to love you for who you are, Erin,” Jason says. “A real guy won’t be turned off by all this. He’ll be strong enough to take it.”
“What about you?” I say, and when he looks at me fast and quick, I realize what he thought I meant. “No, not you feeling that way about me—” God. My face is burning. “I meant, when you date, do you tell the girl you have the gene mutation?” I’m curious, because I suddenly realize he’s never mentioned a girlfriend. Of course, how could he, when I thought he was Ashley? But we’ve been talking about so much, and he’s never once mentioned a girlfriend. A secret part of me is happy about that.
“I don’t date anymore,” he says after a moment, poking the fire strongly with his stick so a swarm of firefly sparks rises in the air. “I’m not planning on falling in love. That way no one has to watch me die.”
I stare at him in astonishment. “You think you can do that—just decide not to love anybody?”
“Not anybody,” he says. “I love my family, and that will never change. But yes, I think I can decide not to love anybody else. I’ve come this far without falling in love, so why not?”
I’m not sure what to say. I’ve never been in love either, but I’ve been dreaming about it since I was a little girl. I can’t imagine not wanting to fall in love.
“Don’t you think,” I say slowly, “that you would be happier if you fell in love? You seem to be big into the whole I’m-a-happy-camper thing and all.”
He smiles. “That’s how you see me, huh? Funny. No, I’m perfectly fine without loving anybody. Why should that change?”
The fire suddenly flares, sending sparks dancing and swirling into the air. We both startle back at the same time, and for some reason that makes us laugh as the dying embers rain down on us.
Jason’s question, if it was a question, goes unanswered.
Chapter Thirty-Two
When Jason arrives the next day, it is almost dark and I have fish fillets on the grill.
“Look!” I point at the fish. “I caught it and decided I would try to fillet it. You made it look so easy. It wasn’t.”
Jason looks at the mangled hunks of meat on the grill and has the good sense not to laugh.
“Smells good,” he says.
We eat the fish, and Jason asks if I want to go for a boat ride.
“It’s dark!” Somehow, though, when he’s with me, I don’t think about the dark. It’s only when he’s gone that the pitch-black terror returns.
“Yeah, so?” He grins, daring me.
We blast through the moonlit night, ripping through the shiny, dark surface of the water. The wind of our passage beats against my face, scrubbing it clean with salty night air. I’m light and empty, like a vacant house stripped bare of its furniture and doors and windows, just the old wood walls and floor open to the blasting wind. The air, the water, the mystery of the night blows through my head, changing everything it touches.
We slow to a puttering crawl as we enter a dark harbor dotted with elegant sailboats, tall and quiet in the light-splashed night, their masts holding a galaxy of low-hanging stars. The moon is high, raining silver down on the sleeping boats, and it is almost as bright as day. But it is a different light from the sun, quicksilver and shy, full of secrets.
Jason and I don’t speak as the boat glides through the silent harbor. Soon we have passed the sailboats and speed up again until we are flying across the dark water.
He runs us up onto a beach, the shells singing under the smooth bottom of the boat. We are on the edge of a pass, and across the water I can see lights, but where we are the bushes are feral and overgrown.
Jason takes my hand and leads me to a fallen tree. It is dark, no houses, or lights, just the wild frenzy of bushes and trees and the tiny tinkle of shells in the salty spank of waves on the shore.
I sit with him, feeling the warm press of his palm on mine. He has laced our fingers together, his larger hand enveloping mine, and it feels right, and not right, all at the same time. Off the beach, dolphins crest, and the moon-soaked waves quiver.
It is then I see the monstrous shadows stretching across the beach. They are black-etched and contorted, like the reflection of gnarled skeletal fingers.
“What … ?” I turn to see what is causing the shadows.
The trees glow sterling in the moonlight, like silver soldiers standing tall in a black sky. Their bare trunks reflect the moon’s light, flinging it away into the night.
<
br /> “Wow,” I say.
They are dead, of course, an army of leafless trees lining the shore.
“A hurricane killed them when I was a kid,” Jason says. “I like them though, I don’t know why.”
It seems impossible the goblin shadows could come from the statuesque trees, but maybe life is like that. The shadows are far worse than the reality.
We sit in silence for a while, and I watch the shadows dance as the wind moves in the trees.
“Do you really think,” I say, “that you’ll never fall in love?”
“Not if I can help it,” he says. “I’ve watched people I love get sick and die. It’s … soul-killing. I don’t ever want to do that to someone else. I don’t ever want someone I love to have to go through that.”
That makes me sad for some reason I don’t want to think about.
“With my luck with guys, I don’t think I’ll ever find anyone either,” I say. “Maybe I should be a nun. Trina was going to be a nun for about five seconds a couple years ago. That way I can do all the surgeries and not even worry about it. What would it matter?”
He turns to me and smiles. “I don’t see it happening. You’ll find someone.”
“I’m not sure I’m good for the people I love,” I say after a while in a low voice. “Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning and all I do is drag them down with me. I can’t seem to stop hurting them.”
Jason stares into the fire. “Drowning people do desperate things. The trick is learning when to hang on, and when to let go.”
“It’s just all so much. I don’t know how to deal with it all.” My voice breaks a little. Maybe if it were just one thing, if it was just my mom’s cancer, just my positive BRCA status, just Trina’s betrayal and Michael’s rejection, then I could handle it. But all together, it’s just too much.
“When things get bad, I think you have to focus on today. Thoreau says, ‘To be awake is to be alive,’ right? I’m just happy I’m alive today. Who knows what’s going to happen tomorrow? I could die in some crazy freak accident, like, I don’t know—I heard the other day some chick got strangled when her necklace got caught in her neck massager. If I died like that, I’d feel pretty dumb if I had spent a whole lot of time worrying about some gene that in the end didn’t matter at all.”
“You wouldn’t feel dumb because you strangled yourself with a neck massager?” I say, a giggle bubbling up, surprising me.
“That too,” he says, giving me a mock-severe look. “You know what I mean. I try to live every day as if I might be attacked by an angry mutant neck massager tomorrow. Every day matters, you know?”
He is circling his thumb on my palm as he talks, and a fiery-cool deluge sweeps from my hand to every part of me.
“How,” I say, serious again. “How can you say you won’t ever fall in love if you live each day like it matters? It doesn’t make sense to me.”
His fingers tighten on mine, and I feel a fresh burst of heat race through me and I close my eyes against it.
“There’s a big difference between living each day as it comes and living selfishly. To me, that’s like saying, ‘If it makes you happy to push someone in front of a train, why not do it?’ Hurting someone, especially someone I care about, is not an option. And that’s what would happen if I got close to someone. They would have to watch me get sick, and maybe die.”
He pulls his fingers from mine and helps me to my feet.
My hand feels cold as we walk back to the boat.
The next day when Jason arrives in the afternoon, I decide I want to go swimming. I strip to my bra and underwear, not even waiting for Jason to turn around. He has seen me like this so many times it seems pointless to pretend modesty.
I wade into the water and Jason casts his pole. He will not go swimming with me, though I have asked. “I’d rather fish,” he says, and “You need it, I don’t.”
I float in the water while Jason sits on the sand, his eyes trained on the line in the water.
The water is a pure, clean brown, and I can see a school of small fish sliding beneath me, not even stirring the mud in their silent passage. Fringing the cove is a green tangle of mangroves (they build islands, Jason said), their exposed roots snarling in an untamed, impenetrable maze. The plants breathe through the roots, he said, and they’re a kind of nursery to baby marine life. Dangling from the branches are torpedo-shaped seedlings, ready to drop into the water and float away to a new home.
I can hear the distant call of an osprey and the whisper of leaves in the breeze. Splash-splash, clear air, burning sun, the smell of mud, the flop of a fish.
This place is heart-healing, and I never want to leave.
Mom would miss you, Mom would be sad.
I push the thought away, push the pain deep, deep, deep.
I get cold, so I wade out and go sit beside Jason. He does not look at me. I lean against his shoulder and watch the play of muscles in his arm and breathe in the salty, musky scent of him. He puts the pole down and stretches out his legs. I curl up next to him and put my head on his legs so I can watch the water.
He tenses but does not say anything.
“Rub my back?” I ask.
His strong fingers press into my shoulders and heat tickles through me as his hands drift lower, kneading my lower back. I feel the rough catch of calluses on my tender skin, and I gasp a little bit, biting my lip, the heat cascading through me. I stretch like a cat, pushing into his fingers.
Suddenly he curses under his breath and stops.
I sit up in surprise, blinking slowly in confusion and swirling sensation.
“No,” he says, and closes his eyes. He’s breathing fast.
I look at him in amazement.
He opens his eyes and looks at me. “What are you doing?” He gestures at me, taking in my bra and underwear. “Think about it, Erin. Do you know how you look running around half naked? It was different in the beginning when you were almost comatose, but you’re not anymore, you’re alive and warm and soft. Do you know how hard this is for me?”
My mouth is open in shock.
“Here.” He takes off his shirt and throws it to me.
I pull it on, hugging its warmth around me. I do not know what to say. But I find myself noticing the hard lines of his chest, the white tan line across his lower stomach where his shorts have ridden down a little. I feel the warm fullness of my breasts press against my arms and I am aware of my bare legs. I tug the shirt over my knees.
“I don’t understand,” I say in a small voice.
He looks away. He’s so gorgeous I want to run my fingers through his wild curls and stroke the side of his clenched jaw.
“Do I have to explain this? Really?” he asks in a strangled voice.
I don’t say anything. If you paid me a million dollars, I wouldn’t have been able to find anything to say.
“You’re … sexy, Erin.” He’s not looking at me, and his face is beginning to heat with color.
“You think … you think I’m sexy?”
“Yes,” he says on an outward explosion of breath.
I stare at him, but his gaze is focused on the water.
“But I’m … I’m not,” I say.
He snorts and turns his beautiful turquoise eyes on me. “Yes you are.” He sighs, running his hands through his hair. “Look. I’m your friend, Erin. I want to be your friend, but it’s hard to be your friend when you’re running around in your underwear. So do me a favor, okay? Wear some clothes.”
He gets up, and I follow as he goes back to camp. It’s starting to get late and I don’t want him to leave, not like this, but I don’t know what to say.
“Here’s the thing,” he says, after he has hauled in more supplies from his boat. “A front’s coming through, so it’s going to be stormy and windy tomorrow. I have a charter scheduled in the morning, but I’ll be here tomorrow afternoon. If it starts raining before I get back, I brought you some more books, and you can go into the tent and wait for me.” He takes m
e by the shoulders so I have to look in his eyes. “Are you sure you’re not ready to go home?”
“No, not … not yet.”
“Okay.” He looks up at the sky, which is the clear, hard blue of a china plate. “Okay.” He shakes his head. “It’s going to have to be soon, though, Erin. We can’t do this for much longer. Do you get that?”
“I know,” I say, but it’s like the words are buried in the back of my throat.
He busies himself with the rest of his gear, dropping a cooler and cursing in frustration. He seems uncomfortable and jittery, and I just want things back the way they were before.
“I gotta go,” he says finally.
“Bye,” I say, trying not to sound forlorn but probably failing miserably.
He moves off into the bushes without looking at me again.
I lie awake most of the night. It isn’t the night noises that keep me awake, though there are still plenty of them. It’s the word Jason threw at me. “Sexy.”
He thinks I’m sexy.
I miss Trina so much because she would know exactly what to say; she would help me know what to think about Jason saying I’m sexy.
But he doesn’t want to think of you like that.
The first guy who ever told me he thought I was sexy also told me he just wants to be friends.
Is there something wrong with me?
Of course there is. Everything is wrong with me. Why would Jason want to date a girl who is a complete wackadoodle?
But he said he didn’t want to fall in love with anybody.
Sure, but if he really wanted to, he could fall in love with me.
He just doesn’t want to.
He doesn’t want to because he knows I’m messed up.
Flawed inside and out.
Chapter Thirty-Three
It is cloudy and blustery when I wake, the tent swaying back and forth like a building in an earthquake. I get out and make sure the stakes are tight in the ground and try to make a fire, but it is too windy. The air has a strange electric tension to it and I feel a weird pressure in my chest. It isn’t raining, but the clouds are low and racing across the sky.