Beyond the Break

by Heather Buchta

  “Hey, I’m Brett. You must be the brother,” he says.

  Matt smiles and shakes his hand.

  “Don’t worry, though,” Brett adds, and I cringe, knowing a punch line is coming. “I didn’t believe any of it. I said, ‘Nah, I bet he’s a good guy.’”

  Matt laughs. “Surprised she even talked about me. If it’s bad, it’s probably true.”

  “Nah, nah, all good.”

  We fall into line, stuffing bags and cans into boxes. Brett and Matt start talking sports and basketball trades, which becomes white noise until I hear my name.

  “I don’t know, Lovette, what do you think?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Marvel or DC Comics?”

  I’m holding a can of yams, and it hovers above a box before the person next to me nudges me to drop it. “Aren’t they the same?”

  The guys tilt their chins down and crease their brows in unison. They frown like I’ve let them down at life.

  “How are we related?” my brother says.

  “Are you even saved?” Brett jokes, and for some reason, this gets the biggest laugh out of my brother.

  “Look,” I say, throwing a can into the next box. “If you said, peas or pea soup, sunrises or sunsets, Crest or Colgate, I’ve got you.”

  “Why would we care about toothpaste?” my brother says. Brett nods like they’re best buds.

  “You just gave me a choice between a fake thing or a fake thing!”

  “And you should know where you stand.”

  “Amen,” Brett adds.

  I laugh. “I swear comic-book people are so weird. Give me a real thing. Manchester United or Arsenal. Angels or Dodgers.”

  “Don’t you dare say Angels,” Matt says, throwing a pack of marshmallows at my head. “Okay, I’ve got one you can answer. Longboard or shortboard?”

  I glare at him. I know he’s hoping to catch me off guard. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Just asking what you like. Not what you ride.”

  He’s trying to imply that I’m being defensive, but I stay calm and say, “Longboards are designed to turn on their tails, whereas shortboards are more for rail-to-rail turns. So it would depend on what you’re looking to do.”

  Someone hollers, “That’s a wrap,” and it’s time to clean up, so I escape the conversation. Before we leave, Brett shakes Matt’s hand. “It’s good to finally meet the guy we prayed for. Glad to see you’re doing okay.”

  “Getting by. Thanks. Appreciate it.”

  There’s no awkwardness about Brett saying he prayed for him. How does Brett do that? Every time I mention God, Matt looks as if I’ve asked him to scratch his nails against a chalkboard for fun.

  * * *

  On the drive home, a text lights up on Matt’s phone. An email notification. He clicks on it, and I see the first line, but pretend like I don’t. Matt flips his phone over, then looks at me, but I turn my head out the window.

  He doesn’t have the music on, and we sit quietly for a few miles. I bet he’s wondering how much of the email I saw, but instead he says, “When you went to the bathroom before we left, I was talking to Brett about your new boyfriend.”

  I cough and shut my eyes. “You didn’t! Matt, I haven’t told him that Jake and I are dating.”

  “Well, he knew.”

  Did Jake already tell Brett about us? Weird. Brett didn’t lecture me or give me the disappointed Kelly look. He didn’t even act like he knew.

  Matt taps the steering wheel. “He says Jake’s been working with you out on the water.” My breath lodges in my throat. Before, Matt had no solid proof, other than sand in my hair and a chunk of wax in my room. Now he has my boyfriend and my pastor talking about it. “Says you’re getting pretty good at your rail-to-rail turns.” My brother’s voice has become a tightwire. “That true? You connecting them?”

  He waits for an answer. I gulp. “One or two.”

  “Impressive.” He doesn’t sound impressed. “I’m sure Mom and Dad would love to hear about that.”

  He’s not gonna pull a big-brother move like this. “It’s Thanksgiving.”

  “You can wait till tomorrow morning. But first thing.”

  “Fine,” I huff. “I’ll tell them. And while I’m at it, I’ll mention your email notification.” He looks at me, all bravado gone. “When were you planning on telling them?” I ask.

  He waits a beat. When he finally speaks, his voice is flat. “After Christmas. Once everything’s in order.”

  After Matt woke up from his coma, he was on medications to prevent seizures and blood coagulation. The doctor said air travel could lower his seizure threshold. It would be rare, but flying could initiate seizing. That was almost five years ago, but the “no fly” rule has stayed in effect.

  I don’t think our parents would appreciate seeing: Congratulations, your application has been officially accepted for next semester’s Study Abroad.

  “Don’t,” is all he says. “Not yet.”

  “Then don’t take away the one thing I love in life.”

  His eyes narrow. “The one thing you love? After Mom and Dad nearly divorced over it. After I almost—”

  “I loved it before all that happened.”

  He throws his head back and laughs with perfect big-brother mockery. “You only love it because Mom and Dad tell you not to.”

  “Not true!”

  “Oh, come on. You’ve always been that way. Mom put you in dance. You said you only wanted to surf. Dad signed you up for Girl Scouts. You quit. They told you to focus on school. You got a job. You never listen. You do what you want.”

  I can tell he’s just mad that he doesn’t have the upper hand, but still. “You’ve been away for three years. You have no idea who I am now.”

  “Oh, because you go to church now? Doing another thing so you can look better than us?”

  “That’s not why I go!”

  In our driveway, he slams on the brakes, and he’s out of the car before I can unbuckle my seatbelt. “Matt, please,” I say, running after him toward the front door. “I love surfing. It’s like . . .” I think for a second of how to put it. “A lifeline. I love it like the air I breathe. You don’t know what it’s done for me.”

  “Have you seen what it did to me?”

  “I’m not you! God built us differently.”

  “Damn straight.”

  He pushes open the door and whisks by my mother, who’s bringing a dish of cranberries to the dining-room table. She has earbuds in and so she doesn’t hear him when he adds, “Completely different.”

  I follow him, shouting, “And I’ve never been more thankful for that than I am right now!”

  Mom takes out her earbuds, figuring that’s the reason I’m shouting. She wipes her hands on her apron. “Are we sharing what we’re thankful for?”

  * * *

  Dad blesses the meal, thanking no one in particular, but saying that it’s good to have another healthy and happy year together. Mom and Dad look at Matt when they lift their glasses.

  As we eat, our parents are so consumed by the preparations and the togetherness that they’re oblivious to Matt and I steaming. We fill our cheeks with stuffing, cranberries, and turkey until there’s no way we could talk without choking.

  Mom tells us about her latest beachfront property that she’s decorating with blues and creams, and how the house has two washers and dryers. She waves a knife in the air before slicing her yam. “Two of each. Can you believe it?”

  Dad shares about the guy at Rotary who keeps ripping farts during the meetings.

  Mom covers her lips with one hand and shakes with laughter. “Doesn’t he get embarrassed?”

  Dad shovels green-bean casserole in his mouth and says, “He thinks they’re silent. Only thing worse than his gas is his hearing.”

  “Speaki
ng of hearing,” Mom says, sipping her pinot grigio, “did you hear from Jake? Is he having Thanksgiving with his aunt or down at the base?”

  I focus on my food. “Um, I don’t know. He’s been busy.”

  “Busy with another girl?” Matt knows it’s a mean thing to say. He smiles through his mouthful of mashed potatoes.

  “No,” I say, but it reminds me of how Jake minimized his screen in the library. “He’s working on college apps.”

  “Good for him,” Dad adds. “You can tell a military son from a mile away. Keeps the girls at bay until he gets his business done.”

  I cock my head to the side.

  Matt almost spits his drink. “Dad said girls. As in more than one.”

  “Just an expression, Matty,” Dad says, but chuckles along with him.

  * * *

  As we finish our meal and dig into our pumpkin pie, Mom says, “Why don’t we go around and share what we’re thankful for?”

  The rest of us groan, but Mom shakes a finger. “It’s not gonna kill you. I’ll start. I’m thankful for a job where I get to make people happy with my designs, a husband who is still handsome after twenty years of marriage . . . and maybe some bottles of wine.” They laugh like they’ve told that joke before. “My son who’s overcome so much, and my daughter who’s exploring a new season in her life”—and then whispers loudly—“with a boyfriend.”

  She winks at me when she says “new season,” and then Matt says, “Gross,” and Dad clears his throat. They’re all implying sex, which is weird upon weird, not to mention that I haven’t even kissed Jake.

  Dad changes the subject. “I’m thankful for a retirement that pays for smart kids like mine to go to college, so they can get rich and put me up in an old people’s home on a yacht someday.” He lifts his wine to Matt.

  Matt lifts his glass. “I’m thankful nobody in this family surfs anymore.”

  My parents laugh, and Mom says, “Good riddance!”

  Dad adds, “God, horrible sport. Even the culture when you step back and look at it.”

  I can’t believe my brother took a shot like that. I look down at my shaking hands. Mom says, “Lovette?”

  I lift my apple cider. “I’m thankful that Matt stays close to home for college, because he knows that Mom and Dad would both have seizures if he ever hopped on an airplane.”

  “Poor choice of words, Lovette,” Mom chides. “But yes. We’re grateful for in-state scholarships.”

  If Matt’s eyes were daggers, I’d be bleeding from multiple wounds.

  We toast and drink. My brother clears his plate to the kitchen, but Mom says, “Stop. Your father and I will take care of the dishes.”

  “Thanks,” he says. “May I be excused? I promised my girlfriend I’d call her.” He heads toward his room. “I’m not too busy for her.”

  “Next semester you might be!” I yell as he closes his bedroom door. I ignore my parents’ questioning looks and help them clear the table. They don’t stop me the way they stopped Matt.

  While overstuffing our dishwasher, I text Jake: What’s wrong?

  Happy Thanksgiving, he texts back.

  Really?

  What?

  I haven’t heard from you all day. Basically all week.

  Been busy.

  So you’ve said

  What’s that mean?

  WHAT’S GOING ON? I write in all caps and set my phone down to clean. I accidentally chip a wineglass as I rinse it in the sink. My finger bleeds, and I suck on it. My mouth tastes of blood and Palmolive. I spit into the sink, pink foam all over the dishes. Finally he responds.

  Nothing

  It took him that long to write nothing?

  He must be typing with his elbows, because I type with my uninjured hand faster: Over us so soon?

  There’s a long pause. Too long.

  Then: Why would you say that

  I write, Why didn’t you answer the question

  . . .

  I see the three dots. I know he’s writing. I wipe down the counters.

  . . .

  I start the dishwasher and return the china to the cabinet.

  . . .

  And then the dots disappear. He changed his mind. I rush up to my room, close the door, and flop onto my bed. So that’s it. Maybe the rules felt like too much. Maybe he wants to find someone more open to the things he used to have with Hannah. Kissing. Other things more than kissing. My heart feels hollowed out, but I have no tears. Part of me is a little angry. Why couldn’t he just come out and say it?

  Twenty minutes later, my body still a lifeless lump on my bed, I feel a buzz in my pocket.

  Come outside

  I take the stairs two at a time and run out the front door. His car is haphazardly parked in my driveway. He stands there, fists stuffed in his jeans pockets.

  I lower my eyes to the cracks in the pavement. “We’re breaking up, aren’t we?”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  He stiffens. “Why would you say that?”

  “Why won’t you answer the question?” I look at him, and the moment he sees the empty expression in my eyes, everything in him slackens.

  His hands come out of his pockets, and he closes the distance between us.

  He looks at me face-to-face, less than a surfboard fin apart. His eyes are pained with sincerity. “No. We’re not breaking up. That’s the last thing I wanna do right now.”

  I feel like I’ve had a surfboard leash wound up around my neck and shoulders, and it’s suddenly been untangled. As much as I fight to resist, two tears escape, fat and hot, crisscrossing down my cheeks. He brings his thumbs up to wipe them away, but a couple more follow.

  “Please don’t tell me these are because of me.”

  I sniff. “Not all of them.”

  He wipes the wet strands of hair out of my face and tucks them behind my ears.

  My body feels like an injury, limp and tired. “You didn’t text. You didn’t call. When I tried, it went straight to voicemail. You’re about to make all these big decisions about your future, and I don’t even know where you’re applying. You’re not walking me to class, you’re not sitting by me at lunch, and when I track you down at school, you minimize your screen like you don’t want me to see it. What am I supposed to think?”

  “You’re right,” he acknowledges. “I get it. I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

  A strange sound escapes my lips, like a staccato whimper. “You can’t retreat every time things get hard. I don’t know if this is how boyfriends work, but it felt better before I had one.”

  He drops his head.

  New tears leak out, and these ones I wipe away. “And then tonight, we all had to share what we were thankful for, and my parents were thankful for my brother, and my brother was thankful to throw me under the bus, and no one was really thankful for me—”

  He interrupts to mutter, “I’m thankful for you.”

  “No, stop, I’m not looking for affirmation. I’m fine. What I mean is—when I look at how they look at me, I’m pretty sure I’m the worst example ever for God. They think God’s a freak because of how I show Him.”

  “Whoa. Swim back to the shallow end. That’s not true.”

  “It feels true!”

  “Spoken like a true nonbeliever.”

  “Hey!”

  “Hey nothing. I thought as Christians we’re not supposed to rely on our feelings, because feelings can trick you. That whole verse in Jeremiah—the heart is a mess whatever whatever verse.”

  I crack a smile despite my tears. “‘The heart is deceitful above all things. Who can trust it?’”

  “Exactly. So when feelings get tricky, what do we rely on?”

  “The word of God.”

  “And what does the word of God say?”

  “That I’m
loved.”

  “Enough to die for.”

  I think of all the stuff he’s been going through and the ways he closes people off when he’s afraid to share. “Do you believe it? All the stuff you just said?”

  He lifts and drops one shoulder. Then the other. Separately. “Somewhat.” He cups his hands around my cheeks, and my knees wobble like a newborn deer’s. “But you do. And you make me believe it more.”

  He leans closer, his lips inches from mine, and my eyes widen but I don’t pull away. I can’t. He’s the first to realize, to shake himself out of his trance. He turns his face away and then nuzzles into my neck. His arms wrap around me, one across my shoulder blades and the other on the small of my back. My fingers trace his back, our stomachs pressed hard against each other like we can’t get close enough, and then I tighten my arms as if by doing so we can merge into one person. That’s how close I want to be to him.

  “You undo me,” he whispers into my ear.

  “I don’t know what that means,” I whisper back, and he laughs into my neck and the hot air feels like a million butterfly kisses. Goose bumps travel across my body like wildfire, rampant and uncontrolled. I steady myself by breathing in his scent. Still nothing like the books say—no Dove for Men or Snuggle dryer sheets—but it’s unmistakably better. Something undeniably “Jake” mixed with the freshness of a recent shower. “Can we stay like this forever?”

  I never imagined that the closeness of human touch could feel like this, like something that’s been inside you all along gets woken up, and you never knew it was sleeping.

  I think that’s what it was like with Jesus. How I didn’t know I was missing something until He came into my heart, and suddenly I was like, “Hey, I’ve been missing you all along.” It’s scary how similar the spiritual can be to the physical.

  That thought startles me, and I leap back from Jake.

  “Whoa!” he says. “What’s wrong?”

  Keeping a foot away from him is helpful. I shake my head from my drunken stupor and remember why he’s here tonight.