I start to recognize the rhythm of our days—how there seem to be windows of time we can be out on the water, or under the sun. I try to be careful, try to see any limitations he might have. Our only one seems to be when he needs to take his meds. I try to anticipate it. When I think the time is coming for him to take a dose, I make sure to busy myself with whatever distraction I can find: wildflowers growing along a trail, a line of pelicans gliding low over the surface of the ocean, searching for shells in the sand. I try to give him a few moments to himself for those things he doesn’t want me to see.
I learn from him all the things he does want me to see in the details he points out and in the things he says. I learn that he admires his dad but that he is closest to his grandfather, who passed on his love of the sea and all its old sailors’ legends. He knows just about every constellation in the sky and the stories behind all of them. He really does think each day can be better than the last.
I think he learns from me, too. I let things come out without him having to ask. I tell him about running with Ryan, and about Gran and her Red Hat ladies. I tell him I’m not sure what comes next for me. That I like what we’re doing now. That I want to keep doing this.
And there’s this current running between us, building and growing in our quiet moments, and in the laugh-out-loud ones too. I see it when our eyes catch and he smiles, hear it in the way he says my name. I feel it whenever our hands or shoulders or legs brush up against each other. I think he does too, but there’s something holding him back. I don’t know if it’s for my sake or his, but we dance around each other, Colton and I, despite the magnets in our centers, the full-of-life beating ones that pull us closer every day.
One day, after we’ve kayaked and had lunch, I tell him I want to learn how to surf, so we start in the afternoon with the basics. He pushes me into wave after wave, yelling for me to stand up and cheering each time I do—even when I fall right back down. We do this over and over until finally I get it. I paddle for a wave, as hard as I can, and I feel just a little push from him— enough to get me into it. This time when he yells for me to stand up, I do, and I find my balance and ride the wave all the way in. It’s the most amazing feeling in the world, and I don’t ever want to stop or get out of the water, so we stay, into the early evening, paddling out and surfing in until my arms are shaky and I can hardly lift them.
Later, we sit out beyond where the waves break, our boards floating next to each other on the glassy surface of the water. The afternoon wind has died down, and beachgoers have started to clear out, except for the ones who are staying for the sunset. The sun hangs low and heavy over the water. I can feel Colton’s eyes on me as I watch it, and I turn to look at him.
“What?” I ask, feeling self-conscious.
Colton grins and swirls his foot around in the water. “Nothing, I just . . .” His face goes more serious. “Do you know how many days I spent wishing I could just do this? It’s . . .”
He says something else, but I don’t hear him, because one phrase is stuck in my mind. How many days, how many days . . .
All of a sudden I feel completely unmoored. I have no idea how many days it’s been since Trent died. I don’t know when I stopped counting. I don’t know when I let go of that thing that grounded me in my grief, that reminded me each and every day. Like penance, for not going with him that morning, for not being with him on that road, for not being able to save him or say good-bye. And now I don’t even know how many days it’s been.
I lost count. Failed him again.
“Can we go in?” I say suddenly. “Please?” My chest hurts. I feel that old, familiar tightness, and I can’t breathe.
“Don’t you wanna wait to see if we can see it?” Colton asks.
“See what?” I ask. I’ve lost the thread of what he’s talking about. I can’t get enough air in my lungs—they’re forgetting how to breathe.
“The green flash,” Colton says, pointing to the sun that’s now halfway disappeared below the water and sinking fast.
“The what?”
“The green flash,” he says. “Watch. At that last second when the sun slips into the water, if everything is right, you can see it. Supposedly.” He smiles. “My grandpa used to have us watch for it, and every time, he’d tell us this old line about how if you see the green flash, you can see into people’s hearts.” Colton traces a finger over the water’s surface and laughs softly. “He swore he’d seen it, and that’s how he always knew what everyone was thinking.”
See into other people’s hearts.
My heart pounds with all the truth and lies and omissions that are in it. All the things I don’t want Colton to see. All the things I’ve been hiding from myself. I don’t even know what’s in my heart anymore.
“Watch,” Colton says again, pointing at the horizon. “It happens fast.”
We both turn back to the sun, a bright-orange ball sinking into the water that glows gold with its light. The sun does seem to accelerate, disappearing faster by the second. I panic. I want to look away; I want Colton to look away. I know it’s just a story, but I hold my breath as the sun slips down, and at the last second I look at Colton. He sits still, eyes focused hard on the horizon.
And then the sun’s gone.
He sighs. “No green flash tonight.”
I meet his eyes for a brief moment, then look out to the empty patch of sky where the sun almost laid bare my secrets, and it’s all I can do not to cry.
In my room, behind my closed door, I can’t hold it back anymore. My hands shake as I take my calendar from the wall and sit down on the floor with it. How could I have lost track? Which morning did I wake up and not think the number? Which night did I go to bed without Trent being my last thought?
I flip back through the months, to day 365, which is a date I could never forget. I put my finger to the little square that comes after it, but a sob shakes me, lets loose the tears I managed to hold back all the way home. Guilt pools in my stomach.
How did I lose count?
I wipe at my eyes and try to focus on the grid of empty boxes that were days empty of Trent, days I kept track of because it was one tiny way to hold on to him, to always know how long it had been, and I need to know again—