Chapter 20 Surge Zones
surge zones
The turbulent space where waves crash against rocks.
The road winds along the coast, the sea glimmering to our right. The wind keeps buffeting the truck; every gust makes the steering wheel twitch in Trent’s hands.
He hasn’t spoken for a few bends.
“Too quiet,” I say finally. “We need a game before this silence eats us.”
His glance flicks over, wary. “What’s this one called? Don’t-Distract-the-Driver?”
“‘Port, Starboard, Lighthouse’.” I drum the dash. “Simple. Port: I ask a question, you answer honestly. Starboard: I ask, you deflect with a joke. Lighthouse: you tell a story instead. Something that sort of answers, but not directly. Oh, and if you refuse, you owe a Harbour Tax.”
He exhales. “You’ve thought this through.”
“Occupational hazard. Teaching improv.”
“What’s the tax?”
I grin. “Chips. Or a secret.”
A huff, not quite a laugh. “Fine. You start.”
“Port.”
He tightens his grip on the wheel. “Already?”
“Port!”
He rolls his eyes. “Fire away.”
I wait until the truck hits a long straight, wind rushing loud over the roof. “When did you last feel completely happy?”
The wind fills the pause.
He licks his lips, looks out at the water. “Lighthouse.”
“Coward.”
He signals and pulls into a parking bay overlooking the sea. “Harbour Tax first.” He points at a sign down the road: Fish and Chips. Open. “We can consider this fate.”
I snort, and we come back ten minutes later, paper parcel steaming under my hoodie where I’ve stuffed it. Salt and seagull-calls bite the air.
I tear a hole in the top of the parcel and tuck it under my chin; Trent reaches in for a chip, gesturing at the ocean. “Lighthouse story.”
I chew the end of a fry and point it at him. “Make it good.”
“When Ika was seven, Grandpa took us to this beach around here somewhere. Taught us to body-surf.”
His gaze goes distant. “He kept throwing himself into the waves, fearless. I kept yelling at him to stop drinking half the ocean. Grandpa laughed so hard he nearly choked.”
A soft smile. “For that one day, no one was sick, or dying, or fighting.”
“Just three idiots in the sea.”
He barks a laugh. “Yes. That’s the last time I remember being . . . uncomplicatedly happy.”
I swallow the lump in my throat with a chip. “Your turn.”
He gives me a sidelong look. “Port.”
“Oh, we’re playing for real now.”
He doesn’t pause, just runs on, like he’s been holding in the question a while. “Is it why you don’t drive?”
It. Beth’s death. It doesn’t need saying, it hovers there in the tension. The fish and chips are burning at my ribs. Starboard, deflect with a joke, or . . .
I close my eyes briefly. This game has an ulterior motive, after all. I want to be honest. I breathe in and look at him. “Yes.”
He looks back. “Do you want to drive again?”
And I realise, that’s what truly irritated me about that perfect parallel park he did that day. I want that too.
Trent reaches in for another chip and playfully taps my nose with it. “I’ll go with you to get your restricted renewed.”
I nod and bite his chip right to the pad of his finger. My tongue snags the salt at my lip and grazes his thumb. His breath catches and he pulls away without another chip.
We drive again. The wind roars around us. I’m laughing when he says, quieter, “Port.”
I blink. Again? He still wants to play.
His eyes are on the road, but his voice is low. “If you hadn’t come into our lives, what would you be doing right now?”
I stare out the window. “The studio would’ve shut down, so maybe school improv teaching?” A pause. “Probably trying not to think about how small the world feels when no one needs you.”
He looks over. Just once. Long enough the truck drifts a little. He corrects it, jaw tightening.
“Starboard,” I say quickly, to steer us back to safety. “I’ll ask, you joke instead.”
He doesn’t bite. He keeps driving.
I flick his shoulder. “How’s the bottle today?”
That pulls him up short. The engine hums, steady as a heartbeat. His knuckles whiten.
I meant him. Too late. I’ve made it sound like Ika’s bottle. Then, softly: “Sorry. You don’t have to answer. No harbour tax.”
He lets out a small, laughing breath. “Bottle’s buried. Maybe his dreams will wash up somewhere new.”
He could have joked, but the air thrums: this is the truth.
I want to reach across and touch his arm but instead I pull out more chips and stuff them in my mouth. “Port,” I blurt, desperate for levity. “Do penguins mate for life?”
“Only the gay ones.”
I snort. “Scientific?”
“Empirical.”
We laugh until the tension lifts out the vents, and the quiet between us is soft. Buoyant.
I reach into the bag, grab the last chip, and hold it out.
He smiles, leans over, and it’s his turn to take it straight from my fingers with his teeth.
A jolt runs through me.
He chews, swallows. I pull my stare away from him, out to the ocean, the waves breaking against the rocks.
We drive with the windows cracked. Salt and chip ghost the cab. Trent has a mate in Paekākāriki, and since we’re close he asks if it’s okay to swing by. I don’t feel like meeting others. The way I shift says it.
“Never mind.”
“No, go ahead,” I say, one hand landing on his arm, with the crescents. “Have fun. I’ll walk.”
Outside, he throws me the keys. “Meet you back at the truck in a couple of hours.”
A couple of hours pass.
I return to the truck. It’s parked outside his friend’s place, but I’m not going to be that guy, knocking, making a fuss about the time. I sling myself into the passenger seat.
Minutes stretch. My foot bounces. I watch the friend’s front door. Who is this friend that’s captured your attention, that makes you late?
I’m full of irritation and eagerness. Open, open, open.
I pick a few crumbs of salt off my jacket, then glance at the clock.
Only three minutes past the hour. Four.
I chuckle and scrub my face, but my teeth are clenched. How weird, this feeling. I might as well be waiting for a lifeboat while I’m stranded at sea. Hurry. What’s taking so long? I’ll drown if you don’t get here.
I scroll my phone. Message Grandpa.
Six minutes.
I stretch. All my muscles feel itchy.
I knock my head back against the seat and groan—
The door opens.
Seven minutes past.
Just seven minutes did all that.
Trent slings himself behind the wheel. “Sorry for making you wait.”
“Pfft. Just got here too.”
“He wanted all the Grandpa goss.”
I wait until we’re on the way home. Try for a casual tone as I slouch into my seat like this is a spontaneous thought, not one going in circles in my head. “By the way, who is he?”
“Is this Port, Starboard, or Lighthouse?”
I hesitate. “Sure.”
He answers, “My ex.”
“Cool.” As much as I want that to be true, it’s an absolute, abject lie. “You’re still friends.”
“We parted amicably.”
I don’t like him. “That’s great. Mature.”
I fiddle with the radio, hoping that voice will replace my own. It doesn’t quite cleave through the tension. We’re not crossing the line, so who cares who else has crossed it in the past?
Trent shifts uncomfortably in his seat. His fingers peel off and on the steering wheel. He picks his sunglasses from the console, jiggles them open, realises there’s no need. Slips them into his shirt pocket.
“Port. What about you?” he finally says, eyes adamantly on the road. “Your exes.”
A sneaky thrill tickles down my spine. I also keep my eyes firmly ahead.
“Oh, just a few. Only keep in touch with one. He’s an actor too. Actually, he’s got a role in that film, the one they want guest actors for.”
“The one you auditioned for?”
“Yeah.”
“Will you see him then?”
“Only if I get a role.”
“Good luck with that,” he says breezily. But out of the corner of my eye, the veins stand out on the backs of his hands.
That feeling.
We share that.
Superficial maturity. The wish we were more mature than we are.
The radio drones on. The wheel squeaks under his palms. “Grandpa will be happy if we stop somewhere and get him honey.”
Ah. Yes. Time to get back into our roles.
He glances over at me, at my arm, and he pulls over at a lookout against the sea. Waves toss up on rocks and spray onto the hood. It’s windy out there.
“Where’s your wristband?” he asks quietly. Ika’s wristband.
I jerk my arm up; all that’s left there is lighter skin, a tan line, outlining the shape. A sudden sharp panic has me sitting straight and checking my body like it might’ve only just fallen off, like it’s just around here somewhere.
But—
The beach. The tackle. The slippery seaweed.
Trent turns the car around.
We search the beach. There, and there, and there’s where we fell. Covered in high tide.
Trent shoves off his boots and wades through the water. Waves lap around his ankles and he pushes through it, making the water wake around each step.
He plunges his hands into the sea, picking up handfuls of shells, seaweed, and sand, then dropping them in clumps that splash against his rucked-up pant legs. A crack shows in Mr Bottle.
I follow, right behind, the water knife cold. My calves grow numb as I try to find the bracelet too.
But I know. It’s lost.
We keep looking. Until we’re wet and tired, until the sky turns red and the sun sinks closer to the water. Until Trent is trembling, his back to me, facing the never-ending expanse of a darkening ocean.
I come up behind him, sling arms around his waist, and anchor him.
He doesn’t shrug me off, but I feel his shiver.
And he doesn’t lift his hands to mine. He just lets them hang limp.
I murmur “sorry” between his shoulder blades, his under-the-sea shirt tasting like its theme. Salty, gritty.
When he speaks, his voice vibrates through me, ringing clear against the rush of waves around our knees. “He always liked it up this coast.”
Trent is quiet for a few breaths and then he rolls a hand through his hair. “Maybe he’s trying to send me a message.”
I hold him tighter.
It’s late when we get back to Wellington. Grandpa is asleep.
I rub the pale stripe at my wrist, feeling a strange mix of relief and guilt at the loss.
Sara opens the door before we can unlock. Her form is dark with the light spilling in the hall behind her. My focus shifts from framed pictures to Grandpa’s denim hat I’d left hanging on the hook.
Sara pulls her ‘quiet’ finger away from her lips and steps out of the house, pulling the door shut behind her instead of letting us inside.
I can’t read her face in the dark, but something shadows it. She waves us around the side, into the backyard—past the chicken pen to the washing line choked with jasmine.
Her gaze knifes from Trent to me and back. “This is absolutely fucked up.”
Her language startles, and it’s meant to.
In an instant, I know she knows.
Trent briefly shuts his eyes.
She jerks a finger towards the house where Grandpa’s sleeping. “He thinks my dead nephew is alive.” Her finger swings to me, but her eyes are rooted tightly on Trent. “No wonder you don’t want him knowing you’re boyfriends. He’s playing your brother.”
I shake my head quickly.
Trent steps forward. “You didn’t tell him, did you?”
Sara laughs darkly. “Tell him now? He’ll have a heart attack and keel over.” No melodrama. Just fact. The shock would kill him.
“Maybe . . .” I croak, “I should find an excuse to leave—”
Sara turns on me, snapping. “He’s happy. Ika is here; he wants you around the rest of his days. Leaving now is as good as killing him too.”
I know this. It’s why, when the thought flittered through my mind from time to time, I never truly considered it an option.
Trent murmurs, “Keep this secret, and Grandpa will be fine.”
“I can keep the secret of Ika,” Sara says tightly, “but can you keep your feelings secret? If he finds out you’re . . . his mind won’t be able to take it.”
That will kill him too.
“We’re not,” Trent says quickly. “We’re not, I made that up. I didn’t want you to find out the real reason he was here.”
“Well, I found out. He spent the entire day telling me stories of how beautifully Ika has grown up.”
“I was distracted this weekend. I didn’t think it all through, having you stay with him.”
She looks at me again. “That kind of distraction is what’ll bring him to an early grave.”
“I told you,” Trent doubles down. “It’s not like that between us.”
“Brothers don’t keep pictures of one another in their wallets,” Sara throws back.
I glance at Trent, who is glancing at me.
“Jesus,” Sara says. “The way you look at one another.” She pinches Trent at the ear and turns his head to face her.
She’s angling her head at me. “Even if he’s willing to put a hold on his feelings for a year.
What if Gramps outlives his prognosis? Stubborn old men do, you know. What if it’s two years? Three?”
My stomach hops.
A stray thought. I grit my teeth.
How can I want him to live forever . . . and still think: please, only a year.
I drop my head quickly, shuffle from foot to foot.
“This is unfair to him,” she says, chin to me.
I start. “I—”
“We will not cross any lines,” Trent says. “We are not and will not.”
The jasmine’s too sweet. Salt burns my lip.
Starboard! Lighthouse! Not Port. Not after today.