I Will Save You

by Matt De La Peña

  A saleslady walked over and said: “Excellent choice.”

  I thanked her and took the sombrero to the counter and paid for it.

  Just as I left the store I saw a Coaster coming. I ran up to the platform and caught it. I don’t even know why. I rode it all the way to Olivia’s stop, hiked the same footpaths, sat on the same rock, and looked out over the same section of ocean.

  I put on my new iPod and pushed play and let the music go all over my thoughts.

  I took out Olivia’s book and reread “The 100% Perfect Girl” two more times. I was finally starting to realize what I thought.

  When I finished reading I opened my philosophy of life book to a blank page and took the cap off my pen.

  I sat there awhile, thinking about me and Olivia’s kiss and the story she told me about her port-wine stains and how she didn’t wear her hat to dinner. I thought about bad stuff, too, though. How I’d probably only see her one more time. And how after that we’d go back to our separate lives. And then I thought about Devon saying he was gonna do something to her. And how he wanted me to watch.

  I started getting worried all over again.

  Maybe it was good Olivia was leaving. I only had to watch her one more night.

  For some reason I flipped back to the beginning of my philosophy of life book, started reading the first entry about me and Devon looking for a place to pee. It was so weird to read what I’d written to myself, and how I used “Dear Kidd,” and how it made me remember what was happening at the time I wrote each thing.

  As I read through the rest of my book, I realized how much calmer it made me. And less alone. It was like reading letters from a friend. I stopped thinking about Devon and his threats, and I stopped thinking about Olivia leaving me. I stopped worrying.

  I just sat there, listening to Mr. Red’s music.

  And reading my old words.

  And when I got to the very end something amazing happened. I became inspired.

  I looked out over the beautiful blue ocean and started the Bob Marley song over. I turned to a blank page. And for the first time since I met Olivia I actually wrote about her in my book. The words just flowed out of me.

  And fifteen minutes later, when I took a break to read it over, I didn’t even wanna tear it out.

  I just kept writing.

  ’Cause it was exactly what I wanted to say.

  I was on the cliff with Olivia, both of us in hoodie sweatshirts and flip-flops, waiting for the grunion to run like all the papers and news-show people talked about. Mr. Red and the campsite surfer guys and Blue and Jasmine, and everybody’s parents, were on the sand so they could be right there when it happened.

  Me and Olivia looked down at them, and all the other random people, and I pictured those fish already swimming together in swarms under the choppy ocean water, way out past the kelp beds, having no idea about the swarms of humans waiting for them onshore.

  “This is such a great spot,” Olivia said. “It’s like having box seats on Broadway.”

  “I know,” I said.

  Olivia sat in one of Mr. Red’s chairs we’d set out. We’d put them right near the old part of the fence so we could still see the beach and the waves and the sand when it turned silver.

  She reached in her backpack and pulled out a shopping bag, tapped the chair next to hers. “Come sit,” she said.

  I sat next to her.

  Peanut was on the ground by our feet, looking toward the ocean like he knew the fish were coming, too. I watched him breathe, wondering if dogs sensed more than just thunderstorms. He looked up at me, his tongue going over his crooked yellow teeth.

  I wished I could teach him to sense Devon.

  “This is for you,” Olivia said, holding out the shopping bag. “It’s not a big deal, but I thought you might like to have it.”

  I took the bag and set it in my lap.

  I was about to look inside when she put her hand on mine and said: “And I wanted to tell you something.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “I was right about what I heard,” she said. “My dad and grandpa are taking me to New York.”

  I nodded and smiled. Secretly, though, my stomach was aching. It didn’t even matter that I’d been expecting this.

  “They set up a consultation with that doctor I told you about. The one who does laser surgery.”

  “You must be happy,” I said. I tried to feel happy, too, since I knew this meant she could start her real life. But I also knew her real life didn’t include me.

  “You have no idea.” She smoothed down her ski-cap flaps and said: “The doctor has this computer program that shows what you’ll look like after his treatment. I’ll get to meet the future me.”

  “I’m happy for you,” I said, trying to ignore how sad I felt.

  I reached down for my philosophy of life book, opened it to the folded picture of last year’s grunion run. I pulled out my tiger whisker and put it in her open hand.

  “What’s this?” she said.

  “The tiger whisker I got from the zoo. They said it gives you good luck wherever you go.”

  She took it out of her palm with two fingers and studied it.

  “You should have luck when you meet that doctor.”

  “That’s so sweet,” she said. “But what about your luck?”

  “It already worked for me,” I said, thinking of our kiss at Torrey Pines. And her song. And every single time we’d ever hung out.

  I stood up, went to the fence and looked down at everybody.

  “Thanks, Kidd. I mean it.” She walked over, stood next to me by the fence, rubbed the back of my arm.

  We both looked at the ocean for a while and then she said: “I was thinking about you while my family and I drove back to Cardiff this afternoon.”

  “You were?”

  She nodded. “You and I are different in a lot of ways, obviously. But we have similarities, too.”

  I looked at her, remembering when I’d thought the exact same thing.

  “We both have scars we let keep us on the outside.” She let go of my arm. “I mean, there’s a reason you’re the first boy I’ve ever shown my face to. I knew you’d understand. I trusted you.”

  “I trust you, too,” I told her.

  Olivia smiled, and we both turned back to the ocean. I thought about our similarities. How we had scars. But then I thought how she was gonna go fix hers. And mine would still be there. I could picture Devon saying that’s how come we weren’t really the same. She’d always have money to fix things, he’d say. And since people like me and him had nothing, our scars would be forever.

  I wondered if I should feel ashamed about being in the group with nothing.

  Or if I should be mad, like Devon.

  And right as I was thinking that, I glanced down on the beach and couldn’t believe my eyes.

  Devon was waiting there with everybody else.

  Staring at the ocean.

  I had no idea what I should do. Olivia didn’t want me to scare her, but at the same time, he was right down the cliff from us.

  I took Olivia’s hand and softly led her back to our chairs and we both sat down. She looked at me funny. But then she noticed the bag she’d given me and said: “You ever gonna look in there or what?”

  My hands were nervous about Devon as I opened it, pulled out a card. I opened the envelope and read it to myself. It thanked me for making her feel pretty, she hadn’t felt that way since she was little. It said she had no idea how to categorize us, but she knew meeting me this summer was the best thing that happened in a long time.

  “You mean it?” I said, looking up at her.

  “Of course I mean it,” she said. “But that’s just the card. There’s also this amazing picture I took of you. I had it blown up and framed.”

  I stood up and went to the fence, looked for Devon. He was still just standing there, staring at the ocean from the exact same spot, like he was in a trance. Like he wasn’t thinking about anythi
ng else.

  I felt calmer.

  Maybe he’d never think of up here, and at least me and Olivia could have this one last time together. And then she’d be safe in New York. And I could deal with Devon on my own. And if anybody got hurt it would only be me or him.

  I scooted my chair closer to Olivia’s and sat down. I felt inspired, like when I was listening to music on Olivia’s rock at Torrey Pines. I told her: “Hey, Olivia.”

  “Hey, Kidd.”

  “I know you’re excited to meet the future you,” I said. “But I wanted to say. The current you is beautiful, too. The current you is the most perfect girl I’ve ever met.”

  She got a serious look on her face and said: “Kidd, that really means a lot to me.”

  I could tell by the way her eyes looked in mine.

  Something was happening with us.

  It felt important and less nervous.

  She pulled off her ski cap again, never looking away from my eyes. Took my fingers and put them on her stain again, and without even thinking I leaned into her diamond-earringed ear and whispered: “You’re the most perfect girl I’ve ever met.”

  She leaned in and kissed me.

  And this time I tried to kiss her back as good as I possibly could, thinking it would say how much I loved her and how much I’d miss her when she started her new life and how thankful I was she picked me when there were so many other guys at the campsites, all of them with regular parents, living regular lives, in the same group as her.

  But then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Peanut stand up and start growling.

  And I knew.

  I looked over Olivia’s shoulder, saw Devon staring at us through the bushes. The shopping bag Olivia gave me fell to the ground.

  We kept kissing, but at the same time my whole body was going tense and I was trying to think.

  I had to save Olivia.

  I had to make him hurt me instead.

  Devon crashed through the bushes and pointed at me and said under his breath: “Get away from her.”

  When I didn’t get away Devon marched forward grinning and stopped right in front of us.

  Peanut started growling.

  Devon reached for Olivia, but I jumped in front of her at the last second and grabbed his sweatshirt. I shoved him by his hood toward the part of the cliff where the fence was still old, me still clutching my philosophy of life book, and Olivia screaming “Oh, my God, Kidd! What are you doing!”

  “I can’t let anybody hurt you,” I told her.

  “Kidd! You’re scaring me again!”

  When I looked back at her something wild leapt in her eyes, out-of-control flames that no amount of fireman’s water could’ve ever extinguished or even slowed down.

  “I have to make sure you’re okay,” I said.

  “Why do you keep saying that? Nobody’s hurting me.”

  But all I saw was Devon’s back against the part of fence that wasn’t new, and him grinning in my face and telling me: “So, here we are, eh, Kidd? You knew I’d show up.”

  His laugh.

  Me looking all the way down the cliff, to the sand. Remembering my mom sitting me down to have a talk. Her explaining about my dad and my genes and how I could be my own person.

  “You still don’t get it, do you?” Devon said. “All these people here, man. They think they’re better than us.”

  Peanut growling at us and one of his ears standing in a point like it was hearing something too high for humans.

  “Kidd, stop!” Olivia said. She took two short breaths and told me: “Just—Just come back here a minute. I wanna talk to you.”

  My philosophy of life book dropping to the ground with all my answers.

  “Please,” Olivia said in a tiny voice. “Kidd.”

  “I’ll do it,” I said to Devon, my face in a frown.

  “You won’t,” he said.

  “I will.”

  “You won’t.”

  “I have to,” I said, and I drove him harder into the weak part of the fence until it broke like I knew it would break and I shoved him down the cliff and watched his body bounce-tumble-fall-stretch-fetal-thud into the thick sad sand and lay motionless, and everybody who was once waiting for grunion was now racing to my side and touching my arm, my back, my leg, and looking up the cliff at Olivia and then everything turned black and I felt slippery fish going on me and I heard Mr. Red screaming my name and screaming for everyone on the sand to back away from me.…

  I wake up suddenly ’cause I feel the pain in my body, and I’m sure I’m broken on the beach sand.

  But I’m not.

  I’m still strapped down on my cot in my prison cell.

  And Olivia’s not here.

  And Devon’s not here.

  And Mr. Red isn’t holding my head and crying and telling me it’s gonna be okay.

  Telling me to just hold on.

  The ambulance is on its way.

  I suck in a huge breath like I’ve been holding it. And I try to think why things are so mixed up in my mind. Why I felt my body hitting the sand this time. And breaking. And why Mr. Red’s voice was trembling and his face was over mine.

  For the first time since I woke up here, in prison, I’m not really sure what happened on the cliff.

  Did Devon push me?

  Am I the one who fell down the ice plant to the sand? And where am I now if I didn’t push anybody?

  And what did Devon do to Olivia after I was gone?

  Or did both of us fall?

  I get so worried about what happened I start hyperventilating in my prison cell. There’s not enough oxygen going to my brain. I feel everything slipping away until I’m no longer thinking anything. I’m just trying to breathe. I’m just trying to hang on like Mr. Red said.…

  Philosophy 5:

  About How a Man Should Take Care of His Woman

  Dear Olivia:

  I’m just sitting here right now, on your rock at Torrey Pines, near the cliff where those kids had their suicide pact, but don’t worry, I’m not going by the edge.

  All summer I’ve been trying to write about you and all summer it’s never worked. I tried after you jumped from behind that tree to scare me, and after that midnight walk when you told me about the writer who blinked his words, and after those college guys said stuff about you by the lifeguard tower, and after you played me your piano song, and even after regular times like us walking past each other at the campsites or while I was sitting outside Mr. Red’s tent, waiting to start work, and you’d wave.

  But I never kept anything I put ’cause I always thought it had to be as good as you and it never was.

  Today, though, I’m on this cliff thinking about you and listening to Mr. Red’s iPod, and I’m having one of those things you always have, an epiphany. Maybe it’s impossible to make words measure up to the person you like, especially when you like them as much as I like you. So I’ve decided something. What if I just write you a letter instead. Even if it’s one that just stays here in my philosophy of life book, and you never actually see it.

  So here’s the letter.

  Dear Olivia (I already put this part, I know):

  Today I was on the Coaster and I had a daydream about the future. It was me and you and we were older and we were living at another beach campsite, one way away from here. But I didn’t have a job with Mr. Red like I always thought, I worked at a zoo since I like animals so much. And instead of living in a tent we had construction people build us a house, right there on one of the campsites. And you were in medical school to become a doctor. And Peanut was still our pet, even though he was like a hundred thirty years old in dog years. And on some nights you’d read to me from whatever book you had, even if it was just a school one about diseases. Or you’d play a song for me on this keyboard I bought from Moonlight Music, and you wouldn’t even have to sneak it.

  In my train daydream you never wore your ski cap, either. ’Cause your port-wine stain had mostly been lasered away. And even tho
ugh there was a tiny bit left you finally realized no mark could ever make you less pretty to me, even if it was one that covered your entire body. And we had a son named Ben and nobody ever hurt Ben and nobody ever hurt you ’cause they knew I’d never let anything happen.

  I woke up in the middle of my daydream when the Coaster dinged and it was my stop and I had to hurry and get off. So I don’t know what else happened. But as I stood there, watching the train start going again, toward its next stop, I got a smile as big as my face could do ’cause I was thinking how it was probably the best daydream I’d ever had.…

  Dreams from Solitary Confinement

  A strong wind lifts me up off my cot, moves me toward the prison bars, where I suck in my breath and slip through. I rise up into the pre-morning sky, into the clouds, the dark less dark now ’cause the sun’s so close to coming up.

  I’m flying like I do in all these solitary dreams, watching the world pass underneath. But this time I know where I’m flying from.

  Fallbrook.

  I’m tracing the exact path I took the night I ran away from Horizons.

  I see where the hitchhiking car stopped for me and I hopped in and we drove toward the coast. I see the stoplights we went through and the freeway on-ramp we took. I hear the news-station voices on the radio. I see the man let me out and our handshake and his finger pointing in the direction of Cardiff by the Sea.

  I seem so naïve in this version of me, just out of Horizons, in my old clothes, walking that long stretch of beach looking for Mr. Red, not understanding anything about who I am or what I will soon discover.

  I fly away from the old me, lower onto a towel on the sand again, where Olivia’s waiting. Like she’s been waiting in all my dreams. The sun starting to climb into the sky over her shoulder, fingers of light gripping the campsite cliff and slowly pulling itself up.

  Olivia doesn’t notice me land, though.

  She’s too busy holding open my philosophy of life book and saying the first part of the secret letter I wrote her.

  Her face swollen like she’s just been crying.