C A I T L Y N
We met on the beach at dawn. I was sitting on a bench, smoking my last cigarette, hoping it woke me up, when Ethan stepped off the bus, holding his brother's hand, a heavy-looking backpack on his shoulders, and his surfboards under his arm. Unlike myself, he didn't look tired at all.
When he saw me, he smiled, and said, "Good morning."
I threw out my cigarette, and said, "Morning."
Ronny waved at me, and I stretched my arms out in response. We had been together enough times over the winter break that I knew not to expect him to actually come running into my arms, but I liked to try anyway, even if just for the hopeful look on Ethan's face. Most days, Ronny would hide behind him, his arms clinging to his leg, face pressed against it, but not today.
Today, he let go of his hand and walked up to me, slowly, but surely, and then wrapped his arms around my waist, and hid his head on my shoulder. I hugged him back, smiling without realizing it, and remembering Sade at the daycare, how in my last day, she had given me a hug like this one, and whispered in my ear that I was her best friend in the whole entire world, only to then run off before I could say anything back. The whole thing had the awkwardness reserved for first times only, like the first-ever I love you, and I remembered wanting to say, me too, I love you too.
I got up with Ronny balanced on my hip, his arms around me, his curls tickling my neck, smelling of kids shampoo, and looked at Ethan, who was reaching for something in his backpack, and then handing it to me.
"Hot coffee," he said.
"For me?"
"No, for Ronny," he said with a face. "Of course it's for you."
"Oh," I took it from him, felt it warm against my cold hand, and smiled. "Thank you."
Ethan smiled back. He didn't care much for gestures of appreciation. I suspected he never really felt he deserved them. He was just doing what he wanted, and it turned out what he wanted was to be good. Ethan was good like I was bad. It came naturally to him. Like breathing. If I thought too much about it, even breathing was hard for me.
He looked around the parking lot. Richard was late. This had been my idea, not that he should be late, but that he should come in the first place.
A few days ago, Richard had invited me to stay for dinner after I went over to hang out with Tristan. I usually said no, because I couldn't stand Linda, or Richard when he was around her, but that night I said yes. My mother wouldn't be home until later that night, and there wasn't anything in the fridge back at home, and I wanted to spend as much time as I could with Tristan, even if I wouldn't admit it to anyone, because I wanted to convince them, as much as myself, that we had all the time in the world.
That night, I sat with them for dinner, and listened to Sam go on and on about how his school had taken everyone down to the beach to pick up trash and raise their pre-pubescent environmental awareness. Sam being Sam had loved spending hours under the sun, throwing his back out for the sake of the planet, but most of all, he had loved watching the surfers out on the water, riding waves bigger than themselves.
And I remembered, "I have a friend who gives surf lessons."
This was a lie, of course. Ethan didn't give surf lessons, but he could. He definitely could.
Richard had been smiling all of a sudden.
Linda had said, "Can you pass me the water?"
Tristan had done it, but not before emptying most of it into his own glass, a petty smile on his face. Linda had pretended not to notice, and instead got up to go to the kitchen and fill up the pitch again.
Then Richard had asked Sam, "Would you like that?"
Sam had been ready to jump off his seat, "Yes, please, yes, please â"
He jumped out of the backseat of Richard's car now and sprinted towards us, too excited for his own good. Next to me, Ethan scratched the back of his head of curls.
When Sam was close enough, he smiled, "Hi, buddy. It's nice to meet you."
Sam stretched out his hand. "It's very nice to meet you too. My brother says he has English with you at school. Do you know him?"
Ethan took his hand, and smiled even more, "Tristan, right?"
Sam nodded too fast, too much, "Right."
"Yeah, I know him. He's nice," Ethan said. Lied. I thought it was a lie, but Ethan said it like it was true.
I couldn't help it, "He's nice?"
Ethan shrugged, "Yeah. He stood up for me once in class. He's pretty nice."
I didn't know I was smiling, but they were both looking at me like I was.
I said, "Yes. Yes, he is."
It had been my secret for a while. I had never had much, but I always had this. This secret that belonged to me and only me. Except not anymore. I didn't think I would be happy about it, but I was. I felt suddenly like a kid showing off my brand-new marbles to the other kids at recess. I'd never had marbles as a kid, but I guessed this was what it felt like.
"Right," Ethan said, looking down at the surfboards under his arms, "Ready?"
Sam jumped up and down, and screamed "Yes!", waving goodbye at Richard, still behind the wheel, waiting to make sure Sam was in good hands. I waved at him, and when Ethan noticed, so did he, one of his angelic smiles on his face. Richard gave us a thumbs up, in the style of the middle-aged dad he was, and drove off.
The morning rolled over like the waves on the shore. I sat on the hot sand with Ronny, watching Ethan waist-deep in the cold water, laughing every time Sam fell off his board.
I felt the burning sun on me, breathed in the sea-salt air, my fingers running through Ronny's curls, his head leaned back against my shoulder, his hand on my leg. I hadn't done drugs in weeks. I hadn't thought about what this meant just yet.
A wave crashed on the sand in front of us and Ronny laughed. In the water, Ethan had Sam on his shoulders, and I remembered my father, being on his shoulders as a kid once. He had been watching a football game and drinking beer, and I had been sitting on the floor, pretending I understood what was happening.
When his team won, he picked me up, threw me on his shoulders, and started jumping up and down, again and again. I remembered laughing and then later crying. He had been so drunk, he had tripped over himself and fallen right on the coffee table. There had been glass everywhere. My father had slapped me across the face for crying so loud he couldn't hear the tv.
In the ocean, Ethan didn't drop Sam, even though he was holding onto him so hard, I doubted he could breathe. Waves kept crashing into them, but Ethan kept his footing, laughing, and laughing, and laughing.
My father had been dead for years. Life had been a funeral ever since. It had always been inappropriate to be happy. Disrespectful. I didn't know how to move on, didn't know if I could. How long could a funeral go on for? At what point was it okay to leave? The coffin had been lowered into the ground. The grave had been covered in dirt. Grass had grown over it. Everyone else had left. No one even came to leave flowers anymore, and when my mother had us visit last month, there had been wild ones growing over it.
That day, my mother said, "That's you. You're the only good thing he ever did."
Me, a good thing. She was wrong. I hadn't been a good thing for a while. If she knew the things that crossed my mind, and what I did to stop them, she wouldn't have said that. She wouldn't have even thought of it.
"I think he's done for today," Ethan said, coming out of the water with Sam still on his shoulders, and both surfboards under his arm.
"Ethan says I'm a natural," Sam said when Ethan put him back down in front of me, dropping the boards on the sand, so he could finally stretch. Both their faces and shoulders were red from the sun, and they could barely breathe.
"Well, Ethan's a liar," I started. "You couldn't even â"
I stopped when Ethan covered Sam's ears so he wouldn't listen to me.
"It was his first time," he warned me. "Be nice."
He let go of Sam and got a towel from his backpack, threw it around his shoulders, and then bent back down to get more things out, a bigger towel that he stretched over the sand, a bottle of water, sandwiches, and an entire watermelon.
"Yours doesn't have sweetcorn," he told me. "I know you don't like it."
"How?" I didn't remember telling him.
"The other day at lunch I heard you saying no to corn on the cob, you know, like a psycho," he said. "Who doesn't like corn on â"
"It's so good!" Sam said, throwing his head back thinking about it.
"You have the palate of a nine-year-old, of course you like it," I said, rolling my eyes, and then looking at Ethan struggling to cut the watermelon, "Anyway, thank you."
He just shrugged. We finished the sandwiches and the watermelon in record time. Ronny abandoned me in favor of his brother, who covered him in sunscreen before letting him go play with Sam in the sand.
I leaned my head back and closed my eyes to the sun, the taste of the watermelon still in my mouth, the sound of the waves crashing on the sand all around me, my feet in the hot sand, and Ethan mumbling some song I didn't know next to me.
After a while, he said, "I applied to community college."
I opened my eyes, "What?"
He was lying on his back, arms crossed under his head, his eyes on me, and the words, "Mr. Wyatt wrote me a recommendation letter. I'm sure he would write you one too â"
"I don't wanna go to college," I stopped him. We'd had this conversation before. "I just wanna start working."
He looked away at the sky, "We could do it together."
I smiled at that. I thought I loved him. Not in the way girls usually loved boys. It was different. I had never given it much thought, but I suspected I wasn't made to love boys like that. I had never wanted to kiss Ethan, just as I had never wanted to kiss Tristan, just as I had never wanted sweetcorn in my food.
"I know they offer art majors â"
"How's your mom?"
He hadn't told me what she was in the hospital for, just that she wasn't going to get out any time soon. He looked back at me, and smiled, "She's better. Thanks for asking."
"Not better enough," I said. "The only reason you're going to community college is so you can still be around for Ronny, right?"
"I've asked to be his legal guardian."
I sat upright, "Ethan."
"It's easier," he said, like there was no other way. "Listen, they have art majors too â"
"I'm not going to college," I stopped him. "And we're not talking about me."
"We are, actually," he said. "I know you like drawing â"
"Stop," I said.
And he smiled, and said, "No."
I shook my head, smiling only to myself, "The world doesn't fucking deserve you."
He looked at Ronny, picking up seashells by the water, "He does."
I didn't say anything else. He was right.
After a while, he put his hand on my shoulder, and said, "Thank you."
I didn't understand, so I asked, "For what?"
"Well." He smiled, "For caring."
I made a face, "I don't."
We both knew I was lying.
"I used to have a crush on you," he said. "The biggest crush I've ever had on anyone."
I laughed, "I'm sorry I ruined that for you."
"You didn't."
"Ethan, I don't â"
"No, that's not what I mean," he said, shaking his head. "I don't have a crush on you anymore, but not because you ruined it. You didn't. I justâ I'm glad we're friends."
"Me too," I said, and I meant it, I really did.