All That Was

by Karen Rivers

“Look.” I stop rowing. My heart is still topsy-turvy in my chest. My breathing is all wrong. I can’t remember what my mom said about holding my breath or breathing out through my nose or in through my mouth. Nothing makes sense. “I’m not going to have sex with you. But I thought we should know each other. Piper said that I should … I think we should…”

  “Oh, I get it,” he says, sitting up. “You’re freaking out that you had sex with me because you’re not that kind of girl and now you want to turn this into a ‘relationship.’” He makes air quotes with his fingers again. “Cool, I guess.”

  I row a few more strokes. “I think there’s something wrong with me,” I say. “I’m not feeling good. I feel weird.”

  “We all feel weird,” he says. “Who feels like themselves? Who can really say that? We’re always trying on new versions of ourselves all the time. Next up, I’m going to be Jack the Ripper.”

  “It’s been done.” I shiver. I hate him. I want to go home. “How about just being a better version of yourself?”

  “Don’t think so,” he murmurs. He opens up his backpack, takes out a can of beer. “You want?”

  I shake my head. “We should just go back,” I say. “I have to go back, actually. I don’t know what I was thinking. Piper said … Anyway, we should go back.” I feel the panic starting to prickle at my skin, in each of my cells. My lungs constrict. I tell myself I can’t hyperventilate. Not here. Not now. “This was a bad idea.”

  “No,” he says. “It was a good idea. We should keep going.”

  He reaches forward and gently takes the oars out of my hands. He starts to row, like he knew where he was going all along, like this was his plan, not mine. Like there’s nothing he wants more than to get me alone. I swallow a scream. It isn’t rational. There is no reason to be afraid.

  But I am afraid.

  “I have to get the boat back by four,” I whisper.

  He nods. “No worries,” he says as the boat bumps the shore of the island.

  * * *

  We climb to the peak of the island, a hill covered entirely with bracken that scratches our legs. On the way, he walks right through the nettle patch and doesn’t seem bothered by the stings. Maybe he’s an alien, I think. Nothing makes sense. Maybe he’s not human. I reach down and grab a leaf. My skin tightens and stings.

  I could get into the boat, I tell myself. I could row away.

  But I don’t. I follow him.

  Piper texts: “Work done. Going to Soup’s to Netflix and chill. Come over!”

  Then: “By chill, I mean actually chill not Do It, FYI.”

  And: “Don’t be weird. Get over u.”

  Finally: “B that way. I still <3 u. C U tmrw?”

  I text back: “OK.” She can take that as an answer to whichever one she wants. I think about taking a selfie with James, texting it to her. Look at me! I’m having fun! With a boy! Like you wanted!

  Am I doing this for her?

  Because she wants me to have a boyfriend?

  It would make it so much easier for her.

  Maybe she’d even be jealous.

  He takes my breath away, I imagine saying to her. When we touch, it’s electric, you know?

  But I’m not having fun and he’s more man than boy. In the sharp, unforgiving sunlight, I can see the beginnings of creases around his eyes. How old is he? Twenty-five? Thirty? I don’t even know. My parents would be so angry if they knew I was here with this boy-man who I barely know, but they are at the funeral home with Grandma, who is not a hunter of elephants but who is dead anyway and the elephants would bury her and I am here with a boy-man who I don’t trust and a migraine is starting to slowly, faintly stretch across my skull. I squat down.

  James is pulling out bracken by the roots.

  “Clearing a spot,” he says when I seem startled or confused, or both. A seagull perched on the shore looks up at us and tilts his head. A second and third land beside him, all staring up at us, like they know better than I do what is happening here.

  “Help,” I whisper to them.

  I take out the camera. James stops pulling the plants. “Don’t you ever ask first?” he says. A dark shadow on his face, like the black wings of a crow. I put the camera away. “Not everyone loves cameras.”

  “I don’t know you,” I say. “I mean, I didn’t know you didn’t like it.”

  “Now you know,” he says, smiling slow. His facial expressions never quite match his words, so conversing with him feels like I’m constantly decoding something without the help of a cereal box decoder. He sits down in the cleared spot and pats the rock next to him. I go over to him. I sit.

  I am not someone who sits when they are told to sit.

  Am I?

  The rock is covered with a fine layer of dust and dirt, stirred up by the torn-out roots of the plants.

  “This is nice,” he says. “Pretty.” He waves his arm, indicates the expanse of the ocean in front of us. The sun flirts with the waves and scatters a blinding field of light. The sky sighs with frustration at its own blueness. I wish I had a spiked Slurpee. I need something.

  “Beer,” I say. “Please.”

  “Good manners.” He tosses me a can. I crack it open, watch the bubbles fizz and pool in the rim. “I liked your hair better long. Piper looks good, but you just look exposed.”

  I scowl at him and take a long drink. “Does negging work for you a lot?” I ask. “Because girls hate it, FYI.” I gulp the beer down, half a can in a few swallows.

  “Whoa.” He laughs. “We could poke a hole in the bottom and you could funnel it if you’re that desperate.”

  “I’m thirsty,” I say. “Rehydrating.” The beer hits me quickly. I didn’t eat lunch. Or breakfast. There was the phone call about Grandma, the way Mom folded in half and Dad caught her, the hushed voices and the crying, and their gentle grieving that made me want to smash my face through the glass of the door. Mom and Dad held hands. They murmured. I wanted to scream and break things. I folded up my anger into an origami dove and it flew away. I can’t possibly be drunk. I hiccup.

  “Are you drunk on half a beer? Lightweight.”

  “I’m not,” I say. “Tell me your life story or something.”

  He puts his hand on my leg. I take it off again. “Life story,” I repeat.

  “So you can see if I’m good enough for you?” he says.

  “Something like that,” I say.

  “Okay, well, fine. I grew up in a house with a mom and a dad and two sisters and a dog. I miss my dog the most,” he says. “That pretty much sums it up.”

  “What happened to the dog?” I say.

  “It died,” he says. “Everything dies.”

  “What was it named? I always wanted a dog.”

  “Fluffy,” he says.

  “Fluffy!” I laugh. “I was picturing something like Spike or Killer.”

  He doesn’t laugh. “Nope.”

  “Rattlesnake?” I ask.

  “What is it with you and stereotypes?” he says, his face darkening. “House fire.”

  “Oh.”

  “Change the subject.” His voice is low. If it were music, it would definitely be off-key. I don’t like it.

  “Okay, well, tell me about your tattoos, then.” I try to keep my voice normal. “Every tattoo has a story, right? I watched this really cool documentary where they—”

  “Mine don’t,” he interrupts. “My buddy is a tattoo artist. I let him practice on me.”

  “Oh.” I take my phone out of my pocket and look at it. The screen seems too small and far away. Fleetingly, I wonder if he roofied my beer. But I feel fine enough. I’m okay.

  “My grandma owned a hotel,” I say. “A bunch of hotels. She sold them to Hyatt when she retired.”

  “Is that why you guys are rich?” he says.

  I shrug. “I guess. My parents both work.” I’ve forgotten what I was going to say about Grandma now. I frown. The cigarette holder. Elephant tusks. Zombies. I take it out of my bag and look at it.
I want to throw it into the sea, but it doesn’t want to leave my hand. I want to plunge it into his eye. I don’t know what I want. He stares, unblinking. If I knew him better, I’d say something like Take a picture, it lasts longer! I’d make a joke, elbow him, laugh it off. But I don’t know him. Everything about him feels ominous but I’m being stupid because this isn’t about him, it’s about me and Piper, and what she talked me into doing, and what I did.

  He was just there.

  He isn’t the monster.

  Piper is.

  I rub my eyes and blink. “Sun in my eyes,” I say, even though he didn’t ask.

  He takes a long slow gulp of beer and belches into his hand.

  “Do you have grandparents?” I say. “I mean, living ones.”

  He shrugs. “Dead.”

  His hand is on my leg again. We both stare at it. He slides it up my thigh. His skin is slightly cold, slightly sticky from the beer. “I—” I start.

  “Holy!” he says. “Look!” Then he’s standing up, shielding his eyes from the sun. “Look!”

  I pull myself up to my feet, knocking over my half-drunk can of beer. The liquid glugs out of the opening, pouring down the slope into the roots of the remaining dry shrubbery. I look where James is pointing, out into the strait. There, in the distance, the distinct black fin of an orca. Then another. Then another. I can hear them blowing. I can hear one breaching and landing hard in the water. It echoes around us like a slap.

  “Wow,” he says, sounding awed in a way that makes me like him, maybe a little. Or at least makes him seem different. Harmless. Like a kid. “Oh my lord, this is amazing. Come on.” He grabs my hand and half walks, half runs down the slope to the shore. When we get there, he starts shedding his clothes.

  “What are you doing? Why are you doing that? Stop!”

  He doesn’t answer, instead chucks his clothes into the boat, dives into the ice-cold water like it’s nothing. He’s stark naked. He starts to swim.

  “What are you doing?” I repeat, half laughing, half not. “There’s a current!”

  The whales are moving closer. Above them, a flock of seabirds. There must be herring. One orca slaps its tail against the water. Two larger ones blow spray simultaneously. There must be ten, fifteen, twenty. They swim closer and closer.

  James is still swimming out toward them strongly, a certain stroke, a sure pace, a straight line.

  “Come back!” I yell. “It’s illegal to swim with orcas! It’s interfering with the whales!”

  He starts treading water, flicking the wetness from his hair. He yells something I can’t hear. Sound only really travels in one direction over water.

  The whales are putting on an amazing show. I see them pretty often, but each time it’s magical all over again. I’d rather be sharing this moment with anyone but James. He’s now a dot in the distance. Maybe he’ll keep going. I can pretend he never existed. James? I’ll say. Never heard of him.

  When his body washes up, I’ll say, Oh, that’s so sad! I wonder who he was.

  He’s too close to the whales now. Way too close. They must be thinking, Stay away. They must be thinking, What is wrong with you? Can’t you see that we’re huge and predatory? Don’t you know better?

  An orca has never killed a swimmer in the wild.

  I take out my camera. He’s too distant to see through the lens.

  I crouch down onto my haunches. One of my favorite documentaries is called Blackfish. It’s about orcas, both captive and wild. It’s about how they belong out there, where they are. For a second, I feel a surge of something like love for this boy, this James, the way he swam out there. But then I start feeling irritated. He’s been drinking, for one thing. What if he drowns? What if the whales decide to come closer? What if he gets hurt?

  I stop filming and I wave at him, a huge beckoning. “Come back,” I yell, so loudly that he must be able to hear me.

  He raises one hand in a salute, or maybe he’s flipping me the bird, I can’t tell. I stand up on Seth so I can see him better. He’s really close to the place where the current starts to flow. I used to love this island, I think. And now I don’t know if I do.

  Everything is changing.

  Everyone is changing.

  Even me.

  Especially me.

  I close my eyes. Eventually I can hear the rhythmic splash of James swimming back to shore, the regularity of it, like a pulse. Like my pulse. Slow, steady. Slow. Slower.

  I open my eyes and use my hand to shield the sun. He’s lying on his back in the water, floating. “Are you dead?” I call. “Did they bite your legs off?”

  He doesn’t answer

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” I say. I wade out to my knees. The water is ice cold, cloudy with seaweed and wood chips that must have come off a passing barge. “James?”

  Suddenly, he sprays water from his mouth in a huge arc. He’s laughing. “I’m fine,” he says. “That was amazing. Come and swim.”

  “No,” I say. “It’s too cold.” I go back to where I was sitting, lean on sun-warmed Seth, and wait. He emerges a few seconds later. “Put your clothes on!”

  “You’ve seen me before,” he says. “Want to see closer?”

  “No,” I say, keeping my eyes focused on a boat on the horizon. “Get dressed. You’re making me uncomfortable.”

  “You’re making me uncomfortable,” he mimics. Then he laughs, his slow-rolling drawling laugh. “I’m going to get the rest of the beer.”

  He shakes like a dog, water spraying everywhere.

  “Hey!” I shriek. “That’s cold!”

  “Not too cold,” he says. “It felt good.”

  “Woof,” I say.

  “You’re a strange one,” he says. “I’ll give you that. You’re different.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I say flatly. “You know, it’s almost four; I’ve got to get the boat back.”

  “I’m going to have another drink,” he says. “Come up.”

  “No thanks,” I say.

  “Aight,” he says. “Back in a flash.” Before I realize what’s happening, he’s leaning over me, he’s launching his tongue into my mouth, he’s pushing me against the log, and he’s Charlie, and Soup isn’t here and I don’t know whether to fight or give in and what would Piper do? Can a no follow a yes?

  I put my hand on his chest and he grabs it and puts it on his crotch and I feel a faint sneaking up on me, I’m going to faint, and everything is gray, and then just like that, he’s gone. I can hear him crashing through the dry shrubbery, heading back up to where his bag is, where the beer is, and without thinking about it very much, I stand up woozily and use my full weight to heave Mr. A’s boat back into the sea and then I’m in the middle seat and the oars are in my hands and I’m dropping the blades into the water and I’m pulling with my back and I’m focused and the water is concrete and I pull against it and I row and I row and I row like I’m some kind of athlete, my muscles are a symphony of strength and power and the boat is cutting so fast through the water that I’m leaving a wake. I think I can hear James shouting, but it’s only a flock of circling gulls who have found a feast in the water—a flock of herring, dead jellyfish, someone’s trash—shouting about their good luck to anyone and everyone who will listen.

  When I get home, I delete him from my camera. I go on a deleting rampage. I delete Charlie. I delete James. I delete and delete and delete. I delete the whales and the seagulls and the sun on the sea. I delete all of it. I delete everything.

  I delete Piper.

  I delete myself.

  * * *

  Mom shakes me awake in the morning. “You slept in your clothes?” she says, making it a question. “Anyway, honey, I know you’re really upset about Grandma, but I was wondering if you could go see Mr. Aberley. Just let him know that Grandma is gone and see if he’d like to come to the service with us. They weren’t exactly close, but I know he sometimes brought her that strange tea.”

  I groan, rolling over. “Headache,” I mumble.<
br />
  “Oh no.” She sighs. “Migraine?” Her voice cracks, like she’s going to cry, and I feel guilty, so I say, “No, no, I’m okay. I’ll go. It’s fine.”

  “Thanks,” she says. “We want to get everything organized because the funeral is going to be the day after tomorrow. I want to make it really nice. Grandma always liked things to be a certain way.” She starts to cry again for real. “What if no one comes?”

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” I say helplessly. “I’m sorry. People will come. We’ll be there, right?”

  “I know,” she manages. “It’s so hard.”

  “I know,” I echo.

  When she finally leaves, I get up and shower. I get dressed. I look out my window at the island. What if he drowned? Did I really do that?

  I feel panic curling around the edges of my vision, a migraine that isn’t a migraine. “James who?” I say out loud.

  I have to go out there. I have to go get him.

  Don’t I?

  “Going now, Mom!” I shout, running through the kitchen.

  “Whoa, slow down!” says Dad, nearly crashing into me by the patio doors.

  “I have to go to Mr. Aberley’s,” I call back over my shoulder. “I told Mom that I would!”

  “It’s not a race!” he calls after me. “The service isn’t until tomorrow!” but I’m already jumping over tree roots on the gnarled path to Mr. A’s front door. I’m already feet-crunching-gravel sprinting to his porch.

  I burst through his door without knocking. “Mr. A!” I shout.

  “Kitchen!” he calls. He’s sitting at the table when I burst through the door.

  “Oh, great. Mom wants to know if you want a ride to Grandma’s funeral. She died.”

  “Is that what they call ‘breaking news gently’?” he says, chortling. “I’m sorry, it’s rude of me to laugh. Sit.” He pats the seat next to him. He smells like expensive cologne and freshly ironed clothes.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I really have to use your boat. It’s basically an emergency,”

  Mr. A looks at me with his bright blue eyes. They aren’t smiling. “Mr. A?” I say.

  “Would this have anything to do with a certain naked young man who seems to have stolen the gardener’s overalls from my shed?” he says. “And perhaps these?” He nods slightly and indicates a pile of neatly folded clothes.