The Secret History of Us

by Jessi Kirby

  I don’t want it to be over without adding my own. One last moment of us, together.

  And so, sitting there on that bench, shivering as the wind comes up, I bring my lips to his, and I kiss him. I kiss him, just like I did that first time, except this kiss is different. There’s no spark of excitement or connection. It’s not a beginning, or a hope, or the promise of something new.

  It’s a good-bye.

  TWENTY-THREE

  “LIV? IS THAT YOU?”

  My mom comes around the kitchen corner, drying her hands with a dish towel, looking surprised to see me. “Hi, sweetie.” She glances at the driveway. “Is Matt gone already? Sam said the two of you were going out for a bit. I thought maybe he’d want to stay for the evening. We heated the pool up, and your dad’s going to do some ribs, and it’s been a while since we’ve had him over.”

  “He just dropped me off,” I say, and I head for the stairs.

  “Why don’t you call him,” she says with a smile. “I bet he’ll come back if he knows Dad’s grilling.”

  “Maybe another time.” I try again for the stairs.

  “You sure? It’s could be fun to all relax together.”

  “Not today, okay?” My voice is flat and hard, and my mom’s smile takes a tumble.

  “Okay, no problem,” she says, her tone changing, like she understands to stop pushing. “Another time, like you said.”

  I look at her now. “Actually, there won’t be another time.”

  “What?” she asks, like she heard me wrong. “What do you mean?”

  I’m about to say I broke up with him, but that’s only partially true. “We broke up,” I say instead.

  “What?” She brings the hand still holding the dish towel to her chest. “Just now? Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”

  That “Oh, honey,” and the note of sympathy in her voice, does me in. It always has. A lump springs to my throat, and my eyes water, but I fight it. I don’t want to cry right now, in front of her.

  “What happened?” my mom asks. She steps toward me, arms open for a hug, and I fight the urge to take a step back. That’ll just make it worse.

  “I . . . I don’t really want to talk about it right now,” I say, and I let her hug me for a moment. “I kind of just want to go be by myself for a while.” Now I step back. “Is that okay?”

  “Of course, sweetheart. I understand.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You need anything?”

  I shake my head.

  “I’ve got some good chocolate stashed in the pantry. Keep it just for emergencies like this.”

  I smile for her benefit, because she’s trying so hard. “Maybe later.”

  “All right,” she says, but she doesn’t make a move to go anywhere.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket, so I do. I don’t have to look to know it’s Paige. I reject the call on my way up the stairs. It rings again, and I reject it again and wait. She doesn’t try a third time. I’m glad. I hope she doesn’t come over. Of course my mom would let her in. Of course she’d expect that I’d want to see Paige and talk to her about Matt. I bet I did the first time.

  But I don’t even know if I could look at Paige right now. Especially when I think of her telling me how much I loved Matt, and how perfect we were together. I don’t know what she thought she was doing, or how she thought that choosing what he asked her to tell me over telling me the truth was a good thing. It’s the same with Sam keeping what he knew from me. And maybe, in more ways I don’t even know about yet, my parents have kept things from me too. I’m sure they all justify it to themselves somehow—whether it’s to make things easier on me or to somehow protect me. But it’s the worst feeling in the world to think that everyone who knows you has what they think is a good enough reason to lie to you.

  I go into my room and shut the door behind me. Stand there a moment, not knowing what to do. What I do know, what I’m almost certain of, is that Paige is probably on her way over here right now to try to apologize, or explain, and I can’t do this with her right now. I can’t.

  I start to leave, to go I don’t know where, but then I see my camera case sitting on my desk, a new box of film on top of it, with a Post-it and a note scrawled in my mom’s writing:

  Happy to see you found your way back to something you love. Here’s to making new memories and seeing where they lead you!

  It stops me, right where I am, and cuts through my anger to something more fragile. The hope, maybe, that I can move on from this. I read the note over again, knowing that she means well, but it puts a lump in my throat just the same because even if I know this one thing about myself—that I like to take pictures—what good is it if it’s the only thing? And what good are pictures, even, if I can’t remember the story behind them?

  They’re useless.

  Pictures aren’t going to bring my memories back. They’re not going to give me my life back either. Those things are gone, and the relationships that were part of them are gone too. They stayed the same, and I changed, and now I don’t fit anymore. I look around my room that still doesn’t feel like it belongs to me, with its decorations I don’t remember choosing, and photos I never smiled for, of events I’ve never attended. Awards I’ve never won. The old me did all those things. And maybe I need to let them go.

  I look up at the chalkboard wall in front of me, full to the edges with jokes and memories that I am no longer a part of. I never had Paige finish going through them with me, but that doesn’t matter now. I open the drawer and find a chalkboard eraser that looks like it’s never been used, and then I start in one corner. Memories that belong to me but don’t disappear in seconds beneath the wide arc of the eraser. There are years’ worth of moments that made up my life, and who I was—not just to my friends and family, but to myself. I wipe them away, one by one, and by the time I’m finished, the wall is a swirly mess of multicolored chalk dust. My desk is covered in it, and so am I, but when I stand back and look at it, what I feel is a small measure of relief at the destruction. Like I can almost breathe again.

  I tuck the picture of me into my back pocket and go downstairs, and tell my mom I need to get some air so I’m going for a walk. She doesn’t say anything about the chalk dust all over me. She just nods like she understands.

  I don’t know where I’m going when I step out the door, but I head for the beach, and when I hit the sand I stop for a moment. Take one breath, and then another. The sun hasn’t set yet, but it’s tucked away behind the expanse of gray clouds that have gathered on the horizon. The air is already cooling, and it makes me wish I’d brought a sweater, but it’s too late now. I can’t go back. Just like with everything else in my life. All I can do at this point is keep going forward. So I do. All the way down the beach.

  I pass the harbor where boats are coming in, making their way home for the evening, and the Embarcadero, where tourists are starting to do the same. I don’t even feel like I belong here anymore, so I keep walking, head down against the rising wind, putting one foot in front of the other. Moving forward. It’s not until my feet hit the sidewalk of the Carson Bridge that I slow my steps and realize that I haven’t moved forward at all. I’ve just gone backward, back to the place where this all started. Back to the beginning of this, and the end of me.

  I stop for a moment to catch my breath. And then I keep going.

  The sidewalk rises in front of me with the arc of the bridge, and my steps slow down—not because of the incline, but because of the increasing tightness in my chest, and the knowledge that I’m nearing the exact place where my car went over the bridge. I can see the tire marks on the road. They go across one lane and into the other, and then they disappear at a new section of cement. I check for cars, and when there are none, I follow the tire marks across the lane to the other side.

  And then I’m here. In the place where everything changed. Where, moments before the video started rolling, a trucker lost control and crashed into my car, sending Matt and me careening into the water belo
w. I stop. Close my eyes. And though I know it’s not a memory, I see it happening. I see the truck’s headlights in the rearview, and the moment we both felt fear—that fraction of a second that was the dividing line between before and after.

  And then I see the impact. The explosion of glass, and the twist of metal before the free fall. The second impact, when we hit the water. The muffled silence that followed. The cold water pouring into the car as we sank. Filling my lungs and slowing my heart.

  And then nothing.

  That’s what happened here.

  I died.

  And yet here I am.

  I rest my elbows on the rough cement of the railing and lean over it. Look down into the water below. It’s calm. Slick and dark on the surface, giving nothing away. No indication of what happened here. It’s been forgotten already. The memory of it washed away with the ebb and flow of the tides, and carried out to the open ocean to be let go.

  I put my head down on my arms, and I cry, finally. I cry for this thing that happened to me, and everything I’ve lost, and the way I’ve tried and failed to find it. I cry for the past that’s disappeared, and the present that doesn’t fit right, and the future I can’t see. But mostly I cry for the utter loneliness I feel in this moment.

  The tears trickle down my cheeks and fall, and I let them. I let them all go until I have no more. And then I’m still, staring out at the water and the sky as dusk deepens the sky, and the lights in the harbor begin to blink on. I know I should go home, but I don’t know how to get there from this place no one else inhabits or can even reach.

  “Hey,” a voice says, interrupting my thoughts. “Don’t jump, okay? I got lucky the first time. I don’t think we should count on it happening again.”

  I wipe at my eyes as I turn to see Walker standing there on the bridge. I look around. “What are you doing here?”

  “Walking,” he says simply. “What are you doing here?”

  “Same.” I don’t offer an explanation even though I’m standing on the bridge where I almost died, crying.

  He takes a step closer. “Do you . . . wanna walk somewhere else? You’re making me kind of nervous up here like this.”

  I nod. “Okay.”

  So we walk.

  We don’t say anything at first. It’s quiet, and I am keenly aware of our steps, and my breathing, and the proximity of his shoulder to mine as we walk. He seems to be giving me space. The opportunity to talk or not, so I try to give him the same. It should feel strange, but it doesn’t, being together like this.

  We get to the end of the bridge and turn, head back toward the harbor, and once we’re under the lights of the Embarcadero, he looks at me.

  “So, trouble in paradise or existential crisis?”

  “Both,” I say without hesitating.

  He nods. “Wanna talk about it?”

  “No.” I shiver.

  “You cold?”

  “A little.”

  He stops. Takes off his fleece-lined denim jacket and offers it to me. “Here.”

  I hesitate for a moment, not really sure why he’s being so nice, or what it is we’re doing, but then I take it and wrap it around my shoulders, and this doesn’t feel strange either. There’s a trace of warmth in the fabric, a clean, fresh smell that’s almost familiar.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  He just nods, and we keep walking, and when I’m sure he’s not looking, I tuck my nose down into the collar, and breathe in, trying to place the scent. Nothing comes to me.

  “You want me to walk you home?” Walker asks.

  I shake my head. “No. I’m not ready to go home yet.” And then a thought occurs to me. “There’s something here I want to see.”

  “Okay,” Walker says, holding his hand out in front of us. “Lead the way.”

  A little wave of hope rolls through me as I turn down the main dock, and head toward E Dock. When we reach it, Walker stands back, and I punch in the code that I remembered that first day when I came looking for Second Chance. I can’t help but smile when the gate opens for me just as it did before.

  Walker gives me a funny look, like he’s humoring me or something.

  “Just wait,” I say.

  We go through the gate, and he closes it gently behind us.

  “You might know it already, since you live down here, but when I was younger, there was this old sailboat I used to love, called Second Chance.” I glance at him as we walk, and he looks even more perplexed. “I’m sorry,” I say. “It’ll just take a second. I just want to see if it’s still here.”

  “What do you mean if it’s still here?” Walker asks as I pull him along, feeling almost desperate now to get there.

  “I mean if it’s . . .”

  I stop just short of the last slip on the dock and blink, trying to reconcile the boat that’s floating in front of me with the one in my memory. In the lights from the dock, I can see the name Second Chance, in the same spot where it always was. But the letters aren’t faded to gray anymore. They’re sharp, and black, and they stand out against the bright white paint of the hull. The wood of the cabin is varnished a warm, honey gold that shines even in the dim light, and the mainsail is wrapped neatly in a bright red cover.

  I gasp. “Oh my God.”

  “What?” Walker asks, concerned.

  I turn to him. “Do you know whose boat this is? Who fixed it?”

  Walker looks at me with this strange look on his face. “You’re joking, right?”

  “No, I—” I look from him to the boat, and back again, confused.

  “Are you really asking me?” he says, his eyes running over my face, searching for something. His voice softens. “About the boat? You really don’t know, Liv?”

  “Know what?”

  Walker opens his mouth and starts to say something but stops. I see the muscles of his jaw tighten.

  “Know what?” I repeat a little louder. Now I’m getting worried. Something isn’t right, I can tell from the look on his face.

  Walker looks at the boat for a long moment before he brings his eyes back to me.

  “We did this, Liv. We fixed it together.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  MY STOMACH DROPS. I look at Walker, the boat, the sky. Anything to try to make sense of what he just said.

  “What?” I barely get the word out.

  “We fixed it together.”

  I look at him, at the way his expression has turned into a mix of confusion and hurt, just like Matt’s that day in the hospital, and I know he’s telling me the truth.

  “When?” I ask.

  “For the last few months. Do you not . . .”

  He doesn’t finish the question, but I know what he’s asking.

  I shake my head, and I don’t know if it’s the dock swaying, or what he’s telling me, but I feel dizzy all of a sudden.

  Walker puts a hand on my shoulder to steady me. “You okay?”

  I feel like I’m going to cry again any second. “No.”

  “Here,” he says, “sit down.”

  He puts an arm around my shoulders and guides me over to the boat, helps me step onto it from the dock, and we sit together on the wooden bench. I close my eyes for a moment to try to steady myself while a storm of frantic questions crashes around in my mind.

  I feel Walker get up, and I open my eyes. He disappears into the cabin and then is right back with a bottle of water that he opens and hands to me. “Here. Take a sip.” I do, and as he watches me, I can see the worry on his face. “What’s going on, Liv?”

  I take a deep breath and another sip of water. “What were we?” I ask. “Because I don’t . . .” I know I have to tell him that I don’t remember, but the idea of saying it to him makes me feel lost and helpless all over again. And so sad, because this has happened before, with Matt, and I know how it goes.

  My voice shakes when I speak. “Because I don’t remember.” I pause, trying to calm the tremor in my voice and read Walker’s reaction at the same time. Trying to see i
f what I suspect is true. “Since the accident,” I say, “I don’t remember a lot of things.”

  “Like . . . ?” He puts his hands out, and I can tell he doesn’t even know how to finish the question.

  “Like anything, from the last few years.” I look down at my own hands in my lap. “The last thing I remember from before the accident is the summer before I started high school.”

  I look at Walker. He’s quiet, and I can feel something shift between us. He leans back against the bench and looks out over the water.

  “Wow” is all he says.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “That’s why I didn’t know, just now . . .” I look around at the boat. “We did this?”

  He laughs, but there’s no joy in it. “Yeah.”

  “How did that even . . . ?” Now I don’t know how to finish the question. “Is this your boat?”

  He smiles, but it’s brief and a little sad. “No. It’s Charlie’s. He made me a deal—work as rent, so I was fixing it up.”

  He pauses. Takes a deep breath and then looks at me. “You came down with your camera one day and told me that same thing you did a few minutes ago, about how you’d always loved this boat.”

  I try to picture it—him, working on the boat, and me, walking up with my camera.

  “You asked if you could take a picture of it, and I said yes, so you did. Lots. And then you stuck around. Started asking a bunch of questions about what I was doing, until I finally just handed you a sanding block, hoping that if you were working you might not talk so much.”

  I laugh at this, because it’s not hard for me to imagine. I have an endless list of questions I want to ask him right now.

  “It didn’t work,” he says, and a smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. “You kept taking pictures and asking questions, and then you asked if you could come back the next day and help work on it.”

  “And you said yes?”

  He nods.

  “And I did?”

  “Most days, yeah.”