The door bangs once more and he’s back inside. I wait for him to say something about the night before last but instead he says, “So I’m on a ladder cleaning the gutters and I hear this thud from inside the house and the sound of something falling over. I figure it’s Archie, the island dog, but something tells me to check, so I go inside and there’s this bird flying around. And the dog is happy as shit because all he wants is the bird, and I get him out of there so he won’t be able to catch it. And I’m looking for something—a broom, a towel—and I’m gone for, like, thirty seconds when I hear a scream that sounds like a human sacrifice. I figure the dog’s gotten back in, but no, I can see him on the porch, so I run in and that’s when I see the snake. Which is now eating the bird.”
“Do things like this happen a lot here?”
“Be more specific.”
“Bird plus dog plus snake in house equals Jeremiah Crew, wild-animal wrangler.”
“Wild-animal wrangler.” He looks up toward the ceiling, giving this some thought. “I like it.” He drops onto the couch—the couch—and says, “What’s up, Captain?”
“Can I talk to you?”
“Let me guess, you want to know if I’m your boyfriend.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“I mean, sure, if you want me to be.” He waggles his eyebrows and pats the sofa. “I get it. You want another round.”
“No.”
“Ouch.”
“I mean, it wasn’t horrible.”
“Great.”
“I just have something to tell you.”
It’s no big deal. He won’t even care. He’ll probably even be like, “So what?” But I keep standing there, not sitting, shifting from one leg to the other, scratching bug bites, running a hand over my hair, tucking it behind my ear even though there’s nothing to tuck.
“Are you planning on telling me today?”
“I’m a virgin. Was a virgin.”
“When?”
“Two nights ago. Before we had sex.”
“You’re serious?”
Part of me breathes this sigh of relief: Oh, thank God I didn’t bleed on his couch.
I say, “No. Which is one reason I think I got a little weird earlier. I saw you with Wednesday and suddenly I’m like, What am I doing? I barely know you, and right now I barely know myself—”
“So let me get this straight. I ask if you’re sure and you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m sure, just give me some vodka—’ ”
“I didn’t say it like that, and I didn’t drink the—”
“And suddenly we’re doing it, and I ask you again if you’re sure, and now you’re telling me that was your first time?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit.” And he’s not smiling anymore. He rubs his head, rakes his hands through his hair, stares at the floor like he’s trying to memorize the Magna Carta.
“Say something.” Coming clean makes me feel immediately lighter. At the same time, I feel the tears forming behind my eyes because I can see he’s upset.
“Shit.” He looks at me. Looks away. “That’s all I got. Shit shit shit.”
“I’m okay. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“Thanks, that’s comforting.”
“I’m serious. I knew what I was doing.”
He looks at me again, and the way he’s looking at me makes me wish he wouldn’t. “Did you ever think that maybe I should know too? Like, maybe I’d want to know that bit of info?”
“I thought guys got off on virgins.”
“Jesus, Captain.”
“What?”
“We’re not all douchebags.”
“I didn’t say that—”
“So now I’m the asshole. Hooking up with a girl I find both interesting and hot, and I’m not sure I would’ve done that if I’d known. It was your first time. It should have been, I don’t know, special. I could have made it special.”
“See, that’s why I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want special. I wanted normal. I don’t want to call attention to it like I’m some freak. And it’s not like I needed you to tell me you love me, and I didn’t want you to feel obligated to say you’re my boyfriend.” I’m starting to get a little mad.
“Wow. Okay. So why me? You just thought, Hey, he’s fun. I’ll get my rocks off and I can tell all my friends back home that I scored with the island boy?”
“Isn’t that what you did with me? Scoring with the summer girl?” Isn’t that what you did last summer with Wednesday?
“I don’t know. Maybe. That’s not the point.”
“I’ve just been waiting all this time, and I was finally like, What am I waiting for?”
“So why not get it over with.”
“Exactly. Kind of.”
He looks up at me and this time he keeps looking at me. “Thanks.”
“I mean, I’m glad it was you—”
“Don’t.”
I can tell he’s hurt, and for the first time it occurs to me that he has feelings too. I stand there, not sure what to say, wanting to go back in time and fix this so that whatever we do, we don’t have to be here in this moment.
Finally he sighs.
“You know, you seem really young right now. And you’ve got a lot going on.” He stands, walks past me, opens the door. “You should probably go.”
“Seriously?”
We stare at each other, him holding the door, me rooted to the living room floor, neither of us budging.
I start walking. I stop in front of him. “I didn’t have to tell you it was my first time and I don’t owe you an explanation, but I came here because I like you and I wanted to be honest with you. I know you like to ‘lead’ and all, but you don’t get to lead in this. We both made a choice, and if you can get your ass off your shoulders, we might even make that choice again. But it’s a choice for both of us to make. And if we do decide to do it again, here’s a word to the wise—it doesn’t just automatically end when you come.”
I stalk out and slam the screen door behind me. Then I go right back in. He is still standing where I left him.
I say, “And maybe, Jeremiah Crew, you should treat every time like it’s the first time.”
I slam back out and take off toward home.
DAY 8
(PART TWO)
That night after dinner, I don’t run to the beach, but I walk as fast as I can in my ballet flats. I don’t take time to change my shoes because that would mean going back to the house with my mom and more conversation. The hum of the cicadas is so loud, it feels as if they’ve taken root in my eardrums.
At some point I switch the flashlight from white to red because I’ve been told the red doesn’t disrupt the turtles, and the beam of it bounces as I walk. Part of me hopes he’s not there, and the other part of me hopes he is.
I come out of the dunes and onto the beach.
Which is empty.
I sit in our spot and I wait. And I wait.
But he doesn’t come.
I try not to let my mind go where it wants to go.
You shouldn’t have blown up at him. He has a right to his feelings. Besides, you don’t know his history or who might be waiting for him back home. You don’t know what Wednesday meant to him, or maybe what she still means to him. You don’t know anything about him. You literally met him eight days ago. What did you think would happen? That he would spend his entire summer meeting you at the beach so you could sit here and watch for turtles? Jesus, Claudine.
No one can bring me to tears faster than myself. I sit there blinking into the night, refusing to cry. I dig my feet into the sand and shiver as a cloud passes over the moon.
Leave the boy alone. If he wants to see you, he’ll find you. He knew you’d be here. If he’d wanted to see you, he would have come.
>
But then another part of me is like, Just take it for what it is. You had sex for the first time. And to a guy who likes you and was—how did he say it?—interesting and hot. And it wasn’t in a barn and it wasn’t with Shane, who never really got you, and it wasn’t with Wyatt, who—let’s face it—you barely even know. And it wasn’t two months from now in college when you’ve had too much to drink at a party and you wake up the next day and can’t even remember his name, like the way it happened for Mara’s sister. Life lessons, as Jared says. A false crawl. It doesn’t need to be anything more than that.
I am thinking about leaving when something dark and enormous emerges from the sea. And I know what it is without Miah here to tell me. The monster moves into the moonlight, and it’s not a monster at all but a turtle. Encrusted with barnacles. Dragging herself through the sand as if each step is a struggle. I sit rooted, barely breathing, and silently cheer her on. Willing her to make it to wherever it is she’s going.
She is enormous. I watch as the turtle lumbers to a halt several feet away and begins to scoop out the sand with her hind flippers. The work is laborious and slow, and I want to help her. But she’s the only one who can do it. She’s the only one who knows exactly how it needs to be done.
I can hear Miah’s voice in my head: A female can lay as many as two hundred eggs. Two months later, if the nest survives, the hatchlings will claw their way out and head for the ocean. Most of them won’t make it.
I am still as a stone and barely breathing, but my thoughts are racing and I wish I had my notebook to capture them, to capture this. I watch as the loggerhead burrows into the sand and sometime later—minutes, hours—covers the nest and drags herself back toward the water. I think about the effort. About how strong she is to swim hundreds of miles, fighting to get back to the beach where she was born, to make a nest for her babies. And now I’m picturing these baby turtles, no mother there to help them, and suddenly I feel like crying.
Isn’t there anything we can do?
We help how we can, but at some point you have to let nature do its thing.
As I watch her lumber into the ocean, I want to yell at her to come back. I want to grab her and drag her to the nest and make her stay there. But instead I watch her swim away.
After a few minutes, I get up, brush the sand off, and tiptoe to the nest. I take the only thing I have—the flashlight—and bury it nearby, marking the spot. I shrug off my sweater and drape it across the sand. It’s not wire netting, but it will at least offer some protection from the raccoons and coyotes and mark the nest until we can come back.
THE ISLAND
TWO
DAY 9
I know this about the general store: Terri is a volunteer from the mainland. She has three grandkids and a dog named Banjo. The campers buy more junk food than anyone. The most popular item in the store is—surprise, surprise—bug spray. Before it was a store, it was a schoolhouse, but it shut down in 1972 because there weren’t enough children on the island. On days when it isn’t busy, usually in winter, Terri goes home early because why sit around when no one shows up? Except for her lecturing me about Miah, Terri and I have become fast friends.
I sit in my usual corner, writing in my notebook—which I now carry everywhere with me—because it is less lonely here than it is at Addy’s in the window seat. My notes are scribbles across the pages and in the margins and upside down and in word bubbles. It would take a code breaker to decipher them. I am being as honest with myself as possible, which is harder than it sounds. Who wouldn’t rather write down pretty things and pretend they are the truth? But these notes are how I feel—an unedited, wild, messy jumble of emotions and thoughts without order, everything spilling out at once. Welcome to the chaos of my brain.
My phone buzzes and it’s Saz. We’ve been going back and forth all morning. Topic: sex. Specifically: our first times.
Here’s the thing, she says. No matter what they tell you, no matter what they show you online or in movies, it looks different in real life. Not worse or better, just different. It’s different than doing it yourself because there’s this other person there and maybe they don’t know how to touch you like you know how to touch you, but there’s a lot to say for you wanting them and them wanting you. Having sex with Yvonne makes me feel like I’m invincible, and it also makes me feel totally, I don’t know, human. Does that make sense? I don’t think that makes sense. But you’ll be able to figure out what I mean, Hen. You always do. That’s why I know we’ll always be okay. Because you’re my interpreter in this world.
I text back: It makes sense. Somehow him touching me and me not coming was bigger than me touching myself and coming. I’ve never felt more human in my life. Like every part of me is open and exposed, but also completely awake, and like I can feel everything in the world, good and bad. Like I’m able to feel more somehow. But how do you protect yourself?
Saz texts: Yvonne and I used a dental dam. Because guess what? Lesbians can get STDs too, folks. I’d never even heard of such a thing, but Yvonne’s had more partners than I have, including Robbie Ziffren, and she’s super careful. (Remember Ziff? He was a senior when we were sophomores.)
I text: I sort of remember Ziff. (He hung out with the Lawler brothers, right?) But I’m not talking dental dams or condoms or birth control because I know all about that (thanks, Mom). I’m talking how do you make sure you don’t get hurt? Heart, mind, soul, etc.
I sit staring at the phone, at the little typing dots. I wait and I wait and I wait.
Behind the counter, Terri stands, stretches, and starts her routine of closing down the store for the day. She says, “Five minutes, Claude.”
“Okay.” I make a show of gathering my stuff, dragging it out as much as I can. Notebook in the bag. Pen in the bag. Hat on my head. Stand up. Push the chair in. Double-check that notebook is in the bag. Double-check that pen is in the bag. Dust off table. Pretend to look for keys when I haven’t used keys since Ohio because everyone on the island leaves their doors unlocked.
When I can’t delay any longer, I start walking toward the door. My hand is on the doorknob when the phone buzzes. I look down at the screen. After all these minutes, Saz has written just two words: You don’t.
* * *
—
I find Wednesday at the inn, changing the sheets in one of the downstairs guest rooms, the one off the library. I knock on the open door and she looks up at me over the bed, black braids swinging as she works. “Hey, Mainlander.” She doesn’t seem surprised to see me.
I walk into the room and she wrestles with the fitted sheet, so I grab a side and together we cover the mattress and smooth the wrinkles with our palms, and then we add the flat sheet and the comforter. All the while I’m trying not to picture her laughing with Miah on the front porch, which is exactly what my brain wants to do.
We arrange the pillows and the two of us stand back, shoulder to shoulder. I reach for a corner of the comforter and give it a tug so that it’s all perfectly even.
She says, “What do you want?”
“To ask you about Miah.”
“Did he tell you about us?”
“Only that you had something last summer.” I hate saying the words aloud because I hate that they’re true. It’s stupid, but I don’t want to think about Miah and Wednesday. I only want to think about Miah and me.
“So did you do it? Did you sleep with him?”
“We’ve been hanging out—”
“So you are sleeping with him.”
“I wanted to talk to you before we hang out again.”
“Why?”
“Because friends come first.”
“I wouldn’t really call us friends, Mainlander.”
“I just felt like I should ask you. It seemed like the right thing to do. So if you and Miah have something going on, I won’t hang out with him anymore.”
She sits on the corner of the bed. The whole time she’s looking at me, she rubs at the comforter, smoothing the wrinkles she’s created. “We were together for two or three weeks last summer, and that was it. But no, we don’t have anything going on now. Not since then.”
“Do you like him?”
“I barely know him.” She stands, gathering the old sheets off the floor. “You’ll see. By the end of the summer, you probably won’t know anything about him either. So you’re not going to bother me. But just be careful. Miah pretty much only cares about Miah.”
Again: Just be careful.
“What do you mean?”
“Just that he’s got this whole other life on the mainland that he never talks about, and when he’s done with you, he’s done. No ‘Hey, that was fun, thanks for the memories.’ So yeah, you can have him.”
I wait for a minute, in case she changes her mind. She bunches the sheets under one arm and then walks past me to the bathroom, where she dumps the sheets into a laundry basket and starts collecting towels.
I don’t know what to do or say, so I walk out of the guest room. I’m wishing I’d never gone in there at all when I hear, “Hey, Claude?”
“Yeah?” I move back to the doorway, half expecting to be yelled at.
Wednesday flips a braid over her shoulder and picks up the laundry basket, balancing it on one hip. “Thanks. It was nice of you to ask.”
DAY 10
Another care package arrives from Neil Henry, 720 Capri Lane, Mary Grove, Ohio. In this one: a stack of my books, some photos of Bradbury and Dandelion and of me as a kid, my red Converse, two pairs of earrings, and my Miss Piggy shirt. I pull on the shirt, which suddenly seems too small, as if it belongs to someone much younger. I take it off and drop it in the trash.
His note reads:
Breathless Page 18
