I almost say nothing. But the thing is, I do want to talk about it. And he’s here. And he’s asking. And he’s not about to run off, at least not while he’s driving. Besides, I don’t have to say much. He doesn’t know my family or me, so it’s not as if I’m giving our secrets away.
“It’s my parents. My dad, actually.”
His smile flickers out like a candle flame just extinguished. You can still see the trace of it, but it’s turned to smoke. “Dads.” And in that moment, I see it—he’s got his own dad story.
“They’re separated. Like, just separated.”
“Sorry.”
“Thanks.” And then, like an idiot, I start to cry.
Under his breath he goes, “Shit.”
In a minute I feel the truck roll to a stop, and he’s reaching for me across the seat and wrapping me in his arms. He doesn’t say anything, just lets me cry. At first I let myself go, mostly because I can’t stop. My face is pressed into his shirt, and one of his arms is around me and the other is stroking my hair, and this makes me cry harder, so hard that I’m worried I won’t ever be able to quit. Into his shirt I say, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” But it comes out muffled and garbled because I’m crying so hard. And then I think, Oh my God, what if I never stop? What if we’re still sitting here in August? Because that’s how many tears I have inside me.
But I have to stop because I don’t know this person and he doesn’t know me, and people don’t like you to cry or talk about things that are hard or upsetting. They like you to smile and say everything’s fine, which is why I gather all the pieces of me and put them back together enough that I can sit there, hiccupping and shaking, and say, “I’m okay. Just being stupid. Sorry. Maybe I had more to drink than I thought.” And wipe my face dry and sit straight as a board, not touching him, all on my own like a big girl.
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Because I haven’t seen a flood like that since the last hurricane.”
“Nope. I’m good.”
He kind of pats the side of my head, and then he drives on, one hand on the wheel, the other on the window, eyes on the road.
In a minute he goes, “How you doing over there?”
“I’m okay.”
I manage to keep my head up, even though it weighs a hundred pounds, and smile at him so he can see it’s true.
I say, “I thought you weren’t allowed to have vehicles on the island.”
“Park Service, the inn, and residents. I bought the truck off my friends Bram and Shirley.”
“Do you live here?”
“Only during summer, but I’ve been coming here since I was thirteen.”
“Because even if you do leave, you end up coming back?”
He glances at me, eyebrows raised. “Actually, yeah.”
“Jared told me that.”
He nods. “I thought maybe we’d won you over.”
“Yeah, no. So why here?”
“It was either this or juvie. I haven’t always been the clean, upstanding citizen you see before you.”
I glance at his bare feet on the pedals. At the way his elbow is draped on the open window, his hand resting there, perfectly at home.
“Are you ever serious?” It comes out before I can stop myself.
“Sometimes.”
He shoots me a smile, which flashes in the dark of the cab like a firefly.
I say, “I don’t want to go back to the house yet.”
“What about your mom? Won’t you be missed?”
I lie. “No. She’s asleep by now.”
* * *
—
He leads me toward a place called Little Blackwood Beach. Just past the dunes, he sits down and gestures for me to do the same.
“What are we doing?” I whisper because there’s something stealthy and secretive about it all.
“We’re waiting.” Out here in the night, under the moon, his own voice is soft and blurred.
I want to ask him what we’re waiting for, but his energy is like my mom’s. Calming and soothing and warm like a campfire. My head spins a bit from the beer and the night and him.
We sit and wait.
And wait.
I’ve stopped crying, but I can still feel it in my eyes and my nose and my entire body, as if the tears were blood, and now that they’re gone, I’m empty.
Finally I say, “What are we waiting for?”
“Loggerhead turtles. They swim hundreds of miles to give birth here. Most years—between May and August, sometimes