Some of the boys let out a whoop and start down the hill toward the water. I follow them, my bag in hand, down a winding dirt trail until we reach the sandy beach. It’s cooler than I expected. I brought a hoodie and debate on putting it on, but notice no one else cares, and most of them are already running toward the water in their swimming suits.
The breeze tousles my hair and I take in a lungful of clean, fresh air. Even though I’ve seen the ocean in person before, the rolling waves are mesmerizing to watch. I wonder what makes them come in and out and in and out like that. Why the ocean doesn’t stand still like ponds and lakes, especially since it’s so huge. I wonder at the life under the water, so many different fish and sharks, dolphins and whales. The ocean is a vast place, full of life.
It’s fascinating, the ocean. So many stories, so many books.
It’s also terrifying.
I think of The Old Man and the Sea, how Santiago fights to get his great fish and how it gets taken from him by sharks after all of his hard work. You never realize all the dangers lurking in the water.
Oakley’s fiancé pops into my head. He lost a leg to a shark. I shiver. How would it be, I wonder, to be fine one moment and the next . . . your entire life has changed? You could be bitter and resent your life, or you could move on.
I sigh. I need to move on.
I think of Moby Dick. How Ahab hunts the great white whale and how his obsession ultimately leads to his downfall. His death. All because he was fixated on getting revenge for his lost leg.
Obsession.
Addiction.
They are kind of the same thing. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it through watching Dad, always moving, always muttering to himself when he was in a bad way. He stopped caring, stopping loving, and focused everything he had on getting his next fix. He used to be so kind and caring; I have so many good memories of him. I need to write them down. Draw some pictures of some of our better times. When I can pick up a pencil again.
I let out the breath I’m holding and kick at the sand a little.
Obsession. Addiction. One in the same. I know it’s like a disease. Addiction takes away your agency and messes with your head so you’re not thinking straight. You’re not yourself. But still. The pain of watching him. Wondering where he was when he didn’t come home or when he didn’t show up to pick me up from school when he was supposed to.
Not understanding why he didn’t care.
I close my eyes, surprised at the burn of tears threatening to fall. I snap out of my thoughts. I’m here to have fun. This is not a place to think of past hurts. It’s a place to enjoy the beauty of life. Of my dreams. Of a new start.
I set my bag down and look around. Everyone’s already in the water or playing in the tiny waves covering their feet. Summer is hanging onto Jack’s arm, pulling him toward the water. Mira is on Ashton’s shoulders, screaming as he flings them both backward into the waves. I don’t know what the others are doing. I don’t really care. I take this moment for myself.
The water is only a few yards away and I smile as it edges forward and hits my toes, covers my feet. It’s a lovely, strange, cold feeling with the sand beneath my feet. I sink a little into the mud as the water pulls away, leaving my toes surrounded by wet foam. The water really is colder than I expected, and with the cool breeze blowing, my body shivers. I don’t care, though. I take a few more steps into the ocean, closing my eyes and breathing in deep.
The salty air is so calming. I needed to come here today. I need to start healing.
“Hey,” a voice says.
I turn and see Jack coming toward me, Summer nowhere in sight. Thankfully.
Not that I don’t like her. I have no reason not to like her. She’s nice, but . . . there’s that jealousy again. I push it away. Or try to. I have no claim on Jack. I just barely moved here and she’s known him for a long time. I don’t even know him that well and don’t even know if I like him or not.
“You okay? You’re just by yourself over here so I thought I’d come see how you’re doing.”
I give him a small smile. “You love to sneak up on people, don’t you?”
“Not really. Just you. You have fun reactions.”
“Very funny.” I sigh.
“So, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just thinking and enjoying the water on my feet.”
He stands beside me, the tiny waves rushing back into the ocean. “Thinking? Nice thoughts?”
“Ha!” I don’t mean to laugh, but it just comes out. Humorless. “Sure.”
“You sound convincing,” he says, dryly. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I shake my head. “I’m alright.” I give him a smile since the concern in his voice is real. “Thanks.”
“Is it your family? Your dad?”
My stomach drops. “I don’t know.” And I don’t. I don’t know what I want to say to him. I do, but I don’t. I want to tell him the truth about Dad. I want to talk to someone about it. About what’s really going on. But I’m too scared of what he’ll think of me. I’m scared he’ll hate me for lying to him. Why didn’t I just tell the truth when he asked?
“Maybe I can help?” The waves lap against our feet and I shiver and wrap my arms around myself. “I haven’t lost a parent, like you, but I did lose my best friend last year.”
I look over at him. He stares at the water, looking solemn. I try to forget the fact that he thinks I’m grieving over a death and instead focus on his friend. “How?”
“Ben suffered from depression. Bipolar disorder. You name it. He had a hard life. Parents divorced, physical abuse. He seemed like the most positive and happy kid at school, though. People had no idea about his home life. I did, since we were close, but no one else did. One day, it got to be too much for him to handle. I should have known what was going on. I should have been able to help him.” He kicks softly at the wet sand as the water is sucked away from our feet again. “But it was too late. He was gone.”
Suicide.
I’ve never had to deal with something like that before. I don’t know what I would do if I knew someone who took their own life. It would be devastating, to say the least. And by the look on his face, it was.
He’s lost someone. Actually lost someone. I’ve never lost someone like that. Yes, Dad is gone, but not in that way. How have I been so selfish? Thinking my life is ruined because of Dad? I’m still alive. I’m healthy. Mom’s still here. We have a nice home to live in. I’ve made new friends. Yeah, it sucks knowing I won’t see Dad again for a while and he’ll probably never really be in my life again, but all I’ve been focused on this whole time is how this has all affected me. What about the couple Dad accidentally killed? How does their family feel? How does Dad feel?
I know what I feel right now. Ridiculous.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
“Not your fault. I wish I could have done more. There are so many things I could have done. That everyone could have done. It really messed up our town for a while. He was only sixteen.” He sniffs. He’s not crying, but I can see the moisture in his eyes. “No one talks about it anymore. It kind of got swept under the rug because no one wants to mention it. We always do that around here, when someone dies young. It isn’t forgotten, but people don’t like to talk about it. But the stuff Ben went through needs to be talked about more. There are resources and things that can help someone struggling like that. No one should ever feel so lonely or hopeless that it makes them want to end their own life. It’s not okay and shouldn’t have ever happened.”
I nod. I don’t know what else to do. What to say. I’m surprised he’s telling me this. He doesn’t know me well. But he seems to trust me.
Trust.
I take a deep breath and stare at the foam surrounding my toes. After a moment, I glance up at him. “I’m sorry, Jack. That’s so hard.”
He smiles. “I know he’s okay now, but it still hurts. I kind of backed away from my old friends and started hanging out with Mira
and her friends. Even though they are all a year younger than me. They just . . . they each have things they’re dealing with, too, so they sort of get me. My other friends wanted to pretend nothing ever happened. But how can you forget a person? Or pretend they didn’t exist or have problems? Everyone has problems. People just need to talk about them more so we understand each other. You know?”
“Yeah.” He’s right. And at that moment, I want to tell him everything. I trust him, too.
I’m so afraid of how I’ll feel once the truth is out, though. How I’ll feel once everyone knows my big secret. Will they treat me differently, like some of my old friends did? Will their parents tell them not to hang out with me anymore? Because that also happened with some of my other friends.
Am I really so afraid of what people will think that I need to keep the lie going? Mom has told me countless times she doesn’t care what people think and neither should I.
I open my mouth to let it all fall out, but I stand there, mouth open.
“I,” I start, but then I shake my head. It won’t come. My stomach is in knots and I take a few slow breaths to calm my racing heart.
Jack doesn’t seem to notice, since he’s still lost in thought. “Anyway. Sorry. I just wanted you to know that you’re not alone. We all have something we’re dealing with. And I’m sorry about your dad.”
My chin quivers and I blink back the tears that threaten to fall. How can he care about me so quickly? And not romantically or anything, but as a friend? We barely know each other and he opened up about his problems to make me feel like I’m not alone? He’s a better person than I am. Much better. I’m just a selfish girl. Why haven’t I seen that until now?
“Thank you,” I manage. It comes out almost as a whisper and sort of shaky, but I get it out. The guilt of not telling him the truth eating me alive.
“You’re welcome. If you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here. Talking helps.”
It does. And I’m a coward for not talking. It would be so easy. Just open your mouth, Lucy, I tell myself.
But I say something else instead. “I know. And thank you. For telling me your story. I’m sure it was hard.”
He shrugs. “You’re pretty easy to talk to. Which is weird.” His eyes widen. “Not that you’re weird, I just . . .” He hesitates. “I like talking to you.” He looks away.
I smile at his embarrassment. He’s cute when he gets like that. It makes me like him even more.
Even more? Do I like him like him?
“I like talking to you, too,” I say before I can stop myself.
He glances at me and his cheeks turn pink.
A bigger wave crashes into my legs, not enough to knock me over, since they’re still pretty small, but enough to make me lose my balance for a second. That’s when I realize, since I haven’t moved for a while, that my feet have sunk a little deeper in the mud. As the tide rolls out, leaving us standing in the mud again, I attempt to move. Instead of gently pulling them out, I lift one foot quickly, realize I’m off balance, and before I know it, my feet fly out from under me. A second later, I end up face down in the mud. The water comes back, and little ocean waves hit me in the face, drenching my hair and forcing a high-pitched squeal out of me.
Nice.
I glance up and notice Jack staring at me in shock. “Are you okay?”
After my shock wears off, I’m laughing as I shake sand out of my hair and wipe the freezing water off my face. “Uh . . . I have no idea what just happened.”
He’s laughing now as he helps me up. I’m so embarrassed from falling over nothing that I don’t really speak for a moment. Instead, I shake my hair out of its ponytail and run my fingers through the bits of sand stuck in it. After a second, I put it back in the elastic and wipe some of the water from my cheeks.
“Really, Lucy. Are you okay?”
I let out a snort, which only makes things worse, and sends him into another fit of laughter. Finally, I nod. “Yes, I’m fine. I did not mean to do that. Any of that.”
He sets a hand on my back, making heat flood through me. “Well, it was pretty entertaining anyway.”
“Thanks,” I say, wiping sand from my arms, legs, everywhere. Why? Ugh. “I really hope no one else saw that.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m the only lucky one.”
“Great,” I mutter.
Someone screams and we hear a huge splash and lots of laughter. He nods his head. “Why don’t we go join in whatever they’re doing?”
I hesitate, so he reaches for my hand, pulling me along with him, then when we’re side by side, he lets me go.
“You’re already a little wet. Might as well get in.”
“I’m okay. I’ll just put my feet in.”
“Don’t let them sink!”
“Ha. Ha.” I roll my eyes at him and fold my arms as we splash through the shallow water. “I could live here.”
He laughs. “You do live here.”
“No, I mean by the beach. I could buy a beach house and live here. It’s beautiful.”
“It is.”
“Heads up, Kelly!” someone yells.
Jack looks up just as a huge ball of mud splats across his chest. I can’t help it—I burst out laughing as Jack’s wide eyes look around to find the culprit.
Brody.
Then he’s running, splashing into the water and tackling Brody under the waves while the rest of us die laughing on the beach.
CHAPTER 15
“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.”
—Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale
We stay until it gets dark. My phone has long since died, and I hope Mom’s not freaking out. Mira is insistent that I swim in the ocean at night to cross it off my list, so we wait a little while longer. And talk. And wait some more. We sit on the beach as the tide rolls out. It’s colder now. I tug a hoodie over my swimsuit and pull my knees under it before wrapping my arms around them.
Summer has been by Jack’s side since our little talk on the beach, so I watch them chat across from me as we all sit in a circle in the sand.
Mira sits next to me and Ashton is on her other side, their hands really close to each other in the sand, but not quite touching. I’m not sure where Tiffany and Alex are, possibly making out somewhere, and Kay and Brody are on my other side. They’re both flirty, I’ve noticed. Not only with each other, but with everyone. Especially Brody. He still has his shirt off, even with the cool breeze, and I have to keep telling myself to look away or else I’ll stare at him all night.
I don’t want to be the creepy girl.
As I sit there, I wonder if Mom ever came to this beach. If she ever came with her friends at night or took pictures of the ocean. Maybe Susan was with her. I wonder about Susan again. Do they have a cemetery somewhere? Maybe I’ll look for her grave if there aren’t a million headstones to search through. Or maybe I could do an internet search for newspapers from Salem?
I glance at my dead phone, wishing it were charged so I could look right now.
A hand lands on mine and I jump as it jars me out of my thoughts.
“Why didn’t you just tell me you wanted to hold my hand?” Brody says, linking our fingers together.
I let out a sort of hysterical laugh and try to pull away. He pulls me closer and lets go of my hand but puts his arm around me and pulls me against his chest. “We can cuddle if you’d like.” He grins.
Mira laughs. “Leave her alone, Brody.” She reaches across the circle and pushes him over, making him let go of me. “He’s harmless,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Promise. He just likes to show off.”
He puts a hand to his chest. “Me? Harmless? And a showoff? I thought we were friends, Mira?”
She chuckles and rolls her eyes again before going back to her conversation with Ashton.
I catch a glimpse of Jack as I scoot away from Brody. He’s watching me, paying no attention to Summer talking his ear off next to him.
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“Well,” Mira says, checking her phone. “It’s time. Let’s take a quick swim in the dark and get out of here. Parents will start to worry.”
When she says it, several of them laugh. “Right,” Brody says. “I could come back next week and my parents wouldn’t even notice.”
Kay shakes her head, as well. “Same. My mom works late every night. She’ll be home after I’m asleep. Usually at two in the morning.” She glances at me. “She’s a nurse, so she works weird hours and I know she won’t check on me when she gets home. She always goes straight to bed.”
“Are you home alone then?”
“Most of the time. My older brothers are all married, so it’s just me left.” She shrugs. “It’s no big deal.”
But it is a big deal. Under the grin, I can see it in her eyes. She’s lonely. Like me. Like Jack. Even Mira seems to carry something. All of these people have something to bear. Of course, I don’t know what all of it is, but it’s something.
It brings me a small amount of comfort to know I’m not alone.
Mira helps me to my feet. “Let’s do this.”
“You’re really going in there?” Summer asks. “It’s freezing!”
“Yep.” Jack stands, surprising both of us. “Well?” he says as we stare at him. “Let’s go!”
Summer jumps to her feet. “Okay, let’s go!”
“I’m gonna go find Tiff and Alex,” Brody says. “Not that I’m looking forward to finding them, but I can’t leave them, so . . .”
Ashton sighs. “I’ll go with you.” They start walking toward the cars, muttering something about the couple always running off together.
Kay picks up her towel and a few bags. “I’ll be in the car. Have fun freezing your butts off.”
I take off my hoodie, throw it on the ground next to my bag, and follow Mira out to the water, which is further out now. Jack and Summer are behind us. Our footsteps make prints in the sand, which for some reason, I adore, and I finally stop when my feet touch the water.
Kay’s right. It’s freezing. My toes feel like icicles as the water runs over them.
“Okay, looks like I can cross one more thing off,” I say with a smile.
The Summer of Lost Things Page 10