Things We Know by Heart

by Jessi Kirby

  “Quinn?” Colton says. “What’re you—” The edge is still there in his voice, though I can tell he’s trying to hide it for my sake.

  I bite the inside of my cheek. I know I should turn around and meet his eyes, for his sake. But I don’t. I can’t.

  “Hey,” he says gently, turning me so we’re face-to-face.

  We lock eyes, and I can see the storm in his, their usual bright green clouded over by the furrow of his brows. He looks like he wants to escape just as much as I do.

  I glance over his shoulder toward the back room, willing Shelby not to come out and see me here. “I’m sorry, I should’ve called first, I—”

  Colton’s eyes flick back in the direction of his sister and everything he doesn’t want to be reminded of, and I feel a stab of guilt when they come back to me with no idea that it’s all right here. Right in front of him.

  “No, I’m glad you’re here. It’s just . . .” His hand comes to my shoulder, and I try to ignore the complicated rush his touch sends through me. Try not to look him in the eye.

  “Wait,” he says. “Come with me.”

  “Where?” I ask without meaning to. Looking at him without meaning to.

  “Anywhere,” he says. “It doesn’t matter. Please, just . . . come with me.”

  The need in his voice washes over me like a wave, finding its way in through the tiniest cracks, into the deepest, farthest places. It makes me want to wrap my arms around him, and it makes me want to run away; but I don’t do either one of those things.

  I’ve never seen him hurt like this. Lost. I look at him standing there in front of me, and I can feel, in that moment, how much he needs me.

  How much I need him too.

  I search for any sign that he knows the truth about the girl who wrote that letter, but there’s none.

  Without saying a word, I nod, and he takes my hand, and we go. Anywhere but here.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”

  —Thornton Wilder

  WE DRIVE. WINDOWS open, wind swirling wild around us, filling the space of our silence with cool salt air. I can feel the tension rolling off Colton as he shifts and turns. I don’t know where we’re going, but it doesn’t matter. We drive like that, trying to block out the noise of our thoughts with the sound of the wind; and it’s not until we’re out of town, on the empty two-lane coast highway, heading north into the rolling hills, that Colton’s shoulders, and his grip on the steering wheel, relax the slightest bit.

  “You ever been up to Big Sur?” he asks, his voice heavier than normal. It’s clear in this question that he doesn’t plan on acknowledging the fight he just had with Shelby in the store, but I can’t let it go, not anymore.

  “Colton . . . ,” I say tentatively.

  He glances at me out of the corner of his eye. “There’s this place up there called McWay Falls. It’s probably my favorite place, but I haven’t been there in a long time. It has the clearest, bluest water you’ve ever seen. Some days you can see twenty feet, straight to the bottom. And there’s a waterfall that comes down off the cliff, right onto the sand. I’ve been wanting to take you there,” he adds with a smile. That familiar optimism has crept back into his voice, and he sounds more like himself now. Or more like the Colton he lets me see. “We could grab some food on the way, eat at the falls, take the kayak out, have a perfect day—”

  “Colton.” My voice comes out firmer this time, and I hope it’s enough to say to him that we can’t ignore what just happened. That as much as we both may want to, we can’t go any further with so much left unspoken between us.

  He sighs. Looks out his side window for a brief moment before bringing his eyes back to the road. “I just want to get outta here for a little while.” He shifts in his seat, thrums his fingers on the steering wheel. “That, back there with my sister . . .”

  “It’s okay,” I say quickly. I can see how uncomfortable he is, and it weakens my resolve to talk about it. “You don’t have to explain. Mine can be the same way when she gets worried, and it’s between you guys anyway, and . . .”

  Now I’m talking around it. Again.

  “So you heard that whole thing,” Colton says.

  I look out my window, out to the hills covered in rolling summer-gold grasses, away from the words I keep replaying over and over. Shelby’s words, and his. And then I tell him the truth.

  “I did. But it’s not any of my business, I—”

  “It’s okay,” Colton says. “I wasn’t trying to keep it secret from you.” He glances over at me. “Not really.” The word secret sticks in my gut, and though I feel his gaze linger on me, I can’t meet it. I roll down the window even farther, wishing the wind would just swirl in and carry all our secrets away.

  “Anyway,” he says, shifting in his seat again, “there’s not a whole lot to tell.” He slides his eyes back to the road. “I got really sick a few years back—a viral infection that got into my heart and tore it up so bad I needed a new one. I got put on the transplant list, spent a lot of time waiting, in and out of the hospital, until last year when I finally got a new heart.”

  I inhale sharply. I know all this already, but to hear him tell it himself hits me in a whole different way.

  Colton pauses, and in the edge of that pause I can hear all the things he doesn’t say to me. The things he said to Shelby about Trent, and the letter. The things about how his life was during that time, and how it is now. I wait, quiet. Brace myself for him to say them to me, but he doesn’t. He just keeps his eyes on the sharp curve of the road and gives the slightest nod, like that’s it, that’s all there is.

  I nod slowly in answer, like I’m hearing all this for the first time, like it’s all that simple, but it takes everything in me to keep my breaths even, my face neutral. The way he put it, like that’s the whole story, feels like a closed door meant to keep me out. Maybe it’s to keep me safe from it all, but it’s far too late. I know too much for that.

  I know that behind all the pictures of him smiling through it and beneath the surface of Shelby’s posts about how positive her brother was through it all, I know there was pain, and suffering, and guilt. There was sickness, and weakness, and being hospitalized. Losing weight, and swelling up, and procedure after procedure. Machines, and tubes, and endless medications. Soaring hopes, and crashing letdowns. Fund-raisers, and family vigils. Big scares and little victories.

  There was life lived from behind the glass of the hospital and the confines of his house while his friends and family felt the ocean air in their lungs, and sunlight and water on their skin. There was a roomful of ships that would never leave their clear-glass ports. But he smiled for the camera every time. And he traded death for more than just a lifetime of medical care. He traded it for an anchor of guilt.

  I can’t handle the thought of making it any worse. Not now. Not when I know how much all that still hurts him. I turn my face to the window so that the air rushing in will be a good excuse for the tears that prick hot at my eyes.

  “It’s okay,” Colton says. “I’m good now.” He smiles, trying to lighten the tone, and brings a fist to his chest. “Strong. And it was gonna come out sooner or later.” He shrugs. “I guess I just really liked that you knew me without all that.”

  “Why?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.

  He tilts his head, considering, then opens his mouth to say something but reels it back in. I look straight ahead, try to give him space to find his answer as we round another sharp curve. The road hugs the mountain high above the ocean, and from the passenger side I can’t see the drop, which I’m thankful for.

  What I can see is the sky, and the ocean spreading out from the cliffs, wide and sparkling in the afternoon sun. It makes me wish we were out there in the kayak, floating on one of the aquamarine, sun-soaked patches of water, in that safe place between the ocean and the sky, where nothing else matters but the mo
ment.

  Colton shrugs. “Because I don’t think about any of that when I’m with you, and that’s—” He stops. Smiles, but not like the smile I know. There’s a vulnerability in this one, and in his eyes. “That was a pretty dark time of my life, and you . . .”

  He glances over at me again, eyes serious. “You’re like light, after all that.”

  I come undone right there. Tears wells up, and I take his hand in mine and hold on, and try to hold them back, as I see it all. Me, noticing him for the first time in the café, him standing on my doorstep with the sunflower in his hand, the two of us inside the hollowed-out rock with the sunlight streaming in and then paddling over the surface of the water, silhouetted between a glowing ocean and a sky exploding with fireworks.

  I can’t risk losing it all. All of this light.

  He’s looking at me, waiting for me to say something back, to say I feel the same way. The road in front of us pins itself into a curve so sharp, it forces Colton’s eyes back to the road, forces him to slow down, and like so many other moments, forces me into him, and this time I don’t fight it.

  Leaned into him, I catch a glimpse of the cliff’s edge, and the ocean and the wave-crashed rocks far, far below, and for a brief moment it feels like my toes are hanging over the edge and I’m deciding whether or not to jump. But then I realize I already have. I’ve fallen so far, so fast that I didn’t see it happening, and now there’s no going back, nothing to hold on to but him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.”

  —Martin Luther King Jr.

  AFTER MILES OF twisting turns, sheer cliff on one side and lush green hillside with ravines and tiny waterfalls on the other, the highway finally winds inland just a bit, and we pass a small sign that reads STATE CAMPGROUND. Colton doesn’t turn into the campground but makes a left into a parking lot on the coastal side of the highway. There’s no one in the kiosk to take our money, and since the parking lot is deserted, we have our pick of spots. Colton pulls the bus up next to the fence, under a cypress tree that spreads its rich green branches out wide and flat, like an enormous bonsai tree.

  It’s quiet when he looks over. “I can’t believe you’re here with me.” He leans across the seat and gives me a kiss, and I can feel a smile on his lips. “This is my favorite place. Ever. Come on.”

  We both get out and stand near our open doors, stretching in the afternoon sun. The air is different here: cooler, and more layered. The smell of the salt water mixes with scents of the trees and flowers that grow wild and tumble over the hill. We can’t see or hear the ocean from where we stand, but I can feel it, just like I can feel the last bit of tension slip off Colton as he breathes it in too.

  “Let’s go see the water,” he says, and before I can answer, he grabs my hand and leads me to a short wooden staircase that goes up and over the fence, to the other side, where a trail winds through the tall green grass, then disappears at the edge of the bluff. We climb up and over, then walk, hand in hand, down the trail. We don’t say anything, but we don’t have to. The sweetness of the air, and the feel of each other’s hand, the distant sound of the ocean—all of it is perfect. All of it feels like what we need, and where we should be.

  When we get to where the trail leads to a steep set of stairs, the view of the ocean unfolds in front of us. It stops me in my tracks.

  “Wow,” I breathe. “This is beautiful.”

  “I knew you’d love it,” Colton says with a grin as he runs his eyes over the wide cove of sapphire water below. At the southern end of it, a graceful white arc of water dives over the cliff and spills out onto the sand before meeting the ocean. Colton inhales deep and slow, like he’s drinking it all in, comparing every little detail to the picture in his memory.

  “How long has it been since you’ve been here?” I ask.

  He doesn’t take his eyes from the water. “A long time. It was with my dad, maybe ten years ago? We came camping, just us, right on the beach.” He smiles. “Brought the kayak and our surfboards and stayed in the water all day, then came in and cooked hot dogs and s’mores over the campfire, and watched the shooting stars over the ocean at night.”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  “It was. A perfect day. I remember it that way anyway. Thought about it a lot when I was sick.” He glances at me. “I thought maybe that would go down as my best day.”

  We both watch as a wave, much bigger than what I’ve seen in Shelter Cove, rises, gathering speed and height, then crashes in a fast line with a thunder I can hear, even this far away.

  Colton lets out a low whistle. “You feeling brave?”

  “Not that brave,” I say as the next wave does a repeat, shooting white water high up into the air when it crashes. “It’s wilder up here.”

  He nods. “Yeah, it’s not really kayak friendly out there.” We watch as another wave peels across the cove in a perfect, empty line. “Good surf, though.”

  I watch it, amused by the fact that every time I’ve heard him say that, my thought is that it looks downright scary. I still like catching the white water next to the pier.

  “You can surf if you want, I don’t mind. I’ll watch.” The platform we’re standing on has a bench and a view, and I know it would do him some good to get in the water.

  “Really? You wouldn’t mind?”

  “No, go. I’m not quite ready for those waves yet, but I’ve seen what you can do. “

  He turns to me and smiles, then pulls me in for a sweet, quick kiss that surprises us both. “Thank you. I won’t be long.”

  “Take as much time as you want.”

  “Okay. I’m gonna go change and get my board.”

  He starts up the trail, then stops and comes back for one more kiss. This one is deeper and sends little waves of warmth all through me.

  He pulls back a little, rests his forehead on mine, so we’re eye to eye. Smiles. “Okay. I really am gonna go change.”

  “Okay,” I echo. “I’ll be here.”

  He takes a few steps backward, keeping his eyes on me until he has to turn around. I watch as he jogs up the trail to his bus, wanting him to come back and kiss me again, knowing that if he does, I won’t be able to hold back anymore.

  By the time he does come back with his surfboard, I’ve found my way down to another little wooden platform, midway between flights of stairs, complete with a bench, a railing, and a perfect view of the waterfall in the cove below.

  “I brought you a sweatshirt,” Colton says, handing it to me. “Just in case.” He leans in for another quick kiss, then bounds down the stairs in his rash guard and trunks, board under one arm, and it makes me happy inside to see him this way. The lightness is back in his step.

  I stand at the railing for a moment and watch as he throws his board into the deep blue of the water, jumps onto it, and starts paddling with the grace and ease of someone who never spent a single day away from it. You’d never know it’d been any other way for him. You’d never know any of it from the outside.

  A tall wave rises up in front of him, and I get nervous, like I would if it were me out there, but Colton digs his arms in and paddles hard, then pushes the nose of the board down just as the wave pitches forward and begins to break. For the briefest moment I can see his silhouette in the face of it, the light shining through the water, and it’s so beautiful it makes me want to cry at the impossibility of this situation I’ve created.

  A cool breeze swirls up from the water, carrying on it a chill, and the slightest hint of rain. It rolls over my bare skin, and I pull the sweatshirt around me as he finishes out the wave and turns to paddle for another one. There’s a flash out on the horizon, so quick I wonder if I saw it at all, but a few moments later I hear the low, telling rumble of thunder. The clouds have moved in closer already, trailing faint gr
ay streaks down to the water, starting to crowd the sun that was so bright only moments before.

  Colton catches the next wave just as another flash of lightning zags the sky. This time only a few beats pass before the rumble of thunder follows again. I can see whitecaps begin to form out on the water as the wind picks up. I expect Colton to paddle in, but he turns his board around and heads back out toward the building surf. A fat drop of rain lands on my cheek, and I wipe it away. I look out at the water, at Colton paddling his board against the backdrop of the stormy sky, and I wish he’d come in. Lightning flashes again, and he sits up and turns toward the shore. He waves from the water, nods like he’s okay, and then raises a single finger, like “one more.”

  I wave back, and raindrops begin to fall, one after another, dotting the staircase all around me and adding a new layer to the air. Another flash of lightning zips across the sky, then a crack of thunder opens it up. I yank the hood over my head and squint through the downpour as Colton goes for a wave and catches it. As soon as he finishes out the ride, he paddles the rest of the way in; and when he gets to the beach, he stands up and waves again, then tucks his board under his arm.

  Colton hits the beach running as the thunder booms above us. He yells something to me, but his words are lost in the wind. The rain pours down in a steady sheet, creating little pinpricks of cold all over my face and bare legs, soaking through the sweatshirt fast.

  When Colton reaches me, he lets out a whoop, and I can’t help but laugh at how I must look standing there, the rain plastering my hair to my cheeks. “C’mon,” he yells above the storm and the surf. He grabs my hand and pulls me toward the stairs, motioning for me to go first, in front of him. I take the stairs two at a time, driven hard by the rain, and the cold, and the fact that he’s right behind me. Another flash of lightning makes me scream, and I feel the boom of the accompanying thunder clap in my chest. Colton laughs out loud from behind me. “Go, go, go!”