Chapter 33
Chapter
It takes us longer than I expected to make it back. There must have been an accident or something—traffic is at a crawl.
I’m spent from this afternoon, but the exhausted silence in the car feels comfortable. It’s like we’re back in high school, when Greg and I could spend hours together, doing the same things we’d do if we were alone.
The sun is going down by the time we take our exit off the freeway, and the golden early evening light makes the sky look like a matte painting in an old movie. As we come to a stop at a light, Greg says: “I’m hungry again already.”
I laugh. “Didn’t you have thirds?”
“It was that awkward ‘late lunch/early dinner’ time.” He glances sideways at me. “Beach burrito?”
It used to be our regular thing—going to a drive-through after class, buying one burrito, sitting by the ocean, and passing it back and forth until it was gone. And I have that old fizzy feeling in my stomach, amazed that he wants to keep hanging out.
So we get our burrito, make our way to the beach, and find a spot on the sand. The sun has dipped almost below the horizon, the chill of dry Southern California evening coming on.
I have the photos from the party on my phone, and soon I’ll have to try sending them to Mom to see if that finally makes a difference. But I’m scared to find out, either way. I’m putting it off.
We sit there in silence, passing the burrito back and forth like when we were kids, the smells of avocado salsa and fatty chicken laced with salt air.
“How did you even end up at TKCORP?” I ask after a while. “Didn’t seem like your scene.”
“I wanted to coast, I guess,” he says around a mouthful of food. “Do something that was easy for me. And numbers, you know…”
He shrugs. They always made sense to him.
“And I did it because…” Greg lets out a long breath. “I didn’t want my mom to have to work anymore, at some point.”
I hug my knees, fidgeting in the sand. “I’m sorry I said that thing about living with your mom. It must mean a lot to you to be able to help her out.”
“Thanks,” he says, passing the burrito back to me. It’s notably shorter than the last time I had it. “I appreciate that.”
That frustrating, unfinished conversation we had at the bar replays in my mind.
“Greg,” I say as gently as I can. Maybe I can find a new way in. “You know something happened in senior year. Why did you stop talking to me?”
He lets out the longest sigh. Impressive lung capacity—must be all those lunchtime gym trips. “Because…I read the room. And for a while, it kind of hurt to be around you. That was my own issue—it wasn’t your fault. And giving you space seemed like the better friend thing to do.”
Read the room? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
I’m scared to examine it too directly. The melancholy in his voice, and how pained he looked when he saw me with Mark Winterson in the lobby—a dizzying, ground-shifting feeling rears up, like I’ve been reading him wrong for years. I can’t stand to think it all the way through; I need a safer topic.
“So what do you do at the gym?” I ask around a bite of burrito.
“Lift weights.”
“Damn, Greg, who even are you?”
“It makes me less depressed.”
“You’re depressed?”
“Isn’t everyone?” He smiles to himself and looks out at the ocean. “Got into it a few years ago when that was more of a problem. It’s better these days.”
It makes me think about how much I missed, avoiding him all these years. I wish I could have been the bigger person and gotten over it sooner, so I could have been a friend to him when he was going through that. He made a dumb mistake when he was seventeen, and I just can’t let go of a grudge.
I love her.
The warmth of acceptance in his voice when he said that, steady, unbending—I feel like I don’t deserve it.
I lean my head on my raised knees and look at Greg. He shifts to get more comfortable on the sand, and his dad’s gold chain glints in the moonlight.
“What do you remember about your dad?” I ask.
“Not a lot,” he says, staring at the water.
“His vibe, mostly? Calm, reassuring, even-keeled. So I try to be like that when I can.” He chews on his bottom lip.
“It’s mostly snippets of things, not full memories.
A shirt he wore. A flash of his smile. Some random things he said.
” Greg makes his voice deeper. “Real men know how to cook.”
I nudge him playfully. “Guess you didn’t take his advice? When do you ever cook?”
He laughs a little sadly. “I—” For a strange moment, he hesitates. “Yeah, I should get on that.”
The silence stretches out, waves crashing. The burrito is gone now, and I crumple the empty wrapper in my hand.
“Okay.” I can’t put it off anymore. “Let’s see if this gives Mom some peace.”
There’s a tight knot of dread in my gut as I choose the photos to upload. For a few weightless seconds, I sit there holding my breath.
ruby.ocampo:
Mom? Are you still there?
And then the words pop up on the bottom of the screen: sampaguita72 is typing.
sampaguita72:
Where else would I be?
Is Rob still working that same job? He hasn’t gotten a promotion yet?
Rina’s going so gray, I can’t believe she hasn’t started dyeing her hair!
All the same things she would nitpick in life. The questions that would frustrate me and make me zone out on the phone from New York, saying mm-hmm at regular intervals.
ruby.ocampo:
Do you feel any different?
sampaguita72:
Why are you always asking me that?
Do you feel different?
Does she even realize where she is? Does she remember that she’s dead?
I’m so frustrated, tears are welling up. I’ve tried nearly everything! Am I ever going to get her out of there?
“Hey.” Greg puts a hand on my shoulder.
“It didn’t work!” I drop my phone in my lap and press the heels of my hands over my eyes.
Greg rubs my back, and we sit like that for a while as the waves crash. “It must be hard to have to just…try things,” he says quietly. “Shots in the dark. Rummaging through all the corners of your life.”
“Not as hard as it must have been to raise me alone! And I can’t even do this for her!
What if—what if I never figure it out!” The dam breaks and I’m crying again.
Mom would hate to see me like this. Have some character, she’d say, some dignity!
But here I am, an undignified hot mess, losing another round of Trying to Be a Better Person.
“What if she’s trapped in there forever?”
“You know…” Greg starts again quietly, like he’s trying not to spook me, his knuckles tracing a slow path up and down next to my spine.
“I wonder if my mom was wrong. When she said—” He hesitates, and I get the sense he feels bad saying something to contradict his mom, even though she’s not here.
“Maybe your mom’s unfinished business doesn’t have anything to do with you. Maybe it’s not something you can fix.”
I don’t know what to do with this idea—don’t know where to put the things it makes me feel. I stand abruptly and brush the sand off myself, offering Greg a hand up.
“Thanks for coming,” I say as I pull him to his feet.
“You’re welcome.” Greg laughs, but there isn’t much joy in it. “You can stop thanking me. It’s okay. We’ve known each other forever.”
An uneasy silence hangs between us on the drive home, and when he turns into my driveway, we both sit there, not moving. I can barely stand to be around him right now, but I also don’t want him to go.
Greg stares at his hands on the wheel and takes a deep breath in.
“He’s not good enough for you,” he says finally, like he’s been workshopping that in his head, all the times he’s been silent over the past few days. “And—and I don’t know who is, but—” His voice is ragged, a way I’m not used to hearing him. “But he’s definitely not.”
I’m so surprised, I have to laugh. “What are you even talking about?” I’ve been thinking about Mark Winterson in aspirational terms for so long—the Guy Mom Would Want Me to Date, from the moment I laid eyes on him. “Seems like he’s better than me by most metrics.”
Greg’s eyes tick over to me. “Not by any of the ones that matter.”
The mood in this car has gotten weirdly intense, all of a sudden, and part of me is frustrated verging on angry. You’re dating someone else! I’m trying to move on from you! Why are you making it so hard?
So I give him a tight smile and say, “Good night, Greg,” before I clamber out of the car and shut the door.