Coast

by Jay McLean

  “I was seventeen!” Josh yelled, his eyes wide.

  “Heck yeah, you were!” was Mavis’s response, followed by a bunch of drunken old lady high fives and continued banter. The entire afternoon went on like that, until it got to the point where Mavis passed out drunk under the arbor with an empty cheese platter on her face. Josh, always the gentleman, took her home and made sure she got in bed, but not without another crack from Mavis. “You can take me to bed any time you want, handsome.”

  That was the last I heard from Josh. I assume that by the time he got home, the party was over.

  As the day neared to an end and the joy from the party faded away, I was left with the weight of guilt pushing down on my shoulders. But not just that, I was left with a resounding amount of disappointment. I sat on the porch while Aaron caught up on his studies, and Dad caught up with Grams inside, watching the sun set over the horizon, and I longed for a boy, a little boy whose smile was just like his father’s.

  It’s not until dark clouds replace the sun, and I’m getting ready for bed that I hear a car door slam shut, followed by another, and then Josh’s voice. Then a sound I’d spent the entire day listening out for. “Daddy!”

  I grab the bag I’d brought with me, Tommy’s present wrapped neatly inside it, and I don’t think twice. I run downstairs and open the door, my anticipation building. By the time I’m on the driveway, Josh, his aunt Kim, and Tommy are climbing the stairs to his apartment, Tommy in Kim’s arms. I call Tommy’s name, but it’s only audible in my mind, yet somehow Josh hears it, or at least senses it, because he turns to me, an unjustified fear in his eyes before practically pushing Kim and Tommy into his house. He closes the door behind them, and then he just stands there, one hand balled at his side, the other still on the knob.

  I grip Tommy’s present to my chest and watch as Josh finally turns around. With rushed steps, he makes his way down the stairs and stops in front of me. Through a sigh, he says, “What are you doing, Becca?”

  I realize I’m still smiling.

  I don’t know why I’m smiling.

  I guess the second he herded his family into the house and away from me, I froze.

  Physically.

  Mentally.

  Inside.

  Outside.

  Everything.

  Froze.

  He takes a step forward, and I take a step back and it’s as if the anger that begins to boil inside me sets free the chills of my frozen state. He’s acting like Tommy has a reason to fear me. Like I’m the one who yelled and cursed at his son’s mother and threw shit from the top of the stairs before trashing the crap out of his own truck. I’m not the danger here. He is.

  I regret the thought the second it develops, but I don’t regret the way I feel.

  I hate him.

  I love him.

  I hate that I love him.

  I throw the bag at his chest and turn around, but not before I see his eyes drift shut and his jaw tense in anger. He has no right to be angry, but he is, and the tone he uses to hiss my name is proof of that.

  I’m one foot away when his hand circles my arm, my name falling from his lips, calmer and quieter than the last. “You can’t do this,” he says.

  I gather my courage to face him. “What?” I mouth, harshly tugging out of his hold.

  Instantly, the rage in his eyes disappears and is replaced with pity. I look up at his apartment and choke on a sob. I don’t need his pity. I need my best friend.

  A single drop of rain lands on my arm, and I stare down at it—a once single bead, now separated by the impact and I compare it to us. I wonder if it weren’t for the circumstances that destroyed us, if Josh and I would still be one, or if life and distance would’ve ruined us anyway.

  “I’m sorry, Becs,” Josh says, his hand’s on my arm again, soft and gentle and safe. “Tommy—he can’t know you’re here.”

  Swear, I try. I try so damn hard to keep it together, to not let him see the effects of his words, but I can’t. And as my shoulders shake while sob after sob completely drain me, I look up at him and mouth, “Why?”

  He releases me quickly and locks his fingers behind his head, and I can see his pain, see his struggle to say what he says next. “Tommy asks about you every day, Becca. When things didn’t work out between us, it didn’t just ruin me, it hurt him, too.” He pauses a moment as he looks down at me, and I wonder if he can see the weight of his words pushing me down, making me feel beneath him. “He sleeps with a damn camera every night expecting you to come home, come back in our lives as if nothing has changed. He thinks you’re out there, photographing these adventures, and he looks at me with those eyes… you know the ones… and I don’t have the heart to tell him otherwise. But seeing you here and—”

  I cover my face with my hands to hide my cries, unwilling to show him my weakness. It’s pouring now, rain beating down on us. My tears, my pain, my fears getting lost with it.

  “I’m sorry, Becca,” he says, and I can hear the reflection of my ache in his words. I keep my eyes closed when I feel him step forward, his fingers gentle as they run up my arm. “I don’t say this to hurt you. Look at me. Please.” There’s an urgency in his words now, so strong it overpowers the hurt.

  After dropping my hands, I glance up at him. And the second I do I regret it, because he’s already looking at me, right into my eyes, and I feel the same thing I felt the first time he smiled at me. Calm. But he’s not smiling now. And there’s no reason for my calm. Especially when he wraps me in his strong, wet arms—arms that somehow warm my body, my heart. “I’m sorry,” he whispers in my ear. “I can’t seem to stop hurting you. I don’t want this. You have to forgive me, Becs.”

  I try to force myself to move away, but I can’t.

  He’s making me feel.

  He rests his forehead on mine. “For everything.”

  I return his embrace, and he holds on to me tighter, his cast now ruined, drenched by the rain. I surrender in his arms, and take a breath, and then another, watching the beads of water fall from his lashes with each blink. His gaze drops to my mouth quickly, then to my eyes, and down again, over and over. My heart’s racing now, my fingers aching from their grip on his shirt. His chest rises and falls against mine, matching his gaze… from my eyes to my lips, up and down, and I can’t take my eyes off his. He exhales slowly, his breath mixing with mine. I lick my lips, and his eyes drift shut. He moans when my shaky hands find his hair, tugging desperately. I push aside my fear, my confusion, just for a moment as I use his embrace to keep me upright. “Goddammit,” he groans, his hesitation clear. I close my eyes and lean closer into him. Then I rise to my toes, my lips craving his. But he doesn’t move. Not the slightest. I freeze, my lips an inch from his, waiting for him to make the first contact. He doesn’t, though. Instead, his hand drifts to the small of my back, his touch like fire, burning flames igniting my soul. “You know me, Becca. You know my heart. And you know I’d never take another guy’s girl. Never. But you’re not just a girl to me and you never have been. If you need me to prove that to you, I will. If you want me to fight for you, I will. If you want me to go to war for you, I fucking will. You know that. Somewhere, deep in here”—he places his hand on my chest and my eyes snap open, meeting his—“you know I would. But you need to give me a sign so I know that it’s not for nothing. You have to give me something. I can’t go through that heartache again.”

  My breath gets lost in his words while I get lost in his eyes, eyes that completely expose me. So I do the only thing I can think to do…

  I ruin us.

  Then I rush up the stairs, my shame like heavy weights around my ankles. Through silent sobs and hurtful regrets, I reach for the doorknob, but it’s not my room I go into, it’s the room next door.

  I stand at the edge of the bed and grab the phone on the nightstand, my hands shaking as I type out a text. I lower the sheets, and without a thought to my current soaking state, I welcome the warmth of the body next to me.

>   “Becca?” Grams says, sitting up. She switches on the lamp on her nightstand before facing me. “Oh, sweetheart. What happened?” She combs her fingers through my hair then looks down at the phone in my trembling hands.

  I kissed Josh.

  Journal

  He peels away the layers

  Of fear and of pain

  Leaving me exposed

  From my heart to my veins

  While I tiptoe the land mines

  Of scene after scene

  Waiting for the destruction

  That left us unclean

  But I worship the moments

  That kept us bare

  And I hold them there

  With safe touches

  And gentle words

  And silent tears

  And silent cries

  Beneath silent stars

  And when I close my eyes

  I push down the hurt

  Of a three-year-old smiling

  His face covered in dirt

  ~ ~

  9

  —Joshua—

  Five months ago I skated a comp that, if won, would rank me fourth in the world. I had one final trick up my sleeve and 11.3 seconds on the clock.

  When I poured my heart out to Becca, begging her to forgive me, asking her to give me a sign that she still felt everything I felt, I had the same feeling. One last trick. One last chance.

  I started my run up, board in my hand and my mind already three seconds ahead. Then I dropped the board, and I kicked and I pushed, focused on the grind rail in front of me. Focused on the prize.

  World Ranking.

  Becca.

  There are two parts to completing a trick. The landing and the balance to continue. I found myself in the air, the clock ticking down, and my board flipping somewhere beneath me. The second my toes touched the grip tape, I knew I had the landing down.

  When Becca’s lips met mine, cold and wet and perfect, I knew I’d landed my last trick. Landed her.

  A second later, the board tipped forward, throwing me completely off balance. My foot came down an inch too close to the front of the deck, and I fell nose first on the ground. Blood poured everywhere, taking my pride with it.

  Just like Becca when she walked away from me.

  But there’s a reason why skaters skate. Why we bust a trick fifty times just to nail it once. Why we suffer broken bones and bruises and scrapes over and over. It’s all in our heads. We deceive our minds into believing that there is no pain. That’s when the adrenaline kicks in. And the adrenaline is what we live for. We fall. We get back up. We kick. We push. Again and again. Because the joy of success is greater than the depression of failure.

  It took me three weeks to get over the loss at that comp.

  It took me three seconds to trick my mind into believing that the pain of Becca walking away didn’t exist.

  So I get into bed, my mind clear and my dad’s final words replaying in my head.

  “Time to coast, son.”

  10

  —Becca—

  It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. The moment we pulled out of Grams’s driveway to head to the airport, I knew something was wrong. Aaron barely spoke to me on the flight and he stayed that way on the drive home. As soon as we were out of Dad’s car, Aaron asked if we could talk. That was the first time he actually looked at me. He was upset. It was obvious. And I was upset for him. We broke down, sitting in his car, outside my house and we released the truths to the lies we’d been living. But there was no yelling, no arguing. Just… understanding. And sadness. So much sadness. He confessed that he used the trip as a way to determine our true feelings for each other. The fact that I basically ignored him the entire time was proof that I didn’t feel the way he’d hoped. I tried to argue with him in my own silent way, but he kept shaking his head and telling me that it was okay. It was okay because he realized that it didn’t hurt him the way it should have. It was painful—to have him sit there and tell me that he thought we’d been using each other in the hopes that it would somehow help us forget our losses. There was a reason he was drawn to a girl who couldn’t speak, a girl who he’d hoped would rely on him the way Brandi had, a girl who found comfort in his need to understand her. But like he said, I wasn’t Brandi, and he didn’t love me. Just like he wasn’t Josh, and I didn’t love him. Again, I tried to argue with him. Or maybe it wasn’t him so much as it was myself. I didn’t love Josh. I couldn’t love Josh. But even through my silent cries and untrue declarations, he felt the weight of the truth as much as I did. He held me while I cried, and I did the same for him, and we promised each other that we’d remain friends. That we wouldn’t let it change our relationship. As much as I wish that was going to happen, I knew it wouldn’t. And as much as I didn’t realize it while it was happening, he was wrong. Maybe I didn’t rely on him the way he wanted, but I still did. In my own way. A way I’d feared.

  I became sad, and then angry, and then desperate. I lay in bed, tears soaking my pillow, and I wished my mind to be as empty as the rest of me. I’m not exactly sure why I became so upset, why I took it so badly. It’s not as if I’d planned to spend the rest of eternity with him. Maybe it wasn’t so much the fact that he broke up with me as it was the reasons why. I tried to justify my actions over the course of our “relationship.” Tried to convince myself that I wasn’t a horrible person. I wasn’t using him. Not really. But he’d said it himself. We were using each other. And that would make him just as horrible as me… only he wasn’t. Not at all. And that made me feel worse.

  So I became sadder.

  Angrier.

  More desperate.

  I spent days in bed wallowing in my self-pity, ignoring Dad’s constant concern. I didn’t open up to him. I couldn’t. I skipped classes, didn’t show up to therapy, and on the fourth day of crying silent tears, I left my room, sat on the couch with Dad, and told him I was fine. Only I wasn’t. Not at all. I was so UNfine that all I could think about were the horrible things I’d done. Not just to Aaron, but to everyone around me. My dad relocated, took a lower paying job in a city he’d never been to just so he could take care of his daughter—a virtual stranger. My mother died. DIED. Because of me. I thought about everything I’d done, all the people I’d lost, and I became so lost in the depths of my loss that I could no longer think straight. I guess that’s why I found myself walking to a mailbox at three in the morning in a night gown and mailing a letter that, up until that point, I had no intention of sending. I regretted it as soon as the envelope slipped through the crack, and I cursed myself the moment I heard it land amongst all the other ones. For a while, I just stood there, staring at the mailbox and wondering how many of those letters held pain and regret and hopes. Unjustified hopes. Then I started kicking it. Over and over. Until I felt my toes become numb and a wetness seeping through my socks. I knew it’d be blood, but at the time, it was better than my tears. The walk home felt like an eternity, and once behind the closed door of my bedroom, I continued my spiral into depression. Dad came in a few hours later, saw my emotional state, witnessed what I’d been failing to hide from him, and after holding me and assuring me that everything was going to be okay, found The List on my desk, hidden beneath a pile of used and discarded tissues. His eyes scanned the items, one after the other, and then he looked up, a smile pulling on his lips, and said, “How hard would it be to sell things online?”

  My eyes widened, and I sat back against the headboard, my knees raised. “Now?” I mouthed.

  He smiled. “Right now. Unless, you know, you want to get your ass to class.”

  I shook my head.

  “But tomorrow, you will, right?”

  Another head shake.

  He sighed as he folded The List and placed it carefully back on my desk. Then he sat on the edge of the bed, his hand gentle as it settled on my arm. He gave me that look. The one that showed he had no idea what to do or what to say because he was in way over his head.

  “Okay,” I mo
uthed, and he smiled.

  “Okay.” Dad rubbed his hands together and said, “Lemonade, sweetheart.”

  My dad loves phrases, but would always say them wrong. He’d say things like, “I’m not here to give you the fifth degree,” or “You’re climbing up the wrong branch.” So, “Lemonade, sweetheart,” was his way of saying, “When life gives you lemons…” you know the rest.

  So I turned the stupid lemons into lemonade.

  I huff out a frustrated breath and pick at a worn spot on the kitchen table, the fear of what we’re doing suddenly hitting me.

  “You okay, kid?” Dad asks.

  I nod—a lie.

  Selling my work is the only item on The List that had nothing to do with my mother (or Josh). In fact, it has everything to do with me. I had planned my future based on my photography, yet I’d been too afraid to show the world what I could do. Besides teachers, some students, family (and Josh), no one had seen it. And the idea of throwing it out there for the world to judge was absolutely petrifying.

  Dad shuts his laptop, pushes it to the side, and leans forward on his elbows. “It’s overwhelming, huh?”

  I shrug.

  “Well, let’s start with the first step. Have you thought of a name?”

  I drop my head, another sigh leaving me. Then I pick up a notepad and pen, scribble down the name I’d chosen a year ago and slowly slide it toward him. His smile is instant. “Views Of Emeralds.” He glances up at me with the eyes I’d inherited. “It’s perfect, Becca.”

  * * *

  I spend the next month going to classes, going to therapy with Dawn, and going to voice therapy. I don’t go to group. I’m not ready, and Dad—he understands that and he leaves it alone, for now, but not forever. Dad and I work together to create an Instagram account to hopefully sell the images through there. Last week, I asked Pete, the editor at the school paper, if he could run a tiny story without giving away my identity. He agreed, and now I have forty-nine followers on Instagram and absolutely no interest from anyone wanting to buy the photographs. But like my dad keeps reminding me, it wasn’t the prospect of money, or lack of, that had me wanting it on The List. It was purely getting it out there. Now, I had done that. And without even realizing, I slowly start picking up the pieces of my once not-so-broken life.