Chapter Nineteen
“I’m going out,” he says. “You in?”
The sun doesn’t fully set until after nearly nine in the summer here, and the sky is hazy but bright. We’re the only two people out on the water.
I watch Stone in the waves. The way his body slides through the ocean as if it’s his partner. I shake my head because all at once I’m remembering what that feels like—to move against him.
“You’re even better than you used to be,” I say.
He turns around to look at me. I see the rise and fall of his chest against his board. “I think I’m better when I’m with you.”
“That’s not true.” I think about Board Up. All the time he’s spent practicing, devoted to this sport in my absence. And all the time I’ve spent away from the water. “But I feel it, too.”
I see the goose bumps on his skin like a road map. I trail my eyes down his arms and follow his fingers into the ocean.
He looks up at me. Blinks some water away.
“What do you feel?”
“Connected,” I say, without pause. “And humbled.”
“Always humbled,” Stone says. “I forget when I haven’t been in the real deal long enough.”
“That you can’t take it for granted?”
Stone looks at me. I see the glass droplets on his eyelashes. “That she’s ruthless.”
I think about this. How many missed opportunities there have been on the ocean. How many waves I’ve blundered, skipped, straight-up ignored. How many I’ve fought and lost. How many have held me under, forced me to fight to breathe.
“Yeah but the waves keep coming, right?”
The sky starts to change around us. I feel a stab of fear that even this thing I know so well—have known so intimately—could destroy me in a second.
“Death and taxes and waves,” Stone says. He reaches across the water. Gives my shoulder a squeeze.
We sit that way, looking at each other, as the sunset changes from orange to pink to blue.
“We should head in,” Stone says.
I follow his lead. We paddle into the next set and ride it straight to the shore. I fall in on the end and come up sputtering to see Stone dragging his board out of the water.
He drops his and comes back to help me, but I knock him off. “I got it,” I say. “You want dinner?”
I’ve avoided talking about Bonnie, our canceled plans, what it means.
“I do,” he says. “But I should head back. I’ve just been picking up for me and Dad lately.”
“I’ll tell Sylvia to make extra.”
Stone waves me off. “We’re fine, really.”
“She’d love to,” I say. “It’s the least we can do.”
He hooks his board under his arm. He pauses. The night is violet around us, now. Almost iridescent. “I’m glad you’re here, Laur,” he says, and then he’s gone.
And for the next two days I don’t see Stone in the mornings.
I paddle out once alone, and once with Bert.
I think about texting him, but in our month back at the beach neither of us has reignited our thread.
I’ve pulled it up. The last exchange is from six years ago. An unanswered one from me: How are you?
Marcella calls Jeff and drops food off with them. It makes us all feel better to know, at least, that they’re eating.
I still haven’t heard more than a text here and there from Leo. Most of them begin or end with sorry. I know he’s busy, and when I feel my resentment turn to apathy, it doesn’t really bother me.
Tonight Sylvia is working on some mixed-media art project and retires to the back house after dinner, Styrofoam and tin foil in hand. I see Pea trail after her, unwanted, but Sylvia lets her in the door.
“I’ll finish up the kitchen,” I tell my parents, and they head up the stairs, yawning, waving thanks.
Tonight’s dinner was a fava bean stew with roast chicken, and the pans are gritty, oiled, and plentiful. This is going to take a while.
I pour some soap, turn up the water to scalding, and open Spotify.
We always listened to Bob Marley in the house growing up, and every time I’m out here I still crave it—that easy, soulful, beach music.
I put on a mix and get to work scrubbing. I’m about halfway through “Waiting in Vain” when I hear a knock at the back door.
I look up to see Stone standing there.
I move to open it, but before I can even let the latch up I see it in his face—she’s gone.
“Stone,” I say.
He nods once, slowly, and then he moves toward me. Stumbles, really, and instinctively I reach out and catch him. I hold him steady as he folds into my shoulder. Long, shallow sobs that move both our bodies but have almost no sound.
“Come on,” I say. “Come in.”
He pulls back. He shakes his head. “I need to go,” he says. “I need to get out of here.”
I pull back. I look at him. I don’t know if he’s saying he needs to leave Malibu or if he’s asking something else, asking something of me.
“OK,” I say. “I’ll drive.”