Jake has a deep tan, too. Not as dark as Laney’s, but his skin is a nice ruddy brown. It makes his eyes look even greener.
For lunch we walk down the street to a farmers’ market on the pier. Laney buys a homemade decorative birdcage, its metal bars painted a vibrant teal. Jake picks up a loaf of homemade bread, all kinds of fruit and, curiously enough, a bouquet of fresh carnations. Back at the beach Laney and I try to braid the flowers into each other’s hair. Mine is too slippery and thin, but a stem weaves into her long curls perfectly, swaying slightly with every turn of her head.
It’s a good day. Relaxing. Just what we needed. We spend the afternoon combing the beach for shells and lying out on our towels until the heat is unbearable, then plunging into the surf to cool down. You can’t make it too far out before a massive wave rumbles in and sends you toppling. Jake hoists Laney onto his shoulders and lets me try to push her off—he has the height advantage, but I have moxie, and eventually I’m able to tackle him into the water.
“That was not due to your moxie,” he says later that night. The sun set a while ago, and we’d all trudged back to the motel; Laney decided to curl up under the covers and watch television while Jake and I sit in the outside hallway, playing cards. “That was due to the monstrous wave that knocked me off of my feet.”
“Then that just means the gods are on my side. The god of the sea. Which one would that be? Triton?”
“No, you’re thinking of The Little Mermaid. You meant to say Poseidon. Unless we’re talking Roman mythology, then it would be Neptunus.”
“You know, for someone who needed a tutor, you seem to know a lot.”
“Mmm.” He pauses to light his cigarette, then lays down his last card—the king of clubs. “Well, for someone with such moxie, you’re pretty bad at Crazy Eights.”
I roll my eyes and pool the cards together. “All right, your deal. I’m going to go check on Laney.”
I let myself into the room. On the television a brighteyed woman flails and gestures excitedly with her hands toward a vegetable juicer. I look over at Laney; the glow from the television makes her skin look eerily blue. She’s on her back with her eyes closed, and she looks so still.
Too still.
Just like that I’m back in the garage, looking through the backseat window at June, sprawled there, motionless, pill bottle in her limp hand. And I’m throwing open the door, shaking her as hard as I can, saying her name over and over, oh God please wake up June June June oh God please don’t leave me you have to wake up wakeupwakeupwakeup, but she’s cold already, she’s so cold, and then someone else is there, saying my name, but I’m not listening because I have to wake up June, June, wake up—
“Harper. Harper. Harper!”
I blink and the image is gone. My hands are on Laney’s shoulders, shaking her, and she’s staring at me with eyes like saucers, confused and scared. And breathing. She’s breathing. Relief cuts through me so sharply that it knocks me back a step—which is when I realize Jake is there, too, his hand steadying between my shoulder blades.
“I’m sorry,” I choke out. “I’m sorry. I thought—”
Dead. I thought she was dead, but I can’t say that out loud. I turn on my heel and stumble into the bathroom, retch into the toilet a few times until my stomach cramps and spasms because there’s nothing more in it to expel. Laney crouches behind me, her hand stroking my hair.
Eventually I shrug her off and stand. “I’m fine,” I promise, after I’ve rinsed out my mouth and splashed my face with some cold water. “Go back to bed. I just need some air. I’m fine. Really.”
It’s a lie and she knows it, and she knows I know she knows it, but she won’t call me out on it.
No one ever calls me out on it.
Once I’ve convinced Laney to go back to bed, I step into the outside hallway. Jake stands at the railing, his back to me, and turns quickly when I close the door, like he wasn’t expecting me, like he hasn’t been waiting. It’s obvious this is exactly what he was waiting for, though. His eyes give him away.
I lean back against the wall and slide slowly to the ground. I don’t think I’m going to throw up again, but there’s still this twisted nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. Like when you forget you had an essay worth half your grade due until the teacher starts collecting the papers.
Jake sits across from me and asks, “Is everything all right?” I know that by everything he means me, specifically.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m still alive.” And then I laugh, but it sounds weird, hollow, and that must not be the appropriate reaction because he’s looking at me like he’s concerned, and I kind of hate it, so I say, “I already told you not to do that.”
“Not do what?”
“You keep being…nice. And then you do a total dick move, and then you redeem yourself by doing something stupid like letting yourself get punched in the face.”
There’s a shadow of a bruise under his right eye. I want to reach across and touch it. I would, if I think he’d let me.
“It’s not the first time I’ve been laid out,” he says quietly, and I know he’s not talking about stupid high school fisticuffs, but something more. His dad, probably. I wonder what it’s like, to live with that, to fear your parents. My dad isn’t around, and even when he was he was like a ghost, never really there. Still, I know he would never raise a hand to me. I’ve never had to be afraid of him causing me any physical harm. Emotional, on the other hand.
Parents are supposed to protect you, but they seem to be really, really lousy at it.
I look down, push my hair behind my ears and change the subject. “Uh, so I meant to thank you. For earlier, when you offered to—to pay, for Laney’s—”
Jake cuts me off with a shake of his head and says, “Don’t mention it.”
He eases two clementines out of the bag, my pocket knife in one hand. I gave it to him earlier to cut the white netting. He uses it to peel the clementines, his hands working in smooth, practiced motions.
“I’m surprised you have that much money, just lying around,” I say, and he shoots me a sharp look. I realize he probably thinks I’m insulting him for being—well, for being unlike Laney, comfortably upper middle-class, or even unlike my family, less comfortably middle-class, but generally able to stay afloat. “Not that I think you’re—I’m not trying to…” I blush guiltily. “It’s a good chunk of change, for anyone.”
“I know what you mean,” he says. He doesn’t sound offended, at least. “Plus, you’re right. I don’t have the money lying around. But I can get it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I spent most of my savings on this little expedition, but between what I’ll have left over and what I can get off of selling the Hendrix record Seth gave me, it’d be enough to cover it.” He holds out a slice of clementine. “Here, try this.”
“What?” I don’t take the fruit. “Jake, you can’t do that.”
“Fine then. More for me,” he says, popping the slice in his mouth and smiling around it.
“I’m talking about the record.”
He sighs. “I know.”
“You can’t sell it. It’s too valuable. It means something to you.” If not on a monetary level, a personal one.
I can’t believe Jake is willing to sacrifice that autographed record—he’ll never admit it, but I know how much it means to him. I saw the way he looked when Seth handed it over, how impressed he’d been. That total awe written across his face. Music is everything to Jake.
“I’m not nearly as sentimental as you paint me to be, Scott.”
I stare at him. “Yes, you are. I know it’s important to you.”
“Not as important as some things.” He pushes a clementine into my hands. “Come on, eat this. I’ll deal.”
Not as important as some things. Like what? Like Laney? Like me? Like June? I’m still trying to understand what she meant to him. I believe him when he says they weren’t, you know, involved, but there had to be so
mething there to make him care so much. To compel him to drive us all the way across the country on her behalf.
“Do you think it’s my fault?” I blurt out. Jake frowns at me, so I clear my throat and say, “For not knowing anything was wrong. With June.” I look down at my hands. “I know you probably blame me for it.”
“I don’t blame you.”
I scoff. “Come on. Admit it. When I saw you at the wake, you hated me. You didn’t even know me and you hated me.”
“That’s not—I didn’t—I mean…” He rolls a clementine back and forth against the ground. I watch the movement so I don’t have to look at his face. “I…I guess maybe I did hate you, a little, when I first heard what happened,” he admits.
He lets go of the clementine, and I look at him, even though it hurts to hear this. At least he hasn’t lied to me. He only knows how to hurt me with the truth.
“But that was stupid,” he adds. “I just wanted to think it was someone’s—anyone’s—fault. I thought someone closer to her, someone in her family, should’ve seen something was wrong. I was so pissed at myself for not realizing.” He takes a breath, drawing his gaze up from the clementine to meet mine. “And…and all that was before I knew you.”
Does Jake really know me? It is weird, that I’ve only known him for so little time, but I feel like I’ve told him more about myself than anyone I know, maybe even more than Laney. I guess it was easier, since we didn’t have any history, for me to be honest. Because even if he judged me, it wasn’t like it mattered. Except that doesn’t feel true anymore. It feels like it does matter, what he thinks. I want him to know everything and still not hate me for it.
“I’m the one who found her,” I say. I don’t know why I say it. Maybe because it’s harder to not say it—like trying to contain a thunderstorm in a mason jar. Maybe because I feel like I owe it to him, for driving us all the way out here, for being here and not expecting anything in return. Maybe because I want to touch his bruises and his scars and let him touch mine, the ones that aren’t on my skin.
He freezes in the middle of dealing the cards, sets them down slowly and just looks at me. Waiting.
“Laney picks me up in the mornings, because June always went to school early to study or tutor or do whatever it is she did, and I went through the garage to wait.” I can remember that part perfectly: stuffing books haphazardly in my bag, grabbing a half-finished essay on Nathaniel Hawthorne off the table and an apple from the fridge, annoyed because I’m running late and if I’m tardy for first period again I’m going to get another detention. “All of the lights were off, which was weird, and June’s car was there and the engine was on. So I turned on the lights and opened the garage door, and I went to ask her for a ride since Laney wasn’t there yet. It smelled like there was a lot of exhaust, but I didn’t really—I mean, I didn’t think about it. I went around to the driver’s side, but it was empty, and then I looked in the backseat.”
I thought she was sleeping at first. Her eyes were closed, and she was curled up on the seat, one arm hanging down to the floor. It wasn’t until I opened the door to wake her up that I realized something was wrong. It was her skin—it was so pale. Not just pale, but sallow. Eggshell-white. Like there was no life in it.
Jake is silent, so I take a deep breath and go on. “I thought she was taking a nap,” I say, and almost laugh a little to myself at the strangeness of it. “I went to wake her up, and I saw her face, and—and I knew, you know? I knew. She didn’t look like herself. I knew she was gone.”
Some people say that if you experience a traumatic event, your mind blacks out and represses it as a coping mechanism, so it’s just this empty void. Like selective amnesia. I guess it’s like your brain’s survival tool because if you remembered, you’d be too traumatized to function.
Well, I remember everything. I remember exactly what she looked like in that car. I remember my mom’s face when the paramedics told her the news. I remember how I screamed and screamed and didn’t stop. I remember it all.
I wish so much that I didn’t.
“I am so mad at her,” I tell him. It’s hard to admit that. I’m ashamed for being as angry as I am. I mean, she was in so much pain, she had to be, to do what she did, and logically I know it’s not fair of me to hate her for it. But no one said emotions are fair. Part of me still thinks she was a selfish bitch, for bailing on me and our mom and everyone else, for leaving me with nothing but the pieces of so many shattered lives and a guilt that will never, ever go away. “She didn’t even say goodbye, or leave a note, or anything, and I hate her for that. I should’ve seen it coming. I should’ve done something.”
The night air is clear and cool and silent, save for the bugs humming around the buttery-yellow lamps overhead, a car’s wheels sounding against pavement as it guns out of the parking lot. And beyond that, faint echoes of the ocean tide.
“You can’t hold yourself responsible for what she did,” Jake says, so softly I barely hear him. “There’s nothing you could have done. Nothing.”
I shake my head. “You don’t know that.”
“Come on, Harper. You’re smarter than that. It was her choice. Hers, not yours.”
I feel like he’s lying, except he’s never lied before, he never sugarcoats anything, so why would he start now? And if he’s right, it doesn’t really change anything. It may not be my fault, but she’s still gone, she still chose to leave. I’ll still always wonder why I wasn’t enough.
My eyes water, my breath catching in dry not-quite sobs. Jake moves toward me, but I wave him off.
“I’m fine,” I insist, swallowing hard, trying to shove the emotion down again.
He says, “You’re not fine. And that’s okay. No one is expecting you to be okay right now.”
“It doesn’t matter, okay?” I whisper. “How I am—it’s not important. It doesn’t matter.”
One of his hands falls across the inside of my knee. I turn my head to see his face, hovering inches from mine. His expression is so open and understanding and sympathetic that my throat closes up just looking at it.
He leans close and says, “It matters to me,” right against my mouth, and then kisses me like he means it.
I’ve thought about what it’d be like to kiss Jake over the past few days, way more than I’d care to admit. But I don’t even have time to register the firm press of his lips against mine, without breath, before he pulls back. His face freezes, eyes wide with oh shit written across them. Maybe I’d be offended if I wasn’t so sure that my own expression matches his perfectly.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” he blurts out. “I’m an idiot.”
“Yeah,” I agree, “you really are.”
I grab the collar of his shirt and tug him back to me. He makes a muffled sound of surprise in the back of his throat, hesitating for a heartbeat before his mouth opens against mine. Suddenly we’re kissing for real—clumsy at first as we feel each other out, but then I shift forward into his lap, fall against his chest and tip my head down, and it’s like two puzzle pieces snapping into place.
He tastes exactly the way I thought he would, of cigarettes and citrus and salt. The ocean. And he kisses like I thought he would, too, hard and hot and urgent, and way better than anyone I’ve made out with before. Not that there’s a long list or anything, just a few sloppy hookups at parties I can count on one hand with guys who used too much tongue and didn’t know what to do with their hands.
Jake knows exactly what to do with his hands. One cups my jaw while the other wraps around my back to pull me in flush against him. I grab at his neck, and one of his legs accidentally knocks into the bag of clementines. A few roll out across the floor.
He falters for a second like he’s contemplating reaching for them. I shake my head, mumble against his lips, “Leave it,” because I don’t want him to stop, and then he’s pressing back, hands moving down to fit around my hip bones. He uses them to push me to my feet.
We stumble through the door to hi
s room, never breaking contact, and he shoves me up against the wall, kisses me as hard as he can. I think I’ll float up out of my body, being kissed like that, but he anchors me down with his hands pinning my wrists to the wall, his hips pressed against mine.
I push back, break my arms from his grip so I can wrap them around him, pull him even closer. God, I love his mouth, love his hands. I’d climb inside his skin if I could. We kiss like we’re drowning, gasping and desperate.
“Wait.” Jake breaks away first, leaving both of us out of breath. For a second I think he will pull back completely, say something like, We can’t do this, it’s not right, I’m sorry, but instead he grins and says, “How about some music?”
He moves to the CD player on the dresser. I stand behind him, pulling his jacket off his shoulders as he flips through his collection case. I don’t want to stop touching him. I can’t get enough now that I’ve started.
“One-track mind much?” I say into the back of his neck.
“Hey, the sound track is vital. It sets the mood.”
This feels more like us. It’s easy to slip into this comfortable back-and-forth banter with him, helps to ease the anxious ache in my stomach. But I’m still nervous, because I know what this is leading up to. What I want to do with him.
“I’m sure.” My sarcasm has to be predictable at this point, but it’s my most reliable defense mechanism for a reason. “So what do you have in mind?” I ask. “ABBA’s Greatest Hits?“
Jake laughs. “Tempting, but I’m thinking something more along the lines of—” He pauses. “Hold on. I found the perfect choice.”
I try and peer around him to see his pick, but he jams it into the player and presses Play before I can sneak a look. The first track cues up and answers my question anyway. The beginning riff of “Touch Me” by the Doors blasts out, startling me into laughter. Jake turns and serenades me, his arms wrapped around my waist, swaying us back and forth in time to the music. I sing along until the sight of his exaggerated facial expressions breaks my voice off into laughter again, and then I’m laughing into his mouth.