Chapter Twelve
twelve
hope
“I low-key wish we hadn’t caught any more sharks after the first one,” I tell Marissa. I never in my life thought I’d say this, let alone think it. A day without sharks is normally a big disappointment. Typical, yes, but with months or years of preparation and the constraint of narrow windows in which to complete field studies, every day counts. But coming up empty would’ve been preferable to my nightmare performance.
A few steps ahead of me on Adrian’s driveway, Marissa spins around, canvas bag of supplies twirling in an arc with the force of her movement. “You did not just say that to me.”
I dodge my eyes away from her incredulous look under pretense of checking out the property. We drove over to Adrian’s house to stow gear, and my first impulse was to rush and be out of here before he arrives. But I can’t help lingering in the dappled sunlight at the foot of the stairs leading up to his raised cottage.
The house sits on stilts, a porch swing tucked invitingly underneath, along with more practical items like a boat trailer and storage locker. Overhead, a live oak with trailing Spanish moss sways in a breeze tinged with the loamy scent of the Waccamaw River, just visible through cypress trees. There’s a screened-in front porch at the top of the steps, and if things between us were different, I’d already be up the steps to see if the deck offers a clear view of the water.
No surprise that Adrian’s a homeowner—our last few months together were spent browsing condo listings—but this place is the stuff of dreams. Idyllic, perched on a waterfront lot with neighbors close enough for comfort but far enough for privacy. The sort of home we used to dream about when the lights were off, and practicality faded away. When our future together could stretch as wide as imagining.
Seeing the manifestation of those dreams, being here, I begin to grasp what my hesitancy must’ve cost Adrian. How putting the first step on hold poked holes in our watertight trust. How the leak of my doubts worked against his trust to erode our relationship.
But whatever state our breakup left him in, it’s clear he’s moved past it, and the insecurities that plagued me on the boat come roaring back. All this time I’ve been tied up in knots over him, while he was building a home. A future. I pass the inviting steps, into the shade underneath the house, ready to ditch the supplies and get out of here.
Glancing around the open space, intersected by sturdy support beams, I catch sight of a pair of kayaks, and next to them, a set of weights and a jump rope. An image of Adrian in a sweat-soaked tank top, rope spinning, lips pursed in concentration, drills into my mind, and I slash my eyes away from the gym setup to find Marissa watching me.
“Did you forget the part where I bungled the units of measurement?” Cringe overtakes me. “I haven’t made a mistake like that since middle school. I was basically useless once Gabe started filming.”
She takes off her sunglasses, leaving me feeling exposed under her assessing gaze. I know we’re going to have to discuss strategies to work successfully with Adrian, but not here, not in the space where his personality—the familiar and the new—is everywhere around us.
“Tell me you’re not going to let one bad day get in your head,” she says, and lifts her chin to indicate where I should set down my cargo.
I haul the bucket over to an open rack of shelving and set it down, feeling grimy and out of sorts. All I want is to shower off the remnants of this day, but erasing the effects of my performance won’t be so simple.
“My first day back and I fell off a dock, Marissa.” Not to mention the cooler incident, which haunts me with a slurry of awkwardness and desire, underlaid by my body’s inexplicable reaction to Adrian, despite my desire to remain unaffected. “Do you know how many docks I’ve successfully walked on without falling in? Hundreds, if not a thousand.”
She laughs. “That’s not the flex you think it is.”
“Tell me about it.” I let out a frustrated sigh. “That’s what makes losing it on camera even worse. So much for a comeback.” Adrian’s no longer just my ex-boyfriend, he’s a colleague I let down.
But the moment I saw the camera, I was transported to the last and only time I was on TV, a city council meeting that went from routine to disastrous. The memory of that colossal screwup kept me frazzled today, terrified of making a mistake that would live on forever on the internet.
“It’s day one,” Marissa says. She opens a plastic cupboard and stashes the bag inside. “And a lot of today was my fault.” A smirk slants across her face. “Well, aside from whatever happened with that cooler. That was all you and Adrian.” Her small nose wrinkles, like she regrets the mental image.
Despite my embarrassment, I chuckle. “Can’t imagine how that looked from the outside.”
“It was tough to watch,” she says. “And I didn’t tell you the whole truth, but I didn’t want to overwhelm you.”
“With facts you should’ve disclosed before I drove down here?”
She grimaces. “My plan was to ease you into it. I fully admit I may have got overexcited when you reached out. At first, I thought you were asking because you knew about the channel, but once it became clear you had no idea...” She shrugs, her slender shoulders lifting under her loose T-shirt. “I should’ve told you before you came all the way here, but I was worried you’d change your mind.”
“That was my decision to make.” I raise my brows meaningfully. “With all the relevant information.”
“Google exists,” she counters.
“You knew Adrian was an off-limits topic for me.”
She leans against one of the support pillars, arms crossed. “I didn’t realize how far you took it. I’ve been careful not to bring up my cousin, but I didn’t know you’d cut yourself off from the community completely.”
“Only in the past couple years.” The concrete floor is gritty, and I scuff at the sand with my foot, giving myself a moment to find the words. Sharing my feelings is hard, especially when they feel like shortcomings. “Once I committed to staying for the duration of the Lake Michigan study, it was too hard to watch from the sidelines. Everyone was doing big things.” And I was busy trying to get over my boyfriend and figure out the next step in my career. “Which is why I reached out to you.”
“Because I wasn’t?” Her mouth tilts with an ironic smile, calling out my inconsistency. Even though she never brought up the channel, we talked often about her research and conservation work. Though it wasn’t easy to not be a part of things, seeing her succeed never made me feel left out.
“Because you never judged my choices.” Not even the decision to leave Adrian behind. “I felt safe coming to you for help.”
“And I breached that trust.” Her smile falls. “I should’ve made sure you knew what you were getting into. But I’m glad you stayed.”
She turns to latch the cupboard, then walks past me, back out into the driveway. I give one last lingering look toward the kayaks before following her. What I wouldn’t give for a relaxing trip down the river to ease the day’s stress.
Catching up to her, I ask, “Even though I panicked on camera?”
She tugs open the driver’s side door, and I follow suit, climbing inside. “We can work on that. How about you start with watching our recent videos so you can get an idea of how things usually go?”
Exactly what I would’ve done had I known the full scale of what this summer would entail. Studying, and research is what makes me feel prepared to tackle any challenge. “Trying to butter me up with homework so I forgive you?”
She chuckles and turns the key in the ignition and rolls down the windows. “Is it working?”
“I know you had my best interests at heart, but I’m capable of managing my own life.” A few years ago, I might have chosen to let my hurt fester rather than doing the hard work of articulating my feelings, like I did with Adrian. But I’ve learned not to stay quiet. To work on relationships, even when it’s easier to let grievances build up to the breaking point. “From here on out, you need to trust me with the truth.”
“I’m sorry, Hope.” Letting go of the steering wheel, she shifts to face me, her brown eyes serious. “Jokes aside, I know I screwed up.”
If only I’d been able to talk through things earlier with Adrian, maybe things would be different now. But while we lost each other because of a hesitancy to speak our minds, our relationship wasn’t destined for forever. My propensity to push boundaries, to leap into new opportunities will always leave him unsettled, and me on edge, worried I’ll let him down. He may have taken a chance on starting a channel, but he’s still the same cautious man I fell in love with, the one who needs a steady partner.
Friendships are easier. Less messy. Once I leave the team, my choices won’t directly affect her, and I won’t have to worry about letting her down. “Forgiven.”
Day one was an unqualified disaster, but I’m back on a shark study with a good friend. The angst with Adrian will sort itself out if I focus on what I came for, starting with a marathon watchfest so I’m prepared to crush the assignment on our next trip out.
Unfortunately, I have to wait for my shot at redemption. Everyone else has plans for the next day, so no fieldwork was scheduled. I’m all too familiar with the unavoidable reality of weather delays that halt projects in their tracks, sometimes for weeks on end. You’d think a few more days after years of time away from sharks wouldn’t matter, but being this close and not being able to get back on the water is like an ice cream shop flipping the sign to closed in a toddler’s face.
Part of me is grateful for a breather from Adrian. But a bigger part of me knows that out of sight doesn’t equal out of mind when it comes to him. Never has, and if I don’t find a way to break his hold on me, I’ll be eighty and looking over my shoulder for a glimpse of his smile. His dang hoodie will be moth-eaten and still at the back of my closet—or in this case, crammed under the rest of the clothes in my suitcase, since I forgot to change out of it the morning I left.
Tossing it in the trash at a gas station on the way felt creepily akin to evidence disposal, so I stashed it away from prying eyes. Not like Marissa will be going through my stuff, but with my “room” being an air mattress in the corner of her living room, I don’t exactly have a lot of privacy. I took advantage of her being out of the house to check out their channel, since watching videos of Adrian is not something I want an audience for.
In a shocking turn of events, it’s hard to remain objective and pick up tips for how to act comfortable on camera while your ex-boyfriend is on-screen. When I find myself staring dreamily at his smile for the third time, I switch to a more productive form of research: seeking out the research Adrian’s published in the past few years.
I spend an hour or so on a deep dive of his studies, and don’t come up for air until my phone—brought back from its watery demise after hours spent trying out hacks we found online—buzzes with a text. I slam the laptop screen closed like whoever texted me has access to my search history.
Zuri: Scale of 1 to 10: how much do you hate me for not spilling the beans about your influencer ex?
Hope: You tried. I just chose not to listen.
Zuri: Ostrich-syndrome at its finest.
Hope: That’s a myth. Ostriches don’t actually stick their heads in the sand.
Zuri: Seeing him again can’t be all that bad if your ability to bore me with biology factoids is intact.
I press the call button and lift the phone to my ear.
“Hello?” Zuri answers right away.
“It absolutely is that bad.” I slump back against the chair. “Also, ‘factoid’ is a buzzword. Facts is perfectly adequate.”
Her groan of annoyance makes me smile but also sends a pang of homesickness through me. I’ve missed her even in the short time we spent apart. Our friendship has always been of the pick-up-right-where-we-left-off variety, and I’ll never stop being grateful for that.
“You could’ve tried harder to warn me that Adrian is famous.”
“Mega famous,” she says, and then we’re both laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. “Last time I checked he only had a few thousand followers.”
Now that I’ve had time to come to grips with it, his social media success doesn’t surprise me. Adrian’s parents had to move around a lot for work and that meant he had to learn how to make friends fast. Between his enigmatic personality and his expertise, it’s no wonder people flock to his content.
“Still can’t believe I’ve been sucked into all this.”
“In a way, I think it was good to go in with no expectations. No time to talk yourself out of what’s a really cool opportunity.”
“You sound like Marissa.”
“I always knew I liked that woman,” she says, and I can’t help but laugh. One of my friends tried to warn me, another hid the full truth, but they both thought I could do this. That counts for something.
Still, Zuri knows how badly I botched things the last time I had a big audience; she was there. I tell her about what happened when Gabe turned on the camera. “It was just like what happened at the town hearing, Zuri. Stakes were high, and I lost my cool.”
“You should tell them about what happened,” she says.
“And lose what’s left of my dignity?” Not to mention the shame of letting down my colleagues and friends.
The whiz of a blender comes on in the background. Probably making one of her signature smoothie bowls. My stomach rumbles in response and I pull the phone away to check the time. Well past lunch.
The noise cuts off and she says, “At least explain you’re not a fan of going on record. Maybe they have some strategies.”
I stand, stiff from sitting in the chair for hours, and grab my purse and the spare key Marissa made for me. “They already offered, but it’s not just the camera, it’s—”
“Your sexy ex?” Zuri sighs. “I’d be flustered around that man, too.”
“Watch yourself, woman.”
“Why?” Her voice is deceptively innocent. “He’s single, right? Or did I miss that in my snooping?”
Blood thuds in my temples, obscuring rational thought. Zuri would never flirt with someone I dated, no matter how attractive. “Yes.” The word leaks past my clenched teeth. “But—”
“But he’s Adrian,” she says. “And you’re not over him.”
My mouth falls open, face ablaze. She was baiting me, and I totally swallowed the hook. “You say that like it’s reasonable.” My lack of denial stings my own eardrums.
“Love is never reasonable.”
Love is not a word in my current vocabulary. Regard. Esteem. Civility. Those apply. “Who said anything about love? What I feel for him is an attachment I need to break.”
“Sometimes I think you forget that you are not your parents.” They met in high school. Went to colleges on opposite sides of the state, but after a year apart, missed each other so much that they sacrificed hefty scholarships and switched to a more affordable two-year school where they could be together. If you hear them tell it, it’s the love story of the century, but I never saw it that way.
“And for the record,” Zuri continues, “what they have together isn’t so bad.” There’s an edge to her voice, and I bite my lip. She married her high school sweetheart and settled in our hometown, but that’s where the similarity ends. She started her own business and chased her dreams alongside her husband.
My parents never seemed to have any ambition beyond marriage and raising me. I’m grateful for their love, and I know putting their all into each other and our family fulfills them, but I could never be content to subsist on love alone. Sooner or later, I’d have to compromise like they did, settle for a diluted version of my dreams.
“I know. But somewhere along the way they convinced themselves they’d be happier with a different life than what they wanted at first.”
“They fell in love,” Zuri says, proving my point.
But while I never wanted that path for myself, I’d never disparage what Zuri had with Eric, or my parents for the love they share. “If we had moved in together during my doctoral studies, what would happen when I finished? He’d be established in the area, but I’d be looking for a postdoc position. He’d have to leave his job, or I’d have to settle for whatever I could find nearby.”
The bitter memory of our last argument comes to mind, him telling me I was focused on the problems, not a solution, and me unable to see why he thought ahead in all things, but wasn’t worried about how we’d manage our relationship and careers once I finished school. I push the memory aside and head for my car with the intent of stress-devouring some real Southern barbecue after this conversation.
“You were willing to move across the country to help me,” Zuri says.
“But I knew that wouldn’t be forever. You’d find your feet, and wouldn’t need me.”
“So you’re scared of forever?”
Another resident is approaching, and I wait for them to pass, smile pasted on my face, though inside I’m reeling from being called out. I hold the phone closer, not wanting to admit this aloud. “I was never one of those people who wanted to find a person and build my life around them. And then I met Adrian and despite all my best efforts, I was starting to.”
“And that’s bad?”
“It’s not what I envisioned.”
“Envisioned when? When you were eighteen?” Her skepticism feels unwarranted. Some people know what they want from the start. “You can always revisit your hypothesis. Relationships are fluid. They change over time, just like people do. Love is the constant.”
Except, it wasn’t. Adrian’s love is gone. All that’s left between us is the sticky complication of residual familiarity and one-sided lust. “I liked it better when we didn’t talk about this.” I detour past the parking lot to the pine grove to the side of the complex and plop down on a shady bench.
“You kind of took away that option when you decided to work with him.” Murmuring comes from her end of the line, and her next words are muffled, spoken to someone else. “Just a minute, sweetie. Grab your books and I’ll be right in.” There’s a rustle, then she says, “If you’re committed to seeing this through, I know you’ll find a way to make it work, regardless of your feelings.”
Adrian and I fell in love while working on a summer shark study. This time, I need to devise a formula to reverse the process.