Chapter 15
Biology Class
Day 23
“You got in a fight with Brock?” I said to Dax as he dropped into his seat next to me. Dax’s fight with the class president and my prom date was the reason he had missed class last week. He had been suspended from school.
He laughed, sliding lower into his seat to rest the back of his head on his chair. His right eye was rimmed with black and green hues.
“Apparently, he only likes discussing the stock market to impress his girlfriends. I was hoping to grab some tips from him and he freaked out.”
“You were making fun of him?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I just asked him a question. He kind of reminds me of you.”
“Why?” I asked automatically, my tone prickly.
“It’s that politician thing.” He looked at me then, a deep knowing in his gaze that startled me. “You smile and say all the right things, but there’s a lot boiling just below the surface. It’s pretty entertaining to poke the really nice bear.”
I moved my gaze over his black eye. “Looks like that nice bear poked you right back. ”
Two mornings later, I was on break at the cafe, stuffing my face with Marco’s famous key-lime-pie pancakes with coconut syrup when my phone rang.
“Hi. Is this Caroline Brooks?” The woman on the line sounded bored. It was probably her polite secretary voice, but her tone and inflection sounded as though she was dreaming of a beach somewhere. She’d probably love Sunset Harbor.
“It’s Ivy, actually, but yeah.”
“Okay. This is Samantha from Kathleen Meyer’s office at Vanderbilt. I’m calling about the class you were scheduled for later this summer and fall.”
I snuck out of Marco’s loud kitchen and slipped into the small office in the back of the cafe. This phone call could quite literally change my life, and I didn’t think it was a great sign that Kathleen had assigned her secretary to call me. “Yeah?”
There was a slight pause before she deadpanned the sentence that would dash every plan I had made before coming to the island.
“Kathleen is sorry about the change in your summer schedule but ultimately feels you should serve your community service. Your eight-week course of Introduction to Statistics is scheduled to begin on Monday, August 5th. We are willing to waive the research you were supposed to do for this summer, but Kathleen needs you back in Nashville by Monday, July 22nd at the latest if you’d still like to keep your class and fellowship for the fall.”
I clenched the phone in my hands. That was a week and a half earlier than I was expecting to leave.
“Why that early?” I asked.
“Because if, for some reason, you can’t make it, we’ll need the extra time to make other arrangements.”
Any other time, it wouldn’t be a big deal, but with my remaining hours at the cafe, every day counted. I had asked the cafe to schedule me out for a few weeks without pay. I couldn’t cry off now. And I didn’t want to. In a small way, it helped knowing Harold and Judy had one less thing to worry about while they were away for cancer treatments.
“Is that something you can do, Ms. Brooks? Or should we talk about giving the opportunity to another graduate?”
My mind raced to calculate.
T-minus 38 29 days to exit
Dax hours remaining: 185
I’d be dead on my feet with no life, but I’d get my hours finished.
“I can do it. I’ll be there.”
There was another pause before Samantha reiterated, “You must report to Kathleen’s office by 9 am on Monday, July 22nd, Ms. Brooks. Or else we’ll be forced to re-evaluate our agreement.”
“I’ll make it work. Tell Kathleen to plan on me.” While my words sounded bright and chipper, inside I was dying.
“Keep us posted if anything changes.”
The line clicked off. I slumped into the desk chair in defeat. I imagined her writing a checkmark on the list next to her phone that said: Call Caroline Brooks and destroy her immediate future.
Check.
I just wouldn’t sleep. Friends would have to come see me. Dax seemed to get along fine with a schedule like that.
This was my chance to stay connected to a university, researching and writing papers and rubbing shoulders with professors who might one day open a door for me. This job held the key to everything I had worked my butt off for the past ten years.
And it all stood to be flushed down the drain. If this postdoc fell through, I would be facing the biggest fear of every graduate student ever—being extremely overqualified and severely out of work.
Later that afternoon, I sat on the cold hard concrete floor of Dax’s lobby. I had actually been looking forward to an evening of mindless Legos until I arrived and remembered that I still, in fact, hated it. I had organized one pile as best as I could, but I could never seem to find what I needed without scouring the ground for at least ten minutes. Beau and Phoenix had helped me find a couple of pieces on their way to see Dax—the Dax who saved me from Lucas and defended me to my dad.
We hadn’t talked about the other night. The following morning, he left my apartment early to work at the shop, and I kept to myself. Sunday was the one day I gave myself time off, so I spent the day walking the beach and playing volleyball with Cat and Holland. But my heart lurched this morning when I found him sitting in his booth, waiting for coffee. He wasn’t pushing me for much conversation beyond teasing, but there seemed to be a more gentle undertone between us now.
Watching Dax say those things to my dad on my behalf both humbled and humiliated me. I wasn’t embarrassed by his words or his actions. It was the fact that it should have been me saying them. Conflict was something I’d been taught to ignore. Keeping my head down and smiling through the pain was the theme of life in the Brooks’ household.
I found it difficult to talk back to my dad when, deep down, I still craved his approval.
And his love.
I knew what he was, but I also knew what he could be, and that knowledge waged a constant battle within me .
I picked up my Lego guidebook, squinting down at the small ball of Legos I had painstakingly crafted over the past few days and compared it to the picture in the book.
Then I looked again.
And again.
To my utter horror, the Lego piece in my hand looked different from the picture. Not a lot different, mind you, but the tiniest microscopic amount different. An amount that shouldn’t have the power to ruin someone’s already terrible day.
I flipped back the pages until I found where I went wrong. Fourteen pages back. Two days of work. TEN HOURS ruined. I threw the book down. It landed with a loud thump.
I didn’t cry. Or scream. Instead, I slunk to the cold floor and lay there, allowing the numbness to overtake me.
Was I the camel? Because this straw was heavy.
The front door flung open. A man in grubby overalls thundered into the room, holding an invoice in his hand.
His stormy eyes landed on mine. “Is the owner here?”
I nodded, too far gone in my own misery to say anything. I just pointed toward the door that led into the garage.
Without another word, he strode past me, his footsteps heavy as he thundered his way toward Dax’s space.
With my pity party essentially ruined, I picked up a Lego and held it in my hand. I imagined there would be eight-year-olds and parents everywhere who might understand this specific frustration—that I no longer felt.
Because…numb.
A voice, loud and booming, began shouting in the other room. Highly sensitive to sounds of anger, my body sat rigid while I strained to listen for what was being said. I debated for a moment before standing up, dropping my Lego in the pile, and making my way closer.
I stepped through the doorway. My attention first went to the man shouting while waving what looked like his invoice in the air while Dax listened, calmly leaning against a golf cart. Beau and Phoenix were seated on the chairs, watching the man yell at Dax. Beau smiled at me as I made my way toward them, pushing an empty barstool my way with his foot.
“We’re out of chips. You don’t happen to have any popcorn, do you?”
“You’re the cop. Shouldn’t you stop this?” I said.
His brow furrowed. “Stop what?”
“That guy yelling at Dax.”
Laughter sprung into his eyes. “If this guy tries to throw a punch, I might jump in, but I just cleaned my uniform.”
When I didn’t laugh, Beau leaned in closer. “I doubt it will get that far. Dax can handle himself.”
“You’re way overcharging!” the man’s voice boomed. “Just because you’re on an island doesn’t mean you can charge double the price of what I can get done on the mainland.”
Dax shook his head and pointed at the invoice. “Listen, man, it costs almost double for me to get parts ferried onto this island, so I will definitely be charging more for that.” He leaned closer and pointed at different parts of the bill. “That’s the price of the part, including the extra shipping to get it here. This is my hourly rate to fix it. I don’t have any secrets. It’s all black and white. I told you the exact price on the phone when I called you.”
“You never said a number this high. I would have stopped you.”
“I read this exact invoice.”
“Your hourly rate is extortion.”
Dax laughed, running his hand through his hair as he noticed me sitting there for the first time. My skin came alive with awareness as his gaze landed on mine. “It’s not.”
“I’ll be taking my business somewhere else next time.”
“That would be great. But if you want your mower, you’re going to have to sign right here and pay. ”
The man shook his head, grumbling under his breath. Dax looked at Phoenix and Beau and rolled his eyes, much to their delight.
The man pulled a checkbook out of his back pocket.
“Sorry, sir, there’s no way I’m taking a check from you. Card or cash only.” Dax folded his arms and waited unapologetically while the man’s face turned a dark shade of red.
Biting his bitter tongue, the man reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, his pudgy fingers yanking out a stack of bills. “If you were any sort of business owner, you would at least give me a discount.”
Again, Dax laughed, unfazed as he straightened up some tools on his workbench. “If I had my guess, you do this wherever you go, which is why you came to an island to get this fixed when you don’t live here. You’re probably not welcome anywhere else.”
The man took another step toward Dax, to which Beau and Phoenix stood up from their chairs, the scrape of the metal against the concrete breaking into the tension of the room.
The man took a step back and threw down several one-hundred-dollar bills at Dax’s feet before grabbing his push mower and storming out—at least, storming out as much as possible when pushing a mower that looked like a kid’s toy to such a big man.
“You just lost my business!” he yelled as the door slammed shut behind him.
Phoenix let out a laugh. “You almost got beat up by a fifty-year-old man.”
Dax’s eyebrows raised. “You think he’s that old?”
“At least.”
Dax smiled, popping his knuckles. “I would have had to go easy on him, then.”
I stood there entranced, watching his friends laugh together. Dax sauntered back over to a golf cart with a tool in his hand. From what I could tell, he didn’t hold any weight of the man’s opinion of him on his back. But the tension from the conversation had filled my stomach with lead. That guy hated him. He would probably leave Dax a terrible review online somewhere, and here was Dax, just laughing about it with his friends.
How did he do that?
To stand up for himself without apology? To act without giving a thought to what others might think of him? Dax defended me and spoke the same way to my dad as he did this man. Even in high school, he never allowed anyone to treat him poorly. Teachers were disciplining him and at the same time asking for advice on motors.
I wanted that.
I didn’t know how, but I wanted it.
Was there such a thing as a quarter-life crisis?
But how? How does one stop caring what people think? How do I stop caring that I’m disappointing my dad? How do I live a life on my terms?
I had no freaking idea.
“You still on the clock, Books?” Dax asked me a few minutes later, once the guys had left and I still hadn’t moved from my spot on the barstool. My thoughts were jumbled in my head, and that was exactly how they came out to Dax.
“I messed up on the Legos, and I have to go back fourteen pages. So I’m just going to sit here for another minute if you don’t mind.”
Dax stopped what he was doing to look over at me. “Wait. What?”
“I messed up. And I hate Legos. My last two days have been for nothing.”
He was silent for a long moment before he dropped his tool and walked over to me. “Show me.”
Without a word, I followed him into the other room and sat down next to him as he flipped through the pages .
“I didn’t realize I put this piece in the wrong way, fourteen pages ago. So now I have to rip this whole thing up and start over.”
There was not a day horrible enough on this earth for me to cry over Legos in front of Dax Miller. So I sucked up my last breath and pinched my leg ultra hard to give my brain another hurt to process.
After a minute, Dax began breaking apart my Lego pieces. He flipped to the page I needed to redo and began fitting Legos into place with the ease and respect of someone who had clearly loved them his whole life.
“Chin up, Books. One hundred and eighty more hours, and you’re home free.”
“One hundred and eighty-four,” I corrected miserably.
“Start organizing that pile over there. I’ll work on fixing this mess,” Dax said, nudging my foot with his leg. “The things you do to get me in here doing your work for you.”
He seemed so absorbed in the booklet and Legos that he didn’t seem to notice that I still sat where I was, my arms wrapped around bent legs, watching him.
“How do you speak your mind like that?” I asked, unable to help myself.
“Huh?”
“You almost got in a massive fight ten minutes ago, and now you’re sitting here helping me with Legos like nothing happened.”
“That wasn’t a massive fight,” he protested.
“It could have been. But you didn’t even flinch. You just told him off.”
“Yeah, because I didn’t do anything wrong. I quoted him a fair price, and he was trying to bully his way out of paying.”
“I know.” And I did know, I realized. Dax was a lot of things, but deep down, there was something so honorable about him. I must have been a glutton for punishment asking this question, but I really wanted to know how a person could just turn emotions off like Dax seemed to do. “But how do you shrug off his opinion so fast? My mind goes blank when people are mad at me.”
“Are you asking me for advice, Books?” He pointed at his inflated chest.
“Not if you’re going to use that tone.”
His lips lifted at the corners. “Alright. You want to know the secret?”
“Yeah.”
“Stop making everything such a big deal. It doesn't have to be personal. You need to separate yourself. Lawnmower Joe from the mainland makes a career out of cheating people. That’s not on me. And I have every right to stand up for myself when he tries it on me. So, just stop caring about people, and you’ll be fine.” He brushed his hands together like the matter was solved. I kicked him with my leg.
I remembered the way he held me after Lucas, the feel of his hands on my legs as he carried me to the bed. His words implied an aloofness, while his actions suggested otherwise. If anything, I think he cared too much about people. But I kept my thoughts to myself.
“It’s hard to separate myself when the problem is my dad. It was easier in Tennessee, but here…” I trailed off.
“What’s hard about it now?”
“He’s right in front of my face. If I ignore his phone call he comes and finds me. He never called me in Tennessee.”
“What’s he making you feel bad for?” Dax asked, looking at me.
“Being here…ruining his campaign. Losing two of his sponsors.” I gave a little laugh, like it was all funny, but there was a pang in my gut, reminding me how unfunny it actually was.
Dax set the Lego down and draped his arms over his knees, taking me in with dark eyes .
“He’s making you feel bad because you’re on the island?”
I shrugged. It could go either way—here on the island or here with Dax. My guess was it was more the latter, but admitting that to Dax seemed too forward.
Dax held up his fingers, ticking each off as he said, “It’s not his island. It’s your home. You have every right to be here. If he really thinks that, he’s wrong. What’s the next one?”
My lips pulled upward the tiniest bit. “I’m ruining his campaign.”
“If he’s that terrible of a politician that one accident is enough to sink him, that’s on him. Your choices shouldn’t be related to him in any way.”
“But people do judge a politician’s family,” I insisted.
He shrugged. “He’s not running for president, so I think he can calm down. Everybody in this town knows you, Books. It was an accident. Everybody has moved on. I was over it the second you stepped into my garage.”
I looked to him in surprise. It took a long moment before I trusted myself to say something. “Was it my heartfelt apology?”
“Something like that.” His voice sounded almost gentle even as he bit back a smile.
The mood shifted into something so soft I could hold in my hand.
“What was that last one?”
I thought back to what I had said. “He lost two big sponsors because of me—so he claims.”
Dax rolled his eyes. “Okay. Now you tell me how he’s wrong.”
I blew out a breath. “He should have sided with me over the Lucas thing—or at least listened to me. But the problem became inconvenient for him, and he didn’t want to deal with it. It’s always easier to blame me instead of change his ways.”
“Look at you go,” Dax said, smiling proudly .
“What if I am in the wrong? I could do this with anything. I can’t go through life pretending nothing is ever my fault.”
“You won’t. You’ll make it right. That’s why you showed up to my shop after the accident. You’ll know here,” he said, as he thumped at his chest. “Most people are more normal. If they make mistakes, they own it and then try to make it right. But there are always going to be people we have to protect ourselves against. Your dad is one of yours.”
The simple way Dax spelled things out felt like something caged inside of me had been let free. For a brief second, all the twisted inner workings of my mind relaxed, allowing me to sit in a moment of justification and validation. Even though I knew my brain would re-complicate things soon enough, for now, the feeling of someone siding with me was liberating.
“It just takes some practice defying expectations, and then you’ll be as cold and unfeeling as I am,” Dax said lightly, rummaging through the pile of Legos once more.
“Was that your entire teenage life? Defying expectations?” I asked.
He held out his hands. “And look at me now.”
I laughed as I began organizing the Legos into more piles. We didn’t speak for a long moment while “Bad Moon Rising” by Creedence Clearwater Revival played in the background. The fact that I now knew the names of some of the songs on Dax’s playlist astounded me at the same time my foot tapped to the beat.
Defying expectations.
My mind latched onto those two words, and they swirled inside me as the song blasted from the speakers. Dax had practiced for much of his life to block out opinions. I recalled the stiff way he spoke with his parents and the way he was always working. Certainly, a person could go too far with this idea. Still, my heart began to thrum with the itch to do…something. Anything. Scale a wall? Sure. Toilet paper a house? What time? A restless energy began filtering through my veins, and I wasn’t sure what to do with the feeling while I sat on the floor next to Dax handing him Lego pieces.
“So, when do you have to be back in Tennessee?” His voice was passively indifferent, but I thought I detected something else I couldn’t place. Probably excitement.
“Just over four weeks now.”
He looked over at me. “What?”
I filled him in on my phone call from earlier.
“If I can get all my hours finished in time, that’s the plan.”
“I think you forget that I’ve kindly provided you with a list of ways to reduce your hours.” There was a reckless look on his face as he met my gaze.
While my racing heart skittered to a stop.
The list.
I had forgotten about the stupid list. The list he had made while knowing I would be too scared to do any of it.
And he had been right. I would have been too scared back then.
Honestly, I still was.
But now...the place deep inside, underneath my carefully crafted existence, felt empty. Hollow. Numb.
But underneath the numbness…the callus, new life began to grow.
I had one month to do one hundred and eighty-four hours of community service as well as do my part to help the cafe.
Even if I only did one thing off the list, it would save a lot of hours.
Then I remembered who I was. There was no way. Let’s not forget that the list only had three things on it, and one of them was to spray paint a building. The other was driving an illegal car all around the island.
I was already on probation from one motor vehicle mishap.
There was no way I was doing any of it .
Dax only wrote the list because he was annoyed with me.
So, why was I still thinking about it?
Maybe I could secretly ask the owner of the clinic if I could borrow the ambulance for a bit? Dax wouldn’t have to know.
“You’re not going to do it, so wipe that look off your face.”
I hadn’t realized he’d been watching me. “Why? You worried I will?”
A smile brushed across his lips. “No.” He paused and seemed to reconsider his statement before saying, “But if you did…what a way to start being brave and living life on your terms.” He leaned closer. “Defying those expectations.”
Now he was goading me. Usually, I would push him away or smack him in the arm for that, but this time, our eyes clung as my mind raced right alongside my heart.
I stood up and disappeared into the back room for a minute, feeling Dax’s gaze on me as I left. Underneath the calendar of the beautiful and voluptuous 1960s women, Dax had tacked his paper onto the wall. I yanked the list down.
I’d spent my whole life living for others. Going to college for someone else. Getting my degree for someone else. Even getting a job at Vanderbilt for someone else. What would happen if I were to step a foot outside the mold? Or just, you know...dipped a toe?
I wanted so badly to feel different. To be different. I wanted one moment where my choices were mine. Even if it ended up being a mistake, I wanted to choose. I wanted to feel off-balance. And there was one person in this whole world who just might be game.
I strode back into the Lego room, the door hitting the wall with a force that made Dax jump.
“You’ve got to stop doing th?—“
“I’m doing the list,” I announced, sounding more assured than I felt. But I had made up my mind. Whatever was bubbling inside of me was now unleashed. A new life and energy pumped through my veins with a jarring certainty.
Dax’s eyebrows raised in interest. “Do you remember the list? I’m pretty sure I didn’t add a dance party on there.”
“There’s still time.”
He snorted and looked back down at his Legos, as comfortable as I’d seen him in a while. “You’re not doing it.”
“I am. And first up, I’m getting a tattoo.”