Chapter 17 #2
I hold both my hands open in a poor version of presenting myself with a lacklustre ta-da!
—Ren Jacobs, Not Really Anything at All.
“And . . . here I am. The years passed. He finished his PhD and started pursuing the dreams we used to share. Fieldwork. Digs. Research. But . . . it was like they were only his dreams. Like I never had any at all. And he started to tell me things like that. Like we hadn’t been in the same rigorous programs almost our whole academic careers.
That I didn’t really have drive, and if I did .
. . I’d have tried harder to find a doctorate program.
That I wouldn’t . . . need him the way I did.
That the way I’d always been so silly to his serious was all a big part of it, too.
One of my failures. Eventually, I left. Came back to Canada and started working at the museum. ”
The lines of Miller’s throat work with a measured swallow.
He considers me with a slow, almost imperceptible nod before he says, voice firm, “You have nothing to be embarrassed about, Ren.” His thumb taps against my leg before his wide, calloused hand splays across my bare skin.
“He’s not the first man to make a woman feel small. Doubt he’ll be the last.”
“Too bad,” I mutter with an eye roll.
Miller’s cheek jumps, and then he asks, “Why him? There must have been . . . something good? At some point?”
I think about those memories, the good ones painted now with swirls of bad. I think of eighteen-year-old me and the baggage I brought to that lab bench I was more than happy to saddle Scott with, and I bite down on my lip before throwing him a weak smile. “Next time?”
“Okay, at least answer me this.” Miller’s fingers scorch against my skin. “If he had a job, why’d he have to come take yours?”
“You know . . .” I start, half laughing. “I have . . . no idea.” I throw my hands up again. “I don’t think . . . it’s not like he missed me. It’s not like he’s still in love, and to be fair, I don’t think he ever was.”
“Does he know that?” Miller scoffs.
I tip my head. “I’m not going to make excuses for Scott. But I think in his case, there are explanations for why he is the way he is.”
“Next time, then.”
I nod, before setting my hand over top of his, saying gently, “Your turn.”
His eyes pinch closed, and he gives me a rueful smile when he blinks them open. “Thanks for . . . not Googling it before we got here.”
“Of course.”
He drags his tattooed hand across the back of his neck, fingers tangling in the mahogany waves, almost ebony under the dim light of our hiding place, and his other hand stays anchored to me.
“Uh. Yeah. So . . . Matty was the good one, you know? From the time we were kids. I mean, I was the one that got left behind, not him.” He snorts, but his jaw tightens with a wince.
“But his whole life he was just . . . better. Donated his time to charity. He was regimented. During the season and in the offseason. Body was a temple, all that. He actually liked pretentious grocery stores for their produce.” A ghost of the saddest smile in the world tilts his lips.
“Anyway . . . he rarely drank. Rarely partied. Rarely even celebrated. It was all about the next game. The next season. Until, well, we won the World Series last year.”
“Congratulations, by the way.” I scrunch my nose.
Miller laughs, and his thumb draws a line over the arch of my calf.
“We had . . . different reputations. Not that I had—have—a bad one, I guess. Just . . . Matty was Matthew Burke. And I’m .
. . me. Liker of pretty girls. Good on the field, stupid off the field.
People just make . . . assumptions about the kind of person I am.
But I don’t think . . . I never thought it was wrong to be smart at one thing and maybe not others until everyone started making me feel like it was. ”
“It’s not.” I offer a soft confirmation, and he tries to smile before he keeps talking.
“Matty never made me feel like that. But, uh—” He cuts himself off with a heavy swallow.
“We won, and he . . . celebrated. Pretty unlike him. But I think he was just happy and proud, and, maybe, uh, he finally felt like he could shed some of the pressure sitting on his shoulders to be this perfect person. Let loose, I guess.” He clears his throat.
Glancing down at our hands, he flips his up, and my palm meets his.
Our fingers fit together, and when he looks back up, his eyes darken with unshed tears.
“Thanks. Uh . . . anyway. We partied a lot with our team. And we had this big thing up at our cottage, you know the one we bought together? It went on for a weekend. And on the last day, everyone left but Matty and me, we stayed. We were so fucking hungover.” He laughs, and a tear slips out, trailing over the sharp, stubble-dusted lines of his face.
“But uh, it was . . . we had a blast. It was unseasonably warm. Thought that was a sign that we should keep it going. That nothing could possibly go wrong if the sun was shining down on us in the fall like that. We ate the shittiest food we could find. We drank mimosas on the dock because we thought they might help. Switched to beer. Fucked around on our boat. We didn’t drive it.
We left it, tied up. Only turned on the radio.
Played catch on the lawn. Raced in the water even though it was still so fucking cold.
But we were so drunk it didn’t matter. Swam for hours.
Dumb shit. Kept drinking. It was the best day. Until it wasn’t.”
Miller exhales into his fist, and the lines of the inked M tug taut.
His voice cracks when he keeps talking, and I think I can see all the way down into that trench where he keeps parts of himself hidden when he does.
“We stayed up too late. Watched the stars. I went to bed around three, maybe? He wanted to stay out and watch. I, uh, left him on the boat. Fell asleep. Woke up around ten the next day and he wasn’t in the house.
Figured he was down by the water again.” He grips his jaw, muttering.
“Fuck. Uh. This . . . really fucking hurts. I hate this part.”
“Take your time,” I murmur, brushing fingers across his cheek to sweep away tears.
“He was . . . still down by the water. Never left, actually. On the boat. Same spot I saw him last. Stretched across the seat so he could look up at the sky.” Miller leans into my hand, choking on his next words.
“Except, uh, he was dead.” He presses his fingers to his eyes.
“His lips were . . . blue. He was . . . it had obviously been a while. Anyway, uh . . . called 911. Long story short, turns out he had a fucking undiagnosed heart condition. QT . . . something. Apparently like, 50 percent of people with it never even have symptoms so it never would have shown up on anything . . . until it’s too late.
It’s triggered by different things . . .
like swimming, sometimes. Ticking time bomb, I guess. ”
I drag my thumb across the stubble carving along his cheek. “Miller. I’m so, so sorry.”
“Thanks,” he chokes on a murmur, but he keeps going.
“Before the autopsy, people made all kinds of assumptions and judgements about what happened.” He winces again.
“And my aunt and uncle had part of the report restricted, obviously there was an investigation . . . but it didn’t matter.
The damage was done. Rumours were wild, and most of them said it was my fault because uh, Matty wasn’t known for that type of thing.
He wouldn’t have partied like that. That maybe I didn’t find him in time, and it was really . . . all because of me.”
Miller Colson-Burke is only good at three things.
And if the press is to be believed, getting his cousin killed.
“Miller . . .” I start to shake my head. I hope the echo of Scott’s words fall out, down to the floor where I can stomp on them and prevent them from ever crawling back up into the world and taking hold. “There’s nothing about what happened to Matt that was your fault.”
“Kind of made me wonder why no one—him, my mom—why no one stays. If it’s .
. . something about me.” He shrugs, and the ropes of muscle pull tight underneath the stretch of his T-shirt.
“But you know how people are. How the internet is. It was just reported that he died suddenly on the water at our cottage . . . and . . . well, he was him and I was me. People started speculating that I was driving the boat drunk. That I was a bad influence. That I was on drugs and so was he. That his heart never would have given out if he hadn’t been partying, and obviously, that was because of me.
People just found the whole thing suspicious and didn’t understand why it took me so long to find him even though it wasn’t that much time .
. . It didn’t matter by the time the coroner released their findings. Damage was done.”
“You know . . . you said that Matt would think I was brave,” I say, bringing my hand down the side of his face—his eyelids flutter and the lines of his neck tense—until I drag it across his jaw, and tip his chin up.
“I didn’t know him, but I think, he’d think you were brave.
For showing up every day. For playing with your whole heart. For trying again.”
His thumb taps out a thank-you on the back of my hand.
Our own version of Morse code, I think. He gives me a weary smile.
“You think he’d be proud of me ignoring his parents?
The people who took me in when I had nowhere else to go?
For asking for a trade and not even being able to look them in the eye and tell them the truth? ”
“Let’s answer one of their messages now,” I suggest, cocking my head. “Next thing on your list, no?”
“Uh—the last one . . . it was . . . about you.” He looks down, running a hand along his neck before his eyes flick up to me, and I’d swear there was a flush painted on his cheeks. “They were watching the game.”
My mouth pops open, and I take an exaggerated inhale before dropping his chin, pretending to reach for his phone, tucked away safely in the pocket of his linen shorts. “Let me see! I have to know what they said about me!”
He cracks a real grin, shifting out of my reach, but he brings our joined hands to the precipice of his mouth and whispers a quiet “Thanks” against my skin before he carefully extracts our fingers and tilts his head to the dusty, hanging clothing around us.
“Should we, uh, get out of the clothing rack?”
I bring my hand to my chest absentmindedly, laughing. “You know, I sort of forgot we were in here?”
“Yeah, I can understand that.” He nods, looking down again before his grin shifts to something tentative and he murmurs, “You make me forget that the real world is out there.”
“For me, too,” I whisper. “You’re like that for me, too.”
His eyes shift to a colour I don’t think anyone has ever seen before—painters could have mixed and swirled for years and years and they wouldn’t have even come close. I think it’s this impossible-to-name, impossible-to-describe shade of blue that’s only ever been meant for me.
“Come on, we should make sure no one stole your ugly hat.” Miller winks, jerking his head back in the direction of the store.
My heart stops, and I wonder what it would be like to stay in a quiet world that contained only Miller Colson-Burke forever.