“Able to hit a g-spot in three-point-five seconds!” I yell, just to piss him off. I’m successful, and he takes his plate of bacon, stomping off back into the other tent. I smile at Elliot and offer him a plate. “Hungry?”
He takes it and sits down across from me, eyeing me warily. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I feel great. Sorry about yesterday. I think it was just a lot of excitement and emotions. Everything should be okay from now on. I promise.” Lying to people about being fine has become such second nature that I don’t even know I’m doing it most of the time. I do right now, though. Elliot doesn’t deserve to be lied to. I just can’t shake the voices in my head from earlier and the thoughts they planted there, even if they’re quieter now than before.
“If it was my fault …”
“No. None of it was. You’re great. You’ve been great and you’re amazing. We’re going to Alabama next. Then Mississippi. Then back to Tennessee. After that, you’ve got the rest of your summer to do whatever with. And hopefully you’ll have everything you need to make a kick ass game and become a billionaire. I’ll get a magazine with your face on it and tell my friends you had your hand down my pants once. It’ll be my claim to fame.”
“Audrey …” His lips are pulled thin.
“What?” I laugh and stand up again, stepping away from the table. “Besides some merchandise with my cookie shitting unicorn—”
“Stop.” He gets up, too, and comes around the table to stand toe to toe with me. With a gentle tug, he pulls me with him back inside the tent. It’s starting to feel like home, and that’s exactly why we need to take it down immediately and get back in the car to our next destination. “When this trip is over, I don’t plan on just walking away from this. Whatever this is.”
“This?” I ask. “We made out. It got weird. We slept in a sleeping bag together a few times. We can go back to being friends and stuff.”
“I don’t want to, though.” His hands are on my hips, and I can’t even look him in the eye.
“But I do.”
“You’re a terribly bad liar. Is this because of last night? I can handle last night. If you’ll just talk to me about what’s going on with you—all of what’s going on with you, then—”
“I don’t even know what’s going on with me, Elliot. Okay? That’s the truth. All this shit up here? I don’t know where it comes from. I don’t know the source, so I don’t know how to fix it. If I can’t fix it, you can’t fix it. So all I’m going to do it mess up your life and everyone else’s life just like I did for my mom and Patrick and Miranda. Granny Ruth. And this other guy? Who is he? Who the hell knows what happened to him. I’m a human stain. Cline’s right. You should run as far away as you can, because I’m just gonna fuck everything up for you.”
“Holy shit. That’s what you think? You think because you get sad sometimes or you do weird things to cope with feeling overwhelmed, or you have panic attacks, that you ruin people’s lives?”
I’m silent, because I know the answer and he does, too. I expect that this is the moment he grabs his stuff and walks away. Or tells me to get another ride home. Instead, he laughs.
“This is really going to suck for you.”
“What is?” I ask.
He leans in close so that his lips are right next to my ear, and he whispers, sending goosebumps down my neck and arm, “You’re going to find out that I’m not going to give up on you over something as stupid as that. Then you’re going to realize you’re worth fighting for. And I’m going to be the one to prove it to you.”
Jumping from the cliff takes my breath away, a rush of excitement flowing through my arms, up around my sternum into my chest cavity where I can feel my heart almost explode out of my chest. The water is chilly as I land and slice through, arms extended, breath held, eyes open. Everything is green and white, bubbles from my lips and nose rising to surface as I begin to exhale.
My mother is staring back at me from beneath the water, smiling, her hair long and swirling around us both.
It shocks me and I inhale, suddenly aware that I should be choking, but I’m not. I can breathe. I can breathe underwater?
I try again, and once more, I am breathing but still submerged. She’s still there, treading along with me, smiling with encouragement, and I reach out to touch her, but my hands are balled into fists. I can’t unclench them, and I watch, panic stricken, as I begin to sink, unable to extend a hand to ask for help, but I am still breathing, watching her disappear as I sink deeper into the darkness.
“Audrey, we’re making a stop.” Elliot’s voice pulls me from my dream, and I wake with a start in the front seat of his car, covered in summer afternoon sweat. My feet are bare against his dashboard, and there’s a kink in my neck that reminds me that I am very much alive and most likely not a mermaid that can breathe underwater. This is both a good revelation and something that makes me sad at the same time.