Chapter Fourteen
Fourteen
I’m on a boat.
Given how ill I’ve been feeling, its bouncy movement should technically have me regurgitating everything I’ve eaten. Instead, the pain in my head vanishes as a new world comes into focus around me.
I’m on a spacious motorboat with a distinct front and back section, separated by a large wooden deck space. The front area has standing room as well as two seats for the driver and a passenger, while the back has two parallel rows of leather seats. On the outside, the boat is white and huge.
I’ve only been on something like it once.
“So what do you think of the Apostle?” Jason asks, looping both arms around Zadie’s waist as she stands at the helm of the boat.
Other Zadie leans back into him, grinning. “I think I might like your boat better than I like you.”
Jason kisses the top of her head. “Wow! The truth comes out.” He looks good as always, but it’s particularly windy today and a day of tubing and swimming and other hijinks has left him looking uncharacteristically disheveled.
I remember finding it endearing and special, like I was one of the few people in the world who knew Jason inside out.
I remember it being an unseasonably warm day for this time of year, and I want to enjoy the romance of this moment, to swing right into the memory, but something is missing.
I realize for the first time that these dreams would feel entirely different, lonely, if it was just me reliving past memories.
“Marcus!” I say as soon as I spot him standing a few feet away, staring out at the lake. I can’t help my smile.
We’re on a boat.
Marcus looks over and winks, and I’m surprised at the lift I feel inside me, a hopeful kick of emotion. That, or my organs are shifting inside me, which seems ominous.
“Zadie Cartwright,” Marcus says, both of us ignoring the fact that mere feet from us, Jason and Zadie are talking. Making a Memory. Marcus’s hair is pulled back today, and somehow, in an alarming reversal of roles, he looks less tousled than Jason. “Skydiving or paragliding?”
He has to talk loud over the wind.
I sigh, then surprise us both by answering. “What’s the difference again?”
Marcus seems more than happy to explain. “Skydiving, I’m pretty sure, is jumping out of a plane voluntarily and falling to your death,” he says. “Paragliding, on the other hand, is basically falling to your death while attached to some parachute-like situation.”
Leaning in so close his breath is warm against the back of my neck, he adds, “I don’t recommend either.”
My heart beats just a little faster at his nearness.
“Paragliding,” I bumble, “seems more…I don’t know, serene or something. Like there’s more floating and less falling.”
Marcus considers this. “More floating, less falling. I can see that.”
I try to steer us back (pun intended) to the reason we’re here: the Jason and Zadie of it all.
“I have no idea why this memory matters,” I tell Marcus, looking around the boat. “It was just a normal day. We had a nice time on the lake.”
My mind is racing ahead, already questioning what this dream might reveal.
“Yo, Captain! My Captain!” Holden yells from the back. “What’s the rush? Why can’t we do one more hour?”
“I told you! My dad already expected us back an hour ago,” Jason shouts. I remember that he is not-so-secretly pissed at Holden for smuggling booze onto the boat when that broke Jason’s dad’s number one rule.
“So what’s another hour then? Live a little!”
“My friends are such idiots,” Jason fumes, chin on Zadie’s shoulder.
“Amber and Mo would have brought lemonade,” Zadie teases, a whisper only Jason can hear. “I’m just saying.”
“She’s joking, but she’s also not,” I tell Marcus now as we watch them.
“I’d asked Jason if Mo and Amber could come and he said there wasn’t any room, but there’s like eleven of his friends here.
” I point toward the back of the boat where a full-on party is happening. “Sometimes I think…Never mind.”
“No,” Marcus insists. “Sometimes you think…”
“Sometimes I feel like Jay is weird with my friends. There are times when he’s normal and chill and it feels like everyone loves everyone. Other times, he only wants to hang with his friends. And if my friends are around, there’s this weird, like…undertone.”
Marcus kneads his thumb against his temple, and I wonder if he’s tired of talking about me and Jason. Tired of hearing about our drama. I can’t blame him if he is. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Jay likes everyone who likes him.”
“Everyone likes Jay,” I point out. “He’s going to be prom king for sure.”
“Yeah, but that’s all bullshit.”
I frown. “Which part?”
“The very concept of prom king, the campaigning, the voting. It’s a popularity contest.”
I have the same thought I did at the fundraiser; it’s something like jealousy at the way Marcus comes and goes in groups, the way he never takes anything, including himself, very seriously.
“There’s nothing wrong with popularity.” It comes out defensive.
“True. It’s just not real, that’s all I’m saying,” Marcus says, but his eyes are lasers as he looks at me, sharp and focused. Somehow it sounds a lot like you’re not real. It’s as if he’s seeing straight inside me, as if he can see all the effort to be liked, to be good, to be tidy.
I put both hands on my hips in frustration. “So, everyone who cares how they’re perceived is shallow—is that it? Less authentic?”
Marcus sighs, sticks his hands deep into his pockets. “I thought we were talking about Jason.”
“We are,” I snap. “Why don’t you like your own cousin?”
“Of course I…” Marcus begins, then changes his mind. “Look. Let’s focus on those two.”
But Jason and Zadie are just standing at the helm, kissing.
“Doesn’t look like we’re missing anything,” I say, then turn back to Marcus. Suddenly, I want to see him squirm, make him just as uncomfortable as he’s made me. “Weren’t you and Jason ever best friends?”
He shrugs. “When we were five, maybe.” Marcus rubs the back of his neck as he thinks. He seems to be taking my question seriously. “I got a lot of attention when we were kids. I was fast for my age and, honestly, a bit of a show-off. I had the bigger personality.”
“You?” I’m incredulous. “I’m not sure I can see it.”
“Yes, me,” Marcus says, flicking one of my earrings.
Today’s open secret. Each ear features a small dangling crown—with green, purple, and gold pieces—that Dad got me when he went to Mardi Gras one year.
Marcus’s action is surprisingly playful and intimate, something you would do to someone you know well. I have no idea why I like it so much.
“Jay…didn’t love it,” he went on. “And one summer he started this thing where whenever our families got together, he would challenge me to a playoff. If I won, he’d sulk through the rest of our vacation.
As we got older, he started to win more and more, and to this day that’s the only scenario he can live with. ”
“Is that why you won’t try in soccer? So you don’t step on his toes?” I ask. “Because if you’re trying to maintain some agreement you and Jason have, then both of you are even dumber than I thought.”
My sharp words surprise even me, and Marcus narrows his eyes. “Maybe I’m not as good as he is.”
“Well, we’ll never know, will we?” I shoot back. “Because you’re just going to sit on your ass and phone it in. If you don’t try, you can’t fail, right?”
“There’s no agreement,” Marcus says with a sigh. “We give each other space, because we disagree on a lot of things.”
“Like what?” I ask, half goading Marcus. “What shot to take? Where to sit on the bus? Girls?”
He glances up at my last guess.
“Oh,” I say, catching myself. “How could I forget?”
Marcus frowns. “Forget what? What are you talking about?”
I snort. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. I know what you said.”
Marcus opens his mouth to say something, but just then the machine-y sound of the boat completely disappears. It’s like going from a rock concert to a child’s nursery at nap time.
“They’re here,” I say as the boat is pulling up by the wharf.
A middle-aged man comes over and shouts instructions to Jason, helping to get them tied up.
Other Zadie packs up, and she and Jason climb out of the boat.
At the edge of the lake, rows of multicolored wildflowers mix in with the wilting grass, but it’s the bluish-purple poppies that catch my eye. I know I’ve seen those before.
“What is it?” Marcus asks, noting my distraction.
“Those flowers. I think they were in the last dream.”
Marcus looks confused. “Where in the last dream?”
But I can’t remember. It’s more like a feeling rather than a picture in my mind, so I shrug and let it go. As Jason’s friends disband, Marcus and I stick with Jason and Other Zadie.
They’re holding hands and walking down the dock. We’re close enough to see them slow, to hear Jason whisper “Hold on,” let go of Zadie’s hand, and walk the rest of the way down the dock to meet his father.
Other Zadie stays back, pretends to be on her phone while Jason and his father talk in quiet voices, but Marcus and I go close enough to hear. I always wanted to know what they talked about.
“I told you to bring the boat back by four,” Mr. R spits. “It’s almost six.”
Jason is repentant. “Sorry. We lost track of time.”
Mr. R says nothing but glances over Jason’s shoulder at Other Zadie. “I thought we agreed no girls until offseason.”
“Dad,” Jason says, sounding both exasperated and strangely pleading. I hold my breath while I wait for Jason’s response, a response he knows Zadie will never hear.
Love is what you do when no one is watching.
“It’s not serious,” he tells Mr. R in a quiet voice. “I swear.”
I almost double over from the punch in my gut.
Jason scratches his head, clearly hiding his guilt, as he goes back to Other Zadie.
“Is everything okay?” Other Zadie says, intuiting Mr. R’s disapproval.
“Oh yeah,” Jason lies. “He’s just worried about his boat.”
The real me watches dumbly as Jason threads his hand through Other Zadie’s again. “What do you feel like for dinner?”
“Didn’t you hear? It’s always a good night for Tanner’s,” she says, reciting the diner’s catchphrase.
Jason laughs and pulls her into him, squeezing their bodies together for what feels like an infinite amount of time. I know that, in this moment, Other Zadie isn’t sure what to think, but she’s telling herself nothing significant just happened.
“It’s really not a big deal,” I tell Marcus now, because I’m trying to convince myself the same thing. I both hate that he’s standing here watching this with me and can’t think of anything sadder than if I had witnessed that alone. “Sometimes we say what we have to.”
Marcus nods. “I get it, but it can’t feel good watching…that.”
“It’s truly okay. Can we not talk for a minute?
” I say, because my eyes are stinging. Thankfully, Marcus respects my wish.
We only stand in silence for twenty, maybe thirty seconds, before a strong magnetic force grabs hold of our bodies.
Before my arms turn blurry, then vanish.
I’m relieved to feel the force whirling around me and Marcus, a noisy storm we’re starting to know well.
Relieved to be snatched out of the dream, pulled out of the memory and into real life.
I feel whiplashed when I wake up in my room, as tired as if I’d run a marathon and as sad as if I’d lost something I loved.
* * *
I’m in my bed, alone.
It’s early, early morning. Sunday.
In the dark, Jason’s words echo. It’s not serious.
Maybe Jason really meant what he told his dad. Maybe that is why Jason broke up with me—I was just passing the time.
The thought won’t let me sleep. I sit up, turn on my bedside lamp, and pick up the ring from where I usually set it at night. Once it’s on, I twist it around on my finger.
I should hop out of bed, go for my run, go and visit Jason. But I don’t have it in me.
I’m wearing the ring still when I log on to social media to see the response to my last picture.
And there is a big response. Mo and Amber hype me up in the comments as usual, but this post has the most likes I’ve ever gotten.
Dozens and dozens of comments, each one praising the love between me and Jason.
A strange thing happens: the words of people who barely know me make me feel safe and warm. Less alone. Less uncertain.
Of course Jason didn’t mean what he said. It was serious. I was there. All these people have been there.
What I know is that this ring is on my finger for a reason. Jason and I, together, make something beautiful. Something impeccable. I’m about to close out of Instagram when I see that I have a new message. It’s from an account that has no followers and only follows me.
The message contains one line.
That’s my ring, Zadie.