Chapter 14 #3
“I was ten! Ten-year-olds get bored easy. The boat was small, and I had a lot of energy. Give me a break.” He makes a huffing noise, and even without looking over, I know he’s rolling his eyes.
“Mm-hm.” Energy still seems to be something he has in surplus, and the boat is still small. I suppose we’ll see, if he does end up coming out on a trip, just how prone to boredom adult Ewan is.
“Your crew won’t mind if I tag along?” he asks, timidity creeping back into his voice.
This unexplained bashfulness sets my teeth on edge.
He’s starting to remind me of a kicked dog—so used to the treatment that he expects it from everyone.
The sunny daydream I had of his life in LA is starting to mold around the edges.
Maybe it wasn’t as great for him as I’d hoped it was.
“Of course not.” He hums a little noise of assent but doesn’t respond. I give it a moment, eyes firmly forward on the road, and tell him, “I’d like it if you came out with us.”
Another noise from his side of the cab, this one little more than an exhalation.
It sounds like relief, though. It sounds like a hallelujah-we-made-it-back-to-land after being caught out on the boat in a storm.
It sounds like I’m reading too far into a sigh and sliding back into the helpless state of infatuation I spent so many years in with Ewan.
He’s not staying, I remind myself. I can’t forget it.
“Okay. Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow, we aren’t hauling.” I laugh.
“Monday? Tuesday? Wednesday? Pick a day, and I’ll show up. First to arrive, last to leave.”
“All right, all right. Monday works. Honestly, whatever you want. It’s the offseason, as you know, so don’t be expecting anything too exciting,” I warn, glancing over at him in time to catch the shrug.
“I know. It’ll be nice to get back out on the water, though. I never went out on a boat or learned to surf while I was living in California.”
He keeps talking, but the words fade to a soft buzz.
While I was living in California sounds like he’s no longer living in California.
It sounds like a reference to the past and not a look toward the future.
He only vaguely answered the question about how long he’ll be in town any of the times I’ve asked, and so I’ve stopped asking.
I assumed that meant I wouldn’t like the answer, but maybe the reason is that he doesn’t have an exact answer.
Maybe he doesn’t know. Maybe there is a chance of him staying here.
I look over at him, watching his mouth move but still struggling to connect the words into sentences.
Maybe I should just ask him to stay, let him know he’s still wanted and welcome and desired.
If he knows he’s got the option of a home here, perhaps he won’t go running back to the one he left behind.
I nearly run a red light, I’m so caught up in my thoughts. Hitting the brakes a little harder than I should have needed to, the seat belts lock, and we’re both caught in the chests as we fall forward. I hold out a hand automatically, as though trying to protect Ewan.
“Sorry,” I apologize. Fuck, how embarrassing. Too caught up in daydreams of my friend to pay attention to the important task of driving.
“Light changed quick,” Ewan replies, adjusting the seat belt as it unlocks. It didn’t change quick, but I let it go and try to focus. I don’t even know what he was talking about since I wasn’t paying attention to that either.
The lighthouse, which has stood on the cliffs for a hundred years, sits at the top of a hill and offers only a handful of parking spaces in a gravel lot.
I park on the grass instead, leaving the spaces for those with tickets to the lighthouse.
I already know Ewan doesn’t have any, and laugh when he immediately confirms it.
“Shit,” he mumbles, eyeing the sign. “I forgot.”
“You forgot you can’t just show up unannounced and do a tour?”
He narrows his eyes at me, unclicking his seat belt. “They used to just let us in!”
“Yeah,” I agree on a laugh, popping my door open. “Because kids get to visit for free. I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you’re no longer thirteen.”
“Thankfully,” he mumbles, rounding the hood of the truck to meet me on the driver’s side. His eyes travel upward to mine from where he’d had them on my legs. I glance down, wondering for a second if I put on a dirty pair of jeans instead of clean.
“Want to walk?” Ewan asks and then sets off without waiting for a reply, hands tucked into the pocket of his hoodie.
I’m a step behind him and off his right shoulder as we walk, close enough for our elbows to bump.
I can’t seem to break myself any further out of his orbit, and frankly, I’m not interested in trying.
Everything is so much more vivid and lively with him here—the grass more green, the sea more blue, and the white bricks of the lighthouse clear enough to have been painted yesterday.
It’s like putting in a pair of contact lenses after living for years without.
We come to a stop near the cliff’s edge, and I rest a hand on the railing.
Next to me, Ewan stops close enough for me to be jostled by his arm when he raises it to snap a photo of the water.
The sea is choppy, the water moving in little waves of foam down below.
He leans over to look down at the rocks, and I stay right where I am, looking at him.
The wind is a little more forceful up here, pulling at my hair and sending Ewan’s dancing across his forehead. His face is sort of scrunched up, like he’s thinking hard. After a second of silent contemplation of the view, he says, “You need a puffin.”
I bury my teeth in my bottom lip, biting back the smile.
I love finding all the ways he’s similar to how I remember.
I feel like an archeologist, carefully brushing away the dirt and uncovering pieces of bone placed precisely where I knew they’d be.
Ewan’s mom used to tease that he was always a sentence or two ahead of the rest of us, spouting off things that made no sense to anyone but him.
“The puffins are here,” I tell him. “It’s April.”
“No—I mean, yes, you’re right—but I meant to go with Ed the lobster.”
“You’re right,” I agree, thinking of the wall I hung the canvas on, the evening of the day he gave it to me.
I put it on the wall that most often draws the eye in the living room, in full view of the couch and chair.
It’s a lot littler than the piece I had there previously—the wall too big for a single small canvas.
“Actually, I could stand to put three up, if you’ve got another in you. Maybe a…octopus or something.”
“An octopus.” Ewan laughs. “Well, I’ll try.”
“Maybe it’ll be your new niche.”
“Ah, yes, subpar drawings of animals by a washed-up painter. Everyone will be lining up.”
I raise my eyebrows and don’t return the smile he tacks on the end of that sentence.
Subpar and washed up both seem to be pretty harsh to me, but Ewan’s always been harder on himself than anyone else.
Head turned toward him, I catch movement in my periphery and glance over my shoulder.
Jake, the groundsman of the lighthouse, is walking toward us.
I lift a hand over my shoulder to let him know I see him.
“Incoming,” I warn Ewan. He looks back and sighs, probably getting sick of feeling like a sideshow for the villagers to fawn over.
“Hi, Shiloh. Ewan, good to see you.” Jake holds out a hand to Ewan, nodding at him as they shake.
Ewan mumbles a reply before stuffing his hands back into his pockets and scrunching up his shoulders like the wind is giving him a chill all of a sudden.
There’s so little fat on him, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that were the case.
Jake asks, “You guys here for the lighthouse?”
“Just taking in the view,” I correct. Ewan huffs, still annoyed at himself for forgetting to book ahead of time.
“Well, I just came from inside, and they’ve got the afternoon free. You should go in.”
I glance over at Ewan in time to watch a small smile pop into place. He really did want to revisit the lighthouse and was probably more bummed than he’d let on that we couldn’t. I nod at Jake.
“Thanks for the heads-up. We will.”
“Good to see you,” Ewan says, shifting his feet as Jake parts with a wave, strolling back toward the shed at the corner of the property.
Once he’s out of earshot, Ewan sighs. “It’s like meeting strangers for the first time, except worse because these strangers already know the worst things about me.
It feels like I’m trying to convince a jury I’m a good guy when they’ve already convicted me of murder. ”
I frown. “That seems excessive. You’ve been given a hard time?”
“No. Not at all.” He scowls, moving toward the lighthouse and forcing me to fall into step next to him or risk being left behind.
“Everyone is nice to my face, but I know they’re all whispering behind my back.
And the subtle digs are getting a little tiring.
‘We’d better catch up now, before you’re gone again!
’; ‘I only recognized you because of all the pictures on social media!’; ‘I was starting to wonder if I’d live to see Shiloh and Ewan causing trouble in Siren’s Point again! ’ I’m tired of it,” he repeats.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize people were bothering you.”