by Alexis Bass
The money and the ease, the ability to escape, must comfort Chelsea, too, enough that she can overlook everything she doesn’t know about Edison and that she rarely gets to see him. I look back at the two of them, still sitting in the sand, legs crossed and facing each other, smiling as they talk. I wonder if I would be able to ignore all the things about him that I might never know and if the desire to dig deeper, to know more—everything—and to insert myself into all the parts of his life, hidden and open, would ever lift away, and I could simply exist with him like she does, happily accepting whatever he tells her as truth.
“Those two,” Oswald says, noticing my gaze, taking this opportunity to pull me into the conversation. “Nothing as delightful as young love.”
“The first time I fell in love, I was seventeen,” Renee says. “It was awful at that moment, but in retrospect, it was so beautiful.”
“Have you ever been in love?” Gloria smiles at me like she expects me to have a delicious story.
There were many things about Trevor that I loved. But I knew beyond a reasonable doubt that I was not happily or madly in love with him. I knew it in my gut, in my bones, in my heart, and in my head.
“I don’t think so,” I say.
Gloria laughs. “You would know—trust me, honey.”
“The people who are supposed to come into your life will,” Oswald says. The fortune-teller had only talked about letting people go, accepting and embracing their leaving, and it’s refreshing that Oswald’s focus is about bringing people closer, embracing them as meant to be there. When Gloria laughs again, he says, “What? I truly believe that.” And then he is laughing with her.
“I do, too,” says Renee. “I mean, look at Gloria and me—what are the chances we visit the Chinati Foundation on the same day and are part of the same tour? It was definitely fate. We were always going to be a family. It was … inevitable.”
“Yes, yes, I completely agree. It’s like what happened with us and Edison. We didn’t find Eddy; Eddy found us,” Oswald says. He turns his attention to me, even though we’re all listening, curious. Gloria says, “Remind me of this, again.”
“His school was a few blocks from the quarry,” Oswald continues. “He wandered into the woods one day, wanted to watch the machines and the workers. He was always there, hanging around, such a spirit to him, a love of the noise, the surrounding forest, the destruction, the things the quarry made, all that crushed stone. We adopted him, you could say. Gave him odd jobs. Something to do after school before his mom got home. And Franny, well, she was special. It was gracious of her to let us into her son’s life. And we’re better for having known her.”
Gloria is wiping away a few stray tears on her cheeks. “That poor boy, losing his mother like that. I’m glad he has you all.”
Oswald says, “It was as though we didn’t know a piece of our heart was missing until it arrived.” He puts his arm around Gloria. “He is the most determined person I know. Strong, too.”
To me, Edison is a cluster of characteristics, specialized traits changing with wherever he is and who he thinks he needs to be.
Does Edison feel about the Duvals the way I feel about the New Browns, like I’m standing on the outside even though everything about them seems welcoming? Does he get the sense that there are conditions, the way I do, despite how nice the New Browns are? Does he feel an allegiance to his mother, the way I do to mine—thinking of her every time he gets close to belonging somewhere else, remembering where he came from, what he lost?
When it gets dark, we all put on another layer of clothing and we gather around the fire for s’mores. Slowly people disperse, going to bed, and soon it’s only Sepp and Kath and Chelsea and Edison and me. Kath is busy on her phone, talking to her cousin, someone else Sepp seems to know, as he called out, “Tell that brute I said hi,” when she first answered. Chelsea and Edison stand on the opposite side of the fire, pressing their hands against the heat. I can’t hear what they say to each other over the crackling of flames and the beating waves of the ocean and the sound of the wind thumping through the trees.
“Are you happy?” Sepp asks, nudging my toe with his.
I don’t mean to, but I glance at Edison.
Sepp laughs a little, following my stare, and I don’t like that he’s noticed. “You know, Edison tells me everything.”
“Are you happy?” I say, turning the question back on him, curious what it could mean if he knows about Edison and me, and wondering if Edison really does tell him everything or if Sepp only thinks he does.
“Of course I am.” He laughs again.
Kath is off her call and motions for Sepp to go back to the yacht with her. He doesn’t keep her waiting.
“Sepp,” I say. I don’t continue until he turns around. “There isn’t anything to tell.”
He puts his hands in the air, like a surrender. He smiles and says, “Whatever you say.”
Chapter 30
Chelsea and I are put in a spare room on the Smiths’ yacht, since all the Duval rooms are taken. The waves make sloshing and plopping noises when they splash against the side of the yacht. Chelsea is completely exhausted from the day and falls asleep right away. I can’t sleep. I’m anxious from my fingers to my toes and too awake wondering about what Sepp said to me about Edison telling him everything.
I hear footsteps on the dock. Maybe I was listening for them. I go over to our window, barely level with the dock, and he’s there, crouching down, like he knew I’d be looking for him. He motions for me to join him outside.
He stands at the end of the dock, in front of the speedboat we took here. On my way over to him, I remember when I first got to Cross Cove and he was never where I was looking. Now it’s as though I wished him to be there, so here he is.
“I was going to take the boat out,” he says when I reach him. “You can go with me if you want.”
I glance at my feet. “Why would I want to come?”
He is alone now. I could ask him about the fight I overheard earlier today on the yacht deck or about that meeting with the men from the island at the Duval office and what kind of deal he and Sepp made with them. There’s so much I don’t know about him, and I can’t seem to shake the curiosity.
“Because.” He shrugs. “You wanted to know how fast this boat can go.”
There’s a thrill I get being around him, too, and I like that he seems to understand something about me.
There are many reasons I should not be out in the water alone with him, most of them having to do with how much I want to go.
“Come on,” he says, bending down to pull the boat closer to the dock. The breeze ruffles his hair. “You’ll like this—I promise.”
He holds the boat steady as I climb inside. He hops in after me.
The motor hums to life as Edison starts the engine. We drive out into the open ocean. He turns on the boat lights when the island and the yachts and everyone sleeping soundly in their beds are far behind us and cranks up the speed.
“Stand up here,” he says, talking over the motor. “Next to me.”
I do as he says, and when I’m close enough, he takes hold of the sleeve of my sweatshirt, positioning me beside him.
“So how fast can this thing go?” I say.
We drive farther out, until there’s nothing but a dark ocean and a star-filled sky on all sides of us, like we’re in space, only this boat to hold us.
“Ready to find out?” he shouts, not really asking a question, but I’m saying, “Yes,” all the same. The boat kicks up another notch, flying faster over the waves.
I feel bursts of terror and happiness and anticipation, all at once—a good feeling, combined with that thrill of familiar excitement. When I grip onto the edge of the windshield, Edison’s smile widens.
A grunt of the engine, a shift downward, a sudden boost, and we’re shooting forward. We cut through the water so fast my ears buzz. The wind whips us with such a force it stings. But he was right. I do like this. Plunging thro
ugh the air, I’m not thinking about anything except the wind on my face, the spray of the water, the adrenaline pumping through me, and how it all makes me feel invincible, like I’m outrunning death or daring it to take me now.
Edison’s face is lit up in a way I’ve never seen before. He lets out a cheer, and I try to do it, too, but when I open my mouth to shout, nothing but giddy, vivacious, roaring laughter comes out. Over the growl of the engine and over the crashing of the waves and the hiss of the wind, I hear Edison laughing, too. I hold on to the top of the windshield and tip my head back as the air swirls around me. The dark ocean could be the sky, and the sky is on fire, the stars are all shooting as we charge past them.
This is the kind of rush that makes you forget everything except for the moment. I can feel so many burdens peeling away from me already, the resentment I feel for a family that formed without me; how the more I get to know them, the more I want to be a part of it but don’t know if I ever will be because of the frustration my father feels toward me and the disdain I feel toward him; the fear that I carry with me like a constant—being scared to die, but much more scared of not living; terrified of the way I feel about Edison and how he might feel about me; unsettled and desperately intrigued by whatever he’s withholding, and worried he might be hiding from me the way he’s hiding from Chelsea. The stack of things I regret, everything that happened when I was with Trevor—I can push that all away and let it lift off with the wind.
This is flying, and this is falling. This is soaring. This is danger and freedom and not caring. This is letting go.
He slows our speed gradually until we come to a stop. The waves glide under us, rocking the boat.
“That was—” I stop talking because I’m holding his hand, clutching it so tightly in mine and I didn’t mean to. I don’t know when this happened. I let it drop. He smiles at me like he knows why I cut myself off.
“I do that sometimes—come out here at night and go as fast as I can,” he says, slightly out of breath like I am from the excitement. “It scares the hell out of me but somehow makes me feel better.”
“That was amazing.” My heart is still racing from the ride. And from the way he’s looking at me right now, like everything he’s afraid of and everything that saves him is mirrored in my expression. This is how you’re going to do it, I think. This is how you really get to the deepest parts of me. This is how you make me fall for you, relentlessly and irrefutably.
He shuts off the lights on the boat so we can better see the blackness and the stars. “We’re surrounded,” he says. A rogue wave jostles the boat, knocking me toward the edge. I reach for the windshield to keep from toppling over, but he already has his hands on either side of me, holding me steady.
“I’m afraid of the water at night,” I confess. He’s slow letting go of me. “It’s so dark and you can’t see what’s underneath.”
He turns the boat lights back on because it’s part stunning and part terrifying to be out in the middle of the ocean like this, with the only other lights millions of miles away, burning up in the sky.
“I dare you to jump in,” he says quietly, staring at the water like he’s not actually daring me, he’s daring himself.
At first, I laugh. But I’m still buzzing from the ride, still a little out of breath, still feeling magnificent, invincible. And it feels so good to let go, forget that I’m mad at families that give you everything except for that undefinable thing you really need, forget about this obsession and want I have for him when he doesn’t belong to me because he doesn’t belong to anyone.
“All right,” I say, moving to the edge of the boat.
“All right?” He doesn’t seem entirely convinced, even when I ditch my flip-flops and take off my sweatshirt.
I don’t let myself think too much as I place one foot on the ledge of the boat and push off, hurling myself into the water.
Edison shouts, “Wait—don’t!” but it’s too late.
I crash down and sink deep—that’s what it feels like—but I only have to pump my legs a few times to break the surface. Edison is on the side of the boat now, kicking off his shoes and tossing his sweatshirt and tumbling forward, landing with a splash beside me.
“Why did you do that?” he yells at me when his head pops out of the water. He’s mad, maybe afraid, but I am surging with electric happiness and absolute pride—like I conquered something. He sees my wild smile and starts to laugh.
“That was completely reckless!” he says. I don’t know if it’s because a wave has pushed him or if he swam here on his own, but he is right in front of me, suddenly so close. “And really brave.”
What I’d always wanted to be.
I lie on my back, floating, letting the coldness claim me. I give in to the waves. I let them carry me and every problem, every secret, every burden I’ve been holding close for the past few years. He does the same thing, and we lock our hands, so if we roll away with the ocean, we won’t lose each other.
We don’t stay in the water very long. When Edison says, “We should get out,” I take his hand and let him lift me into the boat. I use one of the blankets he’s pulled from the hutch and get out of my wet clothes as quickly as he does; we both have our backs turned as we strip until we are in nothing except the blankets. I follow his lead and hang my wet clothes on the windshield and over the side of the boat. Then we are laughing, and I still don’t know where we are or if it’s possible to go back.
Chapter 31
We are shaking as we sit down side by side on the bench seat, borrowing body heat. We are happy. Even if we aren’t supposed to be.
We should go back. I know we should, and I feel the first buds of real betrayal as Edison slouches farther in the seat and I bring my knees up and curl them to my chest. My blanket slips off my shoulder, and Edison pushes it up. I let myself slide against him, so our arms are pressed tight together. The blankets are the only barriers between our bare skin. I like the feel of him close, so I lean into him, shutting my eyes, waiting until the fresh sting of guilt has passed before I open them again.
Maybe he doesn’t have a choice either, being out here with me like this. Maybe it’s like Renee said about some things being inevitable.
Or maybe it’s not that complicated and he is simply a bad boyfriend, a liar, an asshole, this is a game to him, and this is another one of my sorry excuses to bring more excitement into my life.
He rubs his hands together, then puts them to his mouth to warm them.
“My mother always said that motorcycles were dangerous because that much speed is freeing, but you’re gone before you even have the chance to remember what you’re running from.”
I want to ask him about the fight I overheard on the yacht and why he wants to go away. If he pretends to be running on nights like this. If it means anything that this time he took me with him.
“That’s why she liked roller coasters so much.” His face when he talks about her is the face of the boy I first saw on the island—a face that couldn’t hide a thing.
“My mother always says, ‘Living fast means you crash hard,’” I tell him.
“Are you close with your mom?”
“Not the way I want to be. I’ve told her too many lies.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? Because I wanted to do things she wouldn’t’ve approved of; because I didn’t care they were things I shouldn’t have been doing.” But that’s not the whole of it either. Edison waits for me to continue, like he knows there’s more to my lies to my mother than I’ve admitted, because he knows there’s more to me. “I lied because I didn’t want her to worry. I knew what I was doing was wrong and I didn’t want her to know; I didn’t want to be another problem in her life. I didn’t want to be another reason she couldn’t get out of bed.”
“You lied to protect her.”
“Yes. But it was selfish, too. If she didn’t know what I was doing, she couldn’t stop me. But now I don’t know if she’ll ever really tru
st me again.”
“Trust is earned, right? You’ll get it back.”
“I hope so. I bet you never lied to your mom.”
“I never had any reason to.” He shrugs; his shoulder brushes against mine. He smiles. “She would have liked you.”
I think his mother is always there lurking in the back of his mind.
“Tell me about her.”
And he does. He tells me about her laugh, so loud it used to embarrass him at the library. And she was always starting knitting projects and never finishing them, so their living room was an array of half-finished blankets and scarves, hats with holes at the top, socks without heels. He tells me how she used to whisper in his ear before he fell asleep. Be strong, she told him. Great things will happen, she assured him.
I’m about to tell him he’s lucky, but she’s gone, so I don’t say anything.
“What was Sepp saying to you, by the campfire?” he says. “You know you really can’t trust anything Sepp tells you.”
“He asked me if I was happy.” I don’t tell him the other thing Sepp said, about how there are no secrets between them, and how I lied and told him there was nothing to know.
“Oh.” I can hear his smile before I see it, the way he breathes in like he has to prepare for them. That’s one of the ways I can tell which smiles are real and which ones are Edison showing off. I wonder how long I’ve known this about him. I wonder what else I’ve learned by accident.
“And what did you say?” he says. “Are you happy?”
“I’m happy right now.”
He stares straight ahead because looking at me suddenly isn’t safe. “Me, too.”
This admission, mine and his, is overwhelming. I adjust, putting on my sweatshirt and letting the blanket slouch around me. He does the same. We settle back into the seat, still closer than we should be. He looks at my hand, resting too close to his, and he takes it. Carefully, he flips it over so he can see the cut on the side of my wrist. He traces it slowly.