“I’m not saying that. I’m saying you’re equally competent either way. You have to know that, and believe that. The three paintings you did last month are... phenomenal, Liv. As good as–if not better than–the ones you painted last summer. I am neither an influence nor a distraction to you. Understand that. Right now.”
He sounds so stern. “Are you mad at me?”
“I can’t let you feel insecure about your talent. You have nothing to feel uncertain about. Your creativity will catapult you to success here. With or without me.”
“I know, but–” He places his finger over my lips before I can continue, then kisses me.
“No buts,” he says, leaning back into me and putting his arm around me. “If anyone has anything to be insecure about this summer, with you here with all of these new people and experiences, and me back in New York, it’ll definitely be me.”
I stare at him, hard. “Seriously?” I say, angry.
“What?”
I wriggle out from beneath him and climb off the bed, heading straight for the drawer with my clothes, and then to the bathroom. I slam the door behind me, wishing it had a lock.
“Liv,” he says through the door, following it up with a knock. I start the shower, undressing quickly and stepping in. “Livvy, I’m coming in,” he follows up, but I can tell from his voice he’s already in the bathroom with me.
“How can you say that?” I ask him.
Naked, he pulls back the shower curtain and starts to get under the stream of water with me.
“Get out,” I tell him angrily.
“Liv, your parents will be here any minute. Did you see what time it is?”
“No. What time is it?”
“Ten-fifteen.” They said they’d be here between ten and ten-thirty.
“Fine,” I concede, making room for him in the tiny shower stall. “But don’t touch me.”
“Fine,” he says back to me, taking the shampoo I hand him. “You’re being very unreasonable.”
“Whatever,” I huff. “I just can’t believe you’re bringing this up!”
“What? I don’t even know what you think I was saying back there.”
“You’re the one who should be insecure? Why, Jon? Because I’m the one who cheated? I’m the one who kissed someone else?!”
“Liv–”
“No. If I haven’t assured you of my faithfulness by now, I don’t know how I could ever do it. Years of devotion. Weeks of letters. A wall of paintings. One tiny mistake. If that causes this sort of rift that can’t be fixed after nine months, then what hope do I have? I’ve done everything and–”
A knock comes from the door.
“Shit,” he says. “You’ve got to answer it.”
“Thanks, Captain Obvious,” I say sarcastically. I rinse my hair one last time and let the water wash over my body, ridding it of any lingering suds. He stays in the shower as I pull on my cotton dress, my hair still dripping wet. I brush it on my way to the door, closing off the bathroom on my way out.
Looking around the small apartment, I wish I’d at least made the bed... I kick the rest of our discarded clothes underneath it, hoping things are hidden enough.
“Hey, guys,” I say with forced cheerfulness, inviting them in.
“Late start?” Mom asks.
“We overslept,” I tell them both. “Jon just got into the shower.”
“That’s fine. We’re not in any hurry,” Dad says, taking a seat on the couch.
“Were you going to dry your hair, sweetie?” Mom asks. I shrug, not really caring. “Everything okay?”
“It’s fine,” I lie, sitting down in front of a full-length mirror. “I’m just not fully awake yet. I’ll get the hair dryer when Jon’s out. I’ll do my makeup. You can get some water or soda or something, if you want.”
Dad goes to the fridge, grabbing two bottles of water. He hands one to my mom before placing himself in front of the window overlooking the back yard. He quietly sips his water as I rush to put on some powder and eyeliner.
When Jon turns the water off, an awkward silence sets over the apartment. The creaky bathroom door startles me.
“Liv,” Jon says quietly.
“What?” I ask. I hadn’t meant to sound so annoyed, even though I am. “Yes?” I say, amending my response to him, but still not looking his way.
“I um... hey, Emi,” he says, seeing my mother sitting on the edge of the bed. I turn around to see her, noticing that she straightened the linens.
“Good morning, Jon,” she says. “Jacks, we should wait in the car.”
Finally, I look in Jon’s direction. “Clothes,” he mumbles to me. “They’re in the dresser.”
“We’ll be downstairs,” my father announces, practically running to the door. Mom smiles at me, squeezing my shoulder on her way out.
“Sorry,” I tell Jon, getting up quickly once I realize his problem. With my parents, gone, though, he walks out of the bathroom, holding a towel around his waist. “I’ll get them.”
“I’ve got it. Just finish getting ready.” He’s equally short with me.
“They’ll wait,” I assure him.
“The longer they wait, the longer your dad’s going to have to stew over why we’re running late in the first place.”
“Jon–”
“I’d prefer to never again be naked and ten feet away from him, okay? Is that such a ridiculous thing to ask?”
I duck my head into my lap and laugh to myself, feeling my cheeks blush. I hide all evidence of levity when I look up again, still remembering the conversation he began that ruined our morning. I finish putting on mascara, watching him in the mirror as he pulls on his clothes and towel dries his hair. He puts on his glasses, and I can’t help but notice how cute he looks. It’s rare that he wears shorts, so when he does, he seems so boyish to me. His messy hair and skater sneakers make him look like the teen he no longer is.
I immediately soften, recognizing how much I love him, even when I’m mad at him. It’s a good thing, too, because I don’t want to be fighting in front of my parents all day.
“Is this okay?” he asks, holding his arms out for inspection.
“You look nice,” I tell him, standing and facing him.
“You do, too,” he concedes. I walk up to him and give him a hug. “Let’s just be civil today, but I would like the chance to explain myself later.”
“Okay. I’m sure we’ll have some time to ourselves. I’m going to dry my hair, and then I’ll be ready. Can you gather my things?”
“Yep,” he answers, kissing my forehead before releasing me.
“So, since we’ve seen the city, I thought we might drive around the island today,” Dad says.
The island goes from bustling city to beautiful, pristine nature quickly, with short mountains on one side and the ocean on the other. We can see the mainland not too far away, with lots of boats in the sea between the island and Brazil proper. There are a few places where tourists have pulled over to take pictures, but every time my dad tries to follow their lead, my mom convinces him to drive on. We travel for another twenty minutes before we pull onto what may have once been a gravel road, but has since been overrun with tall grasses. Dad pops the trunk, grabbing my mother’s camera from the back. Jon stays still when I start to get out.
“Are you coming?” I ask him.
“In a minute.”
“Okay,” I whisper, allowing him to take his time. I hear the trunk close and watch my parents wander through some of the weeds, carefully watching their steps along the way. Dad follows Mom closely, keeping his finger linked with hers.
Once out of the car and armed with my camera, I stop in my tracks to truly take in the entirety of my surroundings. It smells like the ocean and sounds like nothing I’ve ever heard before. Gentle lapping waves break the shoreline that I can’t see from my vantage point. A few birds take turns singing their tunes. I’ve never heard these birds before. The view, though, is incomparable to anything I’ve ever seen.
Never has the world seemed so vast. The clear sky is endless against the ocean, which also stretches its way into nothingness. The vision actually fools my eyes, making it hard to distinguish where one entity ends and the other begins. In what I thought was only water, I see a ship in the distance, and then another. As I look harder, there are more boats breaking up the horizon line. I’m guessing they’re fishing boats, having heard that fishing was big business down here. I walk in the direction opposite my parents, toward the mountains and not the ocean, hoping that I can find a spot higher up that will allow me to see the place where this island meets the water. At one point, I look back, seeing my parents watching me. I wave at them, letting them know I’m okay. They wave back and continue on. As they walk, I take out my camera and zoom in on them, capturing them. Dad has his arm across my mother’s shoulders, and her head rests on his. I know instantly it’s one of my favorite pictures I’ve ever taken.
Those are my parents. They’re the best parents in the world. Truly, no matter what other man and woman created me, these two people are the only two parents I ever want to know. May Simone DeLuca rest in peace, and I do thank her for my life, but I can’t imagine it without Mom and Dad. And as for Isaiah Grate... he’s just a man that has my eyes and recognizes my smile who sculpts things. That’s all he will ever be to me.
I see movement from the car, noticing that Jon is finally getting out, his sketchpad in hand. I walk a little farther up until the beach appears just past the tall grass. There are no people on the beach, but there’s a sailboat not too far that might be headed this way. The only way to access this beach would be from a boat. I imagine what it would be like, having a beach all to myself. I snap a picture of the colorful sail against the deep blue water. I could stay up here all day, and look for a place to sit down. A tree stump, a dry patch of–
“Ahhh!” I scream, seeing something slither across the ground next to me.
“What’s wrong?” I hear Jon yell, but I’m unable to take my eyes off of the snake that now seems just as frozen as I am. I wonder if it fears me the way I fear it, or if it’s thinking I’d make a good meal. I try to recognize its markings from my earth science class, but I don’t know if it’s poisonous or not. I take a step away from it, but it inches a little closer to me.
“Contessa? What is it?”
“Snake,” I say quietly, testing my voice, not wanting to provoke the reptile. I know that no one can hear me, so I say it a little louder, watching the subtle movement of the snake’s tail. Will it be like a dog, and straighten out before it lunges at me? “Snake!” The animal doesn’t seem phased by my voice.
“Stay here, Em,” my dad says. “Jon, just grab whatever you can from the car.”
I finally get the nerve to look away, and my dad is much closer than I expect him to be. It seemed to take me so long getting up this hill, but I guess I was just too busy taking in the scenery to make a quick trip out of its ascension.
“Can you describe it to me?” Dad asks.
“It’s dark with... I don’t know, with lighter brown zigzags or something.”
“Slowly now... take a step toward me.” I do as he asks. “Did it move?”
“Not this time.”
“Shit,” I hear him say under his breath.
“What?” I ask, looking at him again.
“Don’t look to your right, Tessa. Take another step straight toward me.”
“There’s another one, Jack,” I hear Jon say, causing me to whip my head to the right, just as Dad asked me not to. Sure enough, another snake just like this one is watching me in the same manner.
I scream again, this time taking off in a sprint down the hill. I breeze past my dad, whose eyes are trained on the second viper. Jon glances back and forth between Dad and the snake. “Dad, run. Go, Jon. Just go!”
I hear Jon right behind me, and after making sure a good distance divides me and the predators, I look back. My dad is walking casually down the hill toward us, and I can hear a little laughter.
“What’s so funny?” I yell at him.
“I’m fairly certain that one was sleeping. He didn’t budge.”
“Well the other one was moving,” I say, deliberately picking up my feet higher as I continue to run down the hill. I don’t stop until I reach the bottom. Jon stopped about halfway down, waiting for Dad with the duffle bag in one hand and a crowbar in the other.
Mom envelops me quickly. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Just out of breath.” Dad and Jon are laughing as they walk together.
“Jacks, hurry,” Mom says.
“Poppet, we’re coming. We’re fine. Jon’s gonna kill anything that comes at us with a crowbar and an empty duffel bag, apparently.”
“Well, I didn’t see a shovel anywhere in the rental, Jack,” Jon says sarcastically. “You should ask for a refund.” Dad puts his hand on Jon’s shoulder until they final hit level ground again.
“I guess I forgot to ask for the body-burying model,” Dad teases. He immediately comes over to me, too, putting his arms around both me and my mother. “Don’t scare me like that again, Tessa,” he says with a sigh.
“I got a good picture of you and Mom,” I tell him.
“Well, I’d hate it if that was your parting gift,” he responds. “Let’s stay on paths from now on. Okay?”
“I’m never getting out of the car again,” I tell them. “Can we go?” Jon opens the door to the backseat and puts the crowbar under the seat. He tosses the bag in, too, then comes over to me. My parents back away, giving us a moment of privacy.
He says nothing, but looks at me as if he has something to say. He puts the pad of his thumb on my earlobe. I close my eyes briefly and nestle into his hand. When I look back up, he moves in for a kiss, massaging the back of my neck while he holds my head to his. He breaks away first, hugging me tightly. I can feel his heart racing.
“Let’s go to some more populated places,” Mom suggests as she climbs into the car. Jon and I follow suit, and he puts his arm around me and lets me rest my head on his shoulder as we make our way around the island.
Floripa, as we’ve learned the island is called by locals, has a few lagoons. I’ve never been in one before, and when we get out of the car and make our way toward the water, I wish I’d brought a swimming suit. There’s a small beach crowded with people, but the people in the water seem to be having so much fun that I wish I could be a part of it. In the summer–their winter–it will probably be too cold for that.
“I don’t think you’ll have snakes to worry about here,” Dad says. “I think Mom and I are going to check out some shops to try to find souvenirs for Jackson and the family. You’re welcome to join us, or–”
“I think we’ll go explore,” I cut him off, having no desire to shop. “If that’s okay.”
“Fine with me,” Jon says. We arrange for a time to meet back up this evening, and head in opposite directions. “Where to?”
“How do we get to the rocks?” I ask him, pointing to huge stones jutting out of the ocean in the distance.
“It looks like a bit of a hike,” he says. “You up for it?” He glances at my shoes, impressed to see that I’ve donned a pair of sneakers with my dress.
“Let’s go.” After getting directions from a group of people coming toward us, we start walking. I take quite a few pictures within the first half hour, finally coming to terms with the fact that I should probably be more selective with my photography since we still have hours left in the day. When I put away the camera, Jon offers to carry it for me. We hadn’t said more than twenty words to one another since we started our walk, both of us ignoring the lingering tension from this morning.
“So is now a good time to talk?” he finally asks me.
“Sure,” I tell him, remembering easily where we left off and feeling the need to recap. “You were telling me how insecure you were about our relationship, and I was trying to reinforce to you that I’ve done everything possible to make you understand how m
uch I want to make this work. If what I’ve already done hasn’t convinced you of that, what more do you need? I’ll do it. Do you need to see it in action every day? Do you need to wake up with me every morning? If you’re this insecure, then why are you telling me to come here for the summer? Staying in New York seems to be the right choice for us–”
“That isn’t what I was thinking or implying, Liv. Shit,” he says with a sigh. “You know what? I shouldn’t have brought up being insecure. I certainly wasn’t referring to anything that’s happened in our past, though. I wouldn’t do that.”
“Then what were you saying?”
“I don’t know.” He’s quiet, navigating over the big rocks that take us further out into the ocean. He offers his hand once, but I don’t take it, determined to make it there on my own. A couple times, we literally have to jump to make it from one to the next. If my mind wasn’t on our argument, I’d probably be scared, but I feel strangely adventurous today. I survived a snake attack, after all. I laugh to myself, remembering Dad telling me that one was sleeping. I must have looked silly up there.
When we reach the last rock–a big one that barely juts out of the water but is big enough for us both to sit atop–he stares out at the horizon. “I’m not insecure,” he says finally. “Jealous, maybe. Not insecure.”
I slip my fingers through his, but he doesn’t hold on. Instead, he puts his arm across my shoulders and kisses my temple. After that, he puts my things down and sits down on the rock. I join him seconds later. He scoots over so his arm is touching mine. I take my shoes off, setting them behind me as I dip my toes into the cool water. Jon does the same.
“I think I know what’s going on. You’re afraid. That’s it.”
I sigh as I tilt my head to rest on his shoulder. “Yeah,” I admit.
“What are you scared of?”
“I’m scared that I’ll be... changed here. That I’ll become someone different.”
“Absolutely you will,” he says, smiling.
“That doesn’t frighten you?”