He takes my hand and starts to ask me questions. Personal questions.
He starts with, “How are your parents doing?”
“Um…I don’t know,” I say. He’s never really cared about my parents before. I know he wants them to like him, but because he’s not sure they will, he pretends it doesn’t matter. “I mean, you know. Mom is trying to hold it all together without actually doing anything. My dad has his moments, but he’s not exactly the most fun person to be around. The older he gets, the less he seems to give a damn about anything.”
“And what’s it like with Liza at college?”
When he asks this question, it’s as if he’s proud that he’s remembered my sister’s name. That sounds more like Justin.
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “You know we were more like sisters living under a truce than best friends. I don’t know if I miss her that much, although it was easier having her around, because then there were two of us, you know? She never calls home. Even when my mom calls her, she doesn’t call back. I don’t blame her for that—I’m sure she has better things to do. And really, I always knew that once she left, she’d be gone. So I’m not shocked or anything.”
I realize as I’m talking that I’m getting close to the nerve, talking about what happens when high school is over. But Justin doesn’t seem to be taking it personally. Instead, he asks me if I think school is much different this year than last year. Which is a weird question. Something my grandmother would ask. Not my boyfriend.
I tread carefully.
“I don’t know. School sucks. That’s not different. But, you know—while I really want it to be over, I’m also worried about everything that’s going to come after. Not that I have it planned out. I don’t. I know you think that I have all of these plans—but if you actually look at the things I’ve done to prepare myself for life after high school, all you’ll see is a huge blank. I’m just as unprepared as anyone else.”
Shut up, shut up, shut up, I’m telling myself. Why are you bringing this up?
But maybe I have a reason. Maybe I’m bringing it up to see what he’ll do. He tests me all the time, but I’m not exactly innocent in that department, either.
“What do you think?” I ask him.
And he says, “Honestly, I’m just trying to live day to day.”
I know. But I appreciate it more when it’s said like this, in a voice that acknowledges we’re on the same side. I wait for him to say more, to edge back into last night’s fight. But he lets it go. I am grateful.
It’s been over a year, and there’ve been at least a hundred times when I’ve told myself that this was it—this was the new start. Sometimes I was right. But not as much as I wanted to be.
I will not let myself think that things are suddenly better. I will not let myself think that we’ve somehow escaped the us we always end up being. But at the same time, I will not deny what’s happening. I will not deny this happiness. Because if happiness feels real, it almost doesn’t matter if it’s real or not.
Instead of plugging the destination into his phone, he’s asking me to keep giving him directions. I screw up and tell him to get off the highway one exit too soon, but when I realize this, he doesn’t freak out at all—he just gets back on the highway and goes one more exit. Now I’m no longer wondering if he’s on drugs—I’m wondering if he’s on medication. If so, it’s kicking in pretty quickly.
I do not say a word. I don’t want to jinx it.
“I should be in English class,” I say as we make the last turn before the beach.
“I should be in bio,” Justin says back.
But this is more important. I can make up my homework, but I can’t make up my life.
“Let’s just enjoy ourselves,” he says.
“Okay,” I tell him. “I like that. I spend so much time thinking about running away—it’s nice to actually do it. For a day. It’s good to be on the other side of the window. I don’t do this enough.”
Maybe this is what we’ve needed all along. Distance from everything else, and closeness to each other.
Something is working here—I can feel it working.
—
Memory. This is the beach my family would come to, on days when the house was too hot or my parents were sick of staying in the same place. When we came here, we’d be surrounded by other families. I liked to imagine that each of our blankets was a house, and that a certain number of blankets made a town. I’m sure there were a few kids I saw all the time, whose parents took them here, too, but I can’t remember any of them now. I can only remember my own family—my mother always under an umbrella, either not wanting to burn or not wanting to be seen; my sister taking out a book and staying inside it the whole time; my father talking to the other fathers about sports or stocks. When it got too hot, he would race me down into the water and ask me what kind of fish I wanted to be. I knew that the right answer was flying fish, because if I told him that, he would gather me in his arms and throw me into the air.
I don’t know why I’ve never brought Justin here before. Last summer we stayed indoors, waiting for his parents to leave for work so we could have sex in every room of the house, including some of the closets. Then, when it was done, we’d watch TV or play video games. Sometimes we’d call around to see what everyone else was doing, and by the time his parents came home, we’d be off at someone’s house, drinking or watching TV or playing video games or some mix of the three. It was great, because it wasn’t school, and we were with each other. But it didn’t really get us anywhere.
I leave my shoes in the car, just like I did when I was a kid. There are the first awkward steps when I’m still in the parking lot and the pavement hurts, but then there’s the sand and everything’s fine. The beach is completely empty today, and even though I didn’t expect there to be a lot of people here, it’s still surprising, like we’ve caught the beach napping.
I can’t help myself. I run right down into it, spin around. Mine, I think. The beach is mine. The time is mine. Justin is mine. Nobody—nothing—is going to interfere with that. I call out his name, and it’s like I’m still singing along to a song.
He looks at me for a moment, and I think, Oh no, this is the part where he tells me I look like an idiot. But then he’s running down to me, grabbing hold of me, swinging me around. He’s heard the song, and now we’re dancing. We’re laughing and racing each other to the water. When we get there, we splash-war, feeling the tide against our legs. I reach down for some shells, and Justin joins me, looking for colors that won’t be the same when they’re dry, looking for sea glass and spirals. The water feels so good, and standing still feels so good, because there’s a whole ocean pulling at me and I have the strength to stay where I am.
Justin’s face is completely unguarded. His body is entirely relaxed. I never see him like this. We are playing, but it’s not the kind of playing that boyfriends and girlfriends do, where there’s strategy and scorekeeping and secret moves. No, we have scissored ourselves away from all that.
I ask him to build a sand castle with me. I tell him how Liza always had to have her own, next to mine. She would build a huge mountain with a deep moat around it, while I would make a small, detailed house with a front door and a garage. Basically, I was building the dollhouse I was never able to have, while Liza was creating the fortress she felt she needed. She would never touch my castle—she wasn’t the kind of older sister who needed to destroy the competition. But she wouldn’t let me touch hers, either. We’d leave them when we were done, for the tide to take away. Sometimes our parents would come over. To me, they’d say, How pretty! To Liza, it would be, How tall!
I want Justin to work on a sand castle with me. I want us to experience what it’s like to build something together. We don’t have any shovels or buckets. Everything has to be done with our hands. He takes the phrase sand castle literally—starting with the square foundation, creating a drawbridge with his finger. I work on the turrets and the towers—balconies a
re precarious, but spires are possible. At random moments, he compliments me—little words like nice and neat and sweet—and I feel like the beach is somehow unlocking this vocabulary from the dungeon where he’s kept it all these months. I always felt—maybe hoped—that the words were in there somewhere. And now I know they are.
It isn’t very warm out, but I can feel the sun on my cheeks and my neck. We could gather more shells and begin to decorate, but I am starting to tire of the building, and putting our focus there. When the last tower is complete, I suggest we wander for a little while.
“Are you pleased with our creation?” he asks.
And I say, “Very.”
We head to the water to wash off our hands. Justin stares back at the beach, back at our castle, and seems lost for a moment. Lost, but in a good place.
“What is it?” I ask.
He looks at me, eyes so kind, and says, “Thank you.”
I am sure he has said these two words to me before, but never like this, never in a way that would make me want to remember them.
“For what?” I ask. What I mean is: Why now? Why finally?
“For this,” he says. “For all of it.”
I want so much to trust it. I want so much to think we’ve finally shifted to the place I always thought we could get to. But it’s too simple. It feels too simple.
“It’s okay,” he tells me. “It’s okay to be happy.”
I have wanted this for so long. This is not how I pictured it, but nothing ever is. I am overwhelmed by how much I love him. I don’t hate him at all. There’s not a single part of me that hates him. There is only love. And it isn’t terrifying. It is the opposite of terrifying.
I am crying because I’m happy and I’m crying because I don’t think I ever realized how much I was expecting to be unhappy. I am crying because, for the first time in a long time, life makes sense.
He sees me crying and doesn’t make fun of it. He doesn’t get defensive, asking what he did this time. He doesn’t tell me he warned me. He doesn’t tell me to stop. No, he wraps his arms around me and holds me and takes these things that are only words and makes them into something more than words. Comfort. He gives me something I can actually feel—his presence, his hold.
“I’m happy,” I say, afraid he thinks I’m crying for a reason besides that. “Really, I am.”
The wind, the beach, the sun—everything else wraps around us, but our embrace is the one that matters. I am holding on to him now as much as he is holding on to me. We have reached that perfect balance, where each of us is strong and each of us is weak, each taking, each giving.
“What’s happening?” I ask.
“Shhh,” he says. “Don’t question it.”
I don’t feel any questions—only answers. No fear, only fullness. I kiss him and continue our perfect balance there, let our separate breaths become one breath. I close my eyes and feel the familiar press of his lips, the familiar taste of his mouth. But something is different now. We are not just kissing with our whole bodies, but with something that is bigger than our bodies, that is who we are and who we will be. We are kissing from a deeper part of our selves, and we are finding a deeper part of each other. It feels like electricity hitting water, fire reaching paper, the brightest light finding our eyes. I run my hands down his back, down his front, as if I need to know that he’s really here, that this is really happening. I linger on the back of his neck. He lingers on the side of my hip. I slip below his belt, but he leads me back up, kissing my neck. I kiss beneath his ear. I kiss his smile. He traces my laugh.
Enjoying this. We are enjoying this.
I have no idea what time it is, what day it is. I have nothing but now. Nothing but here. And it is more than enough.
Eventually my hand slides down his arm and holds his hand. We stand there for a few seconds, or maybe a few minutes, hand in hand, forehead on forehead, lips gently on lips, drained entirely of longing, because everything’s been found.
Then we pull away, keeping our hands together. We begin to walk down the beach, like couples do. Time comes back, but not in a scary way.
“This is amazing,” I say. And then I cringe despite myself, because this is what Justin would usually call an obvious statement. But of course, on this day, in this place, all he does is nod in agreement. He looks at the sun, which is coming closer to the horizon. I think I can see a boat offshore, but it could just be driftwood, or a mirage.
I want every day to be like this. I don’t understand why it can’t be.
“We should do this every Monday,” I say. “And Tuesday. And Wednesday. And Thursday. And Friday.”
I’m joking. But not really.
“We’d only get tired of it,” Justin says. “It’s best to have it just once.”
Once? I don’t know what he means. I don’t know how he could say that.
“Never again?” I ask. I don’t want to be wrong here. I really don’t want to be wrong.
He smiles. “Well, never say never.”
“I’d never say never,” I promise him.
Company. There are other couples on the beach now. Only a few, all of them older than us. Nobody asks us why we aren’t in school. Nobody asks us what we’re doing here. Instead, they seem happy to see us. It makes me feel like we belong here, that we are right to be doing what we’re doing.
This is how it’s going to be, I tell myself. And then I look at Justin and think, Tell me this is how it’s going to be.
I don’t want to ask him. I don’t want to have to ask. Too often, it’s my questions that push things off course.
I don’t want this to be fragile, but I still treat it like it is.
I’m starting to get a little cold. I have to remind myself that it isn’t summer. When I shiver, Justin puts his arm around me. I suggest we go back to the car and get the make-out blanket he keeps in his trunk. So we turn around, head back to where we started. Our castle is still there, still standing, even as the ocean comes closer.
Once we have the blanket, we bring it back to the beach. Instead of wrapping it around our shoulders, we put it on the sand and press ourselves beside each other. We are lying down, staring up at the sky. Clouds push by us. Every now and then a bird appears.
“This has to be one of the best days ever,” I say.
Without turning his head, he puts his hand in mine.
“Tell me about some of the other days like this,” he asks.
“I don’t know…,” I say. I can’t imagine another day like this.
“Just one. The first one that comes to mind.”
I think about times when I was happy. Really happy. Balloon-floating happy. And the strangest memory comes into my mind. I have no idea why. I know I need to give him an answer, but I tell him it’s stupid. He insists I share it anyway.
I turn to him and he moves my hand to his chest, making circles there.
He is here. This is safe.
I tell him, “For some reason, the first thing that comes to mind is this mother-daughter fashion show.”
I make him promise not to laugh. He promises. And I believe him.
“It was in fourth grade or something,” I say. “Renwick’s was doing a fund-raiser for hurricane victims, and they asked for volunteers from our class. I didn’t ask my mother or anything—I just signed up. And when I brought the information home—well, you know how my mom is. She was terrified. It’s enough to get her out to the supermarket. But a fashion show? In front of strangers? I might as well have asked her to pose for Playboy. God, now there’s a scary thought.”
Some girls have moms who partied all the time when they were young, who laughed and giggled and flirted and dressed in super tight clothes. I don’t have a mom like that. My mom was, I think, always the same as she is now. Except maybe this one time.
I tell Justin, “But here’s the thing: she didn’t say no. I guess it’s only now that I realize what I put her through. She didn’t make me go to the teacher and take it back. No, when the day
came, we drove over to Renwick’s and went where they told us to go. I had thought they would put us in matching outfits, but it wasn’t like that. Instead, they basically told us we could wear whatever we wanted from the store. So there we were, trying all these things on. I went for the gowns, of course—I was so much more of a girl then. I ended up with this light blue dress—ruffles all over the place. I thought it was so sophisticated.”
“I’m sure it was classy,” Justin says.
I hit him playfully. “Shut up. Let me tell my story.”
He holds my hand on his chest. Before I can go on, he kisses me. I think the story might end there, but he pulls back and says, “Go ahead.”
I forget for a second where I was, because for a moment I fall out of the story and back into now. Then I remember: My mom. The fashion show.
“So I had my wannabe prom dress,” I say. “And then it was Mom’s turn. She surprised me, because she went for the dresses, too. I’d never really seen her all dressed up before. And I think that was the most amazing thing to me: It wasn’t me who was Cinderella. It was her.
“After we picked out our clothes, they put makeup on us and everything. I thought Mom was going to flip, but she was actually enjoying it. They didn’t really do much with her—just a little more color. And that was all it took. She was pretty. I know it’s hard to believe, knowing her now. But that day, she was like a movie star. All the other moms were complimenting her. And when it was time for the actual show, we paraded out there and people applauded. Mom and I were both smiling, and it was real, you know?”
Real like this is real—Justin listening next to me, the sky above, the sand underneath. It is real in such an intense way that it feels unreal, too. Like I had no idea it was possible to feel so much at once, and have it all be true.
“We didn’t get to keep the dresses or anything,” I go on. “But I remember on the ride home, Mom kept saying how great I was. When we got back to our house, Dad looked at us like we were aliens, but the cool thing is, he decided to play along. Instead of getting all weird, he kept calling us his supermodels, and asked us to do the show for him in our living room, which we did. We were laughing so much. And that was it. The day ended. I’m not sure Mom’s worn makeup since. And it’s not like I turned out to be a supermodel. But that day reminds me of this one. Because it was a break from everything, wasn’t it?”