CHAPTER TEN #2
Penn looked around, then shrugged. “I’ve definitely been here. But nothing specific is coming to mind.” He cocked his head at me. “What’s your favorite place to visit? Or the best trip you’ve ever been on?”
“What?” I asked.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound like an essay-writing prompt.” His smile went small and shy as he leaned in. “It’s just, maybe if you tell me about your adventures, I’ll remember mine.”
Red heat spilled across my face at the sudden closeness of him. My stomach gave a little pitch of surprise, and I rocked back onto one heel. “I haven’t had many adventures. I told you, I’ve never even had a real summer vacation.”
“Sounds like there’s something more behind that,” he pressed.
I whittled the inside of my lip between my teeth. “You haven’t remembered anything yet, and you could literally vanish at any moment. But you want to dig into my past?”
“I do, actually. If anything, I could make a new memory here.”
Three second-hand ticks before I said, “But wouldn’t hearing about my life make things awkward? I don’t want to make you feel bad.”
“By rubbing it in that you have a future and I don’t? Is that what you’re getting at?”
I winced, abashed.
“Get the list out,” he said. “Where’s your brown book?”
It took me a second to catch up, but I did as he asked. I pulled the notebook from the small backpack I dangled from one shoulder, along with another kind of pen, with blue ink.
“Good,” he said. “Since this is my book, I get to add a list item.” He held up one finger. “Penn has zero FOMO about Sylvie’s very real and present life. Penn hearing about Sylvie from Los Angeles, and who she is, doesn’t make him sad or jealous. Write it.”
I did, relenting. Penn leaned in and checked over my entry. His smile skipped across my face, then over the watercolor landscape. The wind paused, and the birds settled, and no one else was around.
“This place deserves a story. Tell me one about you.”
“Fine.” I made a big show out of winging the notebook open like it was a novel plucked from a bookshelf.
“Once upon a time, there was a Cuban-born ship captain who moved from Miami to LA after high school. He married another Miami Cuban, and they eventually had one daughter while he worked his way up the ranks of the luxury yacht circuit and his wife joined in. Forward thirteen years, blah, blah, blah. We have the girl’s parents gone for months, again, and postgrad her stuck with her aunt.
Again.” I made an absent gesture. “Same old life, with some added Oregon scenery, plus one notable discovery no one would believe.” I shut my fake book. “The end.”
The ghost was silent for so long, my fingers began to twitch. His head bent low, eyes trained on the old bridge planks. “Sylvie.”
“You’re the one who asked for a story,” I argued.
“Yeah, and I got a generic AI summary. I want to know about you. And before you go off about us not having enough time for that, I don’t care. Waste my time. Use it all up. It’s all I have now.”
A sharp stab of guilt made me want to sink into the water below us for real, but he was asking for more than seeing my doodles in a notebook. “I’m just not used to . . . this. I’ve always done better by letting stuff go and not . . .”
“Talking.”
“Sharing,” I said.
“That’s going to be a problem, then.”
“How?” I blurted. “I said I’d help you, and I am.”
“Why should I believe your intentions if I’m never allowed to really know you?
” When my mouth dropped open, he added, “The day we met, you worried I’d do all sorts of scary ghost things.
How do I know you’re not some lying, peanut butter–obsessed sociopath who’s just toying with me for some cheap summer thrills?
For all I know, you could be the nightmare. ”
“Seriously,” I said. “You’re not playing fair.”
He swept his hand along his ghostly form, head to toe. “Why start now?”
Oh, I wanted to throw my shoe straight through his middle. I wanted to shut my eyes or plug my ears or run, run, run. But why did I also want to laugh with my whole chest, and slow-clap him silly, and say everything, everything?
“Okay. Real talk,” I said. Cleared my throat. “Remembering is hard for me—painful. It’s easier to keep moving forward.”
“Remembering is hard for me too,” he said. “But I can’t move on at all unless I do.”
There it was again, that pavement scrape of forever. Of eternity.
“What am I gonna do, Syl? Tell your secrets to the moon? Gossip with the stars about you?”
The moment stilled and something fissured. A tiny crack bled open, and I started my story for real this time.
It was easier to lead with concrete details, like the parts about my dad catching the attention of Michail Angelopoulos, and how the billionaire shipping mogul paid almost double the going rate to have my parents pilot and manage the Mercury.
The fact that this superyacht came with a seven-hundred-million-dollar price tag and was named after the smallest planet. But it was still a planet.
“That’s some creative irony,” Penn said when I paused to sip from the water bottle I’d packed. “And you’ve never seen it in real life?”
“Only from pictures and FaceTime videos.” I replaced the bottle in my backpack and filled him in on my parents’ past excuses, my health history and recurring headaches. Finally, my parents’ choice to snatch away my chance to see the Mercury because of fear of a PCS relapse.
“Talk about a massive letdown,” he said. “I’m really sorry.”
I held on to the word. Couldn’t remember the last time I’d been at the end of it.
“Thanks. I never used to think of myself as curious—at least, not like you are. But I’ve always been curious about this thing that was worth leaving me behind for.
My parents always said the money was too good to pass up, and that it was all for me in the end.
To pay for my education, our house. For that I’m grateful.
But I still don’t get . . .” I trailed off as my next words halted on the edge of my tongue. “I’ve never told anyone this part.”
“It’s okay to tell me I haven’t earned it yet,” he said. “On the other hand, I could make the case that I’m not like anyone you’ve ever met. I’m barely even here.” He sailed his hand right through my arm, as if to prove his point.
“My level of irritation suggests otherwise.” When his mouth ticked playfully, I went on. “It’s just . . . saying it makes it real.”
His brow dropped low. “But not saying it doesn’t make it go away.”
“Fine, but it does make it easier to ignore.” Penn didn’t waver; instead he watched silently until I broke.
“The sea does something to my parents. When they’re on the Mercury, they get along.
Their FaceTimes show totally different people—peaceful, content—as if there’s some magic Mediterranean potion putting them under a spell.
Then they go back to their passive-aggressive shit and cold shoulders as soon as they return to LA.
” I crossed my arms tight over my chest, angling away. “As soon as they return to me.”
He stepped into my sight line, features solemn. “I’m s—”
“No more ‘sorry’s. Please?” I breathed deeply, over and over, blanking out the sting of my confession.
Don’t care, don’t hurt. “It’s not like I had a terrible childhood or anything.
We’ve traveled a little together, usually to visit relatives.
And they were there for me when they could be.
But besides the summer, my parents could be called to Europe anytime during the year with only a couple weeks’ notice. ”
“So they missed a lot,” Penn noted.
“Exactly. And they chose to miss it. To miss me. And then when they were home . . .” I peered at the once-white laces on my Chucks.
Oregon had made them dingy. “It’s like they have this other, better life without me, and I’m just in their way.
But instead of letting me find my best life, they restrict me as much as I seem to restrict them.
You’d think my parents would’ve wanted me to have some adventures too. ”
I met Penn’s gaze, finding a smirk instead of sympathy.
“What now?” I asked.
“You said you changed your mind about helping me because I could be an adventure. How am I doing so far?”
I swallowed hard, wanting to say that if adventures made you feel spontaneous, and a little dizzy, and a wonderful kind of uncomfortable, then he was nailing it.
I lost my chance when Penn stepped back abruptly. His left hand cupped around the back of his head, deep waves of hair threading into his fingers.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
There was a long pause where he ducked his head and squinted so hard, thick ridges etched into his forehead.
“Penn?”
“Yeah, sorry.” He straightened. “I remembered something. Actually, I realized a couple things when you were talking.”
“What? You didn’t stop me?”
“Of course I didn’t stop you. That was important.”
“I don’t care if I’m in the middle of spilling the secret formula for Coke,” I stressed, grabbing the backpack from my shoulder. I dug for the brown leather notebook again. “Your memories come before mine, okay?” With the book finally in my grasp, I looked up, ready to add in a new list point.
I sensed it first, the airy, dazed shift that marked a change in the gold watch fastened around my wrist. All at once, I knew that the second hand had stopped, and I was alone.