Unbreak My Heart

by Melissa Walker

  I see James watching her, impressed.

  “Total pro,” I say to him.

  He smiles. “Do you fish?”

  “Sometimes,” I say. “I like it, but I’m not, like, really into it.”

  “Same here,” says James. “And I’m bad at unhooking wet, floppy things, so you’re on your own, Olive.”

  Olive pays no attention to us—it’s like she didn’t hear him. She’s big on concentration.

  I start to feel awkward, like I’m going to have to talk to James for an hour or something while my little sister sits there robot-fishing, so I open up the tackle box and look at the lures to occupy myself. There’s a hard plastic fish that’s silver and blue, some glittery green worms, and these crazy rainbow jigs that look like mini pom-poms.

  I’m about to pick up one of the pom-poms when James asks, “Are you having a good summer?”

  It feels like a casual question, one that anyone would ask when they first meet someone else, but I’m still not sure how to answer.

  I could go with, “Great! How about you?” or I could say, “Yup, it’s fun to hang out with my family,” or I could say, “Not really. I’m actually having a pretty hard time with things right now.”

  But right, like I’d choose option three. I go with “Yup, it’s fun to hang out with my family,” because it sounds less fake and blow-offy than “Great!”

  “Yeah, I like being with my dad,” says James. “Guy time.”

  He flexes his biceps in mock machismo and I grin. He’s totally skinny, but he does have some tight arms.

  “Do you guys do this every summer?” I ask.

  I think I see a shadow cross his brow—the first darkness on his face ever—but it’s gone in a split second and I can’t be sure I saw it, because he’s back to his default state: smiley.

  “We’ve done it since I was thirteen,” says James. “So, for the past four summers.”

  “You’re seventeen?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “You?”

  “I turned sixteen in June,” I say.

  “Did you get your license?”

  I nod. “Yeah, it’s ironic—right when I got my license, I gave up my freedom to be stuck on a boat with my entire family.”

  “But you said you like time with them,” he says.

  “Well, yeah, but not constant time like I’m getting.”

  “That’s what the dinghy’s for.”

  “I guess.”

  “No, but seriously, I think of the boat as my freedom,” he says. “Out on the water with the wind blowing through the sails … it feels like flying.”

  “Unless your mom is yelling at you to untie the ropes and your dad is shouting ‘helm’s alee’ or some other nautical jibberish,” I say. “Sometimes I wish I could get in a car and drive away for a while.”

  “Nah.” James shakes his head. “You’re wrong. Being out on the water is the best feeling in the world. So much better than just driving with the windows down.”

  I flash back to the country drive with Ethan, and suddenly I’m picturing it all over again—“Beautiful Girl,” his hand on mine over the shifter, lying back in the tall grass … Amanda on the porch. I grab the side of the boat to steady myself.

  “Whoa, you okay?” asks James.

  “I’m fine,” I say, too quickly.

  Olive looks at us then, and I know she’s paying attention; she heard the not-fine tone of my voice.

  I smile at her halfheartedly. She frowns.

  “Do you want to go back?” she asks. I feel like I might cry. Again.

  I shake my head no, and as I will myself to stare at the fishing lures one more time—red, yellow, blue—I push Bishop Heights out of my head. I’m here, on the water, far away from all of that. I’m okay.

  “Want to hear a joke?” asks James. He’s smiling warmly at me.

  “What?” I ask, still feeling slightly disoriented.

  “A joke. You know, to make you smile again.”

  “Sure!” says Olive, reeling in her lure and looking up at James attentively.

  “Okay, this isn’t mine—it’s from my favorite comedian, Mitch Hedberg. He died, but I can’t stop telling his jokes.”

  I nod.

  “Wait—you guys have seen Pringles, right?” he asks.

  “Pringles?” I ask.

  “The potato chips,” he says.

  “Uh, yeah,” I say. Duh.

  “Okay, cool. So here goes,” says James.

  Olive looks up at him expectantly.

  “I think Pringles is a really chill company,” he starts. “Their original intention was to make tennis balls, but on the day the rubber was supposed to show up, a truckload of potatoes came instead. Pringles is so laid back they just said, ‘Whatever. Cut ’em up!’ ”

  I try to suppress a grin, but I can’t. I have always thought Pringles cans looked like tennis-ball holders. I give James a small, but real, smile.

  Olive holds her stomach because she’s laughing so hard.

  “Overkill, Livy,” I say.

  “What will it take to make you laugh out loud?” James asks me.

  “Clem used to laugh all the time,” says Olive. “She used to be funny and bubbly and bright and—”

  “Olive, enough.” My tone is firm—James doesn’t need to know how I used to be. Or why I’m not that way anymore.

  “She still seems like all of those things,” says James. “If you catch her unaware.”

  I look at him sideways and resolve to not let him catch me “unaware.”

  James drops a fishing line in then, and he and Olive keep casting, getting a few nibbles but no real bites over the next hour or so. They ignore me, but in a way that respects the quiet nature of the day, I guess. Like they know my thoughts are complicated right now.

  I watch the waves come in, watch a tiny bird on the shore hopping around and looking for washed-up clams, watch the kayaking couple go past us one more time.

  While I’m still, I think about all the things I’d like to talk to James about. The old me would ask him how he got into drawing, what his land life is like, which bands he likes, what TV he DVRs, and maybe even if he has a girlfriend.

  Olive’s right. I used to be brighter.

  I feel like a dull and worn-out version of myself, and for some reason I just can’t bridge the gap between who I used to be and the sad sack that’s sitting here now. I don’t know how to reach through it.

  I’m staring down at my left thumb, picking at the skin around the nail, when James says my name.

  “Clementine.”

  He sounds like Ethan when he says it. Why can’t I just go back and not do what I did? Then Amanda and I would be dying over being apart this summer, and I could save up stories for her about how my mom is making us eat from a can every night and my dad is being supercheesy and Olive is trying to discuss literature with me. Maybe I’d even tell her about today, about James. Because then meeting him would be this uncomplicated, fun thing. Not that I think he’s in love with me or anything, but let’s face it, we’re out on the water. The pickings are slim.

  But I can’t even talk to Amanda. Because I’m a bad person.

  I look up at James and have to shake my head for a minute to remember where I am. I bite my bottom lip because, for the hundredth time this summer, I feel like I might cry.

  “What happened?” he asks.

  “Nothing,” I say, faking a smile. “I guess I just zoned out for a sec.”

  I look over and see that Olive is watching us.

  “No,” he says. “Not just now. I mean, what happened to you?”

  “What happened to me?” I echo.

  “Did something—” he starts. Then he looks at Olive and sees her listening to us. He holds back. “I mean, I know what it’s like to have something make you sad.”

  “No, it’s nothing,” I rush to answer again.

  “You just looked like—”

  “You don’t really know me,” I say, annoyed at how much he sees. Tha
t drawing of me with the sad eyes—what was that supposed to be? And now he thinks he can read my expressions? So presumptuous. “We just met.”

  James looks hurt for a moment, and then he glances at Olive. I glare at her to let her know that she’d better not butt in with whatever crazy version of the Ethan story she thinks she knows.

  She stays quiet, and I look down at the bottom of the dinghy with its dirt scuffs and brown pools of water, wishing I could bubble up and be the old me again. But I don’t know how.

  chapter twenty-two

  Dear Amanda,

  On my birthday, it wasn’t what you thought—

  The day I turned sixteen was a teacher workshop day, so I spent the morning at the DMV and passed my test with flying colors. Dad handed over the keys instantly. “Go have fun,” he said.

  I dropped him off at home and sat in the driver’s seat as I texted all my friends to see who could hang out with me.

  The first reply came from Ethan: I’m in. come get me.

  I waited exactly twelve minutes, by the clock on the dashboard, to see if anyone else would answer. They didn’t. I felt a small thrill at the thought of picking up Ethan and driving around with him, alone.

  He was standing in his driveway when I got there. His hair was wet from the shower. I wondered if he had taken one after I texted, if he was clean just for me. When he got in the car he smelled fresh, like Old Spice and spearmint gum.

  It was a sunny day and the temperature was in the seventies, so we rolled down the windows and took a left on Rural Route 102. You take a right to go into town; there’s no real reason to go left—it just leads to a narrow stretch that passes some farmland out in the county, and eventually it becomes a dirt road. But Ethan hadn’t been out that way, and it’s pretty in some parts. It seemed like a good idea.

  The road was fun to drive, too—lots of valleys and views.

  “Do things look different from the driver’s seat?” asked Ethan as we dipped down a hill. I could see cows in a field ahead, and I remembered coming out here on a field trip in first grade. Amanda and I got to give a bottle to a newborn calf.

  “They do,” I said. “I feel like I’m actively involved in the landscape, rather than just watching it go by.”

  And I realized as I said it that that’s what being with Ethan felt like. Like I wasn’t watching and waiting for something to happen, for someone to notice me, for life to come my way. I was participating in life. I was making decisions.

  “No song game today?” asked Ethan, teasing me.

  I had my iPod plugged into the radio jack, but we were listening to a Bon Iver album straight through.

  “We could put on one of your playlists,” I said, kind of excited about the idea of listening to his playlist with him.

  “No fair,” he said. “Then all the songs are how I feel about you, and none are how you feel about me.”

  Right then, I felt the day going from exciting but ordinary birthday to the possibility of more. But more what? It wasn’t like when we went to the movies, where we nervously laughed and brushed hands and flirted, or even when I sat on the couch watching Spike Lee and let his hand touch mine. This felt bigger.

  I considered turning back, saying I only had the car for an hour, making up an excuse about having to meet Amanda later. I thought about reminding him of his girlfriend, bringing up the conversation we had at Razzy’s again.

  But it almost felt like we were driving in our own world—like we were inside a snow globe—and there was music and sunlight and smiles and laughter floating in the air. And it was all self-contained in a beautiful bubble filled with glittering water that made things seem a little unreal, a little dream-like and hazy. I’m sure the Bon Iver album helped.

  It was amazing to be with Ethan this way. I didn’t want to break the spell.

  I shifted into third gear as we went down a steep hill, and I pushed the rest of the world from my mind.

  “I love that you can drive stick,” said Ethan. “It’s hot.”

  I smiled at him, and he put his hand over mine on the shifter. I didn’t move my hand until I had to shift back into fourth when the road leveled out. We kept talking this way, and the farther we got from town, the more it felt like we were the couple, not he and Amanda.

  There was a pause in conversation as Ethan clicked through the iPod, looking for a playlist after the album ended. He landed on “Beautiful Girl,” and we listened to it in silence together. I hoped he couldn’t see that I had goose bumps.

  We drove until we got to the dirt road, which was about forty miles from the turn we took. Aaron and Amanda drove out here for one of our scavenger hunts—“dust from the dirt part of Rural Route 102” was on the list, and even though Aaron wanted to just pick up any dirt and pass it off as the dirt, Amanda didn’t like to cheat.

  “He said no one would know where the dirt was from,” she’d told me later.

  “No one would have,” I’d said. “You guys could have won.” My team with Renee had just beaten Amanda and Aaron that night, 42 to 41.

  “I would have known,” she’d said, sure that I would understand. “It wouldn’t have felt like winning.”

  I slowed the car and looked out the window at the dirt road.

  “What’s past this?” asked Ethan.

  “I have no idea,” I said.

  “We should definitely find out.” He smiled at me in a way that made my heart buckle. I thought he might kiss me later, when we stopped driving. And I wanted him to, so badly.

  At first the dirt road continued just like normal 102, past farmland and the occasional trailer. But then, as we rounded a slight bend, we came to a dead end. There was a road turning to the right, but it was blocked by an orange construction sign.

  “Should we drive past it?” I asked. I was sure I could maneuver Mom’s Honda around the edge of the sign, and I didn’t want to turn back. I felt like turning back would be a big wind-down of this fantasy day with Ethan. Not yet, I thought.

  “Maybe we can just park and check out the fields,” said Ethan. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s around.”

  “Okay,” I said. I was sad to leave the playlist behind—I was worried the car was my snow globe and it would shatter without us being in this small space filled with music and sunlight.

  It turned out, though, that the snow globe was bigger than I’d imagined. We high-stepped through grass that hadn’t been mowed all spring, where blue and yellow wildflowers were growing. When we found a shady spot near a lone tree in the middle of the field, Ethan smoothed out some grass and said, “Let’s sit.”

  I sat down, legs stretched out in front of me, and he lay next to me, his elbow propped under his arm and his face turned in my direction. He handed me a tiny cluster of wildflowers that he’d picked along the way—I hadn’t even seen him do it.

  “Thanks,” I said shyly. It felt like some old-fashioned courting ritual, us sitting under a shady tree in the middle of a farmer’s field.

  I got nervous then.

  “Did Amanda ever tell you about how in first grade we came out somewhere near here and met baby cows? We even got to give one of them a bottle, and it was so cute and—”

  Ethan put his hand on my thigh. I stopped talking.

  Then he whispered, “Clementine.” It was a sigh. I knew nothing was going to follow it. He wasn’t starting a sentence, he was just saying my name. He said it reverently, like he liked the sound of it in his mouth.

  I lay down next to him, careful not to touch him, though he kept his hand on my leg. It felt like we were the only two people in the world at this moment. We lay there for hours, until we were in the sun after the shade had changed its position, and we just talked. It was easy. It was Ethan. We compared the nerdiest things we’d ever seen: I once witnessed this kid Ron Jenson typing “Sent from my iPhone” into an e-mail on his laptop.

  “He does not have an iPhone,” I said.

  Ethan countered that in his old town he knew someone who refused to use
a mouse—ever.

  “He knows all the key commands and proclaims that anyone who uses a mouse is a total caveman,” he said.

  I laughed, but insisted that Ron’s fake iPhone was worse.

  “Agreed,” said Ethan.

  It was just so normal. Like we were together. It felt like the rightest thing I’d ever known. But it wasn’t. Not even close.

  chapter twenty-three

  “More cheese!” shouts Olive.

  We’re dumping a whole pack of shredded cheddar on top of the burrito-like casserole dish Mom’s making.

  I’ve been force-recruited into helping with dinner tonight, because Mom decided it was time for me to “snap out of it,” at least for the evening. After this morning with James, I feel sunkissed and confused. I went out on the dinghy expecting a couple hours of small talk and jokes, but then talking to James made me think of Ethan. How messed up is that?

  Dad has been alternating between reading the newspaper he picked up at the dock deli yesterday and laughing at me, Mom, and Olive in the kitchen, surrounded by empty cans.

  “It takes all three of my girls to make one Man, Can, Plan dish,” he says, smiling.

  Mom reaches over and bats him on the head with her oven mitt.

  He stands and puts his hands on his hips, pretending to be mad, but then he just picks her up into a hug and twirls her around. I roll my eyes at Olive, and she does the same back to me.

  “You guys are cheesier than this,” says Olive, and she points at the layer of cheddar we just added to the bean casserole dish.

  “Just showing you guys how true romance is done,” says Dad, setting Mom down gently and giving her a kiss on the mouth.

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s so romantic being in a forty-two-foot space with your two kids and eating your weight in canned beans.”

  “You’re looking at it all wrong, Clem,” says Mom, taking my hand and guiding me to the port window, practically dancing. She points outside. “What do you see?”

  The dark waves are lapping against the boat, and there are sparkling lights on the shoreline in the distance. It looks ordinary and extraordinary all at once. We’re on a boat, spending summer on the water. But I’m also bored half the time, and if I’m not bored I’m sad.