67. August
The early-morning sun streams through my open window, and an ocean-scented breeze billows my curtains. My room doesn’t feel like the confining trap it did a few days ago, but lighter and more breathable. And I feel lighter, too, like a version of myself I forgot existed. I even have more energy, as though all the time I spent repressing parts of myself took something out of me I was unaware of. Even though it’s early, I don’t try to fall back asleep. I take a deep breath, enjoying this new August in his new room with his new perspective.
The conversations Tiny and I had with old cases yesterday play in my head. It was strangely nice to check in with them and hear how everyone’s lives have changed for the better, and even more so to do it as August. Of course, there’s one person we haven’t talked to yet—Ella.
The moment I think her name, I audibly exhale. Ella’s dad has yet to return our calls, and calling her won’t work. Even if it would, I don’t want to talk to her about this over the phone.
My eyes flit to the bag of craft supplies under my desk, and while I know that completing our art challenge isn’t an answer by a long shot, it might be a starting place. So I swipe the bag, open it, and stare down at the contents. Only there’s something in the bag I wasn’t expecting, peeking out from under the fabric. My heart thumps and my breath quickens—Ella bought me drawing pencils?
The realization hits me hard. Maybe because she unknowingly got my favorite kind. Or maybe because it reminds me of something Des would have done. And even though everything with her is uncertain, there’s one thing I know—if Bentley can make a sad-puppy sign, I can do one better. I dump the bag of supplies onto my desk and get to work.
The act of making something is calming, meditative almost. It does what I’d hoped—it lets me think. But the conclusion I come to, or rather the idea I come up with, is nuts.
“Thoughts, Swee?” I ask.
He grooms his paw in response as if to say, I cannot answer that because I don’t participate in activities that take place off this bed.
After a half hour of pacing and an inability to come up with anything better, I give in and get dressed. I text Tiny that I’m coming over and head downstairs.
I pull a mug from the cupboard, and when I’m halfway through pouring my coffee, Mom walks in.
“August?” she says, like she’s not sure if I’m real. To be fair, I’ve barely left my room for the past week.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” I ask, also unsure.
“It’s Saturday,” she replies. “I was just going through my artwork.”
“Oh,” is all I say.
“The director from the gallery called. She’s starting a new exhibit, and she wants to showcase some of my pieces.” There isn’t the twirling and declaring that we’ll be millionaires by the end of the summer that I’d expect. She’s almost quiet.
“That’s great,” I say and mean it. It’s been more than ten years since Mom had a show. And the gallery in town does good, consistent business with the tourists. While it isn’t a surefire solution to our problems, it will definitely help.
“Yeah, it is,” she says. Again, no giddy twirling. “Can we talk?”
I hesitate. “Um.”
“It wasn’t really a request,” she says and gestures at the round kitchen table.
I reluctantly take a seat.
She pulls out a chair and joins me, thinking for a long time before she speaks. “I know we haven’t had the easiest time of it these past few years—”
“It’s not—” I reflexively start to downplay it.
“Let me finish,” she says, and I close my mouth. “I know that a lot of stress, financial and otherwise, has fallen on you, and I know that’s my fault. But what I want you to know is that things are going to change around here. They already are.” Her voice is level and calm.
“Okay,” is all I say, not really sure what that means.
“Your dad—”
“Mom, I really don’t want to talk about him.”
She shakes her head. “I didn’t ask him to come speak with you. I don’t know why I said that. I mean, I hoped he’d want to. But that’s not why I called him.”
I glance at the door, wishing I’d climbed out the window and avoided this entirely.
“I called him to tell him that either he pays what he owes in back child support, including taking responsibility for his share of Des’s funeral expenses, or I’ll take him to court.”
I stare at my mom. Des tried to convince her to insist on child support over and over, and she wouldn’t even discuss it. “And he agreed?”
“Well, he did when I told him that I wouldn’t hesitate to enlighten his new fiancé on a few... personal matters.”
I don’t ask her what she means by that, and she doesn’t explain. “You threatened him?” And for the first time during this conversation, lightness sneaks into my tone.
“‘Threatened’ is a strong word. I like to think of it as persuasion to do the right thing.” She gets up and moves to the counter, grabbing something from the stack of bills.
She holds out her hand, and there, sitting in her palm, is a check. But when I see the recipient, I nearly fall out of my chair. “Wait... hang on,” I say, standing. “This check is made out to me?”
She smiles. “It doesn’t come close to what you deserve, but it’s a start.”
I stare at her in disbelief. “But the—” My eyes move to the bills once more.
“Between the Kellermans and the gallery, I’ll be able to handle things around here for a while.”
“I honestly don’t know what to say,” I reply. And after reading the check two more times just to make sure it’s real, I do something I never do—I hug her.
And she’s delighted. She pulls me close and wraps her arms around my back. She smells familiar—like canvas and lavender, reminding me of all the times I used to sit on her lap and watch her paint as a child. For a moment I consider pulling away, but something in me doesn’t want to—the part of me that unlocked when I yelled at that tree. So instead, I relax, pressing my cheek into her hair. As I do, I catch sight of the paint splatters on the floor, the ones Mom swore would come up and never did.
“Throw it! Throw the paint at the canvas!” she exclaimed.
“But what if I miss?” I asked, looking at the clean kitchen and wondering what Dad might do if he found us slinging paint in it.
“Then you miss. Mess is part of life, August; you can’t avoid it.”
“What about Dad?” I asked. “He’s never messy.”
She studied me. “Your dad is one of those people who thinks that if he seeks order, he can stop mess from existing at all. Like people who think that if they chase happiness correctly, they’ll find the magic solution to avoid suffering. But it doesn’t work like that. Mess defines order. Suffering defines happiness. You cannot have one without the other. Me? I embrace mess. I invite it in, because once in a while it’s absolutely glorious.”
She scooped up a blob of paint with her finger and winked at me. So I did the same. And we attacked the canvas. We wiped our hands on it. We threw paint at it. We laughed until we couldn’t breathe.
“Thanks, Mom,” I say as she releases me from the hug. “Really.”
“And August?” She tucks a stray curl into her loose bun. “I don’t want you to feel like this means you need to talk to your dad. That’s still entirely your choice.”
“I appreciate that.” And it feels intrinsically good to not be pressured.
I grab my coffee and head for the door but turn back and say, “I think you’re going to do great at that gallery. I’m really proud of you.” And when I close the door behind me, she’s beaming.
Relief washes over me. My mom—she went to bat for me. It gives me a strange feeling, one I haven’t had in so long that I’m not even sure what it is—reassurance maybe? A word I’ve used to describe Tiny’s life, but never my own.
It’s not because Tiny has money or a nice house. She has the type of security that tells her every morning when she wakes up and every night when she goes to sleep that she’s safe. That her mom isn’t going to forget to pay the electricity bill or leave foreclosure warnings taped to the door. That her parents won’t go to bed without knowing she ate dinner. That people are watching, caring. And because of this she owns a type of confidence I’ve never known.
I walk across my lawn toward Tiny’s porch, where she lounges on a love seat, goofy-grinning at her phone.
“Bentley?” I ask, even though I already know.
She puts her phone on the cushion next to her. “Well, look who’s up early.”
I step onto her porch, a cool breeze blowing my hair into my eyes. I push it back. “I had an idea—” I start, but Bentley’s screen door opens.
“Dudes!” he calls across the lawn. He wears plaid pajama pants and no shirt (I swear he doesn’t own any). “Big news. Dinner at my house tonight.”
“I feel like I’m having déjà vu—the bad kind,” I say to Tiny.
“Didn’t hear what you said, August,” Bentley continues. “But the answer is yes, there will be blow-up narwhals for swimming later.”
Tiny laughs and then looks at me. “Might be fun,” she says at a volume Bentley can’t hear, and while I have every intention of keeping my eye on him, I realize this is an olive branch.
“Sure,” I say, and her face lights up.
“We’ll be there!” she calls across the lawn.
Bentley pumps his fist in the air before his siblings call his name and he goes back inside. While I’m certain he’ll annoy me till the end of time, I also get that he matters to Tiny. And well, that’s important.
Tiny stares at me as I sit down in the cushioned armchair.
“What?”
“Nothing...” she replies, then changes her mind. “Actually, I was just thinking that in a weird way, Summer Love changed us.”
I nod because I feel it, too. Everything’s different. The tightly wound part of me that made me push her away, that made me snap for no reason or punch Kyle in the street, has unwound. And while I still think he sucks, I’m not consumed with blame anymore, a blame that made me hate him and myself.
She sits up, gripping the cushion on either side of her knees. “Okay, new happy August, how about we go grab some food?”
I hesitate.
“Before you object, consider the fact that hash browns are everything and that we don’t have any in my house.”
“It’s not that. It’s just...” I scratch the back of my neck. “I kinda have a plan to talk to Ella.”
“Really?” Tiny says, bouncing.
“Yeah, one that requires your help.”
She leans forward, conspiratorial. “Um, yes, obviously. Tell me everything.”
* * *
For the first time since I can remember, I don’t look away as we pass the street with the dented tree. Tiny doesn’t pretend not to notice. And an awkward silence doesn’t descend.
Instead, Tiny sings to music, arm hanging out the window, riding air waves as we head down the coastal street toward Ella’s town. I review my plan as we go, but the drive feels like it disappears in two seconds.
Tiny intermittently looks at me and bursts out laughing.
I give her a warning glare.
“I’m sorry. I just can’t believe this is happening.” She gestures at my outfit, which is a close approximation of Leonardo DiCaprio’s nineties chain mail knight getup in Romeo and Juliet, cobbled together from our past Halloween costumes and the local vintage store. We even managed shoulder armor and a fake sword. She snaps a picture on her phone. “Seriously, though. The most epic of epic ideas! You, my friend, are a genius. The student is the master. The August caterpillar is a butterfly. The—”
“You know Ella’s probably going to shoot me down, right?”
“If she does, she officially has no heart.”
The Jeep slows as I pull into Ella’s driveway and park, my insides so knotted that I touch my stomach.
“Here goes nothing,” Tiny says.
“Or at the very least, here goes my pride.”
Tiny jumps out of the Jeep and winks. “I’ll text you when it’s safe. And good luck.”
She walks toward Ella’s house, and I lean back in my seat, trying to breathe.
While the drive felt short, the time waiting for Tiny to give me the okay feels like forever.
Tiny
Talking to parents. Ella’s upstairs. GO GET HER, ROMEO!
I jump out, careful to loop around the house toward the back gate. I lift the latch and creep up to the patio, where the picture windows in the living room look out over the pool. Tiny and Ella’s parents sit on oversized couches inside, and while they aren’t facing the windows, I’m still in their peripheral vision and they would likely notice if a weird, armored guy sprinted across their deck.
Me
In backyard. Need distraction.
Tiny glances at her phone, but she doesn’t look out the window or give any cause for suspicion. She says something to Ella’s parents, and while I don’t know what it is, it’s obviously incendiary given the way their heads whip toward her. Which is my cue to run, as fast as I can in this getup, to the other side of the deck.
I stop under Ella’s balcony, pulling out a small pouch and gauging my aim. I toss it at her window, and while it’s lightweight, it still hits with a sizable clunk. And I wait.
As the seconds tick by, I wonder if Tiny was wrong about Ella being in her room.
But then her window slides open and Ella’s confused face pops out. Her hair is in a messy bun, and she’s wearing pajama shorts and a tank top. She spots the pouch and steps onto her balcony, picking it up. But when she catches sight of me in the grass below, all the color drains from her face. Anger narrows her eyes, and I know I have less than a second before she tells me to eff off. In fact, she’s already turning.
So I start reciting Shakespeare.
I throw my hand in the air dramatically. “But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”
“What the hell?” she breathes, confusion replacing her anger as she clocks my outfit.
I skip forward a couple of lines, placing one hand over my heart, admitting what I couldn’t the last time I saw her. “It is my lady; O, it is my love! O that she knew she were!”
She opens her mouth, glaring at me like I’ve lost my mind.
I think about Mom and the messy canvas, about yelling at the tree, about what Des would do if she were here, and so I get louder, more passionate. “She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that? Her eye discourses; I will answer it.”
I head for the latticework beside her balcony, grabbing on and hoping like hell that it doesn’t rip off the side of her house.
“What do you think you’re doing? Get off there at once,” an angry Mr. Becker exclaims behind me. But I don’t stop. I can’t. I need Ella to know this matters, that she matters. I recite as I climb, pouring myself into the words. “As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven would through the airy region stream so bright that birds would sing and think it were not night.” I grab ahold of her balcony railing and pull myself over it.
Ella stares at me like she’s not sure if she’s impressed or horrified—probably both. Her parents argue below us, but I don’t care, because all I’m focused on is Ella.
“Ella, I’m sorry. Really and truly sorry I hurt you,” I say before she can recover from the shock and remember she hates me. “I know that doesn’t fix what I did by a long shot. But please, let me explain why I did it in the first place.”
She chews on the inside of her cheek, considering my words, and glancing down at her parents and Tiny.
After a couple of excruciating seconds, Ella huffs. “Fine,” she says. “But if I decide I never want to speak to you again, you have to accept it and leave me alone. No questions asked.”
“Agreed,” I say to her high-stakes deal.
“Let me handle this,” she yells down to her parents. Her dad looks pissed, but her mom says something, and he reluctantly follows her inside.
I turn back to Ella, suddenly aware of how small this balcony is and how close I am to her. I can smell her vanilla shampoo. “There were things I told you that were untrue.”
“Everything,” she interjects, and her tone is barbed.
“Not everything. My name, my mom owning a yacht, and the fact that I like boat shoes... those things were definitely lies. But everything else was true—the stuff about my sister and about my painting, for instance,” I say, and she crosses her arms like I’m going to have to do a lot better than that. “Here’s what I didn’t tell you. My mom’s a painter, a good one, and an often out-of-work one. She’s not fancy. We don’t travel the world or own a mansion. In fact, we barely own a beat-up station wagon. And when my dad left us, my mom kinda fell apart. Stopped paying our bills, stopped cooking dinner, just stopped. And well, my sister, Des, stepped in. She made my school lunches, she made jokes when things got heavy, and when I’d have panic dreams in the middle of the night, she’d lay in my bed until I fell back asleep.” I pause. “She was my rock.”
While Ella doesn’t yet look convinced, she isn’t pushing me off the balcony.
I glance at my hands and back up. “And then Des started dating this guy Kyle. He was charismatic. He was selfish. He was actually a lot like Justin.”
She gives me an evaluating look, like she’s not sure if she should be annoyed.
“Everyone admired him. Even me... until he started pushing her to change, to ‘relax,’ to do things she never did before—drinking, lying, sneaking out.” While I’m certain she gets that I’m drawing a parallel, she doesn’t acknowledge it. “Anyway, he had this sports car that he used to race on a dead-end street near my house.”
Worry pushes her eyebrows together.
“Then one night we got a call that there was an accident. When we got there, the sports car was wrapped around an old oak tree. Kyle said a deer ran into the road and they swerved, losing control. I don’t know,” I say, and as I do, I realize that this is the first time I’ve ever told this story to another person. “All I know is that my sister, the person I loved most in the whole world, was gone. And I was lost.”
She takes a fast breath, and maybe I’m imagining it, but her eyes soften.
“Tiny is the only reason I’m—she saved me. With an idea. That maybe we could help other people, people stuck in relationships who were making choices that could hurt them long term. An idea for a company. And while I understand that you’re probably angry that company exists, much less that you were an unwilling participant in it, I’m not. I don’t regret the jobs we’ve taken, not even yours. I couldn’t save my sister, I didn’t know how, but I’ll be damned if I won’t try to help others. Even when I accidentally fall for the girl I’m attempting to help. Even when she decides she hates me.”
“I don’t need you to save me,” she says.
“I used to agree. But I’m not so sure anymore. I’m not convinced that we don’t all need someone to show up for us in critical moments, take some of the weight off. Sometimes things are too big to conquer on our own, and that’s okay.” I take a breath. “I’ll be the first to admit that I need Tiny. That she’s saved me over and over, that she does it every day when she climbs in my window with an absurd idea and a thoughtful cup of coffee. And if I’m being honest, you saved me, too.”
“Me?” she says, disbelieving.
“I talked to you about things I planned on never talking about again. You made me excited to go to the art store I swore I’d never return to. And more than that, you made me feel something I didn’t know I could.”
“What?” she asks like she doesn’t want to but can’t help herself.
“You made me feel like myself, or rather a version of me that was no longer terrified to care about someone else, a version that cares about you.”
She exhales, annoyed. “Damn it, August.”
My chest swells as I hear my real name on her lips—it sounds better when she says it.
She rubs her hands down her face. “I want to hate you. Like, really hate you. So knock it off.”
I give her a questioning look.
She gestures at me. “That explanation... the, I don’t know, the sincerity.”
“You want me to stop being sincere?”
“Yes, I want you to be exactly the jerk I imagined in my mind so I can make dartboards of your face and write thinly veiled insults about you on my blog,” she says in one breath, because as much as she’s trying to be mad, the edge is gone from her tone.
“If you want, I can help you come up with them. I’m the first to agree that I totally deserve those insults.”
“Shut up, you,” she says, in an attempt to maintain her frustration. “Tell me something—did you or did you not dump that coffee on me on purpose?”
I scratch my eyebrow, wearing a guilty expression.
“Oh my god,” she says with feeling. “I can’t believe I liked someone who spilled coffee on me on purpose.”
“Liked?” I repeat, my stomach doing a flip.
Her cheeks flush. “Yes. Past tense. L-I-K-E-D.”
I can’t help it; I smile. “Time is a construct—past and future are the same thing.”
“Which is why you’re dressed like you’re medieval?”
“Your favorite play is Romeo and Juliet—”
“I haven’t forgotten,” she says, once again not giving an inch.
“Here’s the thing: before I met you, I’d have argued that Romeo was a ridiculous sentimental idiot.”
She raises a questioning eyebrow. “And you’ve suddenly changed your mind?”
I hold her gaze. “He fights against all odds for the person he loves.”
For a second, she’s perfectly still. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that almost kissing you was hands down one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.”
She presses her lips together, like she’s unsure. “I’m going to school in London to study journalism,” she says, almost quietly. “I got in my acceptance before the deadline.”
I can’t help it; I beam. “That’s amazing.”
She gives me a questioning look, one she employs when she uses her journalism interview tactics on me. “How can you think that’s amazing if almost kissing me meant that much to you? Shouldn’t you be arguing for me to stay?”
“Never,” I say. “In fact, if I ever suggest you put my wants before your dreams, I give you full permission to throw me off this balcony.”
Ella stares at me like she’s arguing with herself over something. Then after a couple of long seconds, she nods like she’s made a decision. She holds up the pouch. “What is this anyway?”
“Open it.”
She pulls the strings and slides out a patch of fabric with an embroidered Leo lion head on it and a Scorpio symbol in the background. There are four safety pins at the edges and junk jewelry in the lion’s mane in honor of Des. She rubs her fingers over my mediocre embroidery work and looks up at me, her expression softer somehow.
“You made this?” she says, surprised.
I rub my neck, a little self-conscious, and repeat another line of Shakespeare, quietly this time. “Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight. For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.” Then in plain August speak, I add, “I’m falling for you, Scorpio.”
Her cheeks flush, and my eyes involuntarily flit to her lips.
“I see you,” she says, referring to my gaze, only she doesn’t make it sound like a bad thing. “And all I’m saying is... maybe.”
My heart immediately starts pounding, and I swallow. “Maybe?”
“It’s your favorite word,” she replies. “You figure it out.”
And now I’m grinning so hard that I worry for my cheeks. I lift my hand, lightly grazing the star constellation on her cheekbone and tipping her delicate chin upward. And when her lips turn up at the corners, I kiss them slowly, teasing them apart and drinking in the warmth of her breath. My hand trails a silky path from her neck to the small of her back, memorizing the taste of her peach lip gloss and the feeling of her mouth moving in rhythm with mine. She tangles her hands in my hair, standing on her tippy-toes, and where our stomachs touch, heat pulses. I can feel her smile, turning my gentle kisses into hungry ones. The feeling of her vibrates sensation to my very core, and I lift her up, her legs wrapping around my waist. And I wonder if there could ever be anything better than this.
Maybe Tiny was right all this time—maybe this whole love thing is pretty great after all.