Chapter 33
W e ordered fruity mocktails from a server while spread out on blue-and-white-striped beach loungers, shaded from the high hot sun by a matching umbrella. When the drinks were delivered, we clinked a celebratory “cheers.”
“How come you never asked me out, Perry?” I asked. “Back in high school.”
“Asked you out? Quinn, I was the shyest person ever and you were this beautiful girl who seemed completely above high school. You think I had the confidence to walk up to you?”
“I wouldn’t have rejected you.”
“I had no idea.”
“You think I was above high school?”
“You seemed like it. You weren’t trying to be popular. You were just... yourself. It was intimidating. You were like the smartest person in our class. I didn’t even think I could keep up with you, never mind ask you out on a date.”
I liked that. For some reason, I really liked that, but I hadn’t been above high school at all. Securing my future and receiving anything but stellar grades and a perfect SAT score was all I thought about. I had friends, but being part of Triple Quinn took up most of my free time.
“And now?” I asked. “I’m not intimidating?”
“Oh, you are,” he said. “But I’m not nearly as shy as I used to be.”
“What changed?”
He glanced toward the horizon at the waves crashing hard against the sand.
“I guess losing my mom,” he finally said, voice low and cracking. “It puts things into perspective.” He shrugged, turned back to me. “At least, it does eventually.”
“First, it’s the most horrible thing imaginable.”
“Right.”
“And, then what?” Then what ? I was still stuck in the first part.
“Then,” he began, “if you can process it and stop being afraid that life is really that uncertain, it can make you brave. More honest. More willing to go after anything you want. More determined to live to the fullest. Grief can somehow make you more courageous, more willing to not waste any time. I haven’t always seen it that way, but I’m beginning to, more and more. ”
“I think you’re incredible,” I told him, looking down at my hands, trying not to face him directly.
“Losing your mom like that could have hardened you. Could have made you afraid of life. Could have made you resentful, bitter, angry. Could have made you want to retreat from everything. But you’re not. You didn’t.”
He laughed sharply. “I did,” he said. “I really, really did. You’re meeting me on better days. You wouldn’t have wanted to know me when I was in the worst of it.”
“I would have,” I said quickly. “I would have wanted to know you on all the days.”
He lifted his sunglasses into his hair and grabbed my wrist softly.
“Charlie, I need you to maybe stop saying things like that,” he whispered.
“Okay.”
“It’s just that, you say things like that, and I start thinking this is real.”
“I’ll stop,” I said, and he looked disappointed for a moment, like maybe he didn’t want me to agree with him. Once again, I changed the subject. “By the way, I wasn’t too cool for high school. At least, I don’t think I was. I couldn’t wait for it to be over so I could start my real life.”
“I never knew that,” he said, placing his sunglasses back on his face. I turned and took a sip from my drink and pulled my feet in closer. The sun had moved slightly and my feet were starting to burn. “I always thought you, Benny, and your mom were so close. Why did you want to move away?”
“We were close. But that can be complicated. Codependent even. Living with my mom was stressful for me. She was always up and down with her moods. Got an audition, she was taking us out for dinner. Didn’t get a part, she was in bed for two days.
She always bounced back, but as a kid, watching that, I felt like I had no control over my life.
I found myself worrying about the electric bill or the day Mom’s luck would run out and who would take care of her? Benny? It would all fall on me.”
“That’s a lot for one kid to handle.”
“Yeah, so if I was acting too cool for high school, it was probably because I was too busy to care about popularity or gossip or whatnot, because I was studying, or working an after-school job, or trying to be responsible enough to overcompensate for the two parents I didn’t have.”
“When did your dad leave?” Alex asked. This was more than I’d ever told Josh about myself in two years.
I started to understand why he’d left me.
I’d given him nothing, kept him not just an arm’s length away, but entirely apart from me.
At first, it was because he hadn’t asked.
We were both consumed with work. But during lockdown, he’d asked. He’d pried. He’d wanted to know.
“The day before my tenth birthday,” I told Alex.
“He wasn’t around all the time, but he’d show up a few times a year.
I’d stupidly wait for him. I loved him, despite it all.
And then, he was gone. Benny was only five.
She doesn’t even remember him. I think he spent time with her only a handful of times before he left for good.
After that, Mom got her shit together a lot more.
Benny got a more solid Jackie Quinn. But by the time he was gone, I was already too stressed out for a ten-year-old. ”
“You haven’t talked to him at all? Or looked for him?”
“Nope. Never.”
“Did you ask your mom if he was coming back? Or where he was?”
“She said he was gone for good,” I told him. “She never said where.”
“Weren’t you devastated? Didn’t you want to know?”
“No,” I said. “I mean, yeah, sure, at first. I was pretty catatonic, honestly. Worst birthday ever. Hate birthdays to this day. But then my heart sort of... closed? That gave me the control back. If he didn’t want me, I didn’t want him. I wasn’t going to beg.”
Alex let out a long exhale and fell back on his chair, looking up at the umbrella.
“Damn,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he was feeling sorry for me, shocked, impressed, or a mixture of all. “So that’s why you never want to get close.” He flattened his palm across the exposed skin on my stomach.
“Maybe,” was all I said, even though there was more to reveal.
“Let’s go swimming,” I said and leaped off the chair. I was knee-deep in the bracingly cold water before he even caught up to me. When he did, I splashed at him.
“Fuck,” he cried. “It’s freezing!”
“I know.” I liked it. It shocked me out of the memories as I dove under a cresting wave and swam out the other side, where I bobbed in calmer water, letting my body get used to the chill.
When Alex did the same, I swam over to him, wrapped my legs around his hips, and kissed him hard until there was nothing else to remember except this moment.
He tasted salty and we stayed just like that until the water felt warm and our fingertips were pruned.