CHAPTER 2
My eyes want to glue themselves shut. Every bone and muscle in my body is desperate to power down. I shouldn’t have let myself doze off on the train from Seattle airport. I wasn’t on it for long enough, and now this damn Lyft is rocking me to sleep.
My mind goes fuzzy and my eyelids close on their own right before my head bangs against the window and I jolt back upright.
“You alright, kid?”
“Yeah,” I tell the driver as I prop my chin on my hand. “I’ve just been up since yesterday.”
He glances at me in the rearview mirror. “Where did you fly in from?”
“Denpasar.”
“Is that in India?”
“Indonesia… Bali.” I correct him and look out the window, trying whatever I can to keep myself alert.
“That must’ve been a long one.”
Yeah, no shit. “Nineteen hours with a stop over in Hong Kong.”
He whistles his response with a shake of his head, but I’m already slipping again. I just can’t small talk right now.
I let go for just a second and I’m surrounded by serene blackness. It’s perfect. It’s—
My chin slides from my hand, and when I look back out the window I see the Lyft has stopped and we’re out the front of an apartment building.
It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever seen in Broadrock, apart from the mountains and the ocean. It’s new, and bright, and so out of place I lean towards the driver as he gets out; “Is that it?”
He leans back inside. “According to the GPS.”
I know I have to move but it feels impossible right now.
I reach for my skateboard, my hand as heavy as lead, and tug it, along with the backpack it’s strapped to, towards myself. The driver already has my suitcase out of the trunk waiting for me by the time I’m out of the car, and is making quick work of getting my surfboard down from the roof racks.
The soles of my shoes and the worn out hems of my oversized light-wash jeans drag across the road as I scuff my way towards the curb.
The frosty grass looks nice and soft. I could lay down for just a minute between the stacks of boxes, king-sized mattress, and… spider plant?
I drag my suitcase toward the building’s front and leave it by the stoop before returning to take my board from the Lyft driver. He offers me a friendly goodbye, and I think I reply. I intend to, anyway.
Weaving through the shit show strewn across the front lawn is a lot harder with a six-foot surfboard than with wheelie luggage, but I manage to make it to the intercom without knocking anything over.
I press the buzzer for 5F and wait to hear my brother’s voice.
When it doesn’t come I punch at it with more force.
I lean in close to the speaker, yet I still hear nothing.
I try opening the glass doors but they’re locked—just like I knew they would be. I check the mailbox but it’s jammed with take-out pamphlets. Between Shawn and my brother you’d think one of them would be adult enough to clean it out.
I check my phone in case it glitched and didn’t alert me of a text, but there are no missed calls or messages from Eden.
I try the buzzer a third time, holding my finger down for a good five seconds before releasing it. There’s a hollow thump, like something rubbed up against the microphone, then Shawn’s voice shrieks out through the speaker. “Stop pressing the fucking buzzer!”
“Tell Eden I’m here,” I quickly speak into the intercom. I can’t tell if she responds or just hisses, but it goes dead either way.
They’re probably having sex. I swear they do it more than they breathe. I’ll give them ten more minutes, then I'll press that damn buzzer until someone lets me inside.
I rest my board against the front of the building and haul my suitcase up over the icy concrete edge of the stoop.
Broadrock’s not a big place. Sometimes it feels like everything has been designed to be as unwelcoming as possible with even nature in on the joke.
For months every year there is a haze that hangs over it.
It’s cold and damp, and so far from the eternal sunshine of San Diego, or the tropical paradise's I spent the past three years living in. But I still miss it.
I know it makes me sound stupid.
I know my parents moved us down to California before I even started school, but each time I return it feels like I’m coming home. Or maybe it’s my brother’s influence, because sunshine and warmth aren’t ever something I’d associate with Eden.
Leaning beside my surfboard I watch a sage green and off-white vintage Volkswagen Combi van pull into the parking lot and back into the only empty space.
The guy driving steps out and circles to the passenger side to open the large sliding door.
He looks familiar: tall, tanned in the kind of way that isn’t just from the sun, there's blackwork tribal tattoos up his neck, his hair is buzzed almost to the scalp, and he's got a bandage over his nose and a bruise under his eye. He’s got a presence, sure, but he looks more like the kind of guy you’d expect to be on a paddle board in Hawaii, not shuffling boxes in a parking lot in Northern Washington.
He bends to pick up a stack of shoeboxes balanced on the curb and catches me staring. His eyes go wide for half a second, then he quickly looks away.
Why does he look so damn familiar?
I open Instagram and flick through the photos of my time spent at The North Shore on Oahu. He looks like a local, but I definitely don't know him from there.
I try calling Eden’s number because I’ve waited long enough, but it goes straight to voicemail.
With a lamenting sigh, I push off the wall and pace the sidewalk in front of the building.
The guy loading the van struggles with the mattress and I feel compelled to help, but when I step towards him he shoves it inside, abandoning all the care he’d been taking.
With a shrug I keep walking, back and forth, until everything is loaded into the van because I have some internal need to see how—whatever this situation is—plays out.
He leans against the side of the van and lights a cigarette.
His eyes flicker to me every few seconds, checking to see if I’m still there.
When he exhales, the smoke coils up, drowning his face.
He lets his head fall back against the Combi’s window, and I can’t help but sympathize because he’s got the look on his face of a person who’s been somewhere way too long but doesn’t know how to leave.
“Do you live here?” I ask, ignoring the wall he’s built between us.
“Huh?” His head whips towards me, brows knitted tightly in confusion; his reaction proving that I really should know who he is.
“Do you live here?” I ask again.
“No,” he replies, but it’s more like a question.
“Do you know someone who does?”
“Maybe.”
“Do you know my brother, Eden van der Hart?”
“Yeah.”
I run my fingers through the long, sun-bleached waves on top of my head, repositioning them to the other side. “More than one word answers would be helpful.”
He shrugs, and it’s awkward, like he's telling me I should be thankful he responded at all.
“D’you know if he’s around?”
He shakes his head. “He’s not… Sorry man.” Then he takes another drag of his cigarette and turns away from me.
I hate when people apologize for shit that doesn’t need an apology. That asshole Eden isn’t here, now this guy’s saying sorry as if it’s his fault my toddler of an older brother can’t even be present when I arrive like we’ve been planning for months.
I check the time. I’ve been standing out here for seventeen minutes. If Eden isn’t in his apartment, then he also isn’t fucking Shawn who I know is inside.
I give the buzzer one last punch and hold it down while I call my brother with my other hand, cause fuck Shawn for not letting me in.
“What the fuck is going on, Eden?” I shout into the receiver when it’s time to leave my message. “You’ve known I was coming since August. It’s too early for you to be at work, and Shawn's being a bitch and won’t buzz me inside.”
Just then, I hear someone swearing from the lobby.
I quickly hang up and release the buzzer to look. It’s Shawn, arms loaded with bags. She sees me and rolls her eyes so hard I swear I hear it. Then she bursts through the glass door, pushing me back, ignoring my existence entirely.
“The hell was that for?” I say, stepping in front of her. “Why couldn’t you just let me in?”
Shawn steps around me and I follow her down the short path to the grassed area by the parking lot.
“Hello?”
She stops by the back of the Combi and sets the bags down. The fabric slouches and I see granola bars, cereal, pasta and sauce. A stack of cans falls over in another, the top one rolling across the grass.
“Where’s my brother?”
Shawn snorts, kicks the runaway can back towards the bag, then bends down to pick it up. “He’s not here. Hasn’t been since Tuesday.”
“The fuck?” I mutter under my breath. “Wait. Why are you taking all this stuff out of the apartment?”
She looks at me as she knocks on the back of the van.
“Wait? Did you guys break up?”
Her eyes roll again and the guy gets out of the van to collect the bags by her feet.
“Is this one of those petty breakups where you drag all his stuff out just to get back together a week later?”
“This wasn’t my choice, Carey,” she snaps at me as the van door slides closed.
“Well, do you know where he is?”
“It’s not my job to babysit your ass.”
“I haven’t done shit to you, Shawn. So there’s no need to talk to me like that.”
“He broke up with me, okay?” She backs away towards the Combi’s passenger door. “Then he ran away to that damn cabin of his. So if you can’t get a hold of him either, then I suggest you take a trip up Interstate Five.” She pulls the door open, climbs in, then slams it shut.
“How am I meant to get inside? Shawn?”
The window cranks down. “Hey loser. You’ve got two seconds.” I jog towards the open window and she hurls the key and fob at my chest, but I’m not quick enough to catch it before it hits the road. I pick it up and stare at her. She looks back, no apology, just a mean little smile.
“Drive Reeze,” she says, and the van peels out of the parking lot.
The hell?
That was Reeze?
Does Shawn not have friends of her own?