Her eyes are on mine now, wide and filled with fear. And my memories, my visions, my dreams of her do not do her justice because she’s so much more.
I’m about to speak, but a knock on the door cuts me off. A moment later, Chris is back, Martin—holding three shoe boxes—following behind him. “I got it,” Chris says, the door already half open. Justin’s on the other side, his hands in his pockets. “Oh, I’m sorry.” He eyes Becca before switching to me. “I didn’t know you were still working.”
“It’s cool, man. What’s up?”
“We’re trying to get Tommy to head to the hotel, but he won’t go without—”
“I got it,” I cut in, not wanting Becca to hear. I get up and move to Tommy’s room in the bus and grab what Justin needs. “Here you go,” I tell him, back at the door. He pulls his gaze away from Becca and looks down at the skateboard, the camera, and the framed drawing of Tommy’s “family.” He focuses on the drawing, and then up at Becca, then back down, again and again, while my heart thumps in my chest and my eyes drift shut because I know he knows. His thumb swipes over the glass of the frame, over the bright green crayon eyes and he gasps, his mouth dropping, his eyes wide as he looks back up at Becca. “You’re—”
“Is that it?” I ask, cutting him off. But I’m too late because Becca’s already seen his reaction and now she’s on her feet, moving closer and closer to me. She takes the frame from Justin’s hands, her eyes as wide as his were while her thumb skims from the green crayon eyes to the bandage on her stick figure chest.
“Because you had a boo-boo,” I whisper. Then clear my throat. “Becca, this is Justin, Nat’s fiancé. Justin, Becca.”
The fear in Becca’s eyes is replaced with something else, and she hands back the frame before turning quickly and sitting back at the table, her hands on her lap and her focus on her computer.
“Thanks for this,” Justin says, and I nod and shut the door.
“Interview done?” Martin asks.
Becca shakes her head, glaring at her screen like it’s somehow going to give her answers to the thousands of questions a year apart has created.
Sitting back down, I watch the sadness take over, watch the tears fill her eyes. “Becs…” I start to reach over, but her eyes narrow, her lips pressed tight when she slams a finger down on a key.
“You took quite the hiatus for a few years there, and you’ve made it known in previous interviews the reason you did—your son Tommy—but you’ve never been clear on why you came back. Feel like giving a small time college newspaper an exclusive?”
I suck in a breath and keep it there while I hold her gaze. The seconds tick by, one after the other until my mind begins to spin, and my heart begins to race, and I know, deep down, that the only thing I can offer her is the pain that comes with the truth. “I met a girl with raven dark hair and eyes the color of emeralds…”
2
—Becca—
“I met a girl with raven dark hair and eyes the color of emeralds. I came into her life with an insecure past, and she came into mine with a tortured one. My future was set, and hers was uncertain, but at the time, it didn’t matter. We filled our days with porch-step kisses, filled our ears with three-year-old laughter, and filled our hearts with love. Deep, soul-aching, desperate love. She believed in me in ways only my father ever had, and I wanted to prove that I was worthy of that. So I agreed to SK8F8. For her. But then one day my future became as uncertain as hers, and I crumbled. I was so afraid of the destruction she’d cause when her life would no longer be filled with those things—kisses, laughter, and love—and so my fear pushed me to destroy the things I loved. Physically. Metaphorically. Every way possible. And when the dust of my demolition settled, she re-appeared, like sunshine between two buildings, and she gave me a chance to validate her belief in me. So I did. With her by my side or her following behind me, I skated my heart out. And as I stood on that pipe on the day of my so-called ‘come back,’ my heart hanging in the balance, just like my board on the edge of the coping, I looked down at the girl, a girl I knew I had lost, a girl whose emerald eyes were blocked by her camera, and I felt the same thing I felt the moment I fell in love with skating. The moment I fell in love with her. She made me feel weightless, feel free, feel airborne. So I kicked, and I pushed, and for the past year, that’s all I’ve been doing because it didn’t feel the same and I knew in my heart that without her, I’d never be able to coast.”
Journal
I dipped in his words.
Bathed in his declarations.
Submerged myself in the tale of his love.
His one true love.
It was perfect.
Too perfect.
Every sentence.
Every word.
Every damn syllable.
Perfect.
Until the last word was spoken.
And I drowned in his lies.
And I realized…
That the world was full of perfect things.
And broken, faulty people.
~ ~
I pull the earphones out of my ear and turn to my door where Dad is standing, calling my name. I spent the rest of last night thinking about Josh, and when I awoke, I thought about him some more. So I listened to his interview, over and over until I had his words memorized, and then I became angry. Unjustifiably angry. And when the anger faded, I became sad. Miserable, even. And I had no idea why. So I wrote down my feelings in the stupid journal and stared at my words until they, too, were memorized. Seared into my brain for all of eternity as a reminder that no matter how good he looked, how good he smelled, how good I felt when his eyes were on mine—that I could never go back there. We could never go back there. Because as much as he told me he loved me, that I was everything to him, my mother had said the same things. And I’d spent the past year, three days a week, in some form of therapy trying to force myself to believe that it was not love. It couldn’t be.
“How you doing, sweetheart?” Dad asks.
I nod and smile.
“You working on that article?”
Another nod. Another smile.
“Listen,” he says, stepping forward, his hands in the pockets of his sweats. His eyes—green just like mine—drop to the floor, and I know he’s nervous. It’s the exact way he’d approached me the first few months I’d moved in with him. “That Warden boy is at the door.”
I stand quickly, knowing—praying—he’s wrong, and rush to the door because there’s absolutely no way in hell that Josh is standing outside my house on the morning of a day when he should be competing. Yet here he is, looking as disheveled as I feel. My mouth forms an O as I stop in front of him, half hiding behind the door when he looks up at me. I feel the same way I did when he looked at me last night, exposed, as if he could see all my secrets and hear all my thoughts and sense all my fears.
“Hey,” he says quietly, one hand in the air, the other rubbing the back of his neck.
I close my mouth and square my shoulders, feeling Dad’s presence behind me. He’s here to protect me, and knowing that creates an ache in my chest. Two years ago, I’d laid down in the middle of a basketball court, holding hands with the boy in front of me, a boy who declared that he’d never let anyone hurt me. That I’d never have to be afraid of him. But here I am…
Josh looks over my shoulder. “I’m sorry for coming over unannounced like this—”
“How’d you get my address?” Dad asks, his voice deep, intimidating.
Josh steps back, his demeanor proof he felt the threat in each word. I turn to my dad, pleading with my eyes for him to back off, just enough so I can breathe. So I can sort through the havoc in my head. Dad rolls his eyes. “He could’ve at least brought us coffee.” Then he spins on his heels and walks away.
I look over at Josh, his eyes wide as he points his thumb over his shoulder. “I can go get him a coffee.”
I smile. I can’t help it. Shaking my head, I mouth, “It’s fine,” and step out onto the porc
h, closing the door behind me. I raise my eyebrows. He rubs the back of his neck again. “Do you—I mean—can we go for a walk, maybe?” He grins the same crooked grin that used to give me butterflies, and I’d be lying to myself if I said it didn’t have the same effect now. “Honestly, Becs, I thought your grams was scary, but she’s got nothing on your dad.”
I laugh, and even though he doesn’t hear it, he sees it.
He sees me.
—Joshua—
I have no idea what I’m doing here, walking side by side next to the girl I’ve spent endless nights dreaming about. But after she left last night, I couldn’t get her out of my head. Not that I expected to. Every moment seemed to replay in my mind, and I questioned everything. Everything. Not just about our pasts or the decisions we made, but even the small things that shouldn’t matter. I examined every word I spoke, every movement I made, and I wondered how it was she could so easily walk away with nothing but a computerized “Thanks for your time,” and leave my sorry ass standing there in a pool of my regrets.
I woke up this morning and looked out of the hotel room window and saw the sun rising, letting me know it was a new day, and I gathered all the courage, all the confidence I had, and decided I wanted a do-over. And then her dad answered the door and asked me what the hell I wanted, and the only thing I could think to say was, “Becca.”
I wanted Becca.
And now I had her. Even if the few minutes we’d been walking were spent in silence, her feet following mine, her long jet-black hair whipping across my arm, I still had her.
I just need to come up with something to say to start my do-over. “So you’re on the school paper?” God, I’m pathetic. I look over at her and wait for her response, but there isn’t much of one, just a slight nod of her head followed by an unsure shifting of her eyes. I kick myself for suggesting we walk because it makes it difficult to read her, to see her. And so I walk a few more steps until we reach a bus stop, and I sit down and hope she does the same. She hesitates, just for a moment, but then she joins me. I face her. She looks straight ahead. “Are you enjoying it?” I ask. “I mean college. Classes. All that stuff?”
She nods again, palming her unruly hair away from her face.
“And do you like St. Louis?”
Another nod.
“And your dad?”
She inhales deeply, her hands gripping the edge of the bench, and turns to me, her head tilted to the side. “You?” she mouths.
“Me?” I shrug. “I think I’m still adjusting to everything, to be honest. Things kind of took off insanely fast and I still don’t think I’m ready for it. It’s a lot of travel and a lot of meetings and phone calls and, like, putting up a front on social media and stuff.”
Becca turns to me now, one leg bent on the bench, the other outstretched, her foot on the ground an inch from mine. She waves a hand in the air, asking me to continue, so I do. “I guess I’m kind of blessed,” I tell her, and I don’t know why I’m saying all this stuff, especially to her, but she’s here and she’s listening and it’s more than I ever thought I’d get. “I’m lucky I get to do it all before Tommy has to start school, so he can travel with me, and Nat and Justin are beyond helpful when it comes to doing the whole co-parenting thing around my schedule. They’re gone three months at a time, so when they do come back, they make sure to be wherever we are, even if it means staying at hotels with Tommy when I’m at tournaments.”
Her features soften as she listens to my words.
“Chris and my mom handle everything and I get told where to be and when to be there, and I get to skate.” I choke on a breath and look away from her eyes, because watching her watch me feels like a knife piercing my heart over and over, or maybe it’s the guilt of giving her lie after lie after goddamn lie. Each one rehearsed in the car on the way to her house. I thought it would be easier to give her the same version of me as everyone else gets. I told myself if I gave her that, then I could walk away—not happy—but not as miserable as I felt when she left me last night. I was wrong. But what was I supposed to say? That the only part of my life I loved anymore was Tommy and skating? The truth is, I’m not even sure if I love skating anymore or if I do it for Tommy and for his future and to make two certain people proud of me. One of those people is dead. The other is staring at me, her eyes, her lips, her entire body void of any emotion. She lifts her hand and forms the sign for “phone,” so I reach into my pocket and hand it to her. I scoot closer so I can see her thumbs working over the screen. She taps on the Notes app, types away on the keys, and I read the words she’s written: What are you doing here, Josh?
I clear my throat. “I have a comp,” I mumble.
Her thumbs move again. Not here in St. Louis. HERE. With me. Why did you come to my house?
I drop my gaze and cut the bullshit. “I don’t know, Becs. Maybe for the same reason you came to interview me yesterday.” I feel her shift next to me, both her feet on the ground now. “I looked you up online and on your college newspaper. You got a lot of photographs there. Really good ones, too. But all art based. None for sports. And you’ve definitely never done any interviews—”
She stands up before I get a chance to finish, and I know I’ve blown it. Whatever the hell it is. She’s looking down at the ground, her head moving from side to side. Then she hands me my phone and starts to walk back to her house. I follow after her, because I can’t not, and I rush my steps until I’m in front of her, walking backward, giving her no option but to deal with me. “I’m sorry, Becca.”
She might be looking at me, but I can’t tell because her hair’s flying everywhere, and for a second, I get lost in the scent of it, lost in the memories of how the strands felt between my fingertips and on my chest, and I want nothing more in the entire fire-trucking world than to go back there, back to a place and time where we existed only for each other.
I sigh when her steps hasten and mine do the same. “I’m sorry, okay? I don’t care why you came to see me and I don’t know why I’m here, but the fact that you did and I am has to mean something. Doesn’t it?”
She pauses, just for a moment, before moving ahead, her steps faster than before.
“Stop,” I tell her, but I don’t dare touch her. “We need to talk about this.” As the words leave my mouth, the mistake like acid on my tongue, I freeze. So does she. Then she holds her hair behind her neck, and I see her eyes, bright behind the layer of tears. “Fuck.”
She starts to walk again, only now it’s slow, as if the thoughts in her head are preventing her pace. And again, I follow. Because I’d follow her to the end of the fucking earth, even when she’s pissed, if it meant being with her. Or being around her. Or just breathing the same damn air as her. We make it halfway up her porch steps, my mind racing, trying to find a way to say goodbye without saying goodbye. But then her front door opens and a guy wearing a Washington University Basketball jacket, a stupid C on the chest, steps out of the house, his glare directed at me.
Next to me, Becca covers her mouth with her hands. She looks from him, to her dad standing behind him, and then over at me. The air turns thick, the silence palpable, and the knives are back, stabbing my heart over and over and over.
I wish for death.
As stupid as it sounds, I almost beg for it.
Anything would be better than what I’m experiencing.
Her steps are rushed now, moving toward him, and he tears his glare away from me to look down at her. Her hands are moving between them, fingers switching positions, and his focus isn’t on her face like when I look at her, it’s on her hands.
“Okay,” he says, and she drops her arms to her sides, her shoulders relaxing with her exhale. Then she’s gone, past her dad and through her front door, closing it after her. This time, I don’t follow her, because she’s no longer mine to pursue. And as the knives twist and prod and poke at my battered heart, I look up at the guy whose hand is out, waiting for me to shake, and I succumb to the pain, to the loss, to the grief.
“I’m Aaron,” he says. “You must be Josh.”
I shake his hand, my fingers numb caused by my dead, non-beating heart, and I murmur a “Hey.”
Before he can respond, the front door opens again and the cause of my grief walks through it. She’d changed into a dress that shows off the tanned legs and arms and curves I’ve craved. After going through her bag, she looks up at Aaron, her hands and fingers a blur as they move in front of him.
He nods.
Swear, I actually hear the clicking of the pieces in my head.
One by one.
Click.
Click.
Click.
She’s signing.
And he understands her.
“Becca wants me to tell you that it was good seeing you again, Josh,” Aaron says. “We’re running late, so we have to go. But she’s glad she got to catch up with you.”
Becca’s hands move again.
“She says to take care of yourself, and of Tommy.”
Becca waves a goodbye, her eyes blazing against the morning sun. But she’s not looking at me. She’s looking past me, hoping to find a way to make me and the entire situation disappear.
I stand and I watch, unwilling to say goodbye, as they walk down the steps and toward his car. He opens the door for her, and she settles into the seat, like it’s something they’ve done a thousand times before. She doesn’t look up. Not once in the time it takes him to close the door, make his way to the driver’s side, start the car, and drive away does she look at me.
“They met in group therapy…” Martin says from behind me, “that’s where they’re going now.”
I face him, but the racing of my mind and the lump in my throat prevent my thoughts from forming into words.
He steps closer, his arms crossed. “It’s a group for young adults who’ve overcome some form of tragedy. She says it helps her.”