Each time he craned his head over a whitecap, he was even farther from shore. His arms and legs weighed heavier, like useless anchors, and his entire body was growing exhausted. He was about to go down, whether he wanted to or not.
Thrashing to stay afloat, he heard a voice, as clear as if somebody had swam up next to him: “You’ve got to stop fighting, Diego. Or it’s going to destroy you. If you truly want to live, stop fighting.”
Spooked by the clarity of the words, Diego spun around. Where had the voice come from? Only ocean, rain, and lightning encircled him. And what had it meant? If he stopped fighting, the current was sure to drag him down. He was a goner.
The image of the drowned man he’d seen carried into the ambulance flashed through his mind. And Diego recalled what the lifeguard had said: Swim across a current, not against it. Eventually the current will circle back in.
Diego had known that, but his fear had blocked it from his mind. In panic, he’d tried to fight a losing battle.
He immediately turned parallel to the beach and resumed stroking, trying to ignore the rain pelting him and the ocean chill digging deeper into his body.
As he stroked, he thought about what the voice had said. Where had all his fighting and rage gotten him? He could stay angry at Mac for abusing him, at his mom for not wanting to know about it, at his real dad and grandma for abandoning him, at Vidas for being gay…but no amount of fury would ever change those things. What good was fighting?
Stroke after stroke, he continued to swim parallel to shore, flailing his almost useless limbs, his entire body seizing up. But each time he began sinking, something Vidas had said drifted into his brain: Just don’t give up, okay? Never give up.
Somehow, the words kept him going, stroke after agonizing stroke, barely staying above water, until at last he felt the circular current carrying him, like a giant hand, gently toward the beach.
Soon the surf was pushing him forward. The sky seemed to run out of rain and even the wind died down. After a few minutes, his feet brushed the sandy bottom, shooting pain up his weary legs. Too exhausted to stroke one inch farther, he let the waves push his body up to the tide line.
At the edge of the beach, he lay spent, his skull throbbing in rhythm with his heart. Sand scoured his thighs and belly. Although he could barely move, he knew he needed to get out of the water and into his clothes, get warmth.
Propping himself onto his elbows, he gazed up one side of the beach and then the other. How far had the current carried him? Which lifeguard stand had he left his clothes under?
He gathered what was left of his strength and pulled himself to a sitting position. Something beneath him poked into his thigh. He burrowed his fingertips into the wet sand and dug the object out.
It was a starfish—an orange starfish, like the one in his dream with which Vidas played hide-and-seek. Diego blinked, incredulous.
Slowly, painfully, he struggled to his feet. In the dim dawn light, billowy clouds ruffled the far horizon. With his aching arm he hurled the starfish as far as he could into the water. Then he started walking.
CHAPTER 23
THE CIRCULAR RIP CURRENT had carried Diego only about a hundred yards from where he’d entered the water. In the early morning light, he made his way to the lifeguard stand where he’d piled his clothes.
Still shivering, he slid into his jeans and hoodie, kept dry beneath the wooden shelter. On his slow bike ride home, his legs burned as though on fire, but at least the exercise warmed him.
His house was silent when he arrived; nobody was awake. He quietly returned his bike to the garage, crept into his room, shed his clothes, and collapsed to sleep, exhausted.
Next thing he knew, his mom was shaking his shoulder—and his entire body was in pain. It took a moment for him to remember what had happened.
“Why’s your bed sandy?” she asked, brushing grains off his sheets.
He considered telling her about the ocean, the storm, the terrifying loneliness and the voice telling him to stop fighting. But no words would come. Every inch of his body ached.
“Your skin is like ice,” she said, pressing her hand against his forehead.
“Is he sick?” Eddie asked, appearing beside her.
“Bring me the thermometer from the medicine chest,” she replied.
Diego let his eyelids close. The thermometer slid between his lips and he drifted back to sleep. Sometime later, the smell of chicken soup awakened him. His mom was carrying a tray to his bedside.
“Come on. You have to eat something to warm you up.”
He knew she was right. His stomach was grinding. And yet, he could barely sit up, his body felt so stiff.
“Mr. Vidas called,” his mom said, blowing on a spoonful of soup and feeding it to Diego. “He said you phoned him last night?”
Diego recalled his anger at finding out Vidas was gay. For some reason, the discovery now felt less threatening.
“He said he’ll call back,” his mom continued. “You’d better not have gotten into more trouble.”
She stared into Diego’s eyes but didn’t probe any further into why he’d phoned Vidas or why his clothes were sandy and damp.
Diego finished the soup, swallowed the aspirin she gave him, and fell back to sleep. He awoke again to her nudging, phone in hand.
“It’s Mr. Vidas.”
Diego took the receiver and cleared his throat. “Um, h-hello?”
“How’re you feeling?” Vidas asked. “Your mom says you’re sick with a fever.”
“Yeah.” Diego coughed. His arm ached as he held the phone up and his head throbbed with congestion.
“What’s going on?” Vidas asked. “First you run off when you see me at the mall, then you leave a message at three in the morning.”
“Um…” Diego stared at his aquarium, uncertain what to respond. Should he confront him about being gay? What—if anything—should he say about last night? Besides having violated curfew, he knew that what he’d done was crazy. And yet he felt it had changed him.
“Can we talk about it when we meet?” Diego asked.
Vidas was quiet a moment, as if thinking. “All right. But I want the whole story. Is that a deal?”
“Okay,” Diego agreed, grateful to be off the hook, at least for now.
The next morning, his mom looked him over and told him he should stay home from school. He didn’t argue. He spent the day sleeping and eating, watching TV, doing a tiny bit of homework, and thinking about his night in the ocean.
He wanted to tell somebody about it, but who? His mom would freak out. Eddie was too young to understand. He couldn’t tell Ariel, since he still needed to make up for walking out on her. The only person who might understand was Kenny, but first Diego needed to apologize to him. He knew he’d been a jerk at the mall. But how could he get Kenny to forgive him?
The following morning, his mom told him he had to go back to school. He was still wondering how to persuade Kenny when his gaze landed on his prized Giant Eastern Murex, the prized seashell with spines and fronds sticking out from the ribs, the one shell he’d never been willing to part with.
When Diego arrived at school, Kenny was at his locker.
“Um, ’sup?” Diego said, trying to sound contrite.
Kenny glanced back, his mouth a flat, unsmiling line. “Hi.”
Diego carefully pulled the Murex out from his backpack. “Here, I want you to have this.”
Kenny eyed the shell warily. “How come?”
“To, um…” Diego took a deep breath. “To apologize. I didn’t mean what I said—you know—at the mall? I was stupid. You’re my best friend. I’m sorry and I want to make it up to you.” He extended the Murex toward Kenny. “Okay?”
Kenny’s expression softened, and to Diego’s relief, he took the shell. “Apology accepted. Just don’t do it again, okay?”
“I won’t,” Diego promised, meaning it, and hoping he wouldn’t say any other stupid things either.
He started t
o tell Kenny about his night in the ocean when suddenly Ariel appeared beside them, asking, “Wow, what’s that?”
“A Giant Eastern Murex,” Kenny said, handing it to her to look at.
“It’s beautiful,” she exclaimed, admiring it, and handed it back. “Very cool.”
Kenny turned to put the shell in his locker while Ariel said to Diego, “I didn’t see you yesterday. Were you sick?”
“Yeah, but, um, I’m better now.” Simply knowing that she’d noticed his absence made him feel ten times stronger. He wanted to tell her about how when he’d nearly drowned in the ocean he’d hung on partly for her.
Instead, what came out of his mouth was the thing he most needed to say: “I’m sorry I ran out on you at your house.”
She looked at him forgivingly and replied, “I’m sorry, too…. I’ve been thinking about it and…I didn’t mean to pry into your life.”
“That’s okay.” He’d never expected an apology from her. “I want to open up, but…” He recalled what Vidas had told him. “I, um, need you to be patient with me.”
“Okay,” she said, smiling. “I can do that.”
Her smile emboldened him to say something else he’d wanted to tell her: the same thing she’d told him when he came back from detention: “I…care about you, too.”
It felt like a huge thing for him to say.
“Thanks,” she said, her smile growing bigger.
“No problem,” he answered. “You’ve got the hard job: caring about me.”
She gave a soft laugh at that. And though he hadn’t meant it to be funny, he laughed too.
As Thursday approached, Diego thought a lot about his discovery that Vidas was gay. One moment, he thought like Kenny had said: It was no big deal. But the next moment he thought of the things Mac had done to him. It was a very big deal.
He rehearsed over and over in his mind what he wanted to say to Vidas, and as soon as he sat down in the green vinyl chair, he said it: “I know we’re here to talk about me, but I want to know…. Are you gay?”
For a moment Vidas stared back at him, more intently than ever, clearly weighing his response. “Why is that important to you?”
“Because…” Diego locked his arms across his chest. “If you turned out gay, then how do I know I won’t?”
“Diego”—Vidas’s brow furrowed—“like we talked before, a person either is gay or he’s not. Being abused doesn’t make somebody gay.”
“So then?” Diego pressed. “Are you?”
Vidas hesitated, pressing his hands together prayerlike and opening them again. “Yes.”
Even though Diego had braced himself for the answer, to actually hear it made him shrink into his seat. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because my being gay has nothing to do with you.”
“Yes it does!” As Diego spoke, his lip began to quiver, tears moving into his eyes. “I trusted you. I told you everything about me and you’ve hardly told me anything. How do I know you’re not going to try something?”
Vidas blinked, confused. “Something like what?”
“You know what! How can I be sure you’re not like him?”
Obviously, by “him” he meant Mac, and Vidas understood it. He leaned back in his chair, giving a long, thoughtful look. “Diego, I’m sorry I didn’t mention I’m gay. But being gay isn’t the same as being a molester. Being abused hasn’t made me an abuser.”
“Why should I believe you?” Diego unclasped his arms and wiped his cheek, not wanting his tears to be there. “How do I know that you won’t make me become like him?” Diego knew he wasn’t making much sense but he couldn’t stop himself. It was the first time he’d ever voiced his deepest and most secret fear: that he might somehow become like Mac. “How can I be sure I won’t do to some little kid what he did to me? I’d kill myself first!”
Vidas hesitated, took a breath, and let it out. “Well, that’s why you’re here, Diego: so you can deal with what happened to you instead of taking it out on other people—or on yourself.”
Diego shook his head, still unconvinced. His tears had made Vidas a blur.
“Remember,” Vidas continued, “how brave I said you were for opening up about all the hurtful things that happened to you? Predators don’t do that, because they don’t want to let themselves feel. Just because a man abused you, that doesn’t mean you’ll become an abuser. From everything you’ve told me, you’re not a predator.”
Diego wanted to believe him, but could he? Vidas passed the tissue box and Diego blew his nose, his sobs subsiding. “You promise you won’t do anything to me?”
“Absolutely,” Vidas said firmly. “I promise.” He waited until Diego had pitched his tissues into the wastebasket and settled down before he asked, “How’re you feeling?”
For once the question didn’t annoy Diego; it felt comforting.
“Like this huge weight has been lifted.” It was an enormous relief to be reassured he wasn’t bound to become a predator. And in a way, it was also a relief to hear Vidas be honest about being gay. Mac would never have admitted anything like that. No way. He’d always mocked and made fun of gays.
After taking a moment to catch his breath, Diego announced, “So I did something kind of crazy the other night after leaving you that phone message….”
He proceeded to tell Vidas the whole story about going to face the shark and getting caught in the rip current. Vidas listened patiently, shaking his head with concern. When Diego finished, Vidas remained quiet a moment. At last he said, “You could’ve drowned.”
“I know. I, um, almost did.”
“Is that what you wanted?” Vidas asked.
“Maybe…But then I remembered what you said about never giving up. And I kept going.”
Vidas nodded understandingly. “Did you tell your mom all this?”
“No. She saw my sandy clothes, but it was like she didn’t want to know.”
“Well, maybe”—Vidas arched his eyebrows—“it’s time you told her about you, whether she wants to know or not.”
Diego shifted his feet, uncertain. “Um, what do you mean ‘about me’?”
“How would you feel,” Vidas asked, “telling her about what happened with Mac?”
“Why?” Diego’s body turned tense.
“Because she’s your mom. She was there.”
“But what would be the point?” Diego slid his fists into his pockets, trying to imagine telling her. “I don’t want to hurt her. It would be like opening up a wound.”
“Sometimes you need to clean out a wound,” Vidas replied, “before it can heal right.”
Diego glanced down at the carpet. “I don’t think I could do it.”
“If you can swim out in the ocean at night to face a shark and survive a rip current,” Vidas said, “I believe you can do just about anything.”
Diego looked up and grinned, feeling a little foolish. Even though he hadn’t actually confronted a shark, he felt he’d faced something—and made it through.
CHAPTER 24
“IF I DID TELL MY MA,” Diego asked Vidas, “what would I say to her?”
“Tell her everything you’ve told me. Tell her the truth about Mac.”
Diego’s heels bounced nervously on the carpet. “But what if she doesn’t believe me?”
“That’s a possibility. You can’t make her believe you. All you can do is tell her the truth.”
“Well, um, could you tell her?”
“No,” Vidas replied. “It’s important that she hears it from you. But I can help guide you along. If you want, you can tell her here in my office.”
At least that way I wouldn’t have to do this alone, Diego thought. But could he really go through with it?
That night, when his mom got home from work, Diego reheated for her the chicken and rice he’d made for dinner.
“Um, Mr. Vidas wants to meet with the two of us,” Diego mumbled, sitting down at the kitchen table with her. “He wants to talk about something.”
>
“Talk about what?” His mom’s tone was apprehensive. “What did you do this time?”
“I didn’t do anything!” He gritted his teeth, trying to keep calm. “Why do you always put the blame on me?”
“Because”—she laid her fork down—“usually you’re to blame.”
“No, I’m not!” His anger was creeping over him. “This time it’s you; you’re to blame.”
“What are you talking about?” Her dark eyes narrowed at him. “What’s the matter with you?”
“It’s not me,” he exploded. “It’s you! What the hell’s the matter with you?”
She raised her hand to slap him, but he blocked her, grabbing her forearm. It was the first and only time she’d ever raised her hand to slap him since after the boat trip with Mac. He squeezed her arm hard and her eyes grew wide and shiny.
Seeing her fear, he stopped and took a breath. He let go, stormed to his room, and slammed the door. The entire house shook. He yanked the pillow off his bed, brought it to his face, and screamed. Loud. Louder than he’d ever screamed. He screamed until he couldn’t scream anymore. Then he punched the pillow—once, twice, a dozen times—until his anger at last receded.
He lay in bed, breathing deeply, hating his mom for what she’d done to him, what she’d let Mac do. A knock came from the door.
“What?” Diego shouted.
The door opened slowly and his mom leaned in. Her eyes looked small and tired, her makeup smudged. She’d been crying.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I’ll go with you to meet Mr. Vidas.”
Diego refused to look at her. Trying to contain himself, he didn’t say a word. After she closed the door, he remained in bed, wondering: Would he really have the nerve to tell her everything? And if he did, how would she respond?
As Thursday neared, Diego could barely eat. At night, he tossed and turned, unable to sleep.
The afternoon of the appointment, he rode his bike as usual to Vidas’s office. His mom would drive to the court building directly from work.