His voice is like an empty room, one that’s been vacated abruptly and completely.
“Please say something.” There is a weight on my chest that is making it hard to breathe, so heavy and fast-spreading that it’s suffocating me. In this moment, I suddenly feel as if the functioning of my organs—lungs, heart—is dependent on him speaking.
“I think it’s better if I don’t.”
“Miah, I’m sorry. I didn’t know what I was doing. I came to find you and you weren’t here….”
He turns to look at me, and the emptiness is in his eyes too. When he speaks, his voice is controlled and quiet. So quiet. “Are you really throwing this on me like it’s my fault? I’m not here, so you might as well get it on with the next guy you find?”
“No, of course not. Look, I didn’t mean it, and I don’t know why I did it. It’s like I was there but I wasn’t there. I know that doesn’t make any sense, and it doesn’t make it okay, but that’s how it felt.”
“You can’t use sex or kissing or anything to erase shit. Jesus, Claude.”
He never calls me Claude, and then I can feel them—the tears burning the backs of my eyelids. Before I can stop it, one leaks out and down my cheek.
“If it makes you feel any better, it only made me feel worse.”
“No, it doesn’t make me feel any better. But hey, I get it. Life can be shitty, and that stuff with your dad, that’s just fucked up. But I didn’t do that, Captain. That wasn’t me.” He sits there calmly. So calmly. His voice is even and measured and completely devoid of emotion, and I’ve done this to him.
He gets up, and for a second I think he’s going to hug me. But then he pulls on his shorts, slips on his shirt, and walks out of the room. I wait one, two, three seconds, and then I throw on my clothes and follow him. Without looking at me, he opens the front door.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“I’m driving you home.”
* * *
—
The drive to Addy’s seems like it takes three years. As we pull up, as he stops the truck, as we sit there with the engine idling, which tells me he’s not walking me to the door, I say, “I’m sorry.”
I’ve never in my life wanted to go back in time to fix something like I want to right now. If only I hadn’t gone to the Dip. If only I hadn’t crashed into Grady. If only I hadn’t gone up to his room. I run through it all over and over again, like reliving it will somehow change the outcome.
“I’m sorry,” I say again.
“Me too.”
* * *
—
Half an hour later, on the pull-out sofa, I lie back, head on the pillow. I am alone in my head and alone with myself, the most dangerous place I could be.
He’s got every right to be hurt and angry. You’d be hurt and angry too. You know you were wrong and you hate that you were wrong, but that doesn’t change anything. You need to say you’re sorry and keep saying you’re sorry and stop being so afraid of being you.
I dig the blue notebook out of my dresser and write every last, horrible thought.
DAY 25
The next morning, we walk Addy to the dock so she can meet the ferry. Miah carries her overstuffed luggage like it’s weightless, and when we get to the pier, Grady is sitting there with Emory and a couple of the local guys. His eyes go to me and then to Miah. He stands. “I’ll take it from here.”
“That’s okay,” Miah says. “I got it.”
He strides past him, sweeps the bag up as if it doesn’t weigh eighty-five pounds, and swings it onto the ferry. Addy offers him a tip but he holds up his hands and backs away. “Not necessary,” he tells her, flashing that grin.
“See you later,” he says to me. Not See you in an hour or See you later tonight, just See you later. I watch as he walks past Grady again, as Grady calls something out to him that I can’t hear, as Miah keeps right on going without a word, Grady watching him the whole way.
“What was that about?” Mom is next to me.
“You know. Men.” I say it lightly, but I’m looking at her face for signs that she agrees because she knows about my dad and