64. August
It’s 12:30 a.m. and the dock is quiet. All the lights are off in the neighboring houses, including the one in Tiny’s bedroom. Still, I stand on her porch, staring at her back door and contemplating going in, her words circling unresolved in my head.
I could text her to come out if she’s awake. But it feels like our fight is too big for that. So instead I grab the doorknob, and it twists in my hand. Truth be told, I haven’t snuck into her room in years. And the thought nags at me, reinforces what she said about our relationship being one sided.
I head in, stepping lightly along the floorboards and up the stairs. But it’s mostly unnecessary because her house is new and doesn’t creak the way mine does. Plus the central air provides a hum that covers small sounds. I pause when I get to her room, doubting whether this is a good idea. But it feels like if I don’t do this, then I risk losing her. And that’s unthinkable.
I tap lightly on her door in a rhythm we used when we were kids and push it open.
She sits up on her bed as I close it behind me. “August?” she says, her voice hoarse, and I wonder if I woke her or if she’s been crying.
I sit at the end of her bed, studying my hands in the dark. “You’re right,” I say. “I haven’t been there for you the way you’ve been there for me.”
“I didn’t mean—” she starts.
“Yeah, you did. And you should,” I say. “I didn’t even think to ask why you’d been so quiet. I’ve been going over it, trying to figure out how I could have missed that you were upset. And all I came up with is the lame excuse that you have a perfect life.”
She snorts. “Yeah, well, I don’t.”
“I’m sorry I screwed up not being there for you. I’m a selfish dick.”
She hesitates, looking at the lamp on her bedside table and deciding not to turn it on. “Mom’s pregnant, and Dad thinks she’s going to die from complications.”
My head whips up. “What? Shit, Tiny. Is she okay?”
“I don’t know,” she says, lifting her hands and dropping them back onto her comforter. “We’re waiting on tests? But something happened, something that made them worry. They haven’t told me what, and I’m too afraid to ask.” Her voice wobbles.
Without hesitation, I move toward her, pulling her into a hug. “Hey...” I say, as her chest heaves with emotion.
“And you’re not selfish, by the way,” she says through hitched breath. “You’re just really obtuse.”
“That, too,” I agree. When her breathing slows, I add, “Tell me about your mom.”
And she does. She tells me how worried she is and about the arguments she’s overheard this past week, how her house doesn’t feel like her house and her parents don’t feel like her parents. I listen, giving her what advice I can and reassuring her that I’ll be here for it, good or bad.
Then she asks me why I’ve been so distant. In turn I tell her about my failed attempt to talk to Ella and about my dad’s surprise visit.
“My god, August. I had no idea.”
I shake my head. “It is what it is.”
“Do you think he’ll come back?”
“My dad? Nah,” I say. “He’s not coming back.”
“You mean ever?”
“Not if he has a choice,” I say, and Tiny frowns.
She opens her mouth to ask another question but hesitates.
We’re both quiet for a long moment, and then she shakes her head, like she’s decided not to pursue that conversation. “So you kissed Ella.”
Hearing it out loud makes my heart sink and my chest ache. “No. But I wanted to.”
She waits.
“I just...” I start, but the words don’t come.
“Have feelings for her?” she suggests.
I look away, surprised by how much it stings. “I should have told you about the almost kiss.”
“Yeah, you should have,” she says. “You let me get blindsided by Mr. Becker.”
I sigh, feeling even guiltier.
Before I figure out what to say, though, she sighs, too. “But I guess where you undershared, I overshared. I shouldn’t have told Bentley about you liking Ella. And I’m sorry he used it against you like that.”
My eyes meet hers, and I’m grateful for the out. “Thanks,” is all I say, and she seems to understand me. I change the subject. “Have you seen all the Summer Love emails?”
She tucks her hair behind her ears. “Giant mess.”
We share a look, and even in the dim light, it’s obvious we both know that it’s over. That Summer Love is irrevocably broken, but neither of us says it.
After another few seconds of heavy silence, she shakes her hands out like she’s tossing off the melancholy. “You know what we need? We need milkshakes and french fries from Bob’s.”
I glance at the clock on her nightstand. “It’s one in the morning.”
“And they’re open until two, so it all works out.” She slides off her bed, grabbing a sweatshirt and throwing it over her pajamas.
I open my mouth to argue but change my mind. “Yeah, okay. Let’s do it.”
She laughs. “I think I like conciliatory August. Can you be wrong more often?”
“Yeah, no.”
She wags her eyebrows at me. “What would you say if I suggested matching outfits?”
“I’d say get a dog.”
“Or maybe...” she says, going on to list ridiculous things that are never going to happen.
But I can’t help but smile; she’s pretty funny.
* * *
We exit Bob’s Diner, stuffed on ice cream and greasy food, yet somehow lighter than either of us has felt in a good long while.
“I’ll drive,” Tiny says and puts her hand out for the keys.
“You never want to drive.”
“Yeah, but it’s a beautiful night, and I feel... different. So I figure, why not shake things up?” she says.
“If you say so.”
While we talked a little more at the diner about all the crap that’s been happening, we were careful to avoid the subject of Berkeley, not wanting to chance another fight. I’m just not sure if the nonmention is because she didn’t mean it or because she did.
We climb in her Jeep, and she kicks off her left flip-flop, putting her foot awkwardly up by the vent, a driving position literally no one else employs.
“I’m proud of you, you know,” she says as she starts her engine and turns down the music. “For what you did with Ella. Opening up like that.”
“Didn’t make a difference.”
She heads out of the parking lot. “Still, it was brave. And romantic. And thoroughly un-August-like.”
I shrug, looking out the window.
“I could help you think of a—”
“Tiny, she hates me.”
She’s quiet a second, glancing at me in that Tiny way that tells me she’s not giving up. We’re about to pass the street where Des had the accident, and I study my hands, avoiding looking out my window.
Tiny notices, only instead of sighing or pretending she didn’t see, she slams on the break.
I look up. She grips the wheel tighter than necessary, like she’s nervous, and instead of staying straight, she turns.
Then suddenly I realize what she’s doing. I stare at her in shock.
But she doesn’t look at me. She just drives down the dead-end street with the soccer field on one side and the woods on the other and pulls to a stop in front of the tree with the dent in it from Kyle’s car.
My heartbeat rapid fires in my temples, and even though the windows are down, I can’t get a single breath of air. “This isn’t funny,” I snap.
“No, it’s not,” she says so quietly I almost don’t hear her. “But we can’t pretend it away.”
I stare at her, stunned. “You think I don’t know that my sister died? You think I go one day, one hour, without thinking about it?”
“No, I don’t. But even though we talked about deep personal things tonight, we didn’t say one word about Des. And at first, I thought that was okay. I was just happy we made up. Touting myself as this perfect friend who’s always so supportive. And then it occurred to me that I’m not. That I never talk about the one thing that hurts you the most.”
“Which is fine,” I say in my most controlled voice, “because I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Des,” she corrects me, like it makes her sad. “You can’t even say her name. And I think it’s because you’ve convinced yourself that if you don’t talk about her, the past will cease to exist. It won’t.”
“I’m not...” My thoughts spin so fast they make me dizzy. But I can’t finish that sentence because it’s not true.
“You didn’t cry, August. You didn’t cry the night it happened. You didn’t cry at her funeral. In fact, I’ve never seen you cry about it, not once since that night.”
“So damn what?”
“So I love you is what,” she says, and her response only frustrates me more. “And Des loved you. More than anything. She’d hate to see you doing this to yourself. In fact, she’d probably do anything to make you stop. And since she’s not here and I am, it’s up to me to do this in her place.”
“I’m done,” I say, grabbing the door handle and stepping into the warm night air. But two seconds later Tiny’s standing on the quiet road in front of me.
“Do you remember after your dad left and your mom locked herself in her room?” she says, her voice strained with emotion, her chin unsteady. “How Des let you sleep in her bed every night for months? Sat for your paintings and made your school lunches? She was always there when you needed her, when I needed her. Always. Always.”
I press my lips together, shaking my head, not because I don’t remember—I’ll never forget—but because this conversation is bullshit.
“Des was the best older sister in the whole damn world. She loved you more than a brother; she took care of you like a mom and a dad. And I know that losing her was life shattering, that there will always be a Des-shaped hole in your heart. But this thing we do where we never talk about her? I’m not doing that anymore. And this thing where I let you hide? Never again. Because like I said, I love you, and what I’ve been doing isn’t love.”
“Tiny,” I say like a warning, but it comes out more like a whisper.
Only this time she holds out her arms and tilts her head up to the sky. “I love you, Des!” she shouts at the stars. “I love you and it hurts. It hurts that you’re not here when we get home from school, that I can’t ask you for relationship advice, that you can’t see the awesome company August and I built. Did you know we built it for you?”
I stand there frozen, unable to think, process, breathe.
“You’ve suffered an unimaginable loss, August, an unbearable one. And what I’m trying to tell you is... stop bearing it. For once in your life,” she says, but her voice cracks, “lean on me. Please. Let me shoulder this with you.”
“You can’t,” I say, and where her voice is clear, mine is barely audible.
“Let me cry with you. Tell stories about Des and laugh with you. Anything but what we’re doing now. You think if you just hold it tight enough, bury it carefully behind your Wall, that your grief can be contained. It can’t. The pain needs a way out, and if you keep holding it in like this, it will destroy you.”
I’m shaking, but it’s not cold. I stare at Tiny, the ground under my feet no longer solid. “And so what?” I say, the words sticking in my throat. “I deserve it.”
For a second, she pauses, shocked. “What? You do not deserve this. Don’t ever say that—”
“It’s my fault,” I snap.
“It’s not—”
“That night?” I half yell, half swallow. “That night I went to her door to say good night, and I heard them. Kyle was begging her to go out. I knew they were drinking. I knew Des had gotten into a blowout fight with Mom earlier andwas having a rough day. And I knew that if I knocked, Des would tell Kyle no; she would stay home. But I didn’t. I walked away.”
She stares at me. “Why?” she demands, matching my intensity. “Why did you walk away?”
“Because,” I say, frustrated, “I didn’t want to get in her way. Didn’t want Kyle to be right, that I was a needy younger brother—”
“Because you love your sister,” she says, cutting me off. “How dare you blame yourself for this, August Mariani. This is not your fault. You were a kid who wanted to say good night to his older sister and turned around because he didn’t want to interrupt her fun with her boyfriend after a long day. You did nothing wrong.”
I shake my head. I don’t agree.
“Look at me,” she says. “If this were reversed, if this were my mom who died, would you blame me?”
“Not the same.”
“Yes the same. Would you blame me or not?” she says forcefully.
I rub my hands over my face. “This is stupid, Tiny. I’m going home.”
But she pushes me with both hands. “Would you or would you not blame me if the situation were reversed?”
“No,” I yell at her. “Okay? Are you happy? No!”
“Exactly!” she says. “Yell.”
I clench my jaw.
“Yell, August,” she repeats. “Look at that tree and yell!”
“I’m not—”
“Unless you want me to have this conversation with you on repeat until the end of time, you will yell at that tree. You will yell to your sister. And you will stop blaming yourself.”
I press the heels of my hands into my eyebrows, desperate to be anywhere but here. But she just grabs my wrist and pulls me to the tree, placing my palm over the scar Kyle’s car left in its trunk.
My mind screams at me to pull away, to take my hand back and leave, but I don’t. I just stand there, frozen, with my hand pressed into the cool bark, bent and twisted from the fender. And something inside me uncoils—the crack that formed while arguing with my dad suddenly expands, fissuring my self-control, my Wall, as Tiny called it. And I do scream. I scream Des’s name, loud and long and broken. I scream until my throat burns and my eyes pour onto my cheeks. I scream until I have nothing left.