by Ginger Scott
His eyes find mine quickly.
My heart is racing.
My eyes are tearing, and every breath is coming out with a hard force through my nose.
“Shit, I don’t even see it!” Conner says, running slowly around the bases in celebration.
“How the fuck did you hit that?” Levi says, kicking at the sand, spraying grains in the air around him. “Shit!”
“Twenty bucks, buddy. Twenty bucks!” Conner shouts, his hands held over his head as he rounds the last base, pumping his right fist in the air.
I swallow hard and allow myself to blink once—quickly—for fear I’ll miss something, a sleight of hand or illusion. I know what I saw, though. The rock sailed off Conner’s bat and was going to hit me between my eyes. There wasn’t time to move. No time to react. There was only enough time for my brain to register that pain was coming my way—and it was going to be bad.
“Let me see your hand,” I say to Wes, my voice low and even, so the others don’t hear.
“No,” he says, his jaw growing rigid and his eyes shadowing as they look at me.
“Show me. I know what I saw, Wes. Show me,” I say.
Our group is already picking the towels up and moving toward the bonfire. Wes takes his eyes off me long enough to bend down and lift the towel near us, and when he stands, I ask him again.
“What’s in your hand, Wes?”
This time he doesn’t say a word. He takes a step closer to me, and with his height against mine, he’s looking down on me. There’s a towel in one hand and a fist hiding a secret on his other side. His lips are in a hard line, and I’m sure the hazed expression in his eyes is meant as a warning.
“Wes…” I begin to challenge. He shakes his head.
“Don’t…” he grits his teeth, shutting his eyes slowly, his chest exhaling every bit of air in his lungs.
“How did you do that?” I ask, moving past the proof. I don’t need it; I know what I saw.
“I did nothing, Joss,” he says, stepping even closer, so close that I’m unable to see anything but him now. My hand moves to his chest, and I press my palm flat against his soft, blue T-shirt just to feel him breathe. I watch my fingers spread as my hand stretches to cover the center of him, struggling to feel the beat of his heart over the pulse of my own blood pumping through my fingertips.
Slowly, deliberately, I move my hand to the right, my fingers running along his hard chest, his shoulder, and down his bicep until I meet the bare skin of his forearm and eventually his wrist.
“Wes,” I say quietly. His name comes out as a plea for him to trust me. I have to see it. I need this—the confirmation. I don’t know what it means, or why I’m fighting so hard for him to give in, but my heart is telling me one thing, and my head needs to make sense of it.
I look up, and when I do, Wes’s eyes are waiting for me. I stare into them, ignoring my name being called a hundred feet away from us. The waves pound, and the air grows chilly as the last piece of the sun falls away. I ignore it all. There’s only Wes. And as his eyes fall to the place where my hand touches his wrist, I follow him, whispering a wish.
“Show me,” I say.
He turns his hand over within mine, relinquishing his fingers one at time until eventually the smooth orange stone slides from his grasp and falls to our feet. My breath falters, and as much as I want to grab the rock and hide it, I can’t move.
“Wes, are you coming?” McKenna’s voice breaks into this dream—our own private dream. She’s an invader, and I hate her instantly. My eyes flash to Wes’s, and his expression is blank.
“Be right there,” he responds, never once pulling his eyes away from me.
We’re bathed in dusk’s cloak of darkness and far enough away that our words are only ours. Now is the time to ask. Now is the time to tell the truth.
“Tell me,” I say, my lips trembling with hope.
Wes’s name is called behind me, and his eyes move to the sound briefly before coming back to me. He was almost there. I know it. I felt it.
Christopher.
But that small break from my gaze—it was enough.
“There’s nothing to tell, Joss,” he says, his face back to its rehearsed and empty expression as he steps around me, walking into the light of the embers over the pile of wood in the center of my circle of friends.
He goes right to McKenna, and she doesn’t hesitate to tuck herself under his arm—my only relief the fact that he seems so awkward with her, his hand not quite closed around her shoulder, his fingers stiff and straight.
You’re still here…with me.
I wait in the darkness until Wes breaks away from her to join his brothers. I see Taryn looking for me, so I jog closer and catch up with my friend, urging her to walk with me toward the truck with the keg in the back. We step up just behind McKenna, and even though Taryn is talking a million words a minute—loud enough to fill an auditorium with her voice—I’m not taking in a single sentence.
We both step up to the tailgate together, and I let Taryn fill her cup first, wanting to linger and listen over McKenna’s conversation with a few of her friends. She’s talking about Wes, but she also knows I’m here, so she’s speaking low. She’s probably also lying. I hear her mention that he was at her house, but the details are drowned out when my friend turns to me and tells me she’ll meet me by the fire.
There’s a line building behind me, so I pull my cup from the stack and begin to fill it, dividing my attention between this task and McKenna. As I stop the flow from the keg, I notice McKenna step away, telling her friends she’ll be right back. Her drink is sitting on the end of the truck, inches away from my hand.
My mind races through a litany of possibilities, some more vile than others. I settle on simple, inconvenient, and embarrassing. I tug the stud from the top of my right ear quickly, pushing the sharp post through the side of her cup on the side, just enough for a slow trickle to drip.
I move my hand to my ear to replace my earring when McKenna comes back, her eyes finding me, and her lips sneering instantly.
“Who invited you?” she says, taking her drink in her hand.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
I smile, feeling more satisfied than I have in days, maybe weeks. “Kyle did. Just to piss you off,” I answer, knowing Kyle won’t mind one bit.
“Yeah, well it worked,” she says, shrugging one shoulder and moving her drink to her lips. I smile as the first few drops hit her white shirt, the drip coming out heavier with every tilt.
“Good,” I say, turning before she has a chance to even flinch. I walk toward Taryn, but notice she’s with all three Stokes boys, and Wes’s eyes are on me. He saw. He saw everything. And with one sigh and the tilt of his head, I feel like a petty, ridiculous child.
Shit.
Instead of joining the group, I step by the corner of our blanket and retrieve my sweater, slipping it over my chilled arms and neck, tugging the sleeves down low enough to cover my hands. I cross my arms over my body and begin to walk slowly, not wanting to draw attention.
Not wanting to be followed.
I make it most of the way along the main pier, my body camouflaged in the darkness of the far end where the lights have yet to turn on. “What are you doing, Joss?”
I knew he’d come.
“Just going for a little walk,” I say. My words come out in a giggle.
“Alone?” Wes asks. He’s closer. I can hear his feet along the wood now. He’s wearing shoes. He put them on to come find me. He wasn’t wearing them for our game. He wasn’t wearing them at the bonfire. But I hear their heaviness now.
“I’m not alone,” I say, pulling my arms and body free of my sweater again, holding it outstretched above my head, letting the wind catch it like a flag. “You’re here.”
I let the sweater drop behind me. Wes’s feet stop moving. He’s picking it up.
“How about we both go back to the fire, huh? It’s cold out here,” he says.
He’s nervous. Why
are you nervous, Wes? Are you afraid I’m going to ask questions?
“I like it out here,” I say, walking past the small observatory at the end of the pier, out to the very edge. The moon is only half, but it’s enough to make the water’s ripples light up like crystals.
“Yeah, I’m getting that,” Wes chuckles, moving next to me. I don’t look at him completely, but I see his body from the periphery. He’s staring out at the water too.
We both stand in silence for almost a full minute. The time passes so slowly that it eventually becomes a test for me to see how long I can go, how long I can survive in silence this close to Wes. My body shivers once, betraying my strength, and I feel the fabric of my sweater tickle along my arm. I turn to see Wes offering it back to me. I refuse it.
“I’m fine,” I say, my right lip rising in a short smile as I return my focus to the deep black of the ocean.
“Sure you are,” he says, punctuating it with a short laugh that causes me to turn and look at him again. “Is that why you poked a hole in McKenna’s cup? Because you’re fine?”
I hold my tongue against my top lip, fighting off the embarrassment at getting caught, moving past it. My eyes meet his, and after a few seconds, I grin. “No, I did that because McKenna’s a bitch,” I say, my mouth stopping in a tight smile.
Wes shakes his head, and I turn away, letting him take in my profile. He won’t look away, though.
“You know McKenna and me, we’re just friends, right?” he says. “Hell, we’re not even really friends. We’re just…I don’t know…friendly? I barely know her.”
I start to laugh softly, letting it drift off into quiet before I speak again.
“Wes, I don’t care what you are to McKenna,” I lie.
Really, I do care. I care more than I should, more than I want to. McKenna’s lucky I stopped at the hole in the cup. My other visions of revenge were less couth. I take a deep breath before turning, so my back rests against the wood railing at the end of the pier and my eyes catch Wes, ready to dare him.
“I care about the fact that a rock was hurled at my head—at a hundred miles per hour—and you snatched it out of the air. Your hand—it isn’t even bruised,” I say, knowing he won’t show me otherwise as proof against my theory. There’s nothing to show. Instead, he slides his hands in his pockets and moves his feet, shifting his weight as he looks down at the planks of wood beneath us.
“What I care about, is the fact that you grabbed me in the air and wrapped me up in your body as we tumbled along a jagged highway. You were unscathed, Wes. Scratches—mere scratches,” I say, holding up my arm and twisting it to the side to show the huge gash still healing on me.
His eyes lift to meet mine, but his lips remain closed. Tight. He swallows once, hard.
“What I care about…” I say, my hand reaching for him, but closing in a fist and falling to my side. “All I really care about right now, this minute, is the fact that you saved my life when I was just a child. The most horrible thing to have happened in my life happened right in front of you—and when it almost killed me, you stepped in the way and stopped it all. And you won’t admit it. You won’t admit to any of it at all, but that…that…the fact that you’re Christopher, that you’re the same boy I knew then—you’ll deny that most of all.”
“Joss,” he sighs, his lips parted and ready to give me more lies.
“No,” I say, holding up my palm. “Tell me, Wes. What would you do?”
His brow pinches, and his eyes lower on me, his mouth unhappy, almost angry.
“What would you do, Wes, if I just…” I pause as I feel with my bare feet behind me until one foot finds the first beam of the wooden ledge. I step up on it and quickly lift myself to sit on the top of the railing.
“Joss…” Wes moves toward me, uttering my name nervously. His eyes are wide, but his movement is guarded.
“I don’t swim. Did you know that? Not well, at least,” I say, moving my feet to the next rail, standing slowly.
“Joss, stop. Stop! Joss…you’re scaring me,” he says, lunging for me. I slide out of his reach down the railing, the wood only thick enough for my feet.
“Tell me, Wes. I want the truth. Give me the truth,” I say, our eyes locked in a game of truth or dare. His eyes are paralyzed—stuck on my movement—and behind them, so much is happening.
“Joss, there’s no…truth. I don’t know what you’re saying. The rock was coming for your head, and I just stopped it. I got lucky, Joss. Jesus! Just…fuck, Joss. Get down from there…”
“I don’t think so,” I say, falling backward in a leap of faith. I have faith…trust in Wes. In Christopher.
I will be okay.
The fall is farther than I realized, and about halfway down, my heart is rushed with adrenaline. I stepped off feet first, and my arms swing wildly. But I don’t scream. I’m too much in shock for noise to leave my throat. The impact is harsh, and even though my feet break through the freezing surface first, the movement of the water rushes over all of me, twisting my body and battering my face with salty wave after wave. I ingest breaths of water, and I choke and fight with my arms to right myself.
But I’m never fully afraid. I think I never screamed because I always knew he wouldn’t let me drown.
I don’t hear him. I feel him. Wes’s arm loops around my chest and under my arms and he kicks hard to bring us both to the surface. He battles every wave until we’re near the shore, the sand rushing up to meet our feet. I cough as I climb from the water, the waves still wrapping around my legs, my wet jeans clinging to my thighs and my body shivering from the cold air.
“I knew it,” I mumble, teeth chattering.
I keep walking until the sand is dry, then I look at the sky, my smile wide on my face, and I begin to laugh.
“Damn it, Joss!” Wes scolds me as he steps behind me. I wrap my arms around myself, and turn to face him, the smile never leaving my lips.
“I knew it!” I say, my voice louder now.
“Knew what? Jesus, Joss…you’re talking like a crazy person. You…you could have died doing that! What were you thinking?” Wes’s voice is angry, and his face is harsh, a deep line between his eyes, his skin beading with bumps from the freezing water and air as his wet jeans and shirt hug his body.
“I knew you’d save me. I knew it! Say it, Wes. Tell me. You’re him, aren’t you?”
“Goddamn it, Josselyn! Stop this!” Wes shouts, stepping at me with angry movements until his hands wrap around my wrists. He doesn’t shake me, but he holds me in place, lowering his head to look me in the eyes. “I am not some super hero! And you—you are not immortal! You have to stop, Joss. You have to stop this crazy idea that seems to have stolen away your ability to logic and reason. I’ve been lucky.”
“No, you haven’t. I know it,” I begin, but Wes quickly speaks over me.
“Yes, I have, Joss. Jesus, I’ve been able to protect you with the help of miracles. How you see me? As this…what? Invincible guy from your past? Joss…I’ve been lucky. Listen to me…” He holds me close, his grip on my arms almost desperate as his eyes look down on me. “You can’t keep testing me. You can’t keep acting out with these crazy delusions, Joss. One of these times—I’m going to fail. Do you understand? I will fail, Joss.”
“No…you won’t,” I whisper, my voice cracking. I’m losing him.
He backs away, running both hands through his wet hair, his fingers gripping at the ends and pulling as he looks up to the stars and begins to turn in a slow circle.
“Yes I will, Joss. I will fail. And I won’t be able to save you,” he says, stopping his solitary slow dance when he’s facing me once more. His head falls forward, and his eyes fill with sadness. “I can’t save you from you, Joss. Please…give up.”
He stares into me a second longer before turning to walk up the rise of the sand toward his truck. I stay in the shallow water, my body already adapting to the coldness—I’m becoming numb. Wes stops to say something to TK and Levi, then
walks to his truck. He sits in it for several minutes, the engine idling, the taillights glowing, before finally pulling away.
I leave my sweater on the pier. A sacrifice to the gods—proof that I was in fact here.
I don’t mind the cold.
And maybe Wes is right. Maybe I know nothing at all.
Maybe…maybe I have been lucky.
Nine
I am the fool.
So often, I am the fool.
But I also can’t seem to shake the memory of what happened Friday on the beach. Wes denied it, but his expression said otherwise. The rock was inches from my face when he snatched it from the air as if it were a feather. When he looked at me, the flash in his eyes was beyond familiar.
His eyes were warning me, but they were also fearful.
I know I have to let go of these thoughts—Wes and Christopher. Even so, I don’t want to. I can’t.
When Kyle dropped me off at home after the beach in the early morning hours, my house was quiet. I expected it to be empty, but I paused at my father’s open door, his body laying face down on his bed, his shoes at the foot of the bed and the clothes he wore that day still on. He made it home on his own. I was given a rare night off.
Every night has been a different story, though. The drink in my father’s hand is a fixture after games or practices—even the late ones. Yesterday, I had to help him to bed. He stopped somewhere between his chair and the hallway, and I couldn’t just leave him there. I’m strong, but my father’s stronger—and when he’s stubborn, it’s impossible to maneuver him. He doesn’t bend to my will when he’s drunk. He fights me. He hurts me. It took an hour to get him from the living room to his bed thirty feet away.
Yet somehow, he gets up every day and returns to his other life. I can see it taking a toll. It’s been taking one for years—slowly eating away his personality. He doesn’t have any friends. He has a team. And I think that’s why he gets up in the morning. He lives for that team. He sure as hell doesn’t live for me.
He’s had two games this week—games that were far, and took both he and Wes out of school early to travel south. My games were home. I played well. Nobody cares, though. When I came home, I stayed in my room, or went to Taryn’s, to avoid him, timing it just right so when I stepped into the living room I could pull the half-filled glass from his loose grip and turn the light off by his chair. As sad as this routine was, it was bearable.
