Chapter 22
Henry
Tomorrow comes too soon. Light crests the skylights over her bed, and a tear slips from my eye onto her pillow. That she’s curled against my chest, asleep, makes no difference to my growing dread. It’s only dawn and I’m in no rush to leave, but that time will come. Soon.
Tears didn’t used to come so easily. I cried my heart out when she left the first time, but then, they dried up, as if my tear ducts shriveled into inoperability.
Until Uncle Jay. Then, I cried in secret.
For Mom’s sake and Olly’s, I had to join Fred in what I mentally referred to as the Fortress of Strength, handling the tasks that Mom couldn’t manage, Olly shouldn’t see, and no one wants.
It was a dark time, and even now, hope is only beginning to sneak in, but like the light through the multicolored panes in the Blakes’ greenhouse, it feels muted. Weak and diluted. Not the bright beacon it should be.
Now, with Venus, tears come naturally. Tears over our history that I didn’t fully understand, tears over my misplaced bitterness, and all the ways I let her down, tears over ten lost years and unfair what-ifs.
If something, anything had been different, could we’ve had this?
If I’d seen her pain and done something to make it better, would she have stayed?
And what would our lives be like if she had?
Our separation led to me having Olly—he makes the what-ifs pointless.
Even so, holding her like this is as close to perfect as I’ve ever come, and it’s hard not to dream of possibilities a little.
We made the most of last night, like we were starved for each other. It felt like another decade had passed in merely a day since the last time we were together. The longing and relief had us against the couch, then the wall, and finally on the floor, right there in her family’s living room.
The second time was different. She held my hand as she led me upstairs, and once there, we stood at the foot of her bed in this dazed and gentle fixation, exploring each other’s scars, tattoos, curves, veins, everything.
The slope of her nose, the puff of her cheeks, her sweetly determined chin, the goosebumps playing on her skin as I ran my fingers over the dark lines of her tattoos, and every other inch of her, mapping her for my memory.
She did the same to me, and our kisses were slower and deeper for the tears behind them.
Now, lying here with her draped over me, arms locked to my torso, I will that tiny flower of hope to bloom.
She’s here. Love still exists between us.
We have the summer. I think of what Dr. Blake said, that she doesn’t believe we want her, and her admission that she thinks she’s a burden.
I now understand why she thinks that, but I want the chance to bring her through her faulty reasoning to the truth—I owe her that, at least.
And if I did prove that she’s loved and wanted, would she stay?
I think of the day ahead, and reality chokes out any hope.
Olly comes home at three. He’ll rave about his weekend with Carly for a solid half-hour, a tradition that used to bother me—the whole fun parent versus the boring one.
But I got over it the first time he got sick in her care, and wanted me to pick him up.
That our kid preferred me for vomit duty secured my parental ego.
With school out, our new schedule starts—me at UNCW and him at his summer day camp.
We’ll get everything ready for tomorrow.
Then, we’ll go to Mom and Fred’s for dinner.
Once home again, we’ll start our bath and bedtime routine.
When he’s asleep, I’ll write about her, probably starting with this weekend first, while it’s fresh, and I won’t stop until my fingers hurt.
I’ll stay up late, restless and frustrated, and inevitably drift off sometime in the middle of the night, imagining she’s with me.
Like she is right now.
A sun band edges through the window, hitting the wall over her desk and reflecting off the glass jars shelved there.
Her desk still looks as messy and full as it did the last time I saw it.
Test tubes, beakers, and flasks line the walls.
Plants tower over the shelves and hang down from the suspended baskets, lush and stretching.
Her father must’ve cared for them in her absence.
I edge out from underneath her and silently tour the room.
A composition notebook is splayed open on the desk next to pens, pencils, and paints spilled from a pouch. It’s thick with inked pages and captured treasures. It calls to me—a siren of art and beauty, her experiences without me.
Not without me—I discover with a quick inhale. My name corners the open page in thick, precise lettering with a comma after the Y, as if writing me a letter. The following text elaborates on the giant kelp forest she explored on a dive that day—words that make my mouth drop in awe and respect.
Venus goes on dives? But, of course, she does.
Macrocystis pyrifera isn’t a plant, Henry. Don’t be confused by its height, coloring, and overall aesthetic. It’s algae, and quite miraculous in its growth rate of up to two feet per day, up to 160 feet overall.
She elaborates on its zoospores and sporophylls—words that have no place in my vocabulary—and I focus, instead, on the detailed image she’s drawn—thick stalks, holding long, leafy blades with sea life filtering around it. It’s beautiful, pulling me in with her thick strokes, blues, and greens.
Behind an asterisk at the bottom, she writes:
It’s edible, but given your reaction to Maggie’s seaweed snack that time, I doubt you’d like it.
A baffled smirk emerges as I fall into her desk chair and flip through the pages. I stop on an incredible humpback whale stretching across two pages, and the words:
Henry, I had a whale of a time!
She captures the whale’s marks and lumps with such accuracy that it almost appears animated, ready to swim off the page. She tells me about the hauntingly lovely whale songs they heard one night, and they made her think of her father’s records, specifically Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here.”
We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year
My lungs tighten—that’s how it feels.
In the same breath, I imagine being there with her, on the ship, staring out at a black ocean under a star-filled sky, and hearing the ghostly melodies of whales. I picture slipping my hand around her, pulling her close, and her head resting on my shoulder while her hair plays in the wind.
It never happened, but it feels like it did. Like I was with her. She dreamed I was, anyway.
And just like that, this old love feels renewed and as deep as the seas she traveled over. She never let me go. She carried me with her.
Tears well in my eyes as I flip through more pages. Seabirds feature often, complete with detailed drawings and sample feathers taped in the corners.
On other pages, she draws what she sees through the microscope in the research vessel’s lab, and explains polymers and the process of extracting microplastics from water, but she notes, rightly, in a corner that:
This may overshoot your interests, Henry, but I want you to know that my research is worthwhile and could help the environment on an expansive scale. I want you to be proud of me.
I gasp a little. I am proud of her—a feeling I wish I’d had when we were together. I wish I’d loved her boldly then, when I had the chance.
I flip to the last entry and find something different than the rest—an ink drawing of her, diving into the ocean. A vague representation of the ship looms behind her on the surface. She’s kicking her feet, like she’s trying to go deeper, trying to get away.
There is no note to me this time. Instead, she writes:
I can’t accept what I cannot change.
A memory stirs. “You must accept what you cannot change,” her father said to her, his hand gently on her arm to calm her.
What was it?
The physical fitness test in sixth grade, I remember suddenly. We had to run a mile in gym class. I had a medical excuse to sit it out, but I didn’t want to. I was slight, wore glasses, and had asthma—I was teased enough already.
Though out of breath by the first lap, I pushed on, despite my constricted lungs. That is, until Venus huffed, grabbed my arm, and dragged me into the woods, where we found a small creek and a downed tree. “Rest and breathe,” she ordered. “Your lungs aren’t prepared for that, Henry.”
“I know,” I gasped, “but I want them to be.”
“Gym class won’t achieve that for you. Train on a regular, routine basis. Take on a sport. Basketball would suit you.”
“You think I can play basketball?” I questioned with awe.
“You can do anything, Henry. Building your endurance might be challenging at first, but you can train your body just like anyone else. Your lungs will thank you for it. I’ll help if you want.”
Her help didn’t happen because she got in trouble. Within an hour of our escape, we were in the principal’s office with our parents.
“It’s an illogical test, anyway, rating our unique bodies and physical abilities on the same scale,” she’d argued. “Henry is asthmatic. He shouldn’t be judged on the same—”
“Venus, stop being difficult,” Principal Hecker admonished. “You know the rules. You broke them. And you put a fellow student at risk.”
“At risk of what? Catching his breath?” she demanded.
That’s when her father put his hand on her arm and said, “You must accept what you cannot change.”
In the end, Venus received a month of after-school detention. I joined the basketball team and started running every day to build my endurance.
My fingers trace her image on the rumpled paper, latching on to hope again. She left, but she never left me. Her dad’s right—she believes we don’t want her.
“What are you doing?”