“I want to stay,” Ebon said.
“You can’t work these things out alone. You can’t just expect it all to go away.”
“I know.” He chuckled. “I’ve been learning that the hard way.”
They looked out the window. Aimee was seeing the nighttime beach as it had always been. Ebon, on the other hand, was watching it build from nothing, learning the scene as if he’d never been here before.
After a long moment, he said, “I carved our initials into the bench at Redding Dock.”
Aimee squeezed his hand, both of them looking northward through the windows. If there had been no curve to the bay, they’d be able to see where Aaron’s Party was and where Redding Dock had, for Ebon at least, so recently been.
“You did?”
“Yes. ES plus AF. But the next day I went back and changed them.”
“Changed them to what?”
“BS plus AP.”
Aimee laughed.
“I lay awake the whole night worrying that someone would see what I’d carved and figure out who those initials belonged to. But it was like you say about your art: I’d done it because I’d wanted to make something tangible. Something that said, right there in a way anyone could touch and feel, how I felt about you.”
“That’s sweet.”
“But then I chickened out.”
“Why?”
“I was just a dumb kid. You were too old for me. You were all bossy. Maybe you’d even be the one to see it and make fun of me. But what I liked about the changed initials was that even though I’d encoded them — with a code that only the NSA would be able to crack, of course — they were still there. Still ‘something tangible.’” He sighed, remembering the way his gut had dropped when he’d realized Redding Dock was his mind’s final, taunting phantasm. “I guess nothing lasts forever.”
“Even if you want it to,” Aimee agreed.
Ebon squeezed her hand, feeling suddenly empty.
“Sit back down by the fire,” she said. “You’re not fully warm yet.”
Ebon obeyed. This time, Aimee wrapped them both in the same blanket. His hands were around her waist, his head in the crook of her shoulder. For the strangest moment, Ebon found he almost wanted to cry. Signals were jumbled. What was he mourning? The loss of Holly, or the loss of the lie? The death of his past, or the death (long, long overdue) of innocence? Then the moment passed, and all he felt was the press of Aimee’s side, the blanket’s hug, and the fire’s warmth. He heard only the crackle of burning wood, the tick of Richard’s antique clock, and the whip of the chill wind outside in the moonlit night.
“I feel lost, Aimee.”
Her arm was around him. “I know.”
“My mind is a mess. I can’t remember what’s true and what I’ve told myself was true in order to feel better. It’s nothing but loose ends.”
And even though Ebon was talking in circles, laying the truth of his delirium at Aimee’s feet while allowing her to believe he was speaking metaphorically, she said, “I know.”
“I don’t know what’s in my own head or what’s real. I don’t know what’s true or what I’ve imagined or just wanted to be true.”
Aimee sat up. Ebon’s head came away, and he found himself looking into her still, green eyes, so very like Holly’s. For once, her smile wasn’t mocking. For once, she didn’t look like she was about to jab him, make fun of him, or tell him what to do. Seeing it made Ebon feel like floating. He knew the year, and he knew their ages. But in another sense Aimee could have been seventeen, her head on a pillow, hair in a halo around her, truly vulnerable for the very first time.
“At least one of the things you imagined was always true,” she said.
Aimee shut her eyes. Slowly, Ebon shut his.
The distance between them closed, measured by the warmth of sighing breath.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Just a Projection
EBON WOKE BESIDE AIMEE IN FRONT of the fire, blinking in the morning light. The logs were still kindled; she must have woken in the middle of the night to toss more on and keep them warm, together, as they slept on the otherwise cool floor.
Beside him, to his right side, Aimee’s bare shoulder was visible above the covers, her body turned away as she slept. Ebon smiled, then ran a hand along her skin with a feeling of possession, wanting to assure himself that she was really there, and truly his. Perhaps as she’d always been.
They’d begun sweet. But then, because it was Aimee, she’d giggled and turned things delightfully awkward. Kisses had turned to fumbling. When he’d got her clothes fully off under the blanket, she’d guffawed, tossed the covers away, and made Ebon chase her around the cabin. He’d pinned her on the first-floor guest bed, her nude and him just in boxers. He’d grown annoyed — an odd emotion to counterpoint nearly two decades of simmering infatuation. But she’d fought him off and run again, yelling back that the only way to make sure a memory stuck — to make it stand out as clearly real — was to make it memorable.
They’d returned to the fire. Aimee hadn’t stopped laughing until Ebon was atop her, laying kisses along her smooth neck. The gap of years had sewn shut, two souls melding as perhaps they were always meant to be.
She’d turned on the boom box during their melee. It played the Oasis disc, and Ebon had protested. She’d reached over to comply, to change it to something more romantic. Ebon had watched the long curve of her back as she rose, wanting Aimee’s return, and had wrestled her down before she reached her target. Let it continue, he’d decided. Because if it did, in this tender moment, maybe the music’s meaning would finally change within his mind.
Ebon sighed, looking over. The music had been playing all night, the disc on full-album repeat, and he was already sick of it. He shifted to turn it off, but the morning was cool like the bare wood floor beyond the blanket. The volume was low. He could ignore it a while longer.
Ebon lay on his back, a couch afghan piled up under his head like a pillow. His left hand, closest to Aimee, traced her bare body beneath the blanket as he watched her sweet, sleeping face. He felt the way thigh surrendered to hip before becoming the curve of her side. Thinking about the sensations (and realizing that continuing to touch her was rude; she should be able to wake on her own rather than being groped from her dreams) gave Ebon a surreal thrill that caused stirring under the pajama bottoms he’d dragged on before fueling the fire a few hours ago. How many years had he dreamed about the feel of Aimee’s bare skin? How many nights had he drifted away with thoughts of her on his mind, even when he’d been with Holly? Had he ever made love to Holly and imagined Aimee? Of course he had.
The thought churned his gut. Holly was dead and buried. Holly had loved him in her own way, and he’d loved her. Holly had tried to open up. She’d confided in him once — and, now that Ebon thought about it, truly only once — about her friend whom she’d wanted to protect but had been unable to save. He’d made a crude joke when she’d told him that, dismissing her moment of candor. Thinking back on that moment now, Ebon wanted to cringe. He must have come off as callous, but mostly he’d just been afraid. He’d wanted a girlfriend, nothing more. Anything deeper might have dug up bodies so decently buried.
Between blinks, Ebon saw Holly’s face as she’d lain beside him that day — the way Aimee was lying beside him now. He’d hurt her. He’d known that at the time, but had forced the thought away. Holly had been vulnerable after all. She wasn’t as one-dimensional as he’d pretended. He’d shut her down, closing a sliding door that might have, down the road, saved their relationship. Letting her in could have changed things. It could have brought Holly closer, rather than keeping her distant. But he’d made his joke instead of letting her in. And she’d been too crushed — salt in an old wound — to ever bring it up again.
I pretended she just wanted to fuck, that it’s all she was capable of. But it was me who wouldn’t let her do more. Wouldn’t let her be more.
A repugnant thought. It made Ebon want t
o turn away. He felt the weight of Holly’s life and death on his shoulders, crushing the breath from his chest.
He reached out and ran his fingers along Aimee’s back, deciding rudeness didn’t matter after all. He touched her hair, now very much wanting to see her face. He’d seen her sleep before, but never in afterglow. The past night had been a long time coming. And now, where they stood together was right. All was well that ended well. Everything happened for a reason. What had happened with Holly had been tragic, but no one had made her run off to sleep with another man. Nobody made her get into a car with him, then blow them both into a fatal accident.
She made her bed.
And now Ebon was in his. Where he belonged. Where he’d always belonged, until Richard had torn him and Aimee apart, beaten him nearly to death. Maybe Richard was the wildcard in his life’s equation. If there was a sliding door moment, maybe that fateful day — not Holly’s confession and his own rebuke — had been it.
Pulling back a strand of hair, Ebon looked at Aimee’s sleeping face and decided that it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. They’d been too young back then for things to last. Kids. Aimee hadn’t matured yet; she hadn’t seasoned. Richard had been necessary for the way things had unfolded, not a mere boogeyman. Because without Richard’s browbeating, Aimee never would have acted out, experimenting with sex early, teasing Ebon until they’d found themselves on the couch that fateful day. It had all happened for a reason and had worked out for the best in the end. Without the aftertaste of that unforgettable afternoon, Aimee would never have moved out on her own. She never would have matured. All of that meant they wouldn’t be together now, because they weren’t a good long-term fit back then. Aimee had been too flighty and wild. Ebon had been stoic, shy, naive. If Richard hadn’t broken them up, their bubble would have popped too early. They’d have had their moment, then fizzled. So in a strange way, Richard had made this moment possible, all these years later.
It was hard to curse Richard, given the circumstances.
Julia had been necessary too. She’d changed Ebon — made him shy and defensively funny enough — to attract Holly.
Holly had been necessary. Their long relationship had given Ebon time to pine for Aimee. To learn the difference between infatuation and love. To learn the difference between sex and love. To learn that both could, in fact, live within the same person.
And of course, Holly’s infidelity and death had been necessary, because without them, he’d still be married. And as subtly as he’d had his emotional affair with Aimee all those years, he’d never, ever have acted to make it physical while he and Holly remained together.
A dissenting thought raised its voice, Ebon’s previously quieted mind now contentious.
Bullshit! You ended up with Aimee after Holly died, not because she died. Aimee was always only a friend. There was no infidelity. Holly had your whole heart. She simply chose to betray it.
Seething, Ebon rolled over to spoon Aimee, his bare body pressing against hers. He could wake her and find out what came next. He didn’t want to think about the past anymore. It was gone. Now was the time for the present.
He cupped Aimee’s soft cheek with his hand.
He nuzzled his face into the back of her hair, inhaling the scent of strawberry shampoo.
Ebon’s bare chest pressed against her chest, his pajama-clad knees brushing her long legs.
He wrapped his arms around Aimee from behind, one hand straying to her breast.
I was meant to be with Aimee, and finally she convinced me to come out of my funk, he thought.
I was meant to be with Aimee, yes, a second voice retorted, its tone correcting the first. And Holly. And Julia. And even Vicky. But Aimee didn’t draw me out. She didn’t convince me of anything. The responsibility for all of it is mine, and mine alone.
On the boom box, Oasis’s “Wonderwall” finished playing. Then, Oasis’s “Wonderwall” began.
Ebon sat up from behind Aimee. And, at the exact same time, he sat up from in front of Aimee.
He saw the room from both perspectives, as if he were two people at once. But from both perspectives, he found himself staring at what could have been a mirror’s reflection. Another Ebon. A double of himself, his consciousness flitting between two bodies, two minds, two realities. He was both of them, and entirely neither.
“I thought it was over,” said the first Ebon.
“It is over,” said the second.
The first Ebon blanched. “The world went back together. I can see the shore from here, totally intact. It’s winter.”
“Of course it did. Of course it is,” said the second. “Do you think I’m crazy?”
Ebon — both Ebons — looked down at Aimee. He (they?) had the strangest feeling that she might snap awake at any second. But instead of screaming at the sight of two Ebons above her, Aimee would laugh, reach up, and yank the pajama pants from the Ebon who was wearing them, and beckon them both to lie naked with her, to make a delightful sandwich.
“Shh. You’ll wake her,” said Ebon.
“What would it matter?” Ebon replied.
“She’ll see us if she wakes up.”
“She can’t see. Even if she wakes up, she won’t be able to see a thing. This is your mind. Your memory.” He tapped his forehead.
“So is this.” The other Ebon tapped his own forehead.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Both Ebons took a few steps away from the sleeping woman by the fire, both somehow feeling the need to distance her from whatever might be coming. The concern was practical in the midst of irrationality, like moving a delicate vase before leaping into a heated fight. Nobody wanted to step on Aimee. That was unacceptable. But for some reason there being two of him, at this point, was more or less fine.
“I deserve to be here,” said the naked Ebon. “This is the culmination of everything in my past.” He gestured toward Aimee. “I love her. She loves me.”
“I love her,” the Ebon wearing pajama pants retorted. “She loves me.”
“She can’t love us both.”
“Of course she can. She only sees one of us.”
“Which one?”
“Me.”
But that wasn’t right, was it? Ebon was speaking from two minds, his perspective flip-flopping between what felt like two equally valid points of view. In a sense, only one of those perspectives could be real. But it was impossible, as he looked between his doppelgänger and Aimee, to tell which one it was.
“Think about it for a minute,” said the nude Ebon. “For months, I’ve been in charge. I’m stronger than you. I feel happier. I feel better about myself. Frankly, I feel more worthy of the affections of a woman like Aimee.”
“But you didn’t feel worthy of a woman like Holly,” said clothed Ebon.
“Maybe that’s true in your version of events,” said nude Ebon, shrugging. “But in mine, I felt plenty worthy. That’s the beauty of being me, don’t you see? You want to see everything as horrible. And worse, you’ve decided to see yourself as the villain! You want to believe that Holly opened up to you, but that you shot her down. But don’t you see? We don’t need to have that memory at all.” He put a hand on his chest. “As for me, I’ve chosen to forget it.”
“You mean you’ve chosen to repress it.”
Nude Ebon shrugged. “Six of one, half a dozen of the other.”
“I’m not just going to push it all down inside myself,” said clothed Ebon, shaking his head. “I won’t just repress everything Holly said and all she was. It would be a betrayal.”
“You don’t have to push anything down, don’t you see?” said nude Ebon. “I’ll do it! The only thing you have to do is leave. I’ve been working to push you out since the first days after Holly died. Earlier, actually — say, since things began to get heated in our discussions with Aimee and you started to feel guilty.”
“You wanted to push me out because I knew that we were cheat
ing. That we were doing something wrong.”
Nude Ebon rolled his eyes. “I don’t remember our dick going near anyone but Holly.” He looked down at Aimee, still sound asleep, and laughed. “Well. Not before last night anyway.”
“It was an affair,” insisted clothed Ebon. “Forget about the physical stuff. What about the emotions of it all? Who did we love? Aimee, or Holly?”
“We loved Holly as often as she wanted,” said nude Ebon with a smirk. Then the smirk turned bitter. “The problem was, it wasn’t enough ‘loving’ for her.”
“Sex. Not love.”
“And yet you want to forgive her for doing worse!” blurted nude Ebon. “Who’s repressing now?”
“I don’t forgive her.”
Nude Ebon chuckled.
“But I won’t forget her either,” clothed Ebon added. He looked down at Aimee. The fact that she wasn’t waking up was bizarre. But then his eye caught the window, and he saw that the snow he’d taken to be falling was actually still, every flake hovering motionless like a snow globe frozen midshake. On the CD boom box, “Wonderwall” continued to play on a loop.
“I hate this song,” clothed Ebon said.
“Really? “I have no particular feelings about it either way. But for some reason, whenever it comes on the radio, I choose to change the station.”
Clothed Ebon shook his head. “You won’t face reality. I will.”
“What is reality … Ebon?” He said the name with mockery. “You’ve only bobbed back to the surface, like an unflushed turd, recently. For months now, my version of reality has been the only one.”
“But it all fell apart,” said clothed Ebon, sensing a checkmate.
“Only because of you.” Nude Ebon shrugged. “If you’d permit yourself to be forgotten, life could go on fine. I don’t think about Holly except to resent her. In time, maybe I’ll come to forgive her. I don’t pine for the past like you do.” He gestured at Aimee. “I have all the ‘past’ I’ll ever need right here. Aimee and I had our time, but we were interrupted. Bad things happened. It messed us up for a while. We had to go through a Julia — and yes, a Holly — before we could finally circle back home where we belonged. We had fun with Holly; of course we did. But she was too much of a party girl for us in the long term. Too hungry. She had no filter, except the one that allowed her to see her actions the way she wanted to see them, rather than how they actually were.”
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