by Lexi Scott
Cohen’s laugh is quiet around the lip of the bottle. “You’re such a dick, man.”
“What?” I snap a look his way so fast it almost gives me whiplash, because I did not anticipate that reaction. “A dick? Why a dick? I put my heart out there for her, Cohen. I found the thing she needed, the thing she was afraid of, and I helped her face it. Explain how that makes me a dick?”
Cohen shakes his head and laughs again. “All right. It makes you a dick, you fucking dick, because you were so busy solving all of Whit’s problems, like you’re the great and powerful Oz, it never occurred to you that she needs to do it her own way. In her own time. Her brother got blown up in some goddamn sand trap because she threw a hissy fit about going to college. How do you think that made her feel, man? No wonder she has night terrors. She’s at a low place, and I think your whole bogus-as-hell plan shoved that in her face.”
“So you think I should have done nothing?” I challenge, my temper really close to flaring.
“Nah.” Cohen looks me straight in the eye. “I think you should’ve spent some time working on your own bag of crazy. You’re twenty-two, you’ve got no real direction, no job, no place of your own. You’ve got a pile of treasure you’re hoarding under your bed like a little kid. If you want to make some big statement and win Whit back, take a look at your own catastrophe of a life, eh? Maybe, if you clean your shit up, it will inspire her. Because you’re looking like more and more of a lost cause every damn day, and it scares the shit out of me.”
My temper sizzles out.
Mainly because I just got schooled by Cohen, again, for the nine millionth time in our life together.
I let myself be pissed at him, though. Let myself think he’s an asshole and wrong and stupid as shit and doesn’t know his ass from his elbow. I drink through my first beer and half my second thinking that. By the time I’ve started my third, I know in my guts he’s right. I know he’s saying it because he cares about my inebriated, shallow, stupid ass. And I realize, as much as I wanted Whit to need me to fix her life, maybe what we both really needed was for me to fix my own fucked-up life and just be there while she worked out hers. God, I was a dick.
I tilt my head back and look at the stars, so many they look almost murky in the midnight sky. “If you were me, what would you do?” I ask him.
“If I were Deo Beckett, what would I do?” He studies the bottle in his hand. “Well, I wouldn’t be a fucking bum, first of all. I’d crawl under my bed and pull out all those gold coins I’d been hoarding like Gollum—”
“Is this another Lord of the Rings reference?” I groan.
“If you’d read Tolkien, like I did, maybe you wouldn’t be the unmotivated loser you are today,” Cohen observes.
“Dude, you run your parents’ furniture store,” I point out.
“Hey, it’s gainful employment, and I’m in school for my business degree,” he argues. “Do you want my advice or not?”
“Sorry. You were talking about me being some freaky, ring-obsessed goblin.” I toast him with my beer and take another long gulp to fortify me through this story.
“Gollum is not a goblin, by the way. Moving on, you are hoarding those coins because you think your dad’s coming back.” He pauses here, and I interject a laugh so sharp and angry, it startles me.
“Fuck that, man. I know that asshole is staying deep in the jungle where he disappeared. I’m not delusional, all right?” When Cohen meets my objection with silence, I feel the need to defend my stance, which is moronic, but I feel like Cohen’s just picking at an old wound to get a rise out of me. “It’s been years. He isn’t coming back. I’m not like my mother, hoping he’ll waltz the hell in and expect her to drop her damn life for him. I get who he is.”
“Yeah, you get him,” Cohen agrees. “You get him because you are him.”
“Fuck you!” I point at my friend, all the fury from before built to a sudden head. “Fuck you and your bullshit, Cohen! That’s some cold shit, right there.” He looks at me steady, no guilt in his eyes this time. “That’s a kick in the balls, you know that? Me? Like him? I’m nothing like him.” He doesn’t say a word, just watches me tantrum like an infant. “Okay, smart-ass, how exactly have I gone from being some goblin to my loser-ass father? Enlighten me.”
“Your dad doesn’t stick around for the hard shit. He’s always looking for the easier way.” Cohen shrugs like that explains me.
“Look, my dad’s a champion dickwad, no doubt, but he works hard as hell. That guy has gone places and done things no normal human would go anywhere near.” My father’s medical records alone could fill a week’s worth of World’s Scariest Injuries marathons. The man has been everywhere from the top of icebergs to the rivers in caves thousands of feet underground. Adrenaline is more important than oxygen to him.
“I’m not talking about sticking around for work. I’m talking about people.” Cohen taps his beer bottle against his palm.
“I was there for Whit. That’s the reason I’m here,” I snarl, losing patience with my friend.
“No. You were looking for an easy way through all the shit, and that’s why you’re here.” He picks up his last beer and pops the cap. “You asked me what I’d do if I were you? I’d sell those coins, set up a surf shop, get my life in order, and show up at Whit’s door with my shit in control, ready to be her rock the minute she needs me. Because I think she was waiting for someone substantial enough to lean on. And that just wasn’t you, man. I think she wanted it to be you, but it wasn’t.” When he finishes talking, he drinks a quarter of the bottle and wipes his mouth with his hoodie sleeve.
Shit. I let my responsible, level-headed friend’s words wash over me. Cohen’s always been one to lecture me about five-year plans and vision boards, but I’ve never really let his yammering soak in. Now I see it all, crystal clear in front of me. I can actually picture myself, running the kind of surf shop my idols would fly in from all over the world to visit. I’d spend my days perfecting boards or surfing, and my nights? Me and Whit would chill in our ocean-side bungalow, happy as two fucked-up, in-love clams. That’s heaven, or as close as anybody could get to it on Earth. We both sit and drink and watch the waves crash on the shore, over and over. Finally I ask, “And what if I just can’t get my shit together? What if I crash and burn?”
“You wanna hit these while they’re good?” Cohen jumps up and points to the waves with his glass bottle.
“Answer my question, asshole.” I jump to my feet and glare at him. “What if I crash and burn?”
He takes his board down and pulls off his hoodie. “Then I spend the next fifty years bringing you beers and listening to you cry about the girl who got away. Enough talking. I feel like I’m at my kid sister’s slumber party. Let’s get out there before we lose this.”
I follow him out, and for a few hours, it’s just Cohen and me and the waves crashing full force on the sand under the star-strewn sky.
By the time we’re soaked, bone-weary, and stone-sober, the sun has been up for at least an hour.
“I’m going to be a zombie at work.” Cohen shakes his hair out and loads his board up.
I raise an eyebrow. “How with-it do you have to be to sell a couple of recliners and end tables?”
“What the hell would you know about selling furniture? Or buying it for that matter? When you sleep in a bed that doesn’t have a bunk, get back to me.” I laugh and he slaps me on the shoulder. “Seriously. When your little surf shack is the hottest place on the coast and you have all the mad dough, Rodriguez Home Furnishings will give you a deal on getting your new pad all set up.”
“Sounds good, man. Just tell them I’m not dealing with that shady-ass son of theirs.”
He jabs me in the ribs and gets in his truck, rolling down the window to catch the cool morning air. He leans out and yells as he’s leaving, “Get her back, man. Next time we hang out, more surfing, less whining.”
“Fuck you!” I yell back, but he knows that it means “thank you.”
It would be cool if I just got my shit together all at once. Like, in the course of one great movie-montage song, I drove home, got up the balls to trade in those coins, found some sweet property, and started doing my thing in a real way.
But years of slacking have made slacking my norm, so I basically sit around eating pistachios with my grandfather and think about what Cohen said while I wait for Whit to possibly call, which never happens.
A few days go by, slow and draggy. I get bored. I check my phone a thousand times an hour. My grandpa drags me around with him, doing odd jobs around the neighborhood, fixing our fence, cleaning the yard and the gutters, working on his truck. I think about calling Whit, but there’s a new excuse every single day. And the days roll into weeks. And then the weeks turn into one entire month and more days add up. I’m getting desperate. I’m imagining every possible extreme-ass, bad-ass scenario about her in my head, and if I didn’t get updates from Cohen, who I’ve bribed to drop by the tattoo shop now and then, I’d go completely crazy. I know she’s safe and generally okay. And I’m positive she’ll call. Any second. My phone will ring any second, any day, and it will be her.
But it’s never her.
My mom calls. A lot. And there are lots of vague, cheery voicemails, which I listen to just to make sure she’s okay. But I don’t call her back. I have no interest in getting into it with her about Whit and how I should take advantage of what’s right in front of me and all that.
So, I’m not all that surprised when she shows up at Grandpa’s house, a big box of something that actually smells edible in her hands after three weeks of phone calls I’ve studiously ignored.
“Marigold.” Grandpa gets up and takes her in his arms. “You look gorgeous as always, sweetie. Did you bake us something?” Even my grandpa, who’s half in love with my mother, can’t do a good job of faking enthusiasm.
“Nope. And that look of relief on your faces says it all, guys! These are creampuffs from Mill’s Bakery.” She opens the box, and Grandpa runs like a kid to the dessert table to get plates set out so we can eat like normal people. Mom bustles to the kitchen and puts on the teapot.
Yes, it may be slightly ridiculous to be scarfing down creampuffs and sipping tea with my mom and grandpa like we’re a couple of duchesses. But Mill’s Bakery is owned by baker/magicians, and if I have to play Pretty Pretty Princess to get to eat their wares, I will.
I take a big bite of creampuff, sip my tea, and send a suspicious glare her way. Or, I send as suspicious a glare as is humanly possible while chewing a fluffy mouthful of pastry. “It was really sweet of you to come over like this,” I say leadingly.
She clears her throat, fidgets with her earrings, and, after about two minutes, the pressure is too much for her. “I have to tell you both something!”
Mom slides the big silver ring my dad sent her from the Ivory Coast off her left ring finger, where she’s always worn it like a holding place wedding band, and she shows us a small, bright ring of purple flowers tattooed on her skin. “They’re tiny irises. My favorite flower.” Mom stops talking while we all wait.
“Nice ink. Was that the big news?” I’m totally confused because my mother has a huge lotus flower thing down her spine along with a bunch of other smaller designs, so she’s not exactly new to ink. What’s with all the guilt and creampuffs?
“Don’t be a complete idiot all your life, Deo,” my grandpa snaps. He gets up and gives my mother a tight hug. “Who’s the lucky guy?” he asks gruffly.
“Rocko,” she says softly.
“Rocko what?” I ask, my mind clicking the pieces together way too slowly. My grandpa slaps the back of my head again, and my mother twists her silver-ringed hands around each other.
“Rocko proposed, Deo.” She sucks in a deep breath, exhales, and announces, “And I said yes.”
“Congratulations, love.” Grandpa pats her back, his voice thick. “I wish it could have been my son who was smart enough to scoop you up. But, I want you to know, you’ll always—” His voice catches and Mom and I both look away to let him get a hold of himself. “You’ll always be my family. Always, sweetie.”
“Oh, Donny.” Mom wraps her arms around Grandpa and laughs through the tears that are splashing on Grandpa’s shirt.
The silver ring is still on the table. I pick it up and look through the hole, seeing my grandfather and mother through its circled border.
And it’s like I’m seeing my mother for the first time.
I remember her being so sad, so helpless she wouldn’t get out of bed for days on end when I was a kid. I’d have to make my own sandwiches and eat at the scratched kitchen table by myself. Milk went bad, cereal got stale, I spent all day on my skateboard or surfboard, Cohen by my side. Mrs. Rodriguez’s hospitality was the only reason I had decent dinners any night I wanted to stop by their house. That would last for weeks, then, one day, she’d pop up like a daisy and soldier through months without him. Until he showed up again and set it all to shit. I guess I just never cleared that image of her out of my head.
Because, maybe I don’t trust it’s entirely gone.
I love that she’s so full of hope now, but it also worries the hell out of me. “Are you sure this isn’t just a way to get Dad out of your system?” Her mouth goes slack, and I sigh. “How do I know this isn’t just gonna crash and burn?”
Mom presses her lips together and brushes her hands through my hair. “Oh, Deo, my gorgeous, warped boy. What the hell did I do to you?”
“You taught me to be careful, that’s what.” I jerk back from her touch. “Mom, I almost got serious with Whit. Then things broke off, and, you know what? Sometimes I think it’s for the best. I don’t want to be in a relationship like you and Dad were in. That was pure misery for years. I watched you, and I learned how to let go. Now I’m scared for you, because clinging to somebody was the trouble, Mom. Don’t you remember all that?”
“Oh, honey.” Mom wipes the tears from her eyes with her fingers. “You have it all backward. It’s not clinging to someone that ruins everything. It’s never grabbing on in the first place. Your father and I failed because we let go too easily. It was more him than me, but both of us let go of the love we had and put other things first. It broke us apart. But your father kept letting go. Of this town. Of his father. Of me. Of…of you.” These words come on the cusp of a sob. “Something in him kept coming back and wanting this all, but he didn’t have what it took to hold on.”
“It’s not like that with Rocko?” I ask, putting an arm around her slight shoulders.
Her laugh is wet with all those tears and…happy. So happy, it tugs at my heart. “Rocko is all roots, baby. He’s twined around me and isn’t ever letting go. I’ve never been able to hold on to anyone the way I can hold on to him, and he’s holding right back. I’m happy, Deo. I’m so happy, and I want you to be happy for me, but I understand if you can’t be.”
I make a fist over the fat silver ring Dad gave her and kiss her soft, crazy hair. “Of course I’m happy. So happy. Congratulations. When’s the big day and what do you need your slacker son to do to help?”
Maybe this is it.
Maybe this is what it means to be free.
Mom is okay. She’s taken care of. She’s happy as hell. Now instead of hanging around, waiting for Mom’s life to fall apart again, I can get started on my own. I can make something of myself.
Then, maybe I can be there for Whit. I can show her that I can do it and help her get on with living…and healing.
Chapter Sixteen
DEO
After spending weeks scouting property, gathering supplies, and going over cost projections with a financial planner like a real, functioning adult, I’m now back outside Whit’s apartment for the first time in almost two months. We’ve had a few close calls coming in and out of the tattoo shop, but I haven’t actually seen her in so long, my throat aches when I think about the Whit-sized hole gouged in my heart.
My snail’s-pace life has chang
ed, and I need to close this chapter with Whit properly. And I want to make sure my mom’s and Rocko’s big day is as happy as possible.
I take the steps to her apartment two at a time, and when I get to her door, it takes a few minutes before I manage to knock.
She opens the door slowly, so I know she checked the peephole. I expect to be invited in, but she keeps her body turned slightly, blocking the entrance.
“Hey, stranger.” I smile at her, but her face is somewhere between stony and just plain sad. She looks younger, softer than the last time I saw her. Her dark hair is longer, down to her neck now, and it’s wavy again. The way it almost hits her shoulder makes a part of me swell with hope. Hope that she’s dealing well. Her big brown eyes are ringed in shadows. Is she sleeping well? Is she eating right? Suddenly the idea of “closing this chapter” blows up in my face, and I’m left with all the hopeful scraps of possibility Whit always makes me grasp at with the desperation of a drowning man.
“Hello, Deo. Do you need something?” She’s using this professional receptionist-type voice like we’re former co-workers and never held each other all night after having marathon sex in this very apartment.
“I do. Can I come in and talk to you?” I could conduct all this business right here and actually had plans to keep it short and to-the-point. But now that I see her, catch the sweet smell of citrus on her skin, remember so fiercely that it aches what it felt like to kiss her, and I want to stretch this out.
She tucks a wavy piece of hair behind her ear and shifts her dark eyes uncertainly.
“Please?” I keep my voice neutral, safe, calm. “For my mom and Rocko. They’re why I’m really here anyway.” I say the words, but they feel like a lie.
It’s why I originally planned to come by. But seeing her here…all I can think is how badly I need her back.
