by Meg Haston
“Fun.” I don’t mean to sound hurt, but I can see my pain register in Wil’s pursed lips.
“It’s not a big deal,” Wil murmurs. He doesn’t like to hurt people. Even people who deserve it.
“Speak for yourself,” Wilson says gruffly. “Twenty-five years of marriage feels like a pretty big deal to me.”
“So!” Ana chirps. “We’re going to the bonfire after. Are you going, Bridge?”
I shake my head. “I don’t really go to those things anymore.”
She claps her hand over her mouth. “Oh my God,” she says.
“It’s okay,” I say, feeling suddenly exhausted.
“No. I think it’s, like, really mature, how you’ve turned things around.”
“Ana.” Wil rubs the back of his neck.
“I should get home,” I say.
“Hey. Think about what I said, missy.” Wilson shakes his tulips at me.
“Yeah.” Face burning, I wave good-bye and push my cart down the aisle with entirely too much speed and purpose for the balloon aisle. I can feel Wil and his dad and Ana watching me, and I wish I were oceans away from all of them. Wilson was wrong: There is no way to fix what I did to Wil and me. I didn’t damage us. I incinerated us. Whatever I felt earlier—that sudden, strange burst of nostalgia—has evaporated. I want to be gone again, more than ever.
WIL
Winter, Junior Year
BRIDGE has been gone too long. She’s not coming back tonight. I can feel it.
I’m standing in the workshop doorway, staring into the December dusk, waiting for the rattle of her pickup. The longer the silence stretches, the more charged I get. By the time it’s too dark to tell the sky from the ground, I’m pacing.
I’ve only felt this way once before, when we were little kids at the beach and still brand-new to each other. Without warning, Bridge leaned her pink salt lips close to my ear and said, Do you ever think about swimming toward the horizon and not stopping till you get there? Just to see? Then she jumped up and ran into the surf, and the panic turned my veins to live wires. She didn’t understand the ocean yet. I yelled after her to Wait, hold up, but she didn’t stop until I screamed, I can swim out farther than you! Bet you! Twenty bucks! Bridge has always had a way of shaking me up. Most of the time, it’s a damn good thing.
Not tonight.
I knew it the second she left for the party: I should have swallowed my pride and gone with her. It didn’t matter that I had something else planned for us. I should have gone. But not for her reasons (Leigh’s parents never go out of town! We have to celebrate the end of midterms! Blow off some steam!). For mine. Even though I kind of hate high-school parties, which I know amounts to teenage sacrilege, I should’ve gone just because she wanted me to and the clock is ticking on our time together.
Junior year will be gone before we know it, and soon after that, she’ll pick a college. She hasn’t said it, but I know it won’t be here. Bridge is not the kind of girl who stays in one place. She belongs everywhere.
I head back into the shop and flip the switch near the door. The white Christmas lights I wound around the rafters last night light up for a second before one of the bulbs pops and the middle strand goes dark.
“Ah. Shit.” I launch myself onto the long wood worktable and unplug the dead strand. The remaining strands are too dim, and make the walls and shelves look yellowed and frayed, like old newspaper. This was supposed to be a romantic way to congratulate her on finishing her exams. If I’ve learned anything from the movies Bridge secretly loves, it’s that girls freaking melt over white Christmas lights. Christmas lights and candles. It’s girl science: The more tiny lights there are in a room, the more likely a girl is to take off her clothes in that room.
I unwind the bad strand and drop to the table, almost knocking the bottle of sparkling cider and the box of Anastasia’s doughnuts to the floor. Suddenly, I see the shop the way she’ll see it when she walks in: the weak lights hanging limp from the rafters; the fake booze and the dented doughnut box. Pathetic.
I should know better. Every time I plan a big romantic moment between Bridge and me, the moment disappears before she even knows it was supposed to exist. Somehow things work out for us anyway. It’s like the night I was supposed to tell Bridge I loved her, for the first time out loud. Freshman year, our first high-school party. I went because Bridge was excited and because for some reason, my mom wanted me to go. She has always had a very specific picture of what she hopes I am. I honestly think she pictures me at parties fist-bumping other guys and saying things like Nah, bruh.
The party was being thrown by a junior girl named Isabella, a girl whose parents were the kind of people who said things like If you’re going to drink, I’d rather you do it here. That night, I knew things were going to change for Bridge and me. No longer Bridge and Wil, platonic childhood buddies. We’d see each other across a crowded lawn or kitchen and we’d be magically transformed into Bridge and Wil, smooth ninth-grade love machines. Or something. I practiced in the mirror; studied how my mouth looked saying unfamiliar things like You’re the coolest girl I’ve ever known—we, like, make sense.
I showed up to the party in khaki shorts and a new T-shirt my mother had ironed, my hair frozen with some gel I found in my parents’ bathroom. Standard uniform for love machines everywhere. I had my speech ready. Bridge was already there when I made it to Isabella’s back porch. I’d specifically told her to go without me. You can’t notice someone across a crowded porch if you show up together.
She looked maybe the prettiest I’d ever seen her that night, in shorts and this white tank top, and her hair was braided but wild around the face. Buck Travers was handing her a beer. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and I tried to catch her eye, but her eyes were everywhere else, so I gave up on my big romantic moment and headed their way.
“Hey,” I said. “Buck.” I wedged myself halfway between them.
“Hines, man. How’s it going?” Buck dipped the brim of his trucker hat.
“Wil!” Bridge looked up from her drink and grinned like she was surprised to see me. She threw her arms around my neck. She smelled like Bridge and a little too much like beer. “So glad you’ve popped in for a spell, bloke. Care for a pint?”
“Uh, what?”
She listed toward me. “We’re speaking in Bri-ish, love.”
“Blimey, darlin’,” Buck said halfheartedly, which Bridge found hilarious.
“Oh.” I tried it out. “Hines. Wil Hines,” I said, and it didn’t sound Bond-ish at all, but Bridge laughed harder than she’d laughed for Buck.
“You look sharp, mate,” she observed with a grin.
“That’s Australian, I think,” I said. “But, like, good Australian.”
She shrugged and sipped her drink. “Master Travers, dost thou think thou could get Master Hines a pint of ale?”
“Huh?” Buck sounded thick.
“Get him a beer,” Bridge said.
Buck licked his lips. “Oh. Yeah. I guess.”
“Great, man. Thanks,” I said. I didn’t want a beer, but I wanted Buck gone.
“Um,” I said once he’d left. “Hey. So do you think we could talk about something?”
“He’s been flirting with me all night,” Bridge said, putting her hand on my chest.
“Oh—” I didn’t know what to say after that.
“But you know what?” Bridge leaned in close, and her hair enveloped us. “I. Fancy. You.”
I breathed her in. “I—” Were we still pretending? My body hovered in the space between nirvana and devastation. “Are you—”
“I fancy you,” she said again in her normal Bridge voice, and her eyes got clear and sharp. And then she kissed me.
I always thought girls were supposed to taste sweet, like cotton candy. But Bridge tasted like floating in the ocean and getting a slow even burn. She tasted like grass and salt air and mangoes, like good sore muscles after a day in the shop and the sound of the waves at three A.M. She was
everything good in my life. And she wanted me. Even without a big romantic moment.
Back in the shop, I peel myself off the table and yank the green cord from its outlet. I tug the lights gently, until the strand worms its way from around the beam and collapses in a heap at my feet. Then I wind the cord from my elbow to my palm and around again. Again and again until it’s a perfect oval. I twist one of Dad’s garbage bag ties around the loop at the north end and the south end. Dad won’t forgive a half-assed job, even for the sake of romance. I store the lights in the bottom drawer of his toolbox.
“All right,” I tell the walls. “I’m going.”
I leave the windows down as I gun over the Intracoastal. At the top of the span, I close my eyes for just a second, imagine Bridge and the way her eyes go from faded blue to aqua when she’s surprised or embarrassed. She’ll be surprised, that’s for sure.
I recognize Leigh’s street a second too late and make the turn too fast, almost sideswiping a brand-new beamer. Cars are parked on either side of the street for the entire length of the block. No wonder Bridge was mad when I refused to go. Every kid in the junior class must be here. I park behind a Jeep with a SALT LIFE bumper sticker and walk the few blocks back toward the party.
The dull roar of the party swells behind three stories of stucco. I start down the drive, which is lined with tiny spotlights on either side, like a mini airport runway.
“Wil? That you?”
I squint at the house. There’s a girl, not Bridge, sitting on the front steps. A red Solo cup hovers just above her knee.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Ana. Acevedo?” She says the last part like she’s not sure.
“Oh. Hey.” I don’t know Ana well, just that she’s part of Emilie Simpson’s crew. One of the tame ones, I think. She raises her hand in class a lot, and if you get put in her group for a class project, you’re pretty much guaranteed an A. “What’re you, ah, doing out here?”
“Emilie.” She shrugs. “She dragged me out, but now she’s wasted. Nothing’s that hilarious when all you’re drinking is Coke Zero.” She lifts her cup over her head and sloshes it from side to side, miming Drunk Girl. “Wooo!”
I laugh. The tiny spotlights show her in parts: jean shorts, long hair that looks wet, a neon-pink bra strap that I try to un-notice.
“I didn’t think you were much of a party guy, either,” she says.
“Not really.” Why a guy would want to spend his free time standing around with people he sits with Monday through Friday is a mystery to me. The only difference between high school and high-school parties is beer, and I don’t drink. “I’m here for Bridge.”
“Right.” Her lips turn down. “Sorry.”
My heart rate picks up. “For . . .”
“Oh. I don’t know.” Her plastic cup cracks like gunfire under her grip.
“Have you seen her? My girlfriend?” I don’t know why I said it like that.
“She was out back earlier, in the yard. You could text her.”
“I kind of want to surprise her.” My neck gets hot all of a sudden, as if I’ve just told Ana a secret I should have kept between Bridge and me. “It’s—”
“That’s really sweet.” She jerks her thumb at the door behind her. There’s a red wreath on the door knocker that looks like it’s made out of snow-covered cranberries, even though it’s been in the seventies all week. “Good luck in there, soldier.”
I give her a little salute and she angles her knees so I can pass. Behind the door is a pack of girls whose voices bounce off the elevated popcorn ceiling. I pass a game of beer pong on an expensive pool table and a guy I know from trig spilling Easy Mac powder all over the granite countertops in the kitchen. I make it to the other side of the house as fast as I can, and pump the handle on one of the doors leading to the water.
I find Leigh outside, curled up on a cushioned lounge chair next to Wesley Lilliford, Atlantic Beach High School’s most enthusiastic and purple-haired thespian. They’re both laughing at the sky. High, drunk, probably both, which is why I’m not a huge Leigh fan to begin with. With a house like this and parents like hers, she can probably afford to fuck around for a while without consequences. That’s not true for Bridge. Leigh should know that.
“Hey, Leigh.” I crouch next to the lounge chair.
“Wiiillllll! You caaaame!” She reaches for my hand and slips her fingers through mine.
“Yeah. Great party.” I pull away. “Have you seen Bridge?”
“On the dock, maybe? Sitting on the dock of the bay?” She bursts out laughing and starts singing the song, and Wesley Lilliford jumps right in with the harmony. Sweet Jesus.
“Great. Thanks.” Thick, dry grass hisses under my flip-flops as I cross the yard. I stop at the bulkhead, where the yard meets a long, winding dock, and find her sitting at the very end. She leans against one of the rails, her long, pale legs crossed one over the other. There are a few other shadows clustered along the length of the dock, but she’s alone, watching the shattered moon on the water.
Her head tilts to the side a little, the way it does when she’s had one too many. Her body looks loose and happy, exactly the way it did the night everything changed between us back in ninth grade.
I think about yelling, Hey! I fancy you, but that’s not exactly the kind of thing you yell when there are other guys around. I open my mouth to say something else, but I close it again when I realize she’s not alone. There’s a shadow next to Bridge lying on the dock. It’s a dude. Buck Travers, I think, because he’s wearing the same stupid trucker hat he’s worn since birth. He sits up and slides his hand around her waist, and I think I see her shrug him off but my brain is going to explode, so maybe I’m hallucinating.
He moves closer to her, murmurs something I can’t hear. The vibrations of his voice register somewhere deep, like shock waves. She starts to push away again (I could put this guy’s head through these planks in two seconds flat) but then she leans into him, just like she leaned into me two years ago, and their shadows merge.
Everything stops. My heart. My breath. The tides. After a while she ends the kiss. She pushes herself to standing and he reaches for her, but this time, she keeps walking. She stumbles down the length of the dock, winding toward me, and with every step, she is farther and farther away. There are only a few feet between us when she sees me standing there.
I hear the whoosh of Bridge’s breath, her soft, terrible “Oh my God.”
“Don’t,” I bleat. The yard is still. Everyone is watching.
“Wil,” she says. Her tongue is thick. She reaches for me.
“Fucking don’t.” I step back.
“Ohhhh,” some dude yells behind me.
A million different versions of me fight it out beneath my skin. Raging Me could fly down the dock to beat the shit out of Buck Travers. Devastated Me might puddle in front of Bridge, sob like a baby for days. Fourth-Grade Me doesn’t believe that the Girl from Alabama could ever.
“I’m drunk,” she says. Her eyes are bleary, like watercolor mistakes.
“That’s worse,” I whisper.
“How?” she moans.
“I don’t know.” I want to explode out of my skin.
“Just—can we talk?”
My chin drops. She’s barefoot, the black glitter polish flaking on her big toe. We laughed about that yesterday. Pretended her toe was an inkblot and took turns analyzing what the chipped part looked like. The top of a palm tree! Maine! Donald Trump’s toupee!
“Have you guys—are you . . .” My voice crumples like tinfoil.
Her lips are moving—No, no, oh my God, of course not—but the sight of her, her fire-red hair and drunk-girl mouth and blazing aqua eyes are too much. I turn and I walk and I’m moving fast, stumbling through the wall of whispers and laughs.
I run. Back through the yard, through Leigh’s cloud of weed, through the too-big house, out the front door, down the street, past the truck, and back again. I run all the way back to the fourth gr
ade, to the trailer with the even rows of desks and the erasers that smelled like pineapple and the markers that made you dizzy if you sniffed them and the beautiful, burned new girl.
Don’t, I tell the boy in the second-to-last row. Don’t you dare turn around. That girl is going to end you.
BRIDGE
Spring, Senior Year
I watch the digits on my bedside table clock tick toward the end of the day. It’s too late for me to be alone in this house. Micah should be here. My mother should be here. But I haven’t seen Micah all night. He’s been staying out later and later with his friends. I’m tired of wishing he’d care enough to come home for dinner. Mom is working a double shift at the resort.
I listen hard, hoping for the ding of Micah’s cell or the sound of shoes being kicked off and flung across the tiled floor. But the house is quiet, except for the labored churn of the window unit and the whir of the ceiling fan.
As I get ready for bed, I lift my gaze to the glittering ocean. A tiny square is visible from a very particular angle in my room. The tiny two-story we’ve rented since Mom moved us here from Literally Nowhere, Alabama, eight years ago is only a block off the water. Atlantic Beach locals call it the Pepto Pad, because it’s painted the brightest, ugliest shade of pink in the color spectrum. Swim out far past the breakers and I swear you can still see it, glaring like a stucco zit from behind a row of spectacular beachfront homes.
I turn away from the water, which will always remind me of Wil. I sit cross-legged in sweats and a tank top on the floor of my room, sifting through the only Wil pieces I have left. My bottom drawer is filled with tiny mementos from the boats I worked on with him and Wilson. Wilson would slip small treasures into my palm at the end of every project: a piece of polished teak from an old deck, a sail scrap with the boat’s name scribbled in the corner, and once, a brass-rimmed compass.
I nudge the drawer shut with my foot and lean against the foot of my bed. I threw everything in that drawer away the night I let beer-soaked Buck Travers kiss me on that dock. Maybe if I’d had a reason, I could put Wil behind me. But I’ve looked for a good explanation for why I betrayed my best friend, the boy I’d loved since I was eight, combed my memory for it, and all I can come up with are broken half excuses. Buck had been trying to drunk kiss me for years. I was pissed at Wil for refusing to come with me to Leigh’s. I was exhausted and stressed at the end of the hardest semester of my life, and I just wanted to have fun, do something stupid. I was drunk.
