by Susannah Nix
“There are some really great songs on there, so you have to listen with an open mind.”
He looked into her amber-brown eyes and smiled. “I will, I promise.”
“It’s not as nice as earrings.”
“What would I do with earrings? I’m too scared of needles to get my ears pierced.”
Alex laughed and kissed him lightly on the lips.
He cupped the back of her head, pulling her in for a deeper kiss. “I missed you.” His fingers curled in her hair. It was harder to hold on to now that it was short.
The front door banged open and they sprang apart as Alex’s father stepped outside, looking surprised to find them. “Oh! Hello. Merry Christmas, Lucas.”
Lucas sat up straight and tried to look like someone who had not just had his tongue down Alex’s throat. “Merry Christmas, Mr. Bonner.”
“What are you doing, Dad?” Alex asked.
He held up the plastic milk jug in his hand. “Filling the bird feeder. There’s been goldfinches sighted in the area so I need to put out the thistle seed.”
Alex hopped off the swing and gave Lucas’s hand a tug. “Okay, well, we’re leaving now.”
“All right, honey. Have fun!” Mr. Bonner waved as he headed for the bird feeder at the far end of the porch.
Lucas followed Alex down the front walk to his car. They both got in and watched Alex’s dad pour birdseed into the feeder.
“Are we going to the beach?” Lucas asked, shoving the key into the ignition. Farley had made sure everyone knew their annual Christmas night beach party was still on this year.
“Of course! What else would we do?”
“I don’t know.” Lucas could think of a few things they could do, just the two of them, that might be more fun than standing around on a cold beach. He’d wanted to plan something special for their anniversary, but Alex had seemed excited to go to the beach, so Lucas had kept his anniversary ideas to himself.
“Ugh. This song is sooo lame,” she said when he started the car and his favorite Train song came out of the speakers. “Let’s listen to my CD.”
He passed it to her and she inserted it into the dashboard CD player. Lucas pulled away from the curb and drove toward the seawall as they listened to the first song on the disc. It was moody and sort of aimless. He could barely distinguish a melody at all, and he hated the lead singer’s voice. But Alex had asked him to listen with an open mind, so he refrained from comment. Maybe he’d like it after he’d heard it a few more times.
“Hey, umm…so you know my suitemate Shivani?” Alex said, turning toward him in her seat.
“Is she the vegetarian one or the one who doesn’t clean the bathroom?”
“The vegetarian. Her mother owns an event planning business in Dallas, and she said she’ll give me an internship over the summer.”
“Event planning? Like weddings and stuff?”
“Weddings and birthdays, but also small business and corporate events.”
“Is that what you want to do?” Alex had changed her mind about her major twice already this semester.
“I don’t know. I have no idea what I want to do, but I figure it’s worth trying out. It might be sort of fun.”
“So you’d spend the whole summer in Dallas? Like in an apartment? Would your parents even let you do that?”
“I’d stay with Shivani’s family. My parents will have to say yes because it’s for my professional advancement and it won’t cost them anything.”
“Oh.” The Gulf of Mexico loomed ahead of them, and Lucas turned left onto the wide, hotel-lined street that ran along the seawall. A few of the larger hotels and resorts hosted business conferences over the winter months, and there was the annual Gingerbread Festival downtown every December that brought in some tourists, but there wasn’t much open on Christmas Day proper, and the streets were mostly deserted.
“I thought you’d be excited for me.” Alex sounded disappointed, and also annoyed.
Lucas knew if he said the wrong thing they’d wind up in a fight, and he didn’t want to fight on Christmas. On their anniversary. “I am,” he told her, because it was the right thing to say. “Really excited.”
“Really?”
He remembered how bad he’d felt about having to work over Thanksgiving weekend, and tried to sound like he meant it so Alex wouldn’t have to feel bad. “Really. I’m glad opportunities are opening up for you. I think it’s a great idea.”
“I’m sorry I won’t be coming home for the summer. I know that means we won’t get to see each other.” She sounded about as sorry as he was excited.
“This is way more important,” he said, because it was what she wanted to hear, and also because it was probably true. “And I’ll be working all summer anyway. It’s not like we’d be able to hang out at the beach all day like we used to.”
“I’m still sorry I won’t get to see you.”
Lucas reached across the console for Alex’s hand. “Let’s not think about it now. We’re together tonight, and it’s our anniversary.” He tried to catch her eye, but she was looking out the window at the water. He settled for squeezing her fingers instead.
The next song on the mix CD started up. It was even moodier than the last.
All of the old gang had come to the beach. Farley, of course, and Oscar and Ana. Chris and Gabby. Linh. There were some new faces too, and a lot of people from the current senior class.
Lucas watched Alex catch up with everyone, telling them all about Austin and UT and all her adventures. Everyone had stories to swap about their first semesters of college.
Everyone but Lucas. Nothing interesting or notable had happened to him at Beaufort Community College—unless you counted the time a bird had flown into the window of his accounting class.
“It must be weird staying on the island,” Farley said to him. “Now that the rest of us are gone.”
“It’s okay,” Lucas said, shooting him a grin. “I hardly even notice you’re not here.”
About fifty percent of Beaufort’s economy was tourism, and it always felt a bit like an abandoned amusement park in the fall after all the summer tourists left, shrinking the island’s population to twelve thousand or so year-round residents and students at the Marine Science Center. But these days it felt even emptier to Lucas, because now all his friends were gone too. His family was still here, of course, and his new classmates at Beaufort College and his coworkers at Green Tree Construction. And he still knew lots of people at Beaufort High who’d been sophomores and juniors when he was a senior.
But everyone who mattered was gone. All his closest friends. Alex.
“He works, like, all the time,” Alex told Farley. “Even if we were here, we’d never see him.”
Something in her tone struck Lucas as off, and he looked at her, trying to figure out why she sounded irritated with him. He did work a lot, but he didn’t see why she cared, since she wasn’t here anyway.
Or maybe he was just being defensive because he felt guilty for working the weekend after Thanksgiving, and for not liking the Christmas present she’d given him enough, and for not being happy she was spending all next summer in Dallas.
A year ago he would have known exactly what Alex was thinking. Now he had no idea. Alex wasn’t the same, now that she’d been away at college for a semester. Lucas had started to notice the differences gradually, first over the phone and then at Thanksgiving, but it was even more obvious tonight.
It wasn’t just that Alex had all these new friends she talked about constantly. She’d had experiences. College parties and bar crawls and concerts. She’d gone tubing in San Marcos and hiking at Enchanted Rock. She was obsessed with bands Lucas had never heard of and movies he’d never seen. The songs that had been her favorites in high school—their favorite songs—seemed to embarrass her now.
All of which was to be expected. That was what happened when people went off to college. It was part of the reason why they went off to college. To grow.
&nb
sp; But he hated that she was growing away from him. Even though Alex was standing right next to him, she seemed farther away than ever.
Out of your league, a voice whispered in the back of his head.
Lucas couldn’t help wondering if maybe he embarrassed her now too. If she rolled her eyes behind his back the way she’d rolled her eyes at the Train song she used to love.
Alex started telling Linh about her summer internship in Dallas, sounding a lot more excited than she’d sounded when she told Lucas about it in the car.
Lucas thought about a whole summer spent apart from Alex. Then he thought about three more years of hardly seeing each other at all until she’d finished college. And after she’d graduated, then what? Who knew what would happen? She might never come back to Beaufort at all, except for short visits at the holidays.
The two hundred miles between Beaufort and Austin might as well be a million. What were they even still doing together? What kind of future did he think they could have? Lucas would never leave the island, and Alex would never stay. It was an unsustainable situation.
Alex was a hot air balloon roaring to lift up into the sky, and Lucas was the bag of sand weighing her down. If he stayed tied to her, she might start to resent him, and he couldn’t stand the thought of that.
Did he really want to be the one holding her back from living the life she was meant to have?
“Come with me,” Lucas said when Linh finally wandered off to talk to Gabby. He felt sick to his stomach, but he didn’t let it show. He pretended to be confident and casual and certain about what he was doing—all the things he wasn’t.
“Why?” Alex asked. “Where?”
“Please.” Lucas held out his hand, and Alex took it.
He led her down to the edge of the water, where the sand was firm and wet, to the same spot where he’d first kissed her one year ago.
His eyes were burning, and he pulled her into his arms so she wouldn’t see. “I love you.”
Alex pulled away from him, frowning. “Why are you saying it like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like a guy in an action movie who’s about to die trying to save the world.”
Lucas took a deep breath. And then he said the thing he’d decided to say: “Because I think we should break up.”
This was the part where Alex was supposed to argue and tell him he was nuts. Assure him she didn’t want that and beg him never to suggest it again.
But she didn’t. She didn’t say anything at all.
He nodded slowly. “I’m going to assume from your silence that you agree.”
“Does that make me a bad person?”
“Of course not.” He was pretty sure he was the bad person for trying to hold on to her for so long. They should have had this conversation last summer instead of pretending everything wouldn’t change after Alex went to college.
“I do love you,” she said, sounding miserable.
“Sure. I know.” He didn’t know, not anymore. Maybe she still did, or maybe she was just saying it to be nice. Either way, it didn’t really matter.
“The distance thing is just too…” She shrugged helplessly. “We tried, but it’s time to let it go.”
“Yeah,” Lucas agreed. He was being very reasonable. So reasonable. No one would know that beneath his reasonable exterior he was bleeding internally.
“Our lives are just going in different directions. We’ve both got different priorities now, between your job and my school stuff. I just don’t see how there’s a future for us.”
“It’s okay,” Lucas said, wishing she’d stop talking now. “I get it.” He didn’t need her to explain why it was for the best. He knew. He even almost believed it.
He just didn’t care.
If she’d hesitated even the littlest bit, he would have taken it back and held on to her as tightly as he could for as long as she’d let him. He didn’t want to let her go. The only reason he was doing this was because he’d suspected it was what she wanted. If it was best for her, then he’d pretend it was best for him too, so she wouldn’t have to feel bad for wanting it.
He’d do that for her because he loved her. He’d do anything for her, even give her up.
Alex started to take off the earrings he’d given her. “I should give these back to you.”
Lucas shook his head. “Keep them.” At least this way she’d have something to remember him by.
“I can’t. It’s too much.”
“Friends give each other Christmas presents,” he said. “And we’re still friends, right?”
“Always.” She stepped into his arms and hugged him, hard.
His hands slipped over the planes of her back, trying to memorize the feel of her as he breathed her achingly familiar scent deep into his lungs.
“I’m sorry,” Alex said, pulling back to look up at him. “I wish it could be different.”
“I know.” Lucas cradled her face in his cold, numb fingers and leaned down slowly, so slowly, closing his eyes as his lips brushed hers.
Exactly one year after their first kiss, he kissed her for what was probably the last time.
Three
Alex
December 25, 2012
“You’ll need to put the leaf in the table and set three extra places,” Alex’s mother called from the kitchen.
Holiday dinners were serious business in the Bonner household, and Alex was in charge of setting the table. It was one of the few jobs her mother trusted her to perform after that time she’d nearly sliced her thumb off peeling potatoes. Her mother had not been pleased to have that year’s dinner ruined by an unplanned trip to the emergency room to have Alex’s thumb stitched up. By the time they’d gotten home, the turkey had shriveled up like a gym sock.
Nowadays, Alex’s younger sister Mia was the only one allowed in the kitchen during meal prep. Alex was exiled to the dining room, which suited her just fine. She much preferred arranging centerpieces, polishing silver, and folding napkins to being snapped at by her mother in the hot, hectic kitchen where the cooking was happening.
“Who’s coming this year?” Alex called back as she counted out seven dinner plates of her parents’ wedding china.
“The O’Haras,” her mother answered.
Alex set the stack of china plates on the table with a loud thump.
“Be careful with those!” her mother admonished from the next room.
Alex walked into the kitchen where her sister was chopping celery while her mother sautéed sausage for the dressing. “Why is he coming here?”
Her mother glanced up from the stove and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “Who?”
“Lucas, Mom. My ex-boyfriend.” Alex refused to look at her sister, who was probably smirking and enjoying this way too much.
“I invited the O’Haras to spend Christmas with us,” Alex’s mom said, as if that was a totally normal thing to do, inviting your daughter’s ex-boyfriend and his family to Christmas dinner.
“Why would you do that?” Her mother had never once invited the O’Haras to dinner when Alex and Lucas were dating and it might actually have been nice. Why the hell was she suddenly doing it now?
Her mother shrugged as she stirred the sausage. “I’ve been working with Patrick and Lucas on a renovation for one of my clients, and it’s their first Christmas since Elizabeth left. Patrick would never say anything, of course, but I know this year has been hard for them, and I just wanted them to have a nice Christmas dinner. Is that a crime?”
Alex was so distracted by the part about her mother working with Lucas and his father—since when?—that it took her a second to digest the most important piece of news. “Wait—what do you mean Mrs. O’Hara left?”
“I mean she packed up her things and took a job out in California somewhere.” Her mother’s lips pursed in disapproval. “Can you even imagine doing something like that? Just abandoning your children?”
“When?” Mrs. O’Hara had been Alex’s high sch
ool guidance counselor. It seemed absurd that she’d just up and left.
“Oh, it must have been at the end of the school year. June, I guess? Months ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Honestly, what was the point of having a gossipy mother if she wasn’t going to pass on vitally important intelligence like this?
“I thought you knew. Don’t you and Lucas talk anymore? You told me you were still friends.”
In theory, maybe. But in practice? Not so much. Alex hadn’t actually spoken to Lucas in a year.
It was weird to think about how close they used to be and now…nothing. He might as well be a stranger. His mother had left months ago and Alex hadn’t even known. That was how much they weren’t friends anymore.
And now he was coming here. To her house, for Christmas dinner.
This definitely wouldn’t be awkward at all.
Alex waited to come downstairs until the O’Haras were in the living room and her dad was offering them drinks. Lucas’s eyes alighted on her, then shifted quickly away as she shuffled forward to greet his father and younger brother, Theo.
Lucas looked older than the last time she’d seen him. He’d lost that gawky teenager look and filled out considerably. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, exposing startlingly muscular forearms that were hairier than Alex remembered. His jaw had squared up, his neck looked thick and strong inside the collar of his button-down shirt, and his hands were large and rough-looking as they accepted the bottle of Shiner beer her dad gave him.
She wondered how someone could change so much in just a year. Lucas wasn’t a boy anymore; he was a man.
A man who wouldn’t look Alex in the eye.
Even when she went over to say hi, his eyes fixed on a point somewhere to the left of her shoulder as he mumbled a greeting. She didn’t even rate a hug anymore.
She could have forced the issue, but his closed-off posture as he clutched his beer bottle sent a pretty clear message about how much physical contact he wanted from her. If he didn’t want to hug her, she wasn’t going to make a thing about it.