Chapter 28
28
NOW
I WOKE THE MORNING BEFORE the wedding to find my best friend beside me. For a moment, it felt as if the last three years had never happened—the graduation, the goodbye, the move, the mistakes, the distance I drove between us. It was as if I’d been given a second chance.
I pulled the comforter up to my chest and waited for the guilt to arrive. For the cruel voice, the me-but-not-me who pushed me to run away to New York in the first place. Who said, Cut them off, all of them, for their sakes. To protect them from who you really are. I waited, and I waited, and I waited, and while the guilt was there, while it still whispered to me that I was lying to Manuel, to myself, to everyone —it was oddly quiet. As if someone had turned down a volume knob inside my head.
I must have fallen back asleep, because some time later Manuel woke me with two fresh cups of coffee. I accepted mine and sat up, wiggling until my back rested comfortably against the porch wall. He scooted in next to me. I laid my head on his shoulder and together we watched the sun rise.
—
WHEN WE GOT TO SUNNY Sunday for breakfast, we found Mom flitting about the cabin, opening cabinets and talking to herself. “It’s fine! It’s perfect, actually! We don’t need electricity. Not really.”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“The power is out,” she said, opening the bathroom door and slamming it shut.
“That happens,” said Clarence from his perch in the circle of couches, “when your private island draws power from a thirty-year-old submarine cable.” He, Caleb, and Taz were gluing dried flowers to folded ceremony programs. I grinned openly at the sight of my three adult brothers doing arts and crafts together.
“Yes,” said Mom. “But it doesn’t usually happen the day before your son’s wedding , when you’re supposed to be getting everything on the island absolutely perfect .”
“Mom, relax,” said Karma, laying a hand on her shoulder to still her frantic search for nothing. “This happens all the time. Remember last year, after the storm? It’ll come back on in an hour or two.”
“Exactly, exactly, exactly, exactly,” she said, two exactly s past reasonable.
Manuel and I glanced at each other and suppressed a smile.
“You two seem awfully cheerful,” said Karma, raising an eyebrow.
Clarence stood from the couch and walked over. “You really do. Speaking of.” He poked Manuel. “We missed you in Tangled Blue last night. It’s just not the same without…”
I stepped on Clarence’s toes as hard as I could.
“Ow.”
“What happened?” asked Mom.
Clarence grinned. “Just stubbed my toe, Wendy. That’s all.”
I cracked open the fridge to grab coffee grounds but jumped when Mom yelled, “Stop!” and I slammed it shut, looking wildly about, afraid I’d just run her foot over with the door. But no. “Keep it closed , Eliot. If the power doesn’t come back on, we need that cold air to last as long as possible. Every time you open the door, you let more out.”
I glanced at Manuel, who widened his eyes dramatically.
“Is everything all right?” asked Pam when she and Tim walked into Sunny Sunday.
At the sight of our future in-laws, some switch controlling both volume and happiness seemed to short-circuit inside my mother’s brain. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Yes, yes, yes ! Nothing to worry about! Nothing at all!”
“Would the lovebirds like some breakfast?” asked Karma. She didn’t specify which lovebirds she was referring to, but Manuel and I both automatically looked over. We noticed our mistake at the same time, our faces reddening. Karma watched all of this unfold with a grin stretching wider and wider.
Heads down, faces hidden, we accepted scrambled eggs from my sister and paired them with buttered toast. After stuffing the sandwiches into our mouths, we tried to escape out the back door, but Karma stopped us.
“You two skipped out on dishes last night,” she said, pointing at the sink full of egg-spattered pots and pans. “Get to work.”
At the sink, we worked in silence, hands sunk in the warm, soapy water. To stand next to Manuel and communicate in that wordless way that comes so naturally to us—it was nice. Too nice. I’m ashamed to admit how much I relished it. How much I relished the entire day. How I soaked up his presence, letting it cleanse my body the way bubbles cleanse a plate, washing away the grime crusted to its surface. It wasn’t right. A plate is dirtied through no fault of its own, from food and sauces and humanity’s sundry backwash. A plate deserves to be cleansed. The same cannot be said of me.
But I gave in, just for a little. Just this once.
—
“AND YOU’RE SURE SPEEDY WON’T mind us taking it out?” Manuel asked for the fifth time.
“Positive,” I said, untying the knot on the MasterCraft’s stern. “We both had the same boating lessons growing up, Manny. We learned to drive in this exact boat.”
“Which is ridiculous, because the ski boat is the fastest on the island.”
I shrugged, tossing the rope up onto the dock. “We were thirteen. We weren’t exactly at risk of abusing it. We didn’t even know what joyriding was .”
“Speak for yourself.”
“Ohhh, that’s right.” I clapped, sinking into the driver’s seat and switching on the ignition. “I forgot about your little excursions back in Colombia.”
“Shhh.” Manuel glanced around frantically. “I told you that in confidence, Beck.”
“No one is around to hear us, dummy.”
“Che and Juli have ears everywhere.”
I switched the boat into reverse and backed out of the slip. “You’re even more paranoid than I remembered.”
“You would be, too, if you used to steal your parents’ most expensive car at nine years old and whip it through the streets of Bogotá.”
“Who says I didn’t?”
“Well, considering you’ve never even been to Colombia—”
I turned around, throwing a pair of ski gloves at his head. “Only because you’ve never invited me!”
Laughing, Manuel batted the gloves away. I swiveled back around in the chair, easing the boat into forward and guiding us out of the boathouse and into the harbor. This early in the morning, wind was almost nonexistent. We glided atop the glassy water, our boat’s wake the only ripple for miles.
“Where are we headed?” Manuel asked.
“Anywhere.”
“Excellent. Mind if I drive, then?”
I slid my sunglasses down the bridge of my nose, eyeing him over their top. “You? Mr.Grand Theft Auto?”
He rolled his eyes. “Yes, me . The boy who learned how to drive this boat at exactly the same time that you did.”
“Fair enough.”
I hoisted myself out of the pilot’s chair and flopped into the rear-facing spotter’s seat, next to Manny. My thigh landed right beside his, grazing his skin on the way down. Both of our eyes darted down to look at the place where our bodies connected, then back up to each other. Manuel grinned. He squeezed my kneecap, then swung himself into the driver’s seat.
“ Cuídate, amor ,” he said, edging the throttle forward. “This boat is about to fly.”
A thrill of nerves shot through my chest. I gripped the glass barrier that shields passengers from the wind. Then Manuel shoved the throttle all the way to the dashboard, and the boat took off at full tilt, bow aimed for the wide channel between the two nearest islands. I craned my neck to look at the speedometer: twenty-five miles per hour, thirty-five, forty, fifty…
“Whoa, there, killer,” I yelled over the roaring engine. “If you were sick of my family, you could have just told me. No need for the high-speed getaway.”
Manuel laughed, a sound I couldn’t hear but desperately wished I could. “I could never get sick of your family, Beck.”
“Say that again after Clarence and Caleb have had enough whiskey to start fighting over who has the more expansive wine collection.”
“It wouldn’t be a Beck family event without a few relationship-ending fights, would it?”
I grinned. “No, I suppose it wouldn’t.”
Manuel smiled. The wind whipped through his hair, pushing his wild curls flat to his head, revealing the full breadth of his handsome face—the tan forehead, the sloped nose, the long sculpted jawline. The sight made it feel as if there weren’t enough air in the world to ever fill my lungs all the way to the top.
The ski boat sped across the glassy water, straight down the middle of the channel. There was no land for a hundred feet to either side, no rocks or hidden shoals. We could just fly.
I spun around on the spotter’s seat, squatting on my knees. I rested my hands on the console. Then I pushed myself up until my head and shoulders were above the windshield. My hair whipped backward, flapping behind me like a proud flag.
“What are you doing?” Manuel yelled.
“I want to feel the wind!”
Manuel laughed. He didn’t ease up on the throttle, just kept speeding forward. I lifted my hands and thrust them out to either side. My fingers spread wide, air rushing past every knuckle and nail, every delicate inch of skin. I was light as a feather. I could take off and fly. I opened my mouth and yelled as loud as I could.
—
AT THE END OF OUR joyride, we drifted back into the boathouse. We chattered to each other, laughing about things from our past, happy things, things I’d almost forgotten. It had been so long since I’d allowed myself to think about the past at all, but being back here, being with him…it was different. It had opened up a door that I forgot existed.
“Do you have any trips to Bogotá planned for this year?” I asked as Manuel tossed me the stern line to tie up.
“I do. This winter.” His eyebrows raised as he grabbed the bowline and hopped up onto the dock. “Why? You looking for an invitation?”
“No, no,” I said quickly. “Just curious.”
“Oh, come on, Beck.” He grinned, caramel eyes glinting. “That’s the second time you’ve brought it up this morning. Clearly you want to go.”
“I didn’t—”
“Besides.” He bent over, looping the rope around the silver cleat. “We’ve been friends for over a decade. I think you’re long overdue for a visit to the homeland.”
I stayed quiet as I worked on the stern line. This should have been the point at which I deflected or made up an excuse or changed the subject altogether. I waited for the impulse to arrive. To drag me back to reality.
Only—
Only, was that the reality? My guilt, my fear, my need to stay away from him—for so long, I thought I was doing the right thing. That I was protecting him from the horrible truth of me. But as I stood there, bent over the cleat, I realized something: I had gone two full hours without any of that. My head was clear. As if being around him was not only okay, it was right .
I blinked.
The rope fell limp in my hands.
“The moths,” I whispered. “I can’t hear their wings.”
Manuel finished tying the bowline and looked up. “What was that?”
I lifted my head. “Nothing,” I said, smiling. “Nothing at all.”