by Amy Giles
“Okay. What’s your number?” He takes his phone out and enters my contact then texts me: Beach 32nd Street. “There. If you need a ride, let me know. I’ll come get you.”
I don’t see Lucas the rest of the day. And I’m not on the work schedule tonight. So I guess I won’t be finding out anytime soon why he didn’t ask me himself.
Lucas
Pete drives us both to work after school. It’s a short shift today since there are no shipments coming in. Just Pete and me; Joe and Jess aren’t on the schedule tonight.
“I asked Gwen to prom,” he says, smiling.
“Yeah? You guys . . .” I twist my fingers together just because it’s fun to make Pete’s ears blush.
“Just as friends,” he says, though I don’t buy it for a minute. “So what’s going on with you and Jess?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, clutching the overhead strap.
He drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “I asked her if she was going to the bonfire tonight.”
“Oh.” I stare out the window. “Is she coming?”
“Dude!” He gestures to me with his hand, like I’m Exhibit A. “You should’ve been the one asking her!”
“I forgot,” I lie.
We hit a red light with a head-snapping stop. Something in my neck pops.
“Look, I feel like I hurt her feelings today. I kinda blame you for that. When I saw you waiting for her last night, I thought you were finally making a move.”
“She was upset about work. Reggie told her she might have to let her go. We got to talking about other stuff. The bonfire didn’t come up,” I say. “So . . . is she coming?” Maybe this will all be okay because Pete salvaged it, as Pete always does.
“Probably not. She said maybe. I sent her a text of where we’d be and told her I’d drive her if she needed a ride.”
The light turns green and he accelerates. I clutch the strap in a tighter grip in preparation for warp speed. “And by the way, if you hung back to cheer her up, maybe telling her about the bonfire would’ve been helpful.”
“I know. You’re right,” I admit, and squeeze my eyes shut. Lying about what’s really going on is just making me sound like a complete douche. “I like her, okay? But I don’t know if I can do this. My anxiety is ratcheting up lately.”
When I think about where I was a year ago, I know I’ve come a long way. But I’m not entirely okay yet. The predictable schedule of school, boxing, and work keeps me on safe ground. It’s the unknown I’m avoiding. And Jess is a big unknown because everything I feel around her is amplified, mostly in a great way. But that shaky feeling last night tells me that the slightest emotional jostle can send me crashing.
“I get it. But maybe you could tell her that too. You could take it as slow as you want or need to, you know?”
Outside my window, our neighborhood blurs by in a streak of store awnings and cement.
“Look, my two cents; do with it what you want,” Pete continues. “I already knew you liked her. I’ve seen your moves. Your whole face gets all ‘huh?’ when she walks in the room.” He mimes this dopey wide-eyed look that makes me look like a doofus. “I figured last night when you hung back you were going to ask her. I gave you way too much credit.”
“Amateur mistake,” I mumble under my breath.
“Big-time. But the thing is, I think she likes you too. Joe said he caught her checking you out. So as the great philosopher Plato once said, shit or get off the pot.”
“Plato, huh?”
“Yeah. Either him or Socrates.”
“Which one drank the hemlock?” I ask.
Pete gives it some thought. “Not sure. But whichever one did, he’s our guy.”
After work I went to the gym. Even after two hours of working it out on the bags and sparring with Honor in the ring I’m still as wound up as I was in Pete’s car. Honor got a bunch of good shots in too; my ribs are aching. Leo was not happy.
He hooked his fingers in the air to reel me closer. “Lemme ask you something,” he said. “You up to five miles yet? ’Cause you’re getting gassed too fast.” He pointed to the ring.
I nodded, panting.
He pitched his head forward, his nose far into my personal space. “Every day?”
My silence was his answer. He raised his hand, stopping short of smacking me in the head.
“What’d I tell you? Five miles . . . every day! And control the center of the ring. You need to be the one setting the pace.”
“Okay, Leo.” I walked away.
But he wasn’t done with me. “And another thing!” he yelled. I turned back. He pointed to the ring again. “I don’t care what’s bugging you. Girls, school, your parents . . . you do not bring it into the ring with you. Got it?”
Leo was a freaking mind reader.
Now showered and back in my room, I flip open my laptop and update my Random Acts of Kindness grid.
April 14 Relocated a spider outside for Mom
I’m sure the spider is grateful I didn’t squash it, but it’s kind of sad that this is the greatest act of kindness I could come up with today. I save the Excel file and stare at my paper on The Sunflower, which is still in the blank-canvas state, other than my name, class period, and title: “The Sunflower: The Power in Extending Forgiveness.”
Forgiveness.
Simon Wiesenthal asks: “You, who have just read this sad and tragic episode in my life, can mentally change places with me and ask yourself the crucial question, ‘What would I have done?’”
Easy! Under those circumstances, I would have done exactly what Simon Wiesenthal did. How can you forgive a monster? You can’t.
But today, the question resonates differently. Today, I hurt someone. Someone I like. Because I’m scared.
Remorse gnaws at my stomach. I have to try and fix this. I text Pete.
Hey. What’s Jess’s number?
He sends me her digits and I send Jess a text next.
Hey, you there? It’s Lucas.
No answer.
Pete said you were a maybe tonight. We’re heading over to the beach around 8. You should come! It’ll be fun!
Still no answer. Jess always has her phone with her. Always. There’s no way she’s not getting my texts.
But it’s her silence that makes me realize that being with Jess isn’t what I should be worrying about. Messing this up and not being with her—even after such a short time—is a much scarier scenario.
I shoot Pete another text.
Don’t need a ride. Meet you there.
I run downstairs, grab my keys from the junk drawer, and head for the front door.
“Mom, I’m going out. I’m driving.”
Footsteps race up the basement stairs.
“What about your keys?” she says, out of breath.
I hold them up between my fingers to show her. “Found them.”
She stares back at them with a guilty expression.
“I won’t be late,” I say, shutting the door behind me. This is Dad’s mess to clean up later. I’m not playing this game anymore.
Jess
Want to hear something pathetic? Every one of my friends is sitting around a bonfire while I’m in my room texting YOU. Pretty sad, right?
Lucas sent me a pity invite. Pete probably told him what happened.
I thought maybe things were going somewhere with him. He either chickened out or I’m super bad at picking up on romantic overtures.
I should go. I shouldn’t let Lucas be the reason I don’t see my friends. Right?
Why aren’t you here to tell me what to do?!
Mom’s in bed. At least she hasn’t been sleeping all day. She’s been okay since we went through the bills together on Wednesday.
To distract myself, I rewatch old videos on my laptop to find more footage for the video I’m editing. I find one of Marissa from Halloween last year. Marissa on a sugar high is even more hysterical than usual, like when a puppy has the zoomies, chasing his tail around in circ
les until he collapses in exhaustion. Sitting on her bed, candy wrappers all around her, she bounces up and down excitedly, her blond hair flouncing around with her. In between licks of a lollipop, she tells me every last detail of that night’s episode of Scandalous Liaisons.
“So then Hunter came home and found Rachel on the couch, cheating on him with his best friend, Sawyer. Just as he’s telling her to pack her bags and get out there’s a huge explosion in the apartment complex. The redhead, who everyone thought had moved to Australia but obviously didn’t, blew the place up! Okay, so then they cut to the hospital where Rebecca is having her baby. Bobby’s by her side, right? Holding her hand, ready to cut the umbilical cord. The baby comes out . . . they only show Bobby’s face . . . And, oh my God, best scene ever! The look of shock on his face says, ‘That’s not MY baby!’ He should win an Oscar. . . . No, wait, what’s the award for TV? . . . Whatever . . . So he storms out of the delivery room and runs right into Vivienne, his old girlfriend, who’s a nurse at the hospital. And they do that awkward running-into-an-ex thing except you can tell they both want to do each other right there. But then all the people from the apartment complex explosion are being wheeled in and Dr. Wheeler is running with Rachel on a stretcher, yelling, ‘CODE BLUE!’ Seriously, Jess, how can you not love this show?”
“Because it sucks,” I say to myself. But my hating it never stopped Marissa from giving me a blow-by-blow account of every episode, every week, always sending me a middle-of-the-night video of her recap. Watching her cheers me up, makes me feel like she’s right here with me instead of someplace across the country where I can’t reach her.
My phone buzzes next to my leg on the bed. It’s Lucas again.
Hey, are you home? I’m parked outside your house.
What the . . . ?
WHY???
Can I come in to talk?
Fine. Come around the side of the house to my window.
My heart pounds in my throat waiting. A few seconds later, he’s outside my window, waving as if this is not super weird. I lift the window up and he folds his arms on the sill. Before I can say anything, he says, “I tried texting you before I came over.”
“Yeah, and I didn’t reply.”
“I know,” he admits with a half smile, half wince. A very cute one at that. “I’ve been parked outside your house for fifteen minutes. The porch light is off. But I really wanted to talk to you.” He sucks air in through his teeth. “That sounded really creepy. You want me to go?” he asks, leaving it up to me.
I scratch my arm and huff as if the decision is harder than it actually is. “No. It’s okay. But come in before Mrs. Alvarez sees you and thinks you’re a peeper.”
“Okay, I’ll meet you at the front—”
“No! Come through the window. My mom’s asleep,” I say quietly so he knows to keep his voice down. “She goes to bed early.”
“Okay. Pop the screen.”
I unlock the screen and he removes it, resting it against the house. Then he pulls himself up through the window, his forearm muscles flexing from the effort, pulling in one foot then the other. I give him wide berth as he stumbles into my bedroom.
He falls back on my twin bed, leaning back against his elbows, his long legs hanging over the edge. He looks around my room with open curiosity. I try to see it through his eyes. A tapestry Marissa brought back for me from Mexico hangs over my bed. A corkboard over my desk is covered in dozens of pictures of Marissa, Ethan, and me over the years. There’s one of the whole family too, when I’m about ten, before we all fell apart.
“So . . . why aren’t you at the beach?” His eyes land on me.
“I’m still debating,” I say.
“Why?”
“Why?” I fold my arms and lean my weight on one foot. If he really wants to do this, we’ll do this. “Maybe because I’ve been trying to figure out why you didn’t tell me last night when we were hanging out.”
He sits up straighter. “I just forgot.”
“Forgot?” I snap. “You know who found me to tell me? Pete. Not you. So maybe you didn’t tell me because you didn’t want me to come.”
He bows his head and dangles his hands between his knees. With a deep sigh, he says, “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
My heart flattens. Maybe I liked it better when I just thought he didn’t want me to come.
He looks up at me. “I’ve been dealing with some stuff. Well, anxiety issues, to be honest. For the past year. And lately I’ve had a few more flare-ups.”
“Lately?” I ask.
He nods. Lately as in since he met me? Am I anxiety-inducing?
“I haven’t been great with changes. Like, my body just can’t handle them. Not yet, at least. That’s why I’m staying home next year too. My therapist said even good stress is still stress. And I guess I’ve been feeling a lot of good stress around you.”
“What’s that even mean? Good stress?” I shake my head, not following.
“Good stress, meaning I like you.”
“Oh.” I sit down in my desk chair.
Lucas scratches the back of his head with a perplexed look on his face almost as if the words coming out of his mouth are so unscripted they surprise him as much as they do me. “I’m trying to figure it out,” he continues. “Being around you is way better than not being around you, so I really don’t know what my problem is. I mean, I do and I don’t. Besides the anxiety . . . I have a new prescription for that though.” His laugh is more of a confused “huh.” But then he adds, “It just feels like . . . I don’t know . . . like it’s too soon for good things to be happening to me. Does that make sense?” He looks up at me now, with a bewildered expression that squeezes my heart, makes me want to rush over and hug him.
I nod. I know exactly what he means. Life continuing happily ever after without them feels like the greatest betrayal.
Then he cracks his knuckles.
“Now I’m thinking maybe I should’ve checked to see if you liked me too, before I dumped all this on you.” His smile is so sweet, so vulnerable. It reminds me a little of Ethan’s smile watching Marissa dance. My heart swells to the brink of bursting.
“The feeling is moochual.” I imitate Teri Garr in Young Frankenstein. I know he’ll get it and he does. His grin is uncontainable. It spilleth over.
“So.” He cracks one knuckle after another. “I get that I screwed this up. But it’s Friday night and according to my therapist, I’m supposed to work on trying to partake in healthy teenage activities. Which probably means you should too.” This time his smile is more hesitant. “Come on,” he presses. “It’ll be fun.”
I look at my window. An open invitation, reentry into the world.
“Reg and Pete are already there,” he says as if that will sweeten the deal.
“Oh, well, okay, then. Why didn’t you say so earlier?”
He stands up. “Wiseass. Come on.”
He hops back out the window and holds out a hand to help me out. I stare at it for just a moment, but I already know I’m going to take it.
Sneaking out of my house is too easy, which is depressing because it reminds me that there’s no one really keeping tabs on me.
But with each second I’m away from home, a heaviness lifts. My heart starts to hum with excitement, looking at the open road ahead of us. With the car windows open, the fresh ocean air flows cool and sweet through my lungs.
We park on Beach 32nd and walk the rest of the way to the beach. I can see the orange flames from the boardwalk. Voices drift over to us in between the crashing of the waves. As we walk closer, I make out Reggie’s and Pete’s laughter.
“We’re here!” Lucas calls, our footsteps muffled by the sand.
Pete and Reggie hoot and clap.
“About time!” Reggie says, raising her beer to toast us. She appears to have fallen in a ditch, only her head and white Converse break the surface of the sand line. Lucas stops at a cooler and grabs two beers, handing me one. We find a spot around the fire t
o sit down, cross-legged. His knee brushes up against mine as he settles in. I could move over an inch and give him more room . . . but I don’t.
Pete crawls across the sand to reach us.
“Hey, rookie!” He lifts his beer. “Glad you made it. Sorry about this morning. I blame him.” He points to Lucas.
Lucas leans around me to answer Pete. “I blame Socrates.”
“We still buds?” he asks me. I nod and he slams his beer bottle into mine.
Pete leans around me again to address Lucas. “Car problem resolved?”
“Sorta.” Lucas shrugs.
“What happened?” Pete asks.
“Tell you later.” Lucas shakes his head and Pete nods in understanding. They have the cryptic coded body language of best friends like Marissa and I used to. Eyebrows lift, shoulders shrug, all fillers for unspoken words. An entire conversation just took place between them.
A senior named Dominic throws a piece of driftwood on the bonfire; the flames undulate blue and lavender from the salt. People applaud like it’s a magic trick. From across the bonfire, Reggie waves me over. “Jess! Come here!”
I get up and walk around the circle to her side and she slides over in her ditch, patting the empty space next to her.
“Beats lugging a chair, right? Try it out.”
I ease in next to her. The sand hugs my body like I’m sitting in the palm of a giant’s hand.
“Nice, right?”
“Very.” I lean back against the sculpted incline. My feet are up at an ergonomically designed angle. “I never thought of digging out a recliner chair in the sand.”
“Patent pending.” She takes a sip of her beer, then leans closer. “I have good news.”
I perk up. “I could use some of that.”
“Enzo’s accountant got us an extension. We’re okay for now,” she says. Then she nods across the fire at Joe, who has his arms wrapped around a girl sitting between his legs. She whispers in my ear. “Joe gave his two weeks’ notice today. We can’t fill his position yet, but I could give you a few more hours. Would that help?”
I nod. “A little more would be great. But why is Joe quitting?”