by Anne Marsh
Jax comes with me one weekend. He’s been hanging out with me more and I’m grateful. He somehow manages to be both enthusiastic about providing me with emotional support and spectacularly bad at it at the same time. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t realize that our trip to the beach is some kind of weird historical sex tour.
I wander up and down the sand, but no particular spot looks familiar. It’s a beach and the tides come and go, so I’m not sure what I expected to find. I kind of wish we’d done something gross and irresponsible like leave the condom behind so that I could find something, even if it’s nasty, but no such luck.
“What are you looking for?” Jax asks.
I’m staring at a stretch of sand just above the high-tide mark. In addition to a few broken bits of driftwood, there is a mediumish abalone shell that’s survived its journey to the shore mostly intact. Jax nudges it with his foot. He’s wearing his motorcycle boots even though it’s a million degrees out today because he’s a freak who doesn’t like to go barefoot.
“Liam and I spent an afternoon here. I’m trying to remember exactly where.”
Jax slings an arm around my shoulder. “My offer to kill him stands.”
“Thanks.” I rest my head against his shoulder before sliding out from underneath his arm. He weighs a ton. “But family doesn’t let family commit felonies.”
He peers at the sand. “Is this a girl thing?”
“What?”
He gives me a look. “Do you want me to build a shrine here so that you can commemorate the exact spot where Liam boned my baby sister? We could erect a little plaque that says We did it here and then other people would know to avoid the used sand and I could buy a flamethrower and sanitize the place.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
I’m pretty sure the only thing that will do that is time, which sucks. If heartbreak was something you could fix with money, Jax would do it.
He crouches down and starts drawing in the wet sand with his finger. “Did you write your name in the sand? Like with little hearts and the date?”
“No, Jax, we did not. Liam and Hana forevah wasn’t part of the plan.”
“Liam’s a dumbass and you deserve better.” He rocks back on his heels and eyes his handiwork. He’s a terrible artist.
I squint at the doodle. “You’re going to have to give me a clue. You haven’t improved much since you were five.”
He grins up at me. “I was trying to draw Liam’s wiener.”
Huh. I guess it’s possible that his drawing represents two circles and a tiny cocktail wiener of a penis. I’m not sure how this is supposed to make me feel better, but I appreciate the effort.
* * *
Three weeks after my sex life becomes a trending topic on the internet, Jax kidnaps me. Since he does this with his motorcycle and he calls ahead to let me know he’s coming, he’d make a terrible felon but his thoughtfulness gives me time to hide inside the house and turn my phone off. Ignoring his Neanderthal pounding on my front door turns out to be impossible, though, so eventually we compromise. I open the door and he agrees to give me enough time to swap the yoga pants I’ve been wearing all week for jeans and boots. Road rash will not improve my life.
I don’t ask where we’re going until we’re out on the main road. Since I’m wrapped around his back, this is not good timing. The helmets and the road noise don’t help, either, although he’s driving like a granny out of consideration for my wish not to die in a fiery crash. This conversation goes about as well as can be expected.
He bellows a question that sounds like “ax ug ekaxaupp?”
I attempt to translate it, but I’ve got nothing. “Are you taking me to your evil lair?”
“Pum feekow us pit spaxa dax.”
I repeat my original question but eventually give up. It turns out he’s decided that what I need is a girls’ day, starring himself as a volunteer girl. He pulls off the road when we get to a Zen-like day spa halfway up the California coast.
After he finally convinces the receptionist that we’re not a couple (ewww), we have massages and then wear our swimsuits to soak in a hot tub underneath giant redwood trees. There are mani-pedis as well. Jax looks painfully awkward the whole afternoon, but I appreciate the gesture and his hands turn out great.
When we’re finally done being massaged and steamed, we sit in the garden with our tiny cups of green tea. I figure he’s tried, so I tell him about Liam and how I angry-cry whenever I think about him, which is better than mindlessly crushing on him or wanting to sit outside his house wearing nothing but a trench coat and heels and wait for him to come home.
Jax makes a ferocious face because I’ve mentioned sex, but apparently being heartbroken is a free pass. “Look. He’s an ass. He’s said stuff and done stuff that merit an ass-kicking. I’d really like to take care of that for you, but you don’t want me to do it. I get how doing it yourself would be empowering and shit, but the problem is, I don’t think you want to do it.”
“I do, too.”
Jax drains his tiny teacup in one swallow. “If you say so.”
I stop talking then because I’m afraid I’ll cry. Or that Jax will go drag his former best friend over to my farm and make him be nice to me. I’m not sure I’ll be able to resist having Liam Masterson gift wrapped and delivered a second time.
When Jax and I pull up in front of the farmhouse, I thank him and say all the right things. I promise, for example, that I’ve been miraculously cured by our afternoon together and that I’m officially all better and that whatever Liam says or does will have no effect on me because I am total rock where he’s concerned.
“We’re over,” I assure Jax while I try to remember the best way to disembark from the back of a motorcycle. “In fact, we never really even began, right? He doesn’t remember most of our wedding and that’s kind of hard to get past.”
Jax’s face twists. I suspect he wants to punch someone really hard. Probably Liam, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.
“Okay,” Jax says. He’s turned off the bike and kicked the stand down, so I’m not sure he has plans to leave. “But I think you should hear him out.”
Since I’m expecting to hear more threats to inflict grievous bodily injury on Liam, it takes me a moment to process. I use the time to slide-hop off the back of the bike.
I’m not sure I can do it. Having my heart broken hurts, and it turns out pain really isn’t my thing. Sure, I’ll get over him, but it’s going to take a lot of time and I’ll probably end up adopting too many cats and binge-shopping on Amazon. Then I’ll redecorate the house and cut my hair and book an impulsive trip somewhere tropical where there are hot, single guys who I can hook up with for meaningless sex and abandon when it’s time for my international flight home.
“You should give him a chance to grovel,” Jax says. “I’d enjoy it and you might learn something.”
“Should we revisit what he did before this moment of personal transformation? Those things are great on the surface, but there’s a reason why he felt the need to do them. He married me as some kind of drunken self-punishment. He decided to stay married to me because it facilitated his business agenda. He bought my mortgage. Why would you take his side? Do you have masochistic matchmaker tendencies that I’m unaware of?”
Jax growls something I don’t catch. That’s fine by me. I don’t want to talk about Liam. Ever.
Jax stomps up my front steps with all the finesse of a linebacker, grumbling more stuff about Liam, me and our “stupid fucking stubbornness.” When he holds out his hand, at first I think he’s asking for my house key in some kind of well-intentioned but misguided belief that poor, heartbroken me isn’t capable of inserting a key into her own door lock without having a breakdown.
But that’s not it.
There’s a white box propped up against my front door, the kind of sh
iny cardboard that typically holds an expensive gadget. Jax buys a lot of those, so I have experience. Tied to a yellow-and-white polka-dot ribbon is a note. Jax picks the whole thing up as if it might explode and hands it to me. Of course it’s from Liam.
“Did you set this up? Is this one of those bro code things?”
Jax shakes his head. “If it works, I’m going to punch him for not delivering it before I had to spend the afternoon at a spa.”
I should toss the whole thing in the nearest dumpster, but that seems wasteful. Plus, I’m curious. I start with the note.
Hana,
There are only two things that matter.
I love you.
And I’m sorry.
This is the first time that Liam has ever said he loves me. It’s not even the throwaway Love, Liam that could be open to interpretation. Instead, he’s gone for broke and flat-out said it. I should probably decide how I feel about that, but my stomach cramps and my heart decides now would be a great time to imitate a racing car. Jax pats my shoulder, trying to sneak-read the note.
I solve that problem by tucking the note between my boobs and open the box. Liam’s sent me a space-age-looking rose-gold tablet. Jax mutters something about prototypes and nondisclosure agreements while I try to figure out what exactly I’m supposed to do with it. It’s pretty obvious I’m not a tech geek, and Liam’s a smart guy, so it’s probably got an urgent secret message that will self-destruct five minutes after it plays or something.
Eventually I manage to press what must be the on button or maybe the power button because the tablet comes to life in my hands and Liam’s face stares out at me from the screen.
He’s sitting in the studio of an online news show. He’s wearing another one of his ridiculously expensive Italian suits, his knee bouncing up and down as he fields questions about Leda and her company. The interviewer is an attractive brunette wearing a well-cut suit of her own. After covering Liam’s general financial hotness, she moves on to his reputation as a revenge-dealing dick. He, in turn, reveals Leda’s financial misdealings and corporate misrepresentations. By the time he’s done, I’m pretty certain Leda will be arrested for fraud before too long. He’s matter-of-fact and doesn’t try to make himself look better. He just lays it out.
The felonious tendencies of his ex certainly go a long way to explain his break-up and his refusal to apologize to her.
I think that’s it, but then Liam looks right at the camera and says:
“I hurt someone I love by keeping these secrets. I shouldn’t have done that and it’s not something I can fix. I’m hoping she’ll give me another chance, but as someone wise once told me, hope is not a strategy. So all I have are two little words, and I hope you’re listening, Hana: I’m sorry.”
The interviewer starts to say something, but Liam holds up his hand. “I want to be very clear about this. I love Hana. I want her back. I’d like to be the guy holding her when we’re ninety and we’re looking back on life. And I definitely want to be the guy living that life with her. For her.”
Liam thanks the interviewer for her time and then he gets up and leaves. All I can think is that I need to know where he is, what he’s doing. Or maybe I just need to replay this video a thousand times.
Jax gently slides the tablet out of my hands. His eyes search my face, probably checking to see if I’m going to cry hysterically or turn into a rampaging monster. I don’t know what I want to do. A television interview and a few explanations doesn’t magically fix everything, even though I appreciate the gesture.
Jax thumps my shoulder. “Do I need to drive you somewhere?”
He clearly doesn’t trust me behind the wheel of a motor vehicle—and he seems to be under the mistaken impression that I’ll drop everything and rush to be with Liam, wherever he is.
I shush him and then make him show me how to replay the interview that Liam’s loaded onto the tablet. I’m not sure which is more shocking—that he’s told me he loves me, or that he’s apologized using actual words rather than cash. It’s a nice moment, even though I’m not sure how much I can trust it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
FLOWERS WITH ROOTS ARE THE BEST
Hana
THE NEXT MORNING I walk out on my porch to find a lavender rose tree. It’s still in its black plastic nursery pot. Someone’s tied a bow around the slender trunk and it smells deliciously fruity. In an odd twist, tiny plastic rocket ships dangle from the branches. For no obvious reason, a tiny plastic astronaut is planting a flag in the dirt. I disentangle the card from a mass of half-opened buds:
Have me?
Love, Liam.
Single Hana should toss the whole thing, but the scent is divine, and it’s not the poor rose tree’s fault the sender is a dick. I compromise and shift it to the middle of my compost heap. It will make the place look pretty.
I don’t know what else to think.
Because everything’s shit. Or roses.
Have me?
We got married by accident...
We were drunk.
He didn’t mean it...
Did I—was it more than just a crush even then?
More than just sex, just memories, just...
Everything.
Gravel crunches and I look up. I don’t know why I’m surprised to see Liam. I’m sure he brought the rose tree himself, and he’s made it clear he wants to talk. He’s said it to me, to Jax, to most of San Francisco and to anyone on the internet who would listen, although apparently listening isn’t something I’m good at. I look around, trying to figure out if I can slip back into the house and get my head on straight.
My denim cutoffs are literally hanging together by strings in some places and the hole in my back pocket flashes my cotton underwear. When I got dressed this morning, I just grabbed the first thing I saw, which means I’m wearing yellow boots with white polka-dots and an ancient Santa Cruz T-shirt. There’s dirt on my left knee and probably a dozen other places. I try and fail to remember the last time I showered. My face warms. If we’re going to have this conversation, I’d rather do it wearing something new and expensive. I look like the disaster I feel inside.
“Hey,” he says, shoving his hands into his pockets. He manages to look both tired and hot at the same time. It should be illegal how good he looks in his jeans, boots and a space center T-shirt.
I stare wildly at him, not sure what to say. Do I take a chance and throw myself at him—again? Do I wait for him to do something? Say something? Are we taking turns now, and how will I know what to do?
“Hi,” I blurt out too late. I guess it’s also too late to hide in the house and pretend I’m washing my hair.
Now that I’m looking at him, I can’t help but notice the enormous psychedelic bus parked in my driveway. Unless I’m hallucinating, he’s swapped the Veyron for some kind of souped-up school bus. Even from here, I can see what looks like an asteroid belt or planets and planetlings cavorting on one side; there’s a supersonic rocket painted on the hood.
“Is that a new project?”
Liam’s face lights up. “Yeah. It’s great, right? You can’t miss it. We’re going to bring science buses to local schools to teach kids about outer space.”
Naturally, since he’s an overachiever, he doesn’t have one or two buses. He has an entire fleet and the program is launching in twelve states next month. Like a genuine good guy who has a thing for outer space that he wants to share with kids who haven’t quite figured out how to dream that big yet. Liam doesn’t need my help learning how to be someone’s hero: he’s got it covered already. Maybe teenage Hana wasn’t so crazy after all.
“No more Galaxtix?”
He winces. “Yeah. I don’t know what’s going to happen there, but this is good, too.”
“You’re going to crush it.”
He just had to decide it was what he wanted.
I stare at the bus and keep talking, babbling words to fill in the silence. My heart’s beating so damn hard that he must be able to see it. I don’t care about the bus or all the kids he’s going to inspire. They’ll probably have a class reunion on Mars in thirty years. It’ll be—
“Hana?”
Deflect. “Seriously. Did you drive that monstrosity here? Does it even have seat belts?”
Liam gently pries the shovel out of my hand and tosses it to the side. I should protest his manhandling of my garden tools, but he’s pulling off my gardening gloves and I can’t move. He throws them in the direction of the shovel and then he presses a kiss against each palm. My heart squeezes in my chest, as if he’s placed his lips on it and not my hands. Liam has always been able to get under my skin.
He holds my hands and then he looks at me. I remember all the times I was so certain he didn’t see me, that he never would or that he’d always see the girl I’d been and not who I am now.
Have I always seen him?
Did I make up so many stories about his heroic Liam awesomeness that I missed this real, amazing, complex man?
“I think I need to say this again,” he says. “I love you. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t just say that.” I squeeze my eyes shut so I don’t have to look at his face. “I need you to mean it. I can’t play games anymore, not with you, Liam. Not about us.”
“I’d like to say I love you at least twice a day for the rest of our lives.” There’s a promise in his voice. “I’ll probably have to say the other thing, too. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I didn’t see what we were before I screwed us up. I thought...”
He winces.
“Me, too.” I thought a lot of things, some of them true, some of them as far from truth as Mars is from Earth. “I love you. I miss us, I miss you.”
I throw myself at him because why ruin a perfectly good track record of chasing this man? He catches me, cupping my butt in his big hands and lifting me up so our mouths are at kissing level. I shove my fingers into his hair because I’m not letting him get even an inch away and then we devour each other.
