by Piper Lennox
Damian waited. After a beat, he nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, that, uh...that sounds about right.”
“And then I ran off?”
“Way I remember it. Yeah.”
“I was in a phase.”
It hit me like a train, the rest of the memory. “I was drunk.... You were there....”
“I knew you would let me.”
“Oh, my God,” I gasped. My hand covered my mouth and everything, like the big reveals they do in soap operas. Suddenly, those cheesy reactions didn’t seem so overblown. My brain kept sewing the pieces until I was left with the memory, crystal-clear and whole.
“That’s why I ran away,” I managed. “I didn’t get upset and leave because you came out to me. I did it because...because you told me that. That you only hooked up with me because you knew I’d let you. Because you knew I liked you. You knew I had this huge, stupid crush.”
Damian tongued his cheek for a few seconds. “I promise, Mollie, if I’d known it was going to affect you like that.... I had no idea you liked me that much. You know, where you would—” He stopped.
“Where I would what?”
“You know,” he whispered. “That you would...try to kill yourself.”
“Kill myself?” I didn’t mean to be as loud as I was—but what in the actual hell? “Are you serious?”
“That’s what it seems like,” he said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I know you aren’t suicidal. It’s just, it was really sudden news, you were drunk....”
“Oh, for the love of God. I wasn’t trying to kill myself over you being gay!”
“Whoa, whoa—Damian, you’re gay?”
Both of us turned at the same time. There was Tanya, another drink in hand—both hands, actually—and Macy, right behind her. They looked between us, waiting for one of us to answer.
“Fuck,” Damian spat. He threw his hands up in the air, then let them land on the table, rattling our arsenal of glasses. “Yeah, I’m gay. Whole world knows, now. Great.”
They were both silent, staring at me while I tried to act like I couldn’t care less. I wasn’t sure how well I was doing, not that it mattered. They knew how I felt about him. Apparently, everyone knew.
“Whoa,” someone said again, but it wasn’t Tanya; it came from behind us. The four of us looked just in time to see Ian and James coming up the deck stairs.
“For real, man?” Ian asked. I saw him glance at me.
Great, so everyone did know about my crush. For all I knew, the entire campus talked about it whenever I wasn’t around.
Damian gritted his teeth. “Can we drop the subject, please?”
“Well...how’d it even get brought up?” James asked quietly. He took his seat. One by one, the rest of them followed suit.
Damian and I looked at each other. I couldn’t tell if he wanted me to take over and explain, or if he was asking me not to say anything.
Either way, I didn’t owe him shit.
I stayed silent but raised my eyebrows, making it clear I expected him to start.
“Mollie and I were talking about last night,” he said, after a while. “She didn’t remember our conversation, which...yeah. Included me coming out to her.”
“And Damian,” I added, making sure my voice dripped with venom, “thinks I was so heartbroken over him being gay, I decided to throw myself into the fucking ocean.”
Tanya snorted. The rest of the group looked at Damian again.
“That’s what it seemed like,” he muttered, adjusting his watch. “I mean, we all know you’re obsessed with me, so.”
Macy and Tanya gasped, also of soap-opera proportions. Ian took a long drink, while James picked his lip and stared at the decking underneath us.
Ever since I started to remember that night, something had been building in me, winding tighter and tighter like a rubber band. And looking at Damian right then, hearing him say that, made it snap.
“You’re right, Damian.” I threw down my napkin. It almost hit the candles, which Tanya deftly slid out of the way. “I was just so heartbroken I could never have you, I decided to kill myself. Sure. It wasn’t the fact you admitted to me that the night we hooked up—” I made sure to emphasize these words, so everyone would finally know the score: I wasn’t some hopeless, formerly fat girl with a crush for no reason, “— you were only doing it to try and stop being gay. I wasn’t just drunk and upset that someone I thought was my friend had used me. It must have been a cry for attention.”
“I didn’t use you,” he protested, standing. I stood, too. “I hadn’t figured it out yet.”
“Don’t give me that. You knew—you told me you were going through a ‘phase,’ trying to get with enough girls to talk yourself out of it. And you said you picked me because you knew I’d let you. You knew I had a crush on you. Regardless of why you did it, you still used me.”
I grabbed my purse off the back of my chair, never breaking eye contact with him. “So yeah, I was upset. But not why you think. And not enough to do something like that. Get over yourself.”
I tried my hardest not to cry, but by the time I was down to the lower deck, I could already feel it happening: that bubble in my chest bursting, sending a burn through my throat that I couldn’t control. When Tanya caught up to me, I had my face buried in my palms, my body propped against the banister.
“Hey,” she whispered, putting her arm around me. “You okay?”
“No, I’m not okay!” I kicked my purse over; we watched it tumble down the steps. “Not only do I have zero chance with Damian, a fact he had to tell me twice—”
“You almost drowned, Moll. They said a little memory loss is normal. It isn’t your fault.”
“—but then on top of that, I find out everyone and their mother has known about my crush, all this time?” I wiped my eyes furiously, just as angry that I was crying as I was about anything else. “The worst part is, I thought Damian was my friend. You know? Friends wouldn’t do what he did.”
“I know,” she said softly. I couldn’t tell if she actually agreed with me or not, but like best friends do, she pretended she did. At least for now.
When I calmed down, Tanya helped me to my feet and handed me one of her cocktails. I winced at the strength and the thought of germs, but still drank.
“You know what you need?” she asked.
“Please don’t say, ‘A good fuck.’”
“Fine, I won’t say it.”
“Tan.” I took another sip, talking around the straw. “That’s not going to help me.”
“Couldn’t hurt.” She laughed and brushed my hair out of my eyes. Fishing an ice cube from her drink, she pressed it against my temples, then under my eyes, and wiped my makeup smears away with her thumb.
“On a serious note,” she added, “you can finally move on from Damian, right? I mean, that’s what you wanted: to just know if he liked you or not. Now you know.”
I nodded, but felt even sorrier for myself than before. “I just wish it hadn’t happened like this.”
“I know.” She finished her repair work on my face, then hugged me. “It’ll be okay. There are plenty of good guys out there. Straight ones.”
Reluctantly, I smiled.
“And who knows, maybe you and Damian can work this out and still be friends.”
“Maybe.” The truth was, I didn’t want to think about Damian at all right then. Tanya might have been right about one thing, though.
“I think,” I said, drawing in a long, slow breath, “I want to go find Kai.”
Tanya grinned. “That’s my girl.”
Seven
Kai
Jake offers to cover the rest of my shift, so I lead Mollie to the resort’s soon-to-be pride and joy: an unfinished trench, snaking from the back of the hotel around one of our old cabanas. The only one left, actually. Now the staff just uses it for pool storage and getting high.
“What is this?” she asks, skidding down the slope with me into the widest part of the trench.
�
��Not much, right now,” I tell her, “but it’s supposed to be a lazy river.”
“Wow, really?” She looks around, like she can suddenly see it as more than some long hole in the ground. Even though I’ve seen the blueprints and test models, I still can’t envision it.
“Yep. They wanted to finish before tourist season started, but obviously, that didn’t happen. Got pushed back to November. I’m sure it’ll get pushed back again.”
We sit on some cinderblocks near the end of the ditch, staring up at the sky. “It must be nice,” she says, “living in Hawaii.”
I shrug. “Never lived anywhere else.”
“Do you think you ever will?”
Her question surprises me. I’ve never had anyone, much less a tourist, ask that.
Actually, I’ve never even thought about it myself.
“Maybe,” I find myself saying. “California has all these surf spots I’ve been dying to hit, tournaments to enter. Or maybe somewhere with snow, just because I’ve never seen it. In Christmas movies they’re always getting in snowball fights, going sledding—it made me jealous of mainland kids, growing up.”
“You don’t need snow to sled, you know.”
I look at her. “That so?”
She points to the other end of the ditch, where the dirt slopes down gently from the grass.
I smile. “Hang on.”
Mollie
Is this wrong? It feels wrong.
I mean, on the one hand, I’m just hanging out with Kai. Just a distraction from Damian, almost drowning, this whole crappy vacation.
On the other hand, I’m making it pretty obvious what my intentions for tonight are. Some flirting, some fun, and—as Tanya would so tactfully say—a good fuck. And unlike Damian doing what he did all those years ago, I won’t be leading Kai on, hinting at something more than friendship. We both know I’m leaving soon. That’s what tourists do. Tonight is just about tonight.
And besides, I like Kai. Does it really matter why I want to hook up with him, if there’s at least some real feeling behind it?
My inner argument gets cut short when Kai reappears above my head, standing on the grass outside the ditch. He’s got a giant flattened box under his arm that has “Napkins, White Linen—1000 Count” stamped across the front. “Found our sled.”
We set up the box just outside the hole, perched on the unmarred grass. Kai sits behind me. I think about scooting back against him even more than I already am, to really drive my intentions home, but decide it’d be overkill.
“All right,” he says, and the cardboard starts to scoot forward. It smells damp. I hope he didn’t get it out of a dumpster or something, but who am I to complain? I’m about to go sledding in a giant ditch.
“Hold on,” I tell him, and he puts his hands, ever so politely, on my shoulders.
“You’re gonna fall off.” I move his hands to my waist.
We scoot forward more, until we’re right at the edge. “Lean forward a little.” He does. Just before our weight shifts and we tip forward onto the slope, I take a second to appreciate the feeling of his chest against my back: broad, muscular. His heartbeat is already soaring.
Then we hit the dirt and start to slide, gaining speed. Kai laughs against my ear and I realize I’m laughing, too.
Our makeshift sled hits the bottom and skids forward a couple yards, then slows as Kai leans back and stops us. We’re both red-faced and grinning like kids. I turn and look at him, our noses barely an inch apart.
“Can we do that again?” he asks.
We hit the hill at least ten more times, until we’re so tired from climbing back up and laughing, we fall onto the grass.
“So,” I ask, pushing up on my elbow to look at him, “was it as good as you imagined?”
“Definitely.” He folds his hands behind his head, glancing at me. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know. For coming to see me, I guess. This is honestly the most fun I’ve had in a while.”
“Well, I kind of owe you. You did save my life.”
“I wish people would stop saying that. I didn’t do anything special.”
“Yes, you did. At least, to me.” I pause, wondering how much is too much to tell him. “I’d had a really bad night. I wasn’t exactly thinking straight when I decided to go swimming.”
“I figured as much.” He shifts on the grass, and I can’t help but notice his muscles again. His arms are toned and tan. I can see the outline of his tattoo through his white shirt, but can’t make out what it is. “I’m guessing tonight wasn’t much better.”
“That obvious?”
“Well, you looked kind of upset, at the bar.”
I pick at the blades of grass under my elbow, splitting them with my thumbnail. “I found out one of my friends.... Well, let’s just say I found out he wasn’t really my friend, after all.”
“Sorry to hear that,” he says, and even though his eyes are closed and he looks like he might doze off, I can tell he really means it.
I decide this is it: if I’m going to make a move, now’s the time.
Something about the last few days has changed me. I feel bolder, and it’s not from the alcohol. Maybe it’s the almost-dying; maybe it’s because I know, whatever happens tonight, I’m leaving soon. If I mess it up, no harm, no foul. Nobody has to know.
And if I don’t mess it up....
His eyes are still closed when I lean down and kiss him, but he doesn’t flinch or pull away. Instead, he puts one hand on my face and pulls me in more. Like he was waiting for this, all along.
Kai
Her lips are soft, and when she parts them and lets me graze her teeth with my tongue, I taste bread and a sweetness like champagne. All around us, the air smells like upturned earth and wet cardboard, the scents clinging to us.
I trace the curves of her ear, her neck. She leans over me more, and I put my other hand on her shoulder to guide her onto me. Her body is even smaller than I remember, but I notice now—when my hands are on her in a non-emergency setting—she has some curves, hidden in the flowy shape of her dress.
She puts her leg between mine. I let out a sigh against her mouth.
“Sorry,” she says quickly. “Did I...hurt it?”
I laugh. “No, no. The opposite.”
“Oh.” She giggles, her teeth against my lip, and kisses me again.
We make out for a while. I can’t keep track of the time, but I hear the serving staff in the distance, leaving for the night, and know it must be after two.
“Won’t your friends wonder where you are?” I ask, when I pull away to catch my breath. She shakes her head and goes back to kissing me, no explanation.
My erection’s getting painful, pressed against her leg and the fabric of my pants. When I shift my hips underneath her, trying to get comfortable, she notices.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m good.”
“I could...you know. Take care of that for you.”
I smirk, tucking her hair behind her ear so I can see her blush. “Yeah?”
She bites her lip, nods.
“Okay. Where should—”
“Kai? Kai, you out here?”
We freeze. A silhouette forms at the kitchen’s entrance, their shadow stretching across the grass.
“Hey,” the voice says, more quietly, “you two seen Kai?” Two servers smoking by the door tell him no.
“Who is it?” Mollie whispers. She lifts her head to peek, but I pull her back against me.
“My dad. Don’t move and he won’t notice us.”
“Okay.” She rests her ear against my chest and waits, silent. I’m suddenly aware of my pulse, which has skyrocketed. It must be deafening her.
After a minute, Dad gives up and heads back inside, the servers following close behind. We’re alone again.
“So,” she says, “that’s the guy who’s been sending me all those baskets and flowers so I won’t sue?”
“That would
be the franchise’s PR department, if I had to guess. But yeah, my dad is technically the owner. He’s probably not happy I skipped the end of my shift.”
“But that guy said he had it covered.”
“Yeah, well. Dad doesn’t approve of switching shifts, either.”
She studies me, her head still on my chest. “You don’t like working here, do you?”
I think about this for a minute. Normally, my answer is a quick and easy “no” if I’m talking to another native, or one of the employees. With tourists, it’s always an enthusiastic and thoroughly fake “yes.” But for some reason, with Mollie, I feel like I should explain it more than either word can.
“I used to, before Dad signed with Paradise Port. We didn’t have this big resort thing—just some cabana huts that people rented out like rooms, and a lodge with a bar and kitchen. It was actually fun working here, back then.”
She props her chin up, taking care not to let it dig into me. “Cabanas sound cooler than a hotel suite. At least, to me.”
“You want to see one?”
I lead her to the little house near the edge of the property. “It’s basically just storage now,” I explain, fishing the key out of my pocket, “but you’ll get the idea.”
The place is musty when I swing the door open, but not too bad. I clear a path through the pool equipment and reach for my phone to use the flashlight, but it’s not in my pocket; I must have left it at the bar.
“Sorry—no electricity out here, anymore.” I grab the pull cord for the blinds and open it up, letting in the moonlight.
“This is so cute!” She spins in a slow circle to take it in, then picks up a pineapple bookend Mom forgot to clear out. “It’s like those places you hear celebrities escape to on vacation.”
“We did get some celebrities here, back in the day. I don’t remember any, but my mom has a picture of her and Lucille Ball from before my brother and I were born.”
