Chapter Thirteen
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Derek
It’s late Friday afternoon, but Atlantic Dunes Park is mostly quiet. Except for the waves and seagulls. They bring back memories of weekend beach days with Mom and Dad. Naps beneath blue umbrellas. Feet sinking into warm sand.
I walk across the wooden pavilion. Jae’s leaning against the railing, her back to me.
She’s wearing another white dress, maybe the same one she wore on Monday.
But this time there’s no belt, and it hangs loose on her frame like an old lady’s muumuu.
It’s like she’s saying Don’t even think about it, Derek.
Fine. I won’t. But then again, there’s no harm in it.
She looks over her shoulder and blinks. “I didn’t think you’d come,” she says.
I look down at my phone. I’m eight minutes early.
“I still have time to leave if you want.”
She ignores me. Drops of water fall from her high ponytail and onto the wooden railing, leaving dark, wet splashes. She smells sweet, like she’s just taken a shower, and I find myself leaning in just a little closer.
“You do that a lot,” she says.
I stiffen up, stuff my hands into my pockets. “Do what?”
“You take off your hat. Run your fingers through your hair three times. Exactly three times.”
“Huh.” I shrug. “Habit, I guess. Don’t even notice it anymore. Keeps my hands busy.”
“Why? Are you handsy?” There’s something teasing in her voice, like for a second she forgot to hate me.
I bite my lip, try not to smile.
Her expression clouds over. She turns away and leans against the railing. “Anyway. Thanks for buying me lunch this week.”
“You already thanked me.”
“Well, I’m thanking you again. It was a nice thing to do. Seems out of the norm for you. To be honest.”
Something in me prickles. “The norm? What do you even know about me?”
“Not much.”
I swallow, try to bury the irritation, try not to think about all the things she doesn’t know. “You should probably talk less about things you have no idea about. To be honest.”
She narrows her eyes. “Things like you?”
“Like me.”
“Fine. Not even curious.” She turns her back to me, hands on hips, and studies a wooden post with such intensity, you’d think she was an architect.
“What do you think about the venue?” I ask, trying to move on to a neutral topic. She turns to face me, and God, she’s nice to look at.
“It’s definitely much better than the school gym,” she says with a clip in her voice. She walks thoughtfully around the rows of back-to-back benches, stepping from shadowed canopy to open light, and looks up at the wooden roof. She shifts her weight on the boards as if testing their sturdiness.
“Are you expecting elephants?” I ask.
She suddenly laughs, and dimples burrow beneath her high cheekbones. It makes something inside me buzz. I stare at her hair, the tiny droplets of water leaving dark spots around her feet. A slight breeze carries her floral scent and I take a step closer.
“Derek, I like it,” she says simply. She looks toward the water in the distance and nods. “It’s great, actually. We’re outside, we have cover for bad weather, there’s sand, ocean, trees. I think it’s great.”
A family dressed in swimsuits waves at us as they take the walkway around the pavilion toward the beach. The teenage son carries a giant unicorn floatie while a small girl scampers after him in tears. “Lemme hold it!” she wails. Jae and I share an amused glance.
When they pass, Jae leans against a beam with her arms crossed under her chest. I try to focus on her eyes.
“Why did you even agree to help me?” she asks. “You didn’t seem too happy about joining the club. Like somebody made you go.”
“It was either the poetry club or community service. Someone tipped my decision.”
There’s a question in her eyes, but then she shakes her head like her brain is an Etch A Sketch.
“Do you at least like poetry?” she asks. “Like, have you ever written a poem in your life?”
I make a face.
“What? You don’t like writing or you can’t?” There’s a little twinkle in her eyes.
“I’m not a Neanderthal. I write stuff.”
“Stu?”
“Yeah.” She seems a little disappointed, so I add, “Just to get ideas out of my head.”
She nods. “See, that’s why I love poetry. When my head’s spinning with thoughts I can’t work out, I start writing and it all makes sense. Or starts to, anyway.”
“You show them to other people?”
She frowns. “Not usually. But I’ve entered a few contests. And I kept a poetry blog for a while.”
“But why bother sharing your thoughts like that? I don’t think people really care how others feel. Not really. They care how people’s feelings affect them.”
She cocks her head and nods slowly. “Maybe. But what if you had the power to make people care? I think that’s what poetry does. It tells your truth in a way that helps other people understand it.”
“Well, I think I’d be shitty at it. Especially this free verse stuff. In my book, a poem’s not a poem unless it rhymes. Otherwise, it’s just a statement broken up into lines.” I grin. “See what I did there?”
“Not everything has to fit into a perfect mold. Syllable-syllable-rhyme-syllable-syllable-rhyme. It can get boring.” Her eyes are sparkling.
Her hands are dancing left to right as she explains.
“With free verse, you can manipulate the spaces. The rhythm. The shape of it on the page. It all adds to the meaning.”
Her excitement makes me smile. But when I do, she turns away, looks to the horizon with her hand on her forehead like a visor.
Hey, I wanna say, don’t lose your joy on my account.
It’s like a constant rising and fizzling out.
Like she steps away as soon as she realizes she’s getting closer. I’m not used to girls doing that.
She leans against the railing, and I step up beside her, nod toward the ocean. “Hey, you wanna check it out up close?”
She hesitates. Looks at the water, then back toward the parking lot.
“I mean, we don’t have to do the open mic in the pavilion. It could be a beach thing. You know, like beach weddings. Or beach parties,” I say in a rush.
“I guess …” She walks past me, carrying that sweet smell with her. Her white dress moves against her body, and it’s all curves.
I sigh and follow. At the end of the boardwalk we take off our shoes and step into sand.
The ocean gets louder with each step, gentle waves rolling over themselves.
When we reach the shore, she drops her shoes and steps to the edge of the water.
She’s looking straight down, as if she’s trying to see her reflection.
“I’m seriously a walking stereotype. I’m scared of water.
” She turns her head and looks at me, eyes shadowed by embarrassment.
“Plenty of people are scared of water,” I say. “That doesn’t make you a stereotype. Have you ever been to the beach?”
“I’ve never been outside Atlanta.”
“Oh.” I can’t imagine what it’d be like to stay in one place my whole life. To not have summer memories dispersed in other cities and countries. You’d think it would make you more secure, being from one place, knowing where you’re from. But Jae says this thing about Atlanta like she’s ashamed.
“That’s not a bad thing,” I say, glancing up at her as I bend over to roll my pants up to my knees. “Don’t judge me, either. This isn’t a style I’d normally go for.”
Then I step into the Atlantic Ocean like I’m stepping into the past. It’s a moment captured in our family album: me, pint-sized, water up to my shins, wearing bright yellow shorts with pockets inside out, holding a red bucket full of cheap treasures.
I’m alone in this picture, but somewhere under the same sun is Mom, a red-haired Ariel lounging with a book and a drink, and Dad, a phone camera up to his face.
“Come on,” I say, turning back to Jae.
“No way.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know how to swim.”
“You don’t have to. Just wade out a little.”
Jae stands there, a look on her face I can’t read. And the longer she looks at me, the more I think she can’t see me. Her eyes are soft and unfocused, the spark gone. She blinks slowly, steps into the water, and holds out her hand like she’s looking for mine.
I reach out, take a step. “Come on.”
Suddenly, she turns and runs back to shore.
“Okay, that’s a start,” I say, walking back to her. “You were in the water for, like, point oh-oh-oh-three seconds.”
She won’t look at me and collapses onto the ground, dusting sand off her feet.
“You stand there long enough, you feel like the water’s a part of you,” I say. “You didn’t get the full experience.”
She shrugs. “It’s … it’s cold. The water.”
“Felt warm to me.”
“Well,” she says. “I like the pavilion.” And then, “I guess I should get going.”
“Yeah. Me too. I should get going.”
But neither of us moves. She’s hunched, hugging her knees, staring blankly at her feet, and I’m wondering what she’s not telling me. Wondering why she’s talking like she doesn’t have enough words.
“Why are you scared of water?” I ask, feeling like she’s still tethered to that moment.
“It’s like you said. If you’re in there long enough, it becomes a part of you.”
It sounds like something Jae would say, being a poetry lover and all that, because what she’s saying is not what she means.
I’m about to ask more questions when nearby, a man shouts, Hey, kids, enjoying the beach?
as he launches a kayak. The way his dark brown hair parts at the side and swoops over his ears, the way his eyes crinkle gently in the corners as he smiles and waves at us, reminds me of Dad.
If I believed in reincarnation like Mom does, it would be Dad.
My heart sinks. Like the sun, everything good fades, and I decide to leave before it gets too dark, before the sadness gets too heavy.
As Jae waves and watches him drift out to deeper water, I roll my pants down and walk over to my shoes.
“I’m gonna go,” I say, pointing vaguely over my shoulder.