Chapter 4 #3
Things didn’t seem too bad at first as we started down the street — more fallen trees and debris strewn everywhere, but the houses were mostly intact. I started to wonder if we had all been spared the worst of it. But when we reached the base of the hill, Cole drew in his breath sharply.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
The bay had completely spilled over its banks, and it was now nearly impossible to tell where the water was supposed to end and the town was supposed to begin.
There were half-submerged cars as far as we could see, speedboats washed up onto lawns, the water rippling in the light breeze.
Off to our left stood the Rusty Harpoon, flooded up to the first floor windows, the sign outside still advertising the surf and turf special.
We picked our way along the ridge above the water line, neither one of us saying much. When we reached Route 36, we saw other knots of people standing in the roadway, two or three at a time, looking just as shellshocked as we felt.
But it wasn’t until we reached the other side of the highway that we really understood.
Water, as far as we could see. Every house, every store, every restaurant was partially submerged, muddy lines along the exterior walls telling the tale of an even greater storm surge.
Boats were piled up everywhere we looked, the entire marina washed ashore.
And refuse eddying in the muddy water, the detritus of hundreds of lives, forever changed.
I barely knew that I was putting both hands to my mouth, that I was shaking. Beside me, Cole was crossing his arms over his chest, hugging himself tightly.
“Most of the kids we know live down there,” he said, and his voice was high and tight. “We have to do something to help.”
Gritty pavement under my feet. Foul air in my lungs, the sour stench of seawater and raw sewage. A lifetime of memories, sunk beneath the water.
I had thought my childhood ended the day Mom died. But the rest of my life — everything that was to come after — would begin with this.
***
“I’m not — no, I won’t — I’m not leaving her!
” Cole burst out. He was standing on the porch of his grandmother’s house, one hand chopping the air for emphasis as he pressed the phone to his ear.
“You don’t know what it’s like down here — she needs me, and she actually cares about me, which is more than I can say for —”
He paused to listen, and when he noticed me standing at the base of the stairs, he held up a finger for me to wait. “Well, you should have thought of that before you sent me down here — yeah, I really don’t care. I have to go.”
When he hung up the phone, he stared at the screen for a moment, a frown knotting his brows. Then he shoved it back in his pocket, and when he lifted his head to look at me, he was all sunshine once more. “Hey, Ezra! Ready to go?”
“Sure, let’s do it.” We started up the hill together, falling into step as we walked. “So, what was that about?”
Cole shrugged. “Parent stuff — you know.”
I’m shit at emotions, but even I can spot an I don’t want to talk about it wall a mile away, so I kept my mouth shut, leaving Cole to his thoughts as we trudged along. He would come around when he was ready.
It had been an exhausting couple of days.
For the first day or so after the storm, there wasn’t all that much to do.
But as the floodwaters receded, the families who had evacuated began to trickle back into town, and the full extent of the damage Sandy had caused became clear.
Dad was putting in fourteen-hour days with his crew, out amidst the wreckage from dawn until dusk, assessing one ruined house after another.
Meanwhile, Cole and I had taken to gathering up a few tools at our respective homes, and then riding our bikes down into the mess to help in any way that we could.
We shoveled piles of sand out of stores and restaurants, carried sodden garbage out of ruined homes, and picked up refuse on the streets.
Cole’s grandmother was constantly preparing food, dishes that would be easy to eat and reheat, and we delivered the meals to families who needed them.
And as we did it, we got to know each other better, and learned to work as a team.
That queasy feeling that had turned my stomach upside down every time I looked at Cole began to shift into something warm and comforting, something that sustained me, that kept me going even if I didn’t have the words to name it.
It was just easy being around Cole. And I could tell I wasn’t the only person who thought so.
Wherever we went, people opened up to him.
There was our classmate Tyler, who had always been pretty standoffish with me.
But one afternoon, while we were helping him throw away several lifetimes in his family’s garage, he burst into tears and let Cole hug him while he sobbed.
And he wasn’t the only one — neighbors I had seen in passing every day since I was a kid were suddenly telling Cole their whole life stories, and he seemed to know just the right questions to ask to keep a person going.
And somehow they seemed to like me more, purely by association, as Cole’s natural light could brighten even my dark corners.
On this particular day, we were headed up the hill to the high school.
It had been serving as a temporary shelter since the storm, with whole families sleeping on cots in the gym.
The cafeteria, meanwhile, had been converted into something of a command center for donations to provide those who had lost everything with basic necessities.
When we pushed open the doors, the room was bustling with activity, and Courtney was in the center of all of it, consulting a clipboard as she issued orders.
Cole made a beeline for her. “Hey, is there anything we can do to help?”
Courtney had to crane her neck to look at him, and I noticed the flush on her cheeks. “Oh — hey! We just had a couple of vans pull up in the parking lot with some new donations. Could you two help unload them?”
“Sure thing! Is there anything in particular we should do with them?”
“See Melissa over there?” Courtney pointed across the room. “She’s handling the sorting, so start with her and she’ll tell you what needs to be done.”
As we started out toward the parking lot, Courtney called after me.
“Hey, Ezra?” When I turned, she gave me an unexpectedly dazzling smile. “Thanks.”
Hours later, I was dead on my feet, my ears buzzing from the constant chatter in the cafeteria and the noise from the battery-operated radio.
Cole was over in the corner, goofing off with a couple of the guys from our class, and I decided to let him be while I headed outside for some air.
When I stepped out underneath the gray afternoon sky, I spotted Hannah sitting on the grass a little bit away from the entrance.
She was hugging her knees, her stick-straight black hair falling in a curtain over her face.
I took a deep breath and went to sit beside her.
“Oh — hi, Ezra.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and gave me a watery smile.
“Um.” I tried to think of what Cole would do if he were sitting in my place. “You okay?”
“Not really.” She rested her cheek on her knee, and I tried waiting it out.
I didn’t know what to say, exactly — but maybe that wasn’t the worst thing, because after a moment she spoke again.
“My mom’s house — it’s pretty much wrecked.
All our stuff is gone, and we’re pretty much going to have to gut the house and start over.
And I come up here, and I try to keep busy, but — sometimes it all comes back and hits me, you know? And I just lose it.”
I stared down at my lap, picking at the grass next to my crossed legs. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
She looked at me sharply, and then her eyes widened. “Shit, Ezra, of course you would. And here I am crying about stuff to you, when you had your mom — You must think I’m so stupid and selfish —”
“No, of course not —” I said quickly. I was getting out of my depth. “I mean — we all have stuff we’re sad about. It’s not a competition.”
“I guess not.”
The silence was heavy, and I thought of Cole once again, and how easy this was for him. I cleared my throat. “Um — would a hug help?”
She laughed, shaking back her hair to look up at my face. “It might!”
I held out my arm to drape it over her shoulder, and she curled up against me. I guess I did learn this, with everything that happened with my mom — that sometimes words aren’t the most important thing.
***
About a week after the storm, I woke to a resounding THUD against my bedroom window.
“The fuck?” I reached for the window latch and threw open the sash, squinting in the bright sunlight.
Cole was standing in my backyard in a field of freshly-fallen snow, a red knit cap on his head, a second snowball in his gloved hands. “Can Ezra come out to play?” he shouted.
“Just give me a sec —”
I banged the window shut and nearly fell out of bed as I reached for a pair of jeans, a warm sweater, thick socks —
It took me just a minute to throw everything on, and then I was thundering down the stairs, grabbing my coat and zipping it up as I headed for the back door. When I opened it up, Cole was at the base of the stairs, winding up to toss his snowball at me. I flinched, crossing my arms over my face.
“Wait —”
He stopped, hand paused in midair. “Why? Not a fan?”
“Not really.” I took the stairs cautiously to join him. “I dunno, it’s just — a surprise? And wet. It makes me jumpy and I’m not big on that.”
Cole studied my face for a moment, then broke into a grin, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he tossed the snowball behind him. “Stupid idea, really. Want to build a snowman instead?”
I kicked the snow at my feet. “There’s barely enough snow here for a snow baby, let alone a snowman.”
“I don’t care! Come on, you’re doing it —”
What can I say? Cole was infectious, and I couldn’t resist him.
I followed him to the front of the house, shaking my head as he cackled, but I did what I was told.
It took us half an hour and pretty much all the snow in the yard, but finally we were standing beside an icy creature with sticks for arms and rocks for eyes, covered in bits of grass and streaked with mud.
I brushed the snow off my gloves and crossed my arms. “It looks like a dirty snow penis.”
Cole threw back his head and laughed. “Have a lot of experience rating penises, do you?”
I didn’t know why I was blushing so hard. “I mean, I have one,” I grumbled, but that only made Cole laugh harder.
As we headed back around the house to the back door, I looked over at Cole. “You know, you’re different from what I expected,” I blurted.
He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Different, how? What did you think I would be like?”
“I dunno.” I knew I was in dangerous territory, warning lights flashing all around me, but I forged ahead. “You just seemed — um, cool. Good-looking. And I’m — me. I just — never thought we would be friends, I guess.”
What was I doing? I knew I was being dumb. But Cole was blushing too, leaning against the rear wall of the house as he peered into my face. His eyes flicked down to my mouth, and for a split second I thought — butterfly wings battering against my ribcage —
But then he was turning, wrenching open the back door with a laugh and ushering me inside. “You think I’m good-looking?” he cackled.
“I mean, you know you’re —” I pushed my way past him. “You’re a nightmare, you know that?”
“That’s what my dad says,” Cole quipped, and we headed into the kitchen to warm up.
***
“Ezra, are you home?” Cole called from the kitchen.
“In here!” I was sprawled on the couch in the living room, reading a book in the fading afternoon light.
There was a bit of fumbling in the kitchen, and then I heard Cole’s footsteps echoing through the house. When he walked into the living room, I swung my legs to the side to make room for him to sit down.
“I just came to charge my phone,” he explained, and pulled out his sketchbook and pencils, settling on the other end of the couch. We had been without power for nine days and out of school for almost two weeks, and even I was starting to get restless.
“Mmhmm,” I replied, and turned the page, completely engrossed.
We sat there for about five minutes, no sound but the scratching of Cole’s pencil and the occasional crinkle of a page turning. Then, Cole sighed dramatically.
“You know, you’re hogging all the good light,” he pouted.
I lifted an eyebrow. “You can come over here and share it if you want.”
With a great deal of huffing and muttering, Cole reoriented himself, nestling against my side and nearly shoving me out of my seat in the process. When he was finally settled, I laughed, draping my arm along the back of the couch.
“You’re like a fucking cat,” I teased, and he hissed playfully.
I tried to go back to my book, but with Cole so close, I found my eyes drifting to the crown of his head, lingering over the fine blond hairs there, listening to the sound of his breathing.
He must have felt me looking at him, because after a minute, he tilted his head back against my shoulder, his blue eyes seeking mine.
“Hey, Ezra, I was thinking about school next week.”
“Yeah?” My voice was light, but I could feel the tension settling over my shoulders. Of course, what we were doing was too good to last, and Cole would want to go back to the way things were before the storm.
“You ride your bike, right?” When I nodded, he went on. “I was wondering — would you want to stop by for me in the morning? So that we could head up together?”
Something like relief flooded through my body, and something else too, something warmer. “Oh! Um — yeah, I guess I could do that.”
“Good.”
We settled into silence once more, but even as the sun sank lower in the sky, wrapping us in darkness, the air shimmered gold in my mind.