Beach House Rules

34. Iris Grown-Up Stuff

Iris Grown-Up Stuff

I’m just going to stay here with Chloe. Her parents probably won’t even notice I’m there , I thought as I ran, barefoot, down the rough wooden steps. I had pulled more than a few splinters out of the little kids’ feet from these steps. I knew I should be more careful. But all I could think about was getting away. I ran as fast as I could through the sand and over the dune, not looking where I was going, ignoring the threat of sandspurs and ghost crabs. “Iris!” Ben was calling behind me. “Iris, wait!”

But I didn’t stop until I reached the shoreline, until my feet, still running at top speed, splashed through the tiny waves. My pulse was pounding in my ears, my heart thumping.

“Geez, you’re fast,” Ben said, out of breath too.

I tried to half-smile at him, but it didn’t quite take.

“That was, um, a lot,” Ben said.

“You think?”

He put his arm around my shoulders. “I don’t want you to go.”

I looked up at him. “Well, do you think I want to go?”

I really didn’t, which kind of stunned me. How many times had I complained about how small it was here? About how I wanted to go back to the city with all its things to do and my original friends? I’d wanted to go back to my school. But now, at the mommune, I felt like I had a place. I felt like I was home.

“And what does this even mean? Is my mom just giving up on my dad? We’ve made it so far and—” I stopped abruptly.

“What?” Ben asked.

“I just have to prove my dad is innocent.”

Ben squeezed my shoulder. “Iris, I love this about you, but I don’t think that’s really your responsibility.”

I shot him a look and he said, “Or maybe you’ll be the one to save the day. If anyone can, it’s you.”

“Better answer,” I said. We both smiled.

“Well, maybe you won’t have to go,” Ben said. “Maybe your mom won’t do it because she sees how unhappy you are.”

I shook my head. “I mean, she’s right, you know? It’s totally possible that Dad could go to jail for a crime he did not commit. And we can’t stay here then. Sure, it was kind of cool to be here where everyone knew us and thought we were a big deal. But if he’s in jail, we need to be in a place where we can blend in a little better.”

Ben turned to me, taking my elbows in his hands. And my heart started pounding again. I was suddenly very aware of the cicadas humming, of the silvery moon over the ocean, of the sea oats waving in the breeze. All my senses were on high alert. Something was happening here.

“I don’t want you to leave,” Ben said quietly.

I couldn’t make eye contact with him. Because, oh my gosh, did Ben like me ? Did he want to be more than best friends? Did I? Sure, there’d been moments, plenty of them, when I wondered what it would be like to kiss him, to hold his hand. And, yes, his proximity was making my heart beat out of my chest. But I was sure that whatever was about to happen would guarantee that I lost my best friend. If I told him I didn’t like him like that, and he liked me like that, then we could never go back to just being friends. And if he tried to kiss me, and I didn’t kiss him back, our friendship was over. And if he kissed me and I kissed him back and I liked it, wouldn’t we just eventually break up and I’d lose him anyway? It was truly shocking how many thoughts a person could have in the span of a split second.

“Iris, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you,” he said.

Oh no, oh no, oh no . How did I make this stop? There was a slight, teeny chance, I was now realizing, that maybe I liked Ben too. But I couldn’t handle losing my best friend right now. But if I stopped him from saying what he wanted to say, wouldn’t that be nearly as bad?

“Hey,” Merit said, out of breath, running up to us, resting his hands on his knees and panting. There was a little bit of sweat breaking through his T-shirt. He straightened up and brushed his hair out of his eyes, and it was like angels started singing and the moon was only shining on him. Yes, I might like Ben. But no one on earth was Merit. “Iris, you can’t just run out like that.”

Ben was staring at Merit so intently that I wondered if he was trying to incinerate him.

“Hey, man,” Merit said, putting his hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Can we have a minute?”

Ben dropped my elbows and looked at me. I knew there was more going on here than met the eye. Ben was asking: Him or me?

“Sorry about all this,” I said as lightly as I could muster. “Bet you won’t come here for dinner again! I’ll call you later, okay?”

It sounded awkward, and only someone who knew him as well as I did would have noticed how Ben’s face fell, how I’d just answered the question lingering between us. I had basically said: Merit. I choose Merit .

It was crazy, because I knew Merit didn’t choose me. But as my mom always said, the heart wants what it wants; I don’t make the rules.

I watched Ben trudge up the sand toward the house. Merit sat down and patted for me to sit beside him. I did, so close that our hips were nearly touching.

He turned his head to me; I could see literally up his nose. It was clean, thank goodness. Although maybe it would have helped if he’d had a huge booger hanging out. But I think I still would have found him totally irresistible.

“Iris, do you know how lucky you are to have a mom like yours?”

I was taken aback. “Um, that was definitely not what I thought you were going to say.”

“Well, that’s what I am saying. I know we’re kind of just kids. But also, we’re old enough to know that our parents are real people, and these things affect them in a huge way. Maybe even more than us.”

“I’ve lost you,” I said.

“Look. You have your whole life ahead of you. You’ll go to college, and fall in love, and get married, and start a family—or not. I mean, whatever you want to do. I’m just saying, for example. But your mom has done all that and lost all of it.” He paused. “All of it but you.”

A knot formed low in my stomach, which was much less pleasant than the nice butterflies I’d had there for Merit earlier. “Okay, sure. Whatever. But I don’t want to move to New York. I want to stay here.”

“I want you to stay here too,” Merit said. That brought the butterflies back. “But you don’t need the mommune. You don’t need to be here. And you should take a lot of comfort in that.”

“Well, you don’t need the mommune either,” I said.

He shook his head and turned away from me, looking out over the water.

“What?” I asked. “You have a rich dad who sends you all the money you need and a mom who’s like Betty Crocker with a blog.”

He made that little snorting sound out of his nose that I loved. “Maybe now,” he said.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Nothing. Never mind.”

Curiosity rose in me. Why was Grace here? Her kids were half grown and she had plenty of money. I mean, the mommune was fun and all, but didn’t it kind of have an expiration date? “Merit, come on. We live in the same freaking house. You can’t just brush me off and pretend nothing’s happening.”

He turned toward me again, examining my face, as if trying to decide something. Then he looked back at the water, picking up little fingerfuls of sand and letting them dribble back onto the beach. “My mom wasn’t good after my dad left. She just… I don’t know, couldn’t get out of bed, couldn’t take care of us. If it wasn’t for Julie…” He shook his head, and I realized his eyes were shining.

He looked at me again. “Look, my whole life right now is about making sure my mom doesn’t get upset. Because when she gets upset, she hides. She becomes someone else. So my whole job and Emma’s whole job is to make sure she’s okay.”

“Merit, that is so much pressure.” Guilt swamped me. Here I was bitching about moving to New York, and Merit was dealing with, like, real, heavy, grown-up stuff. “So that’s how you got to the mommune then?”

He nodded. “Julie finally took Emma and me. It was months before she convinced my mom to move in too. Julie and Alice just kind of took care of us all that time. It was awful, but I know we’re lucky. We had this awesome place to go. And my mom is good now. She’s better.”

I shook my head. “Gosh, Merit. How do you do everything you do and have all that on you? I mean, you have good grades, you’re the star quarterback…” I trailed off.

He shrugged. “I know this sounds crazy, but for a while I think I thought if I could just be good enough, just be the best, that maybe my dad would come back and then my mom would be happy.”

Sadness washed over me. Who would have imagined that Juniper Shores Prep’s golden boy was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders?

“I realize now that that isn’t going to happen. But I still want to keep things perfect for my mom, just in case. I worry about her all the time.”

I patted his arm. “I guess I don’t worry about my mom enough.”

He shrugged. “It’s not your job. It’s not mine either. But here we are.”

“Being a good person is complicated,” I said, sighing heavily, somewhere between serious and joking.

Merit put his hand on my arm. “You are a good person. The best person.”

There they were again. Those explosive butterflies. Merit’s perfect, beautiful face was inches from mine. And I felt like he was testing the waters. He had said my name when he was hurt on the field. He had punched a judge for me. Those things had to mean something. I’m not impulsive by nature, so I don’t know what made me do it. But I leaned in and put my lips on his. I shifted my body toward him, putting my hand on the back of his neck. For a second or two, he kissed me back, and I felt like I was in heaven. So this was kissing. Not bad.

But then he pulled away and said, “Iris,” in a tone, with an expression on his face that made mine blazing hot. I had totally misread this. I jumped up, saying, “Oh my God. I’m so sorry.” Now, instead of running from the house, I was running toward it.

“Iris, stop!” Merit called.

I did not, but, unlike Ben, Merit was way faster than I was. He grabbed my arm. “Stop it right now,” he said.

“I’m such an idiot,” I said, humiliation coursing through every cell.

“No, you aren’t.”

“Of course I am. You have this super-hot older girlfriend, and even if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be into me. I’m just this little kid to you and—”

He put his palm to my mouth. “Stop talking.”

It should have been rude, but it wasn’t. It was Merit. It was soft and gentle and kind and made tears spring to my eyes.

“You are perfect,” he said, his hand still on my mouth. “It’s just that…” He paused for a second, then took a deep breath. “I’m going to say something, and I think it’s going to shock you.”

He stopped again, as if deciding, then dropped his hand from my mouth.

“Iris, can you keep a secret?”

I could feel my eyes widen, and my mind was racing. What could the secret possibly be? I nodded and whispered, “Duh. Beach house rules,” trying to sound cool even though I didn’t feel it.

Merit took a deep breath, then blurted out, “I’m gay.” He said it like he was trying on a sweater, and he wasn’t sure if the sweater fit and maybe he was going to send it back.

I rolled my eyes. “Please. You don’t have to go that far. You don’t have to lie. You can just not like me. I’ll live through it.” I looked up toward the sky. “I think.”

He shook his head, and I was filled with curiosity again. “No, I mean it. I’ve never said it out loud, but I’ve known for a long time.”

My mind flipped back to Sophie’s dumb friend insinuating that Merit wouldn’t have sex with her.

“Ohhhhhh,” I said. And then, “Wait. Really? You’re the star quarterback.”

He laughed. “Yeah. That doesn’t necessarily preclude me from being gay. I mean, in my limited experience.”

“Whoa.” I didn’t know how to feel. A little relieved, honestly, that I hadn’t made a total idiot out of myself. A little let down that the boy I thought was my great love could never love me back. But, most of all, proud that he had confided in me.

“So, your mom doesn’t know?”

He shook his head. “And, Iris, you may not tell your mom or Alice or anyone. I just trusted you with my biggest secret, and I do mean trusted . I will not be telling anyone else for a long, long time.”

“But why?” I asked. “They would all be fine with it.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. But I can’t risk that they won’t be and that my mom spirals again. Especially now if it’s true that Alice is moving in with Elliott and everything else is changing too.” He put his hands to my shoulders and looked me squarely in the eye. “I can’t move to Tokyo, Iris. I just can’t.”

We both laughed. I crossed my heart and said, “Your secret is safe with me.” I paused. “But… you know I’m kind of a pain in the ass. So we will revisit telling other people later.”

He laughed. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.” Then he groaned.

“What?”

“Please, please tell me that wasn’t your first kiss?”

I debated. Did I lie? But, I mean, he’d just come out to me . I scrunched my nose.

“Oh, Iris. I’m so sorry. That is awful.”

For a moment, I did feel deflated. But then I rallied. “Nope. It’s not bad. Because my first kiss was with the hottest junior guy in the school. I don’t ever have to mention the rest.”

“Good spin. I like it.” He paused. “Plus, I mean, it was kind of a good kiss, right?”

“It was a good kiss,” I agreed.

“If I was into girls, I would have been into it.”

I paused and gasped. “Wait. Is there a guy ? Do you like someone?”

He raised his eyebrows at me, and I gasped again. “There is! There’s a guy!”

“He doesn’t know I like him, and I wouldn’t, like, cheat on Sophie. But you know Chris from my third-period English class?”

My eyes went wide. “No way. He’s gay? How do I not know this? Does he like you too?”

Merit paused and put his hands lightly to his chest as if to say, Who wouldn’t like this?

“Right. You’re Merit McDonald. Even a straight man would be attracted to you.”

Merit laughed and put his arm around me, and we started walking toward the house.

“Wait, so that’s all I get? No details?”

“That’s a lot for one night, I think.”

I put my arm around his waist, my heart swelling with pride. “Wow. I’m so honored that you told me. Why me?”

He shrugged. “I’ve been wanting to tell someone for a long time, and I guess I knew that you wouldn’t judge me and that you could keep a secret.” He looked down at me. “Plus, I didn’t want you to feel bad like I didn’t like you.” He sighed. “Thanks, really, for being so great about that. You made it so easy.”

I leaned my head against his shoulder. “Okay. Well, I guess I’ll have to find another great love. You and I will just have to be best friends.” I stopped and squealed. “We can be like Will and Grace. We can live together and—”

“We do live together, psycho.” He paused. “And, um, I don’t know if you’ve found your great love. But I feel pretty sure your great love has found you.…”

I was puzzled for less than a second. Ben. “You think?” I asked.

“Any guy who wouldn’t leave you alone after that dinner deserves some sort of medal of honor,” he said. “Yeah, I’d say he’s pretty much in love with you.”

I bit my lip as we walked over the dune. “Damn,” I said. “If I admit I like him, I’m losing my best friend.”

“Nah. You just got a new one. Remember?”

That made me feel so much better. And for the first time, when I thought of Ben, I let myself realize that his crush wasn’t one-sided. I did like him. And maybe that wasn’t something to be afraid of. From the dune, the lights inside the mommune sparkled and shone, and you couldn’t help but wonder about the people who lived inside. No, not the people. The family. We might be dysfunctional, but, in this short period of time, we’d become one. I felt happy and lucky and warm inside. I didn’t want to leave. It broke my heart. But on a night as beautiful and clear as tonight, I couldn’t help but be filled with the hope—no, the knowing —that everything was going to be okay.