15 The Truth Is, I Don’t Understand Myself
15
The Truth Is, I Don’t Understand Myself
Trey wasn’t there when I got up the next morning. His car was gone, too. If all his drawing materials weren’t still spread out on the table, I’d have been afraid he’d left Petit Prince forever.
Without him, it was too quiet between those four walls.
I sat on the porch and watched the sun come up in the clear sky. I stayed out there long enough to finish my second cup of coffee, telling myself how much I liked the tranquility there. The lack of bustle, the lack of work and stress, the lack of worries.
When I first arrived, it had gotten to me how there was nothing to do. Now I wondered how the hell I would return to my routine once I was home. What would I do if I couldn’t feel the sun on my face, breathe the fresh air, walk slowly with no real place to go? How could I return to a place where nobody noticed the weeks or months passing until the leaves fell in fall or a Christmas tree reminded them that time hadn’t really stopped, that it was always slipping through your fingers like sand.
My thoughts were contradictory, hard to grasp, uncertain. Had I really lost my mind after just three days here?
Maybe it was something in the water, or maybe in the air, some strange substance that was changing me the same way it had changed Ridge, Adele, Sid, and even Peter.
The sound of an approaching vehicle brought me back from my reverie. A minute later, Trey was walking up the porch steps with his briefcase. He looked like a tourist in his Bermuda shorts, his T-shirt, his tennis shoes, and his sunglasses.
“You went into town?”
“Yeah. Ridge told me there’s a scanner and Wi-Fi at the library, and I needed to send a couple of emails and file for permits for the renovation.”
He went inside, and I followed him in.
“So you’re finished with the plans?”
“Yeah. We can do it. We don’t have to touch anything structural, and the blueprints for the new addition are complete. My part’s done.”
I smiled and held it until I thought it looked real. If he was done, that meant he’d be leaving. The idea nauseated me slightly.
“I finished your book, by the way. Thanks for lending it to me.”
“You read the whole thing?” I asked. “And you liked it?”
He was gathering his pens, ordering them in a box. With a slightly flustered expression, he began, “Yeah, it’s good. And I can see why it has to unfold the way it does, because of the historical context and all…”
“But…”
“But all those people are assholes! Right from the beginning, everyone treats Anne like dirt just because she’s an orphan and she’s different. I realize things get better and by the end it’s happily ever after, but she has to go through hell before they accept her! She had to change to fit in. And Gilbert, especially—what a dickhead.”
“He’s not a dickhead,” I protested, trying not to laugh.
“Maybe you look at him from a romantic point of view and the ending justifies everything, but trust me, he is. We were born to be good friends, Anne. You’ve thwarted destiny enough. ” He imitated Gilbert’s shrill voice. “That loser was dying to get her out to the stables and lift up her petticoat.”
I covered my mouth to keep from laughing, but couldn’t stop myself. There was something adorable about Trey being mad at a book. His eyes had a killer look in them that I found alluring. He was fascinating and enigmatic at the same time, and his anger had something innocent to it. All of that drew me closer to him.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“Nothing. I just didn’t expect the story to really affect you. Because of you saying you don’t normally read that type of book.” I sat on the couch and he flopped down next to me, close enough that our bare arms touched.
“I read it because of what you said. How you were like Anne in a lot of ways and how there were other ways you wished you could be like her. I wanted to know what that really meant.”
“So…?” I asked.
“Honestly, I think I understand what the book means to you.” He rested his hand on mine and stroked my fingers. It was more tender than anything he’d done so far, more tender than anything he’d done since that night years ago, and my body wasn’t ready for it. “Harper, you don’t need to be like anyone else, least of all a fictional character from another time. You’re amazing. Why should you be any different?”
“You think I’m amazing? You barely know me.”
“We’ve spent a couple of very intense days together. In other circumstances, I’d say they were the equivalent of months, no?” He leaned his head back and looked up at the ceiling. “Yeah, I think you’re amazing, intelligent, and lots of other things. The question is, why don’t you think the same?”
I didn’t know what to say. His hand was still holding mine, and in my mind, there was so much going round and round that I couldn’t find anything to hold on to.
“Did you know the author was from New London and lived in Cavendish later?”
“Yeah,” I replied, surprised. “How did you know, though?”
“I googled her.”
I smiled and he wove his fingers into mine. “So now that you’re done with the house, I guess you’ll be going?”
“I don’t have to be back in Montreal until after Labor Day. I was thinking I would stay here until then. But that was before I knew you’d be here. Maybe you’d rather I head out earlier…”
“No. You can stay. I was thinking that was when I’d go back, too.” Outside, I could hear the cawing of the seabirds.
“Harper?”
“Yeah?”
“Are we good?”
“What do you mean?”
“After what happened, what you told me—are we all right?”
“Yeah. I guess so.”
“You guess?”
“We can’t change the past,” I told him. “And we can’t just forget it like it never happened. Maybe with the passage of time…”
“Maybe we can’t forget the past, but that doesn’t mean we have to let it control us.”
He was right.
“And I don’t want to.”
For the first time in ages, I felt light, relaxed, unafraid. We were so close that I could feel his breath on me as he sighed. My eyes wandered down to his lips and remained there until I noticed he was looking at mine, too. The moment was thick with tension.
Trey was like the sun just then, warm, brilliant, drawing me toward him. But I knew it was dangerous, going too close to the sun like Icarus.
Well, at that moment, I was as happy as Icarus on his way up toward the sun, without the least notion that if I didn’t slow down, I might fall to my death.
I wasn’t thinking. I still couldn’t really grasp that he was here and that the past two days had been real. As real as the intense stare he was giving me just then, looking as though he wished to memorize every detail of me.
“Hello? Are you two home?”
“Is that Sid?” Trey asked.
We got up and walked outside. Sid waved as he walked over. His skin was glimmering with sweat and he was panting.
“You all right, Sid?”
“I’ve been out on the beach looking for driftwood. When it storms, a lot of it washes up on the beach, and I found a pretty big piece down there. I was wondering if you’d help me bring it home.”
“Sure. Anything you need.”
An hour later, a heavy, nine-foot piece of wood was leaning against the wall of Sid’s workshop, while he and Trey were lying flushed and wheezing on the grass outside.
“You actually came all the way from Old Bay carrying that?” Adele asked.
“I didn’t… I didn’t think…it would be so…hard,” her husband babbled.
“I don’t know what’s harder, that branch or your head.”
They were an odd couple, so different on the surface that it was hard to believe they were so close. And yet I also couldn’t imagine them apart.
“Trey, sweetie, are you okay?”
“I will be as soon as I can get my lungs back inside my body,” he struggled to respond.
“Let’s go in and make them some iced tea before they die,” Adele said.
She invited us to stay for lunch and wouldn’t take no for an answer. She roasted sliced turkey and artichokes with delicious stuffing, and we talked about any and everything, and time flew by without us realizing it. After cleaning up, Sid took Trey to his workshop to show him his sculptures and his new chain saw. He talked about it as if it were his firstborn son.
Adele made more iced tea and we drank it in the salon next to an old fan that offered slight relief from the heat. The temperature had gone up fast after the storm, reminding us that summer wasn’t over.
With a roguish grin, Adele asked, “So…are you and Trey a couple?”
“No!” I couldn’t believe she’d just come out with it like that.
“You seem to get along well. How long have you known each other?”
“He’s my brother’s best friend, so I guess around ten years. Why do you think there’s something between us?”
“Because he watches you like he can’t stand the thought of letting you out of his sight. And that makes me think he’s afraid of something. And I’m wondering what exactly the story between you two is.”
I looked away from her and toward my glass, a bundle of nerves. I’d never spoken to anyone about my feelings for Trey. For years, I’d kept them a secret, something that belonged to me and me alone. And doing that made me idealize him until he was this perfect being who lived only in my mind and who I could gaze at, enraptured, and pray to like an idol. Then I learned he wasn’t so perfect, that he was anything but perfect, and I hated him. Now I knew he was flesh and blood, real, human. And it was funny that Adele should tell me he looked afraid, because I was afraid, too. Afraid he’d leave, afraid he’d stay. Afraid of what I might feel. Afraid of feeling too much, afraid of not feeling enough. Afraid of what could come next.
To Adele’s inquiring look, I responded, simply, “It’s complicated.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her; it was that there was somebody else involved. It was Trey’s story, too. It was ours, and I wanted it to stay that way. Free from other people’s judgments and opinions. In part, because he’d played the villain, and I needed to turn him into the hero redeemed.
In her smile, I could tell Adele understood.
“You and I have a great deal in common,” she said before changing the subject.
We said our goodbyes late in the afternoon and walked back home along the edge of the cliff, where there was a green blanket of grass that contrasted beautifully with the red of the rocks. Those colors were accentuated by the sun that was starting to set, sending orange rays across the blue sky. We turned onto a path leading downhill, feeling free and easy.
I took off my sandals when we reached the pebble beach. I liked feeling the rocks under my feet as I walked. We weren’t in a hurry, and I enjoyed listening to the rush of waves.
“You really want to be a writer?” he asked.
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Why, would you have to kill me afterward?” he joked. I rolled my eyes and he tried again, “A writer, though? Seriously?”
“Are you always this persistent?”
“Only when something really interests me.” He came around in front of me and started walking backward. “Come on, tell me more. What do you want to write about?”
“I’ve been writing for years. The problem is, I never finish anything.”
“Why?”
“For a million reasons. My studies, my job, life and the roads it takes you down. A lack of time. I don’t know!”
“You suck at making excuses. Now tell me the truth.”
Since when did he know me so well he could tell when I was lying?
“I said I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe you.”
His insistence was starting to irritate me.
“Fine. A writer has to have things that I don’t have, like talent and good ideas and…” A bitter taste rose up in my throat. It was pride. Because the truth was, I did believe I had talent. I knew I had good ideas. None of that was the problem. “A writer is the sum of their experiences. And I don’t have many, honestly.”
“Then you should go out and look for them.”
“If only it was that easy. I know people say you just need the willpower, but it’s harder than that.”
“Sure, you’re right. But sometimes you have to close your eyes and take a risk.”
I took a deep breath, feeling more and more lost in all the disparate thoughts whirling in my head. This subject was like a thorn in my side, and every time he opened his mouth, it sank in deeper.
“Have you ever done that? If so, maybe you can give me some advice.”
“Let’s see. I could be working with my father at his studio right now designing luxury apartments that cost thirty thousand a month for rich jerks. But instead, I’m tempting bankruptcy working on projects to improve other people’s lives. So yeah. I think I can give you advice.”
There was frustration in his voice. I stopped and stared into his eyes. I felt bad now for trying to dig at him that way.
“Sorry,” I said.
He came close and pushed my bangs aside, not losing his smile.
“My grandfather says we end up here by chance, because we happened to be born. But everything else is a choice. Yesterday, when you said that book made you want to be a writer, I wasn’t just listening to you. I felt you. The excitement, the urge. Then I saw you trying to suppress that, stuff it deep inside you, just like you’re doing now. And I don’t get it.”
That made me think.
I didn’t understand, either. He was right: writing was my dream. It had been since I was a girl. I’d just left that longing floating there. I’d tried to make it disappear. Yet it was still there, a ghost coming to visit me when I let down my guard, whispering that I’d never be complete until I made it happen.
As if someone had just turned the key to a lock, something opened up subtly within me.
The answer to the question why.
I was scared to fail. There was a stigma against failure in my family. And if I messed up, I’d be telling them they were right about me. And I couldn’t stand that, and I couldn’t stand thinking that I was letting the rest of the world, especially my father, decide for me instead of doing it myself. Tears stung my eyes, but I didn’t want to cry in front of Trey.
“I guess I’m scared of trying and realizing I’ve got the desire but not the ability. I’m scared of rejection letters, of not being good enough, of not being able to accept the ups and downs.”
He was so close that I was waiting for something to happen, but instead his questions continued. “Is your fear really that strong? Do you really want to spend your life editing and publishing other people’s novels and dreaming of the book you’ll never actually write?”
Where did he get off? I suddenly saw him as a six-foot-tall Jiminy Cricket, even if his body looked like a Greek god’s and his smile was to die for. I shook my head in response.
“No,” I said softly.
“Trying to forget your dreams so they won’t destroy you isn’t the solution. My grandfather taught me that. He always says you have to keep fighting like a warrior even if you’re afraid you’ll lose the battle. Fate is always on the side of those who believe with all their heart.”
A warrior? Fate? What the hell was he talking about?
I thought about those words as we walked on. They sounded a little mystical, but there was something very basic in them that was true. It was strange for him to use such lofty language, though. It wasn’t like the Trey I knew.
“Your grandfather sounds like he’s full of good advice. I’d like to meet him some day.”
We reached the dunes. We could see the house not far from there. I crouched down to put my sandals back on and saw a tiny glimmer. I squealed when I saw it was a blue piece of glass. I lifted it up to look at it closely. It was slightly rough on one side, resembling a shard of ice. Precious.
“What is it?” Trey asked, behind me.
“A mermaid’s tear.” I looked back over my shoulder. “They’re little pieces of glass that spend decades in the ocean. The sand and the currents polish them until they look like this. They’re treasures. Adele uses them in her art.”
“Why are they called mermaids’ tears?”
“It’s a legend. They say these pieces of glass are the tears of a mermaid crying for the sailor she loves but can never be with because she was banished to the bottom of the ocean.”
“Damn. That’s sad.”
“Love shouldn’t hurt, but it does.”
“Not always, Harper. What hurts isn’t love; it’s everything around it that tries to stifle it.”
I turned back to look at him. “That’s pretty.”
“I can’t claim the credit for it, I read it somewhere. But I agree with it. So is that why you came here?”
“Is what why I came here?”
“To try and get over someone. Maybe you needed time or distance to get over a boyfriend.”
“No!”
“Are you sure? Because if it’s that guy you were going out with, your brother says he’s a jerk. A brown-noser with no personality of his own. And a person like that doesn’t deserve a minute of your time.”
I smiled again. I had the feeling that smiling was all I did when he was around.
“No, it’s not him. I do need time and distance, and that is why I’m here, but it’s nothing to do with Dustin. It’s way more complicated and important than some dumb ex.”
Seeing that he really cared, that he was attentive and maybe even worried, I realized I could tell him anything, and that with a little luck, he’d understand me. Just maybe. I mean, he had, hadn’t he, a few minutes before? In fact, I wasn’t sure anyone else had ever understood me so well.
I sat on the sand, and he did the same. I closed my eyes and listened to the sea and tried to find the words to tell him this was a crucial moment in my life, a moment that might change everything.
“I don’t know if you know this, but my grandmother left me her house and the bookstore.”
“Hoyt mentioned it.”
“Do you and my brother spend all your time talking about me?” I growled.
That seemed to make him uncomfortable. “He is my best friend,” Trey said, “and he talks to me when he needs to. And he’s worried about you.” He sank his fingers in the sand and brought up a handful. “And to be honest, I listen closer when you come up.”
He grinned. I shook my head. What was I going to do with him? His flirting disconcerted me, and I wondered how real it was. I didn’t want to get overexcited. I couldn’t afford to.
“Let me put it this way,” I said. “Imagine your future is all planned out and you’re sticking to it. And then one day something changes. A new road opens in front of you. So on one side you have the so-called important things, stuff that really is tempting: a wonderful world where you can be someone and make a name for yourself. Respect, admiration, comfort. And the other road isn’t so flashy, but there are other things there that maybe matter more.”
“Like…?”
“Memories, identity, roots…dreams. Hopes. And not having to worry about repairs because you’re too poor to afford them!” He laughed, but I tried to ignore it. “Well, I’m standing at that crossroads, and I have to choose. Either I go back to Toronto and keep studying and working at the publisher or I stay in Montreal and leave everything behind to run the bookstore.”
“Wow. Those really are two totally different paths!”
I looked out at the sea to watch a bird flying low over the water’s surface.
“So what would you do?” I asked.
“No answer I can give you will help. The solution depends on your priorities, on what you really want. You have to get your own ideas in order, think about your dreams, decide what’s important for you.”
“It sounds so simple when you put it like that. But what if I choose wrong? What if I throw all my eggs in one basket and regret it and then it’s too late to change my mind? What if I have no idea what I actually want?”
“We’ve all asked ourselves those questions,” he said in a caring tone, seeming to understand how complicated the situation was and how hard it must be to live in my skin. “But ask yourself, Harper: What do you want more than anything in the world?”
I needed a few seconds to respond. Then something emerged from me without my even thinking of it.
“I want the opportunity to be happy.”
“See? You do know what you want.”
“And I want to understand myself. Because I don’t. I–I don’t know who I am. I feel like somewhere along the way I forgot. Or maybe I never did know. And if I don’t know who I am now, how will I know who I want to be in the future?”
I felt sad, nervous, edgy, exposed after sharing all my thoughts with him. All the thoughts I never said aloud. He grabbed my hand and held it. But he didn’t try to give me answers. And him just being there and waiting made more and more words rise up within me.
I stood. I had to move, had to do something. I walked to the water’s edge. He followed me.
“I keep thinking about the consequences my decisions could have. That’s what I do all the time, keep turning the same subject over and over. It feels like so much effort, but in the end, all that ruminating gets me nowhere. I feel stuck. I feel like I can’t move without knowing all the answers in advance, and even when I do take a step, all I can think about is what others will think of me, and it’s like I’m trying to show them… I don’t know. Something. Why do I care so much what others think of me? Dammit, I’m just a dreamer. A dreamer who will never turn her dreams into reality. Who will never fill the void inside her.”
Trey wrapped his arms around me. He pulled me in tight, as though he wanted to protect me from the surrounding world. When he spoke, his lips just barely grazed my earlobe. “That’s not true, Harper. You just… You just have to believe in yourself. I know what I’m talking about. I know how you feel. Trust me.”
I closed my eyes. No one had ever held me like that before. Emotions flooded me, making my hands shake. “Why should I trust you? Or is that another story you don’t want to tell me?”
He grinned sadly, and I felt the heat of his body through my clothes. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Just let me find the time, okay?”
I nodded, no longer capable of speaking. A heartbeat was echoing in my ears. I didn’t know if it was mine or his.
“But promise me you won’t fall in love with me out of pity,” he whispered timidly.
I laughed and tried to hold on to that splinter of joy Trey had managed to find. And the feeling of it spread through my arms and legs like a warm, restoring bath.
This wasn’t a trivial moment. Nothing that was happening to me there was trivial. Nothing at all.