by Ward, Tracey
I go to bed with my window open so I can smell the ocean and breathe the air, but I don’t let myself think of it as the last time because it’s not. I’ll be back here to Isla Azul. Maybe not for a long time, and maybe not to stay forever, but I will be back. Just because tomorrow is the start of something new it doesn’t mean it’s the end of something old. My life is not one or the other, it’s what I make it. It’s who I am and California is a part of me. It’s under my skin, it’s in my blood, and I’ll always come back for it.
I’ll always love it.
***
My phone beeps loudly in the darkness. I groan, fumbling blindly for it to turn off the alarm. I hate getting up early. It feels like I just fell asleep.
My hand connects with the thin rectangle and I open an eye to swipe it to sleep, but it’s then I realize it’s silent. It only beeped once, not with the alarm but with a message. At two in the friggin’ morning.
knock knock
My vision goes weird around the edges, flaring and darkening instantly as my blood flies through my body. I drop my phone on the bed and make a mad dash through the dark house, heading for the front door. When I swing it open I’m not disappointed.
In the wan moonlight stands Lawson. He’s in shorts and an STP T-shirt with a small hole just below the collar. I can see his skin through it, smooth and tan. Warm in the way that makes me sweat just looking at him. His green eyes are too dark to see but I can feel them on me. Enveloping me.
He doesn’t say a word and I don’t ask any questions as he backs me slowly into the house. He closes the door softly behind him and stalks me through the living. Through the hall. To my bedroom where he again closes the door. Where he deftly lifts his shirt up over his head, shuffles effortlessly out of his shorts, and stands in front of me nearly naked with no inhibition and no question of why he’s here.
I pull my tank top off, letting my long hair fall out of it over my shoulders. He reaches out and gently pushes it aside, exposing my body to him. He takes it in like he’s memorizing it and I imagine that’s exactly what he’s doing. It’s what I’m doing as I stare at him, my mouth open slightly to pass my thin breaths across my lips. I feel like I’m struggling for air. Like I can’t get enough of it or him or the night.
Lawson kneels slowly in front of me as he pulls my shorts down to lie in a pool on the floor. His hands rise slowly over my legs, following the contours, tracing the muscles and the curves. He pauses on my right thigh where the scars pock the tan surface, white and reluctant to brown. He touches them with his fingers. He kisses them with his lips. Every last one of them, all the way around my leg in tender drops of worship until I’m faint. Until my hands are on his shoulders, worried I’ll collapse.
And when his mouth moves higher, I fall apart completely.
Lawson pushes me back, tumbles me to my bed, and then he stretches his body out over mine. He doesn’t flinch away from staring down into my eyes and he doesn’t hide anything in his. I find the whole of the world in their depths. The ocean and the sky, the air over my head and the earth under my feet. The blood in my veins and the beat of my heart. Love and devotion. Loss and surrender.
I find Lawson there.
I find my first love, my last kiss, my life in slow motion, and I slip beneath the surface to give it all back. I give him my breath and my body, pulling him close, so close it hurts, and the moon is still on his skin, shifting the tide. Moving us in and out in time with its breath. I’m dizzy and breaking apart, drifting higher and higher into the night sky in tiny incandescent pieces that burn brighter than stars. That shine down on the world, reflect back on the water in his eyes, in the depths of his soul, until we’re infinite.
Until we’re everything.
Chapter Twenty-Two
In the morning I’m alone.
I stayed awake with him all night, silent and star-struck until we could feel the sun coming. We could hear it on the horizon and I needed him gone before this day dawned. I needed it the way I needed his body last night. His kiss, his unrelenting heat, but it couldn’t live beyond last night. Last night was love and today is goodbye, and there’s no room for both in my body right now. If I looked at him in the daylight on today of all days, I wouldn’t get on that plane. And I have to, have to, have to get on that airplane.
I have to know what I’m so afraid of.
My dad does exactly as I expected – quick hug, firm but brief, and a guttural goodbye. He’s sad and I know it but we don’t talk about it and I don’t ask him for more than that. That’s what he has and that’s what I get, and that’s just fine.
Mom cries when I go to my gate and leave her at security. I try not to cry too but I do. I’m a weepy, weak baby leaving her mommy and I can hardly handle it. I’m a grown woman, twenty-one years old, and I’m scared because I’ve never flown by myself. It feels pathetic but it’s real.
I’m afraid.
Six hours later and I’m terrified. LAX is a big airport. It’s huge, but it’s familiar. I’ve been there countless times dropping people off and picking them up. I know the layout. I know the drill. Logan International is a completely different beast and I feel overwhelmed just standing in it. I’m panicking, doubting myself before I’ve even collected my luggage, and I know I need to do something quick before I use that bonus to buy a plane ticket back home.
I pull out my phone, feeling tears sting my eyes for the second time today, and realize there’s only one person I can call to get me through this.
“Hey, how was your flight?” Katy answers immediately.
The happy sound of her voice, light and excited, messes with my insides. I nearly double over with the pain in my stomach. “I’ve made a mistake,” I tell her tremulously.
She’s immediately all business. “What happened?”
“I hate it here.”
“How long have you been there? Five minutes?”
“Ten.”
“Rachel,” she sighs heavily.
I sit down in an uncomfortable gray plastic seat, pulling my rolling bag close so I can lay my forehead against it and hide my watery eyes. “I need to come back home.”
“You need to give this thing a shot. You’re not even trying.”
“I never wanted to do this.”
“Yeah, you did. You always wanted to do this. You just wanted it to be easy, but guess what? If getting out of Isla Azul was easy everyone would do it. You and Lawson—”
“Please don’t say his name,” I burst out, goosebumps erupting over my skin. “I can’t hear his name or I seriously will come home right now. You can’t talk to me about him or tell me what he’s doing, okay? I can’t know or I’ll never give this a fair shot.”
“You’re not giving it a fair shot now!”
“I called you instead of him, didn’t I?! Now talk me out of it.”
“I was trying to.”
“Try again, without using his name.”
She pauses, debating before quietly pointing out, “You realize our roles are reversed now, right? I can say Aaron’s name without falling apart but you can’t say… somebody else’s name.”
“The Daniel boys are cursed,” I moan.
“Ain’t that the truth.”
“Can I ask how you’re doing with that yet? You never told me what you guys talked about.”
“Oh, well, shit,” she groans. “We talked about everything. He told me the entire plot line to Game of Thrones so far. It’s messy.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“He told me he was sorry.”
I stare at the ugly carpet on the floor, wide eyed. “That’s huge.”
“Yeah. It was nice to hear. I told him I was sorry too.”
“For what?”
“For all the times I thought the worst about him. I assumed he’d found someone new and just forgot about me. I thought he was an asshole.”
“And now you don’t think he is?”
“No,” she answers gently. “Now I think he’s hurt. Really ba
dly hurt in a million ways and I can’t fix a single one of them. And he doesn’t want me to try.”
“So… that’s it then?”
“That’s it,” she confirms matter-of-factly.
“Wow.”
“Yeah. But it’s good ‘cause now I know. It’s over. He made it clear he isn’t the same guy I fell in love with. He doesn’t want me to try to get to know him again. He doesn’t want anyone from town to come near him. So I won’t. It’s all I can do for him so I’ll do it.”
“You gonna be okay?”
“Eventually. How about you?”
I sigh, sitting back in my seat with dry eyes. “I don’t know.”
“What I was going to say before you bit my head off about the unspeakable name was that you and him are special. The entire town knows it and we take pride in your talents. That’s why we want you to take them out to the world. Not because we’re sick of your face and we want you gone, but because you take us with you somewhere we can’t go. If La—if he wins a surfing tournament in Mexico, that’s a win for Isla Azul too and the big bad world can suck it for looking down on our small town. If you join the Boston Orchestra or whatever they have there, we get to do it too. We’re in concert halls surrounded by diamonds and instruments worth more than a car because you took us there. You guys have to bring the world to us because we’re not getting out.”
“You could.”
“Not like you can. Not with a bang.”
“I don’t think I’m really bangin’ right now,” I remind her unhappily. “I feel more like a mouse fart.”
“Ew.”
“Yep.”
“Get your ass out of that airport,” she tells me sternly. “Go bang that goddamn drum all up and down the streets of Boston. And take me with you when you do it.”
I stand up, taking hold of the handle of my suitcase with a sweaty palm. “Can I call you every day?”
“Yes. Every single day. But only if you’ve done something that day. If you hide in your apartment and whine, I’ll hang up on you.”
“No, you won’t,” I chuckle.
“Try me.”
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Okay. Be brave, Sharmalade.”
“Ugh,” I grunt in annoyance. “Freakin’ Wyatt.”
“He’s infectious.”
“Like herpes?”
“Like a good herpes. Like a candy coated herpes.”
I laugh, the feeling sending bubbles through my body that make me feel instantly lighter. Alive like whitewater.
“You’re gross.”
“We both are.”
“I’ll talk to you later?” I ask hopefully.
“After you’ve accomplished something. Something outside your house.”
I roll my bag down the concourse, heading for the exit with my heart in my throat. “I’ll see what I can do.”
***
My roommates’ names are Molly, Heather, and Asper. Yeah. Asper. He plays the cello, wears cardigans, thick black glasses, eats only organic, and is a total pain in the ass. He’s also a comfort. He reminds me of home, of all the pretentious, douche hipsters Katy and I used to make fun of whenever we’d go to L.A. Heather and Molly are pretty cool if not a little reserved and quiet. They’re both pretty serious. They don’t much like modern music or movies. They’re big readers, mostly titles I’ve never heard of. But I did see a worn copy of Twilight on the coffee table one morning. No idea who it belonged to but I sure as shit know it wasn’t mine.
Asper and I are the only ones who watch TV, but even there I can’t find common ground with him. He’s mostly into cooking shows and Tiny House Hunting. Urban bee keeping and being a total chode. So I keep to myself a lot but I make a point of going outside the apartment every day. I take walks, I explore the campus. I learn the public transportation system and go more than a block from my front door. Boston is a beautiful old city with a million things to see and explore. It’s not hard to stay busy. It’s not hard to keep my mind off things.
Not until I go to sleep. That’s when I start to miss everything. That’s when the cool of the air conditioner pisses me off and I miss the stifling heat of my parent’s house. I miss the sound of my dad getting up in the morning, the smell of coffee wafting down the hall. I miss my mom making breakfast before going to work and yelling at me to remember to do the dishes before she got home. Katy next door. Lawson’s car in the driveway. The salt on the air.
Sometimes I feel weak. I turn on my phone and I lay it on the pillow where I can see it. Where I can see Lawson’s face on the screen, half asleep and happy, and I hope that’s how he looks in that moment. I hope it’s how he feels. And it’s selfish and I know it, but I hope he’s missing me as much as I’m missing him.
He’s keeping quiet – not texting or calling. He’s letting me have what I asked for. He’s letting me have this chance to figure me out when it’s just me. All alone.
It’s what I wanted, right?
Right?
Mom and Katy are keeping mum about him too. I have no idea what he’s doing, how his brother is doing, and part of me feels bad about that. I feel like I should ask. Like I should call him and be there for him if he needs it because what if he does? What if I could help him through this? But I never call because I think it would just confuse things. For both of us.
Suddenly Heather plops down next to me on the couch, the cushions warn and faded. Scratchy on my legs where my capris leave them bare.
“You’re a piano player?” she asks.
I glance around to make sure she’s actually talking to me. “Yeah. I am. You play violin?”
“Yes. Since I was six. You?”
“Around there.”
“Do you hate it?”
I blink. “What? No.”
“I do,” she replies, unfazed by my reaction. She piles her long black hair high on her head in a wild bun. “I can’t stand it. I only played to make my parents happy and now I’m here, still trying to make them happy.”
“What would you rather be doing?”
“I don’t know.” She smiles. “Anything else in the world.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“I told you. I’m trying to make my parents happy.”
“Don’t you want to be happy?”
“Yes. And I will be when they’re happy because that’s when the money starts coming in.”
I shift in my seat uncomfortably. “Your family is rich?”
“Yours isn’t?”
“No.”
She scrunches her nose up. “Scholarships?”
I shake my head. “Student loans.”
“Ouch!” she laughs. “That’s even worse.”
“Heather!” Asper calls from down the hall. He appears in the doorway, frowning at her. “Do you hear yourself?”
“No. Why?”
“You’re being a bitch.”
“I am not!”
Asper looks me dead in the eyes. “She sounded bitchy, didn’t she?”
“About the scholarship and loan stuff? Yeah,” I tell Heather bluntly, “you were coming off a little bitchy.”
“I’m sorry!” she exclaims, looking honestly contrite. “I don’t think about stuff before I say it. I would work on it but I don’t want to.”
“Still sounding bitchy,” Asper calls, disappearing back down the hall.
Heather rolls her eyes. “Like I care what that queen thinks.”
“He’s gay?” I ask disbelieving.
“I don’t know. Probably. Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Um, kind of.”
“Kind of is not a yes.” She jumps up off the couch, reaching for my hand. “Let’s go to a bar. Get shit faced and hit on guys.”
“Kind of is kind of, as in yeah, I sort of do, so no. I’m not going to hit on guys.”
“Come get a drink anyway. You can watch me hit on guys.”
I look at her standing there short and whisper thin with her wild hair and careless face and I th
ink that watching her work a room will definitely be more fun than watching people learn to live in toolsheds with Asper.
“Alright, but I’m watching,” I remind her as I stand. “Not participating.”
She shrugs. “Whatever.”
That turns out to be Heather’s opinion on anything and everything. Whatever. The bouncer at the first bar thinks her ID is a fake (because it is) – whatever. A guy at the second bar won’t buy her another drink even after she laughed at his accent – whatever. I want to go home and call it a night so my ass isn’t dragging on the first day of classes tomorrow – whatever. That’s the first one that really annoys me. I can’t exactly leave her out at the bars alone, especially after she’s been drinking and I’m dead sober, so I stay. I stay until after midnight. Until last call. Until I’m pushing her into a cab and asking if she has money to help pay it. Nope. No she doesn’t.
For a rich girl she’s quite the freeloader.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Morning comes too soon. I literally fall out of bed when my alarm goes off. Note to self – do not put the nightstand so far away. I overreach, slip off my sheets, and land face first on the floor. And I still consider going back to sleep once I’m down there.
When I’m dressed and my hair is half brushed I shuffle blearily toward the kitchen to see if I have any cereal left. I have to run to the grocery store today but after paying for a twenty three dollar cab ride last night I wonder how much I should really buy. I don’t start my job at the coffee shop down the street until next week and while I still have a little money left over from the summer, I don’t have much. And I don’t want to touch my bonus. It sits in my savings like a safety net. A reminder that I can go home if I have to. If I can’t stand not to.
“Morning,” Asper greets me from the tiny kitchen. He’s taking up most of it with his tall, gangly body and super low-cut white V-neck. He has a thin gray scarf around his neck, his black glasses that I’m pretty sure he doesn’t need, and a matching gray skull cap pushed back far on his head.
