Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
I felt myself suck in a breath. Despite my anger at how he’d dumped me, how completely I’d been excised and then replaced in what I thought was my own life, I was worried for him.
Also—and maybe this should have concerned me more—Ben had left at some point.
I hadn’t even realized, I was so lost in my screen.
I skipped Speculator again tonight, and now everyone’s freaking out. It’s just a game. I’m tired of having to be the cruise director for, well, everything. Shit. Another boat reference. The truth: I wish we could go back a year, do it all again. I’d enjoy it more this time.
My voicemail alert was also sounding, one bouncy tone after another.
There were a bunch from people right after I’d chucked my phone, followed by some repeat attempts.
After that, again, it was all Colin. Weirdly: Most of them had begun in just the last day or two.
Just then, my phone rang in my hand. Welcome back, indeed. It was my dad.
“Was your new phone not working?” he asked over the recognizable sound of Will and Piper’s favorite music channel. He had to be driving.
“No, it is,” I told him. “I just now turned it on.”
“Oh,” he said, surprised. “Figured something had to be wrong. Since you didn’t do it, like, seconds after they handed it to you.”
Maybe I deserved this. But it still felt like a low blow. “I’ve actually liked not being so connected,” I told him. “Wasn’t in a huge rush to do it, honestly.”
“Really?” Did he have to sound so incredulous? Or maybe I was just being oversensitive. “Well, I never thought I’d say this, considering how much you were on it, but I’m glad. I wasn’t a fan of having little to no contact, as it turns out.”
I understood this. But also—with my mom, and now Colin—I’d learned the catch. Cut off from someone, there were always questions: where they were, what they were doing. In touch, though, inevitably you had access to the answers. Even if they weren’t the ones you wanted.
When we hung up, I went back to Colin’s voicemails. The most recent was from the night before. 12:34 a.m.
“Hey. Me again. Just out driving around. Did you know the Chicks fries are better at night? It’s true. Crispier.” I heard a turn signal, clicking. “So I’m thinking I might defer the U until spring.”
Wait, what?
“It’s just a semester, right? Time to pause, figure stuff out. Hey, maybe I could work at Chicks?”
Then he hung up. Like the emails, no closing. I just sat there, trying to process. Then I heard the door behind me. It was Jeremy, leaving with his plants. He gave me a wave as he passed by, smiling, and got into his car.
I looked inside. My mom was still at the table. A single pot sat in front of her. Sand plum. Somehow, I remembered.
As she put a finger to the foliage, touching it lightly, I saw movement in the kitchen.
It was Ben, unloading the few items he’d brought onto the countertop, pretty much what he’d been doing that night with the beers and the grapes.
Framed in the doorway, they were like two options.
Instead of choosing, I just went to my room.
“There you are,” Ben said that night when I showed up at the dock. He was sitting on an overturned crate. I noticed that for first time in a while, he held his guitar.
“You were expecting me not to show?” I replied, making a point to keep my voice light, joking. “I thought for sure we’d passed shame-reel status by now.”
He did not reply, just bent down over the strings, his hair falling to cover his face. I pulled up a crate opposite him—quietly, mindful of Clark above—pressing my feet against his. “So,” he said, strumming. “A lot people have been trying to reach you, huh?”
Of course he’d seen. My phone had been blowing up. “Yeah. Just because it had been so long. Nothing important.”
He nodded, then played a little more. Usually I loved to listen to him, but right then I felt impatient for him to kiss me. These were Daytime Us issues, necessary and practical. I wanted to be fully in nighttime now.
And the truth was I was a half hour past our usual time. Upon waking, I’d started looking at my phone, reading Colin’s messages over. It wasn’t missing him as much as feeling a sick fascination, seeing these particular tables so completely turned.
Now Ben did put his guitar on his other side, then turned to me. “Look. I’ve been thinking about the whole passionate-embrace-by-the-bus-pan idea.”
My shoulders, which I’d not realized were tensed, eased away from my ears. Like I was back in a country I knew, where I could speak the language. “So what were you picturing?”
“Well,” he said. “I—”
“Personally,” I continued, not exactly sure why I was cutting him off even as I did so, “I kind of like the idea of us suddenly just making out, while everyone else bustles around us with breakfast foods.”
“Maybe,” he said, in a markedly distant tone. I couldn’t miss it. I pressed on anyway.
“The best, though, would be more of a sweeping-me-off-my-feet kind of move. Preferably with some dishes being broken in the process. For optimum drama. Although I do worry about the mechanics.”
I’d given him the perfect opening. All he had to do was volley back. But he didn’t say anything.
“I mean, if you drop me, the whole thing just gets messy.” I was now very aware that I’d been the only one talking for a while. But somehow I couldn’t stop. “I mean, I’m good. But even I can’t pull off sexy with bacon stuck in my hair.”
Finally—mercifully, even to my own ears—I now shut up. Still the joke hung there, all the more noticeable because neither of us laughed.
“I’m being serious,” he said. Now he did lean in, taking my hand, folding his fingers around it. “I want—”
Chirp.
I froze. His hand, while still over mine, loosened. “Is that—did you?”
Chirp.
Fumbling, I reached around to my back pocket—the movement a muscle memory, as intuitive as taking a step to move forward—and pulled out my phone. I’d brought it without even realizing. Now the screen was lit up with a notification. New summer styles in! Use code HEATISON.
Just a stupid message. Meaning nothing. And yet, it was here, literally announcing itself, in this place that before had been solely ours. Where the only connection, other than Clark’s occasional half-awake complaints, was between us.
We sat there for a second after, there in the quiet that followed.
He’d never finished his thought. I’d said too much.
Just as I thought this, my phone, back in my pocket where I’d stuffed it after quickly setting it to silent, received another notification.
I could feel it even more once Ben slowly removed his hand from mine. Pulsing like another heartbeat, alive.