Chapter 30 Now #2
He nods, and my stomach twists. I’d assumed Sebastian’s parents had split up later, when we were in college or maybe even years after that. Was I really so oblivious that I didn’t realize it had happened while we were still in school together?
But then I remind myself of the facts. Mr. Nikolaou wasn’t exactly a consistent presence in the first place. Sebastian and I were no longer on speaking terms. And Bubba has always been a proud and private woman. It makes sense that I wouldn’t have connected the dots.
I think of Sebastian’s withdrawn state at the end of that summer. His somber mood in the halls during the school year. His rush to California the following summer. It’s all starting to make a lot more sense.
Across from me on the couch, Sebastian has gone still, his expression uncharacteristically grim.
“My dad traveled a lot for work, to cities all over the country,” he says.
“But my junior year, all of a sudden most of his conferences were in Philly. Not far at all.” He lets out a heavy sigh.
“Turns out he’d met a woman there. She had kids of her own, younger than me. He chose his new family over us.”
“Sebastian,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
I think about that long-ago conversation at Twisters, when Sebastian had confided in me about his dad’s extended Philly trip. I’d assumed Bubba had been upset because Mr. Nikolaou prioritized work over his family. The reality had been even worse.
“It’s okay,” he says, smiling wearily. “No one really did. Mom made sure of that. She didn’t want to deal with people talking about it while I was still in school. So we sort of just … didn’t deal with it at all.”
“You must have been crushed. And your mom …”
He nods sadly. “I was hurt. And confused. And angry. But my mom—God, it was so much worse for her. She was embarrassed, more than anything. She told my dad to get out right then and there, and once he left she just completely shut down and wouldn’t talk about it.
I knew my dad always resented my mom because inheriting the restaurant meant they’d never be able to leave Brantley Beach.
But I had no idea how deep that resentment ran until that night. ”
There’s so much I want to ask. Did he and his mom eventually process their feelings about what happened? Has he been in touch with his dad since then? But I bite my lower lip, stopping myself. I can tell there’s more he needs to say first.
“I was supposed to meet you at the boardwalk the next night, but I felt like I needed to calm down first,” he continues.
“My mom had stayed home that day—something she never did—and I could tell she wanted to be alone. So I went over to Andre’s.
His parents were out of town, and he was having a bunch of guys over to pregame before this beach bonfire.
When I got there he and Theo could obviously tell something was up, but I just waved them off and chugged as much bad tequila as I could stomach. ”
My stomach churns, because I know what happens next. I brace myself to relive the humiliation.
“I was still planning on going to Skit,” he says.
“I wanted to see you. Talk to you. You were the one person I thought I might feel comfortable talking to about what happened with my dad. I wanted to tell you how confused I felt—about everything.” His eyes lock on mine, dark and anguished. “Including what happened between us.”
I open my mouth to say something, then close it again uncertainly. I settle on: “I felt confused, too.”
“Kissing you felt so right in the moment,” he says carefully, and my heart sinks. “But thinking about it the next day, right in the middle of all the shit with my parents … it freaked me out, Lina.”
His words from the boardwalk echo in my head: It’s just kind of a lot right now.
“Because you knew I was ‘obsessed’ with you,” I say, making a pair of pathetic air quotes with my fingers.
“It was an awful thing to say, Lina,” he interjects.
“Something I got from the guys. They’d been giving me a hard time about a few girls for a while at that point, including you.
But Lina? I swear it wasn’t like they thought I was better than you, or that it was embarrassing that you liked me.
They just loved giving me shit because they were jealous of all the attention I got from girls—attention they thought was wasted on me.
And the few times I did mess around with girls back then, it never turned into anything that remotely mattered. ”
“So you were just worried you’d given me the wrong idea,” I say, the words tumbling out in a rush. “That’s the reason you completely humiliated me. That’s why you told me to go out with Chris?”
“No, Lina.” My breath hitches as he tips my chin up until we’re looking each other right in the eye again.
“The reason I did those things was because I was more certain than ever that I wanted to get the hell out of Brantley Beach, and I had just kissed a girl who almost certainly would have become a reason for me to stay.”
Oh.
“When we ran into you,” he continues, releasing my jaw, “I was drunk, and I said terrible things that I didn’t mean. I think I was just in the mood to hurt people, hoping it would it make me hurt less. As soon as I saw the look on your face I knew I needed to apologize—”
“But you didn’t,” I say, softly.
He nods. “Not right then, no. And I should have. I expected you to be angry with me, but you weren’t—you just wanted nothing to do with me. And honestly? That was even worse.”
“Because I had no idea what happened,” I say, feeling a little defensive. “You acted like a jerk to me, but if you had told me what you were going through, I would have understood. I would have been there for you. You had to know that, right?”
“I know that now,” he says. “But back then? I didn’t want anyone to be there for me—or at least I thought I didn’t.
You’d always thought so highly of me. I told myself that I was leaving and maybe it was better this way.
You hating me. Everything in my life was going up in flames anyway, so what was one more bridge burned?
I was determined to leave everything behind, and at the time you just believing I was a jerk felt easier than admitting the truth.
It sounds ridiculous now, but to my immature brain it seemed logical. ”
I let his words sink in. All this time I had convinced myself that Sebastian had revealed his true colors on that humiliating night.
That the kind, magnetic boy I’d developed a massive crush on—and who was maybe finally reciprocating those feelings—was actually a huge jerk who had led me on, only to make fun of me right to my face. What if it hadn’t been that simple?
“Lina. What are you thinking? Tell me.”
I’m thinking a lot of things. Sadness for Sebastian and Bubba.
Anger at his dad for leaving them behind.
Frustration with Sebastian for shutting me out all those years ago.
Disappointment in myself, for not realizing something bigger was going on.
I don’t know if things would have played out differently for us in the end.
We were so young, after all. But we could have stayed friends.
And it would have saved me a lot of self-loathing.
But then again, would it have? Because if I’m being honest with myself, I was in what you might call a self-loathing era. Sebastian’s behavior on Boardwalk Night gave me someone to project my insecurities about myself onto. He wasn’t the only one with an immature brain back then.
“I’m thinking I wish we met later,” I say instead, which is actually another way of saying the same thing. “When we were real people.”
Sebastian reaches out to brush his thumb along my jaw, smiling softly as he says, “We did. Earlier this summer.”
I lean into his touch, tamping down the doubts and questions that remain. They don’t feel like they matter as much as they did a few hours ago. All I can think about now are the answers I am getting—answers I couldn’t have gotten back then, because I hadn’t known the right questions to ask.
“I’m so sorry about your dad, Sebastian,” I say. “You and your mom—you didn’t deserve that. And it’s okay that you didn’t know how to process it.”
He tugs me closer, and this time I don’t back away. I let my body follows his lead until my legs are wrapped around his waist, our eyes inches apart.
“I wasn’t ready for you then, Lina. But I am now.” He reaches up to catch my jaw. My heart thrums in my chest, a metronome keeping time. And then he says, “I’m falling in love with you.”
For once I’m at a loss for words. I respond by tentatively pressing my lips against his.
He grips me in place as he speeds up the kiss, palms skimming the bare skin above the waistband of my jeans. I lose my fingers in his hair and roll my hips toward him. We’re close, but not nearly close enough. I want more.
He pulls my camisole over my head, breath hitching as he takes me in.
He tugs his shirt off next, skin glistening in the golden light coming in through my window.
We discard the rest of our clothes in a flurry of shaky hands and shuddering breaths.
It’s messy and passionate and apologetic and forgiving all at once.
As he lowers me onto the couch, I’m overcome by how much I want him. Not just his body: I want his love, his acceptance, his honesty.
And I want to give him things, too.
I want him to know that we can be different this time around, if he fully lets me in. I want to assure him of the very thing I tend to doubt myself: That not everyone leaves. I want to start over.
The way he looks at me—eyes slightly wide and vulnerable—tells me that he wants to start over, too.
My phone is buzzing.
I open one eye. The phone is faceup, rattling against the glass top of my nightstand. Staccato vibrations, the kind that indicate a series of texts arriving in quick succession. Not my phone, I realize: Sebastian’s.
“Mmm.” Sebastian groans in my ear.