Chapter 17
The lights are on in the house when I finally pull into the driveway well over an hour after Finn and I closed up the shop for the night. I slow as I pull in, my eyes looking up at the rail outside my apartment door Harper walked across. Our conversation replays in my mind, so much more now making sense. Between her opening up and everything that’s happened, I don’t take her distaste for me as personally anymore. I guess they call that growth.
What I don’t know to call is, how, when replaying our time this afternoon on the porch steps, it’s like I’m watching her on video and the camera pans in on her soft, plump lips—how she moves them, the way she tucks the corner of her bottom one between her two teeth when she’s thinking.
I shake off the image and end the replay. Don’t be ridiculous, Riley, I tell myself as I park. I’m tempted to check in on Harper to see how it went with Lucas, but when I find him sitting on the steps leading to my apartment, I have a pretty good idea.
“Hey."
Lucas doesn’t look up. He shuffles his bare feet, and I follow them up his pajama clad legs .
“What are you doing out here? It’s pretty late. And it’s cold.”
“I ran away,” he explains matter-of-factly.
“Black Panther run away too?” I ask when I see the action figure beside him.
Lucas grabs the toy, narrowing his eyes at me.
I motion toward the house. “Does your mom know where you are?”
Lucas shakes his head. “She’s in the shower. Can I live with you?”
“I live with you already.”
“Not in the same house.”
“Close enough. And I think your mom would miss you a lot,” I tell him.
Lucas shakes his head back and forth. “No. She won’t.”
“Kid.” I sigh. “You have no idea.”
“She won’t,” Lucas insists. “If someone wanted to take me, she’d probably let them.”
I scratch my head, feigning confusion. “Are we talking about the same mom here?”
Lucas huffs dramatically in the way only a child can but there’s something genuine there. I can’t ignore the gentle shake of his tiny shoulders. “She let them take Tides.”
I point at my door. “Let’s go inside.”
“Can I live with you?” he asks again
“Only for a little bit.” Stepping around Lucas, I make it up to the landing, opening the door while I pull my phone out of my pocket with my free hand, sending Harper a voice note while Lucas walks inside.
He’s with me, don’t freak out. I’ll bring him back to bed in a bit.
I pocket my phone and go inside, finding Lucas sitting in the middle of my bed.
“She didn’t let them take Tides.” The image of Harper running down the street barefoot is something I don’t share with Lucas. I opt for a softer explanation. “She tried to talk with them.”
“Dad wouldn’t have let anyone take Tides if he were here.”
This hypothetical stuff fucking kills me. It’s an immediate opening of a door into a blackhole. But I can’t tell Lucas not to think about the if . That’s what his little heart needs. He needs to keep imagining the world with his dad and I have to let him even though his words, carried by a tiny voice, gut me.
“If Dad were here everything would be better.” Lucas's mouth begins to tremble.
I’ve seen Lucas cry—when he fell down, bumped his head, got upset over being told not to jump on the couch. I mean, I was there for Lucas's first cry, his initial taste of the world. But this is the first time I’ve seen a little boy with a broken heart cry. It doesn’t just sound different. It hits different— hard .
Lucas drops his head into his small hands and starts sobbing. I scoot closer, putting one hand on the back of his head and tug him forward gently and I just hold him for a minute, trying to be careful with my own words. Because I’m not sure what I can say to make this better. I don’t want to tell Lucas he should be grateful for the one living parent he has, no matter how awesome of a mother Harper is. I don’t want to invalidate the way he misses someone just because he has someone else. I definitely don’t want to tell him his dad wouldn’t want to see him like this, or hear him talk about his mother this way. I know, in my heart, Nate wouldn’t say that anyway.
Lucas's tears seep through my shirt.
“It really sucks. It’s really hard. It’s not fair.”
I’ve held this kid when he was a colicky infant. I’ve seen him grow from a chubby toddler to a little kid. But right now, Lucas looks and feels unfairly small in my hands, far too small to know what it’s like to miss someone. There’s nothing I can say to bring his dad back and yet I find myself talking, trying to give him more bits and pieces to hold onto. I realize I could write a novel about our friendship. But it’s the first chapter that really is the most important.
“He really saved you? Even when he was little?”
I nod. “Your dad was born to be a hero.”
Lucas's trembling lips finally settle into a small smile. “Like an Avenger?”
“Totally like Captain America. And he didn’t just save me that day, he also taught me to surf too. “
“You almost drowned and you still learned to surf?”
I shrug. “Your dad said if you try to be a little brave you might have a lot of fun.”
The smile on Lucas's face slowly disappears.
I don’t consider myself a parent even though I’ve been in Lucas's life from day one. But seeing his face drop like that and knowing what’s behind it makes my heart hurt in a way that this must be the worst part about parenting—watching your kid hurt in real time.
And even though I’m not Lucas's father and never will be, I’m determined to bring that hope and wonder back to his face.
I just have to figure out how to be brave to show Lucas he can have a lot of fun.
Twenty minutes later, I’m carrying Lucas down the stairs and across the back yard. Harper rises from where she sits on the back porch’s swing.
“Get the door,” I whisper.
We enter the house and I make my way up the stairs to Lucas's room where I bend and ease him into bed, reaching to turn off the lamp on his nightstand.
Lucas hums in his sleep before he turns to his side, facing me. “Riley? Is death the bad guy like Thanos?”
I press my lips together, wanting to be gentle, to avoid filling Lucas's young mind with the same images that plague my own. And like Harper will lie about the tooth fairy, about Santa Claus, I’ll lie to keep my best friend’s kid a kid for just a moment longer.
“Maybe it’s kind of like another adventure you get to take. A really special one.”
Lucas tips his head. “Better than all the adventures here ?”
“No, just different.” My eyes find Harper in the doorway. “There couldn’t be anything better than the adventure he had with you.”
Lucas smiles sleepily, lifting his arm and reaching for Black Panther who I have stuck in my pocket. I hand it to him, pulling up the covers before I turn off the light, heading out of his room and into the hallway where Harper leans against the wall. I take the paper she holds out with one hand as I pull Lucas's door almost shut with the other.
I don’t want to live here anymore.
I crumple the note. “He’s a kid. He doesn’t mean it.”
Harper folds her arms over her chest and says nothing and I recall our earlier conversation in the backyard during the afternoon, how Harper talked about dreaming of running away as a child because anything was better than what she had. And then she succeeded.
“Whatever you’re thinking, tonight isn’t close, so stop it.”
Harper doesn’t listen. “When I ran away, I didn’t have anyone to go to.”
“Harper—"
“I’m just happy he has you, Riley.”
The words leave Harper’s mouth with a small tremble and my heart spasms inside my chest.
“I really wish he had more than me,” I counter. It’s hard to find joy in Harper’s words. There’s just so much to hate about the past few months that it feels wrong to find any kind of happiness.
I hate that Nate is gone, and Tides too. And worse, I hate that Lucas has to struggle with it and Harper alongside him.
I hate, hate , the pools of tears in Harper’s eyes accompany her expression of gratitude. And worse, I hate that it makes me kind of happy.
I’m happy when she steps away from the wall, she wraps her arms around me, that my bearded chin grows damp from her still-wet hair when she presses her cheek to my chest.
And even though the small convulsions of her body are like the sharpest daggers puncturing me, I smile when I hold her back.
Happy doesn’t cut it now. And it’s not just about having someone to hold on to. I’m overjoyed that tonight, both Harper and Lucas chose me.
My mind tells me to pull back, that it feels too good to hold Harper but maybe even better to be held by her, but I let my heart win this one. It needs the victory more than my mind and more than anyone could possibly understand…except for her.
And for a few minutes as we float amongst tides of tragedy and loss and sorrow and the unknown, I let myself forget that I hate how we got here in the first place. But that’s not easy. Because even though Harper and I hold each other like there’s room for no one and nothing between us, we both know that a ghost could slip right in.
But even though Nate floats through the back of my mind, I don’t move away. Because my shirt bunches in Harper’s hands as she clutches me. She needs this. She needs me.
And yet, it’s not enough.
“I’ll teach you to surf.”
Harper tightens her arms around my middle. I anticipate a short squeeze of appreciation, but she doesn’t loosen her hold on me .
“Thank you, Riley,” she mumbles against me.
This time, I didn’t need the words. The action said it all.
I make it about 15 feet from the shore and drop my board, cursing myself.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
To teach Harper how to surf, at some point, I’ll probably get in the water. And still, pushing three months after Nate died, I can’t.
I yearn for it. I’m desperate for it. I fear it not in the sense of being scared, or being killed by it. No. I fear how I’ll feel when I remember what it’s like to still live through it.
“I absolutely can’t,” I decide. My time this early would be better served reading , or re-reading the letter Caroline said we should first send the police department. I drafted it last night when I couldn’t sleep, for fear of being lost in a dream of both Lucas and Harper’s tears, unable to swim out of it.
“Harper and Lucas. You’re doing this for…” I backtrack. “Lucas.”
I’m about to bend down and grab the board but straighten. I kick sand on it instead before plopping down beside it on the beach.
How am I supposed to help encourage Lucas to surf when I can’t?
I really fucking can’t do that.
That’s what I told Nate in the car.
You gotta take care of my family.
But…aren’t I?
I came back.
I showed up.
I’m here, on this beach mentally beating myself into a pulp, for two people I promised to care for .
Nate said showing up is half the battle. I look out at the ocean. It’s kind of like that with surfing. You put yourself out there and you’ve already done half the work. The waves, if you trust them, will do the rest.
Taking a deep breath, I stand, brushing sand from my fingers and then grab my board, tucking it under my arm. And I run , too fast to even think about where—and what—I’m running toward. By the time the water reaches my bare calves, I’ve got my board in front of me, giving it a gentle push before I hop on.
It’s then I hold my breath. But before I release it and go for another, I’m already paddling out to beyond the break.
When the water calms, I push up, sitting and straddling the board, my legs dangling over the sides into the cool water. My breathing evens quickly even after a hard paddle out. I’ve reached equilibrium.
I skim the water with my fingers before I push them deeper into the water so I can turn to face the beach— my beach. No one technically owns it. But I’ve got so many memories in these waters and on the shoreline, I know I’ve imprinted on it somehow.
My board pulls back a little, and I can feel it, that wind up of a wave I know was meant for me to ride, but one that still gives me the choice whether I’m going to take it or not. And I am.
Plopping down on my stomach, I begin to paddle again, only this time toward the shore, toward memories and problems and promises. I know I need to get ahead of it for the wave to take me there.
That’s when I see it, a hand—Nate’s hand—below the surface. But he isn’t wiggling his fingers for me to grab him and pull him out from dark water.
He’s waving.
It’s at that exact moment a swell blossoms from below me and I know it’s time to stand. I’m not one to believe in ghosts or the afterlife in general, but I swear, right now, I know it’s Nate getting me up .
I know in my bones—in the very one he broke—it’s him pushing me back to his family. And I know, if there is a heaven, Nate’s up there, cheering for me as I ride the wave home knowing I’ll do the right thing.
You’re the best man I know.