I lost my sunglasses when I was taken under, and the sun is piercing. I try telling him about your damn water molecules and wanting to fight them all, but I keep crying and crying, knowing what I felt under there for a few seconds is nothing compared to what you experienced when your arms and legs couldn’t fight anymore, when your panic probably got the best of you, when you breathed in water, when your brain shut you down. Thinking of this terrifies me, but I know I’m safe with Jackson—you could’ve been too if he were in here with you.
“Why weren’t you swimming with Theo?” My question comes out in a cough and sounds more accusatory than I mean it to, and Jackson freezes. We’re inches away from each other. It’s still hard to make out his face because my eyes are irritated and the sun is attacking my vision. “I’m not blaming you.”
“I know,” Jackson says quietly. “Theo wanted to go in alone. He had just gotten off the phone and wanted a minute to himself. I stayed at the beach with our stuff, and Theo went deeper than he should’ve.”
It isn’t Jackson’s fault.
My rage dies down. My body is registering how ice-cold this water is, even after I’ve made rounds underneath it. I also officially hate the ocean because it can’t be trusted with any of our lives. I was right to protect my sand castles from the ocean as a kid. Screw this. I hold Jackson’s bare arm and force him out of the water with me.
I take off my shirt and drop face-first into the sand, feeling the sun on my back and shoulders instantly. It’s not burning me alive like it should be. Instead it actually feels kind of relaxing. Or maybe that’s just because I’m back on dry land.
“I’m sorry,” Jackson says, sitting beside me, staring out into the surf. I almost ask if he’s talking to you or me, when I remember he doesn’t talk to you like I do. “I should’ve been in there with him. I could’ve saved him. Everyone’s lives would’ve been so much better.”
My hand flies out toward Jackson’s as if his hand were some deus ex machina button that could blow up every zombie pirate in a single blast. “You’re not single-handedly responsible for Theo, okay? You didn’t force him out there, and you made every effort you could to bring him back.”
Jackson nods, but I’m not sure any of this is actually comforting him. The fact is that I feel just as powerless now as he did then.
I’ve been blindsided into watching Edward Scissorhands tonight with Jackson; I’m blaming my yes on our vulnerable state. I always thought you’d be here with me when I finally took on this childhood fear, ready to pause the film if I needed a second. I never thought I’d be watching it in Los Angeles with another guy who loves you, especially not while wearing his shorts. I would’ve preferred sitting outside, watching the sky burn in yellow-orange and pinkish-red clouds.
It turns out this film isn’t as terrifying as I remembered it to be. Sure, it’s creepy because Edward has scissors for hands and scars all over his pale face, but how scary can the guy be when he’s trimming a bush into a dinosaur and giving dogs haircuts?
“The film score may have had something to do with it, too,” I tell Jackson, sitting cross-legged with a pillow on my lap.
“I’m not sure who composed it,” Jackson says, pulling out his phone.
“Danny Elfman.”
Jackson nods when his search comes through. “Yup.”
“Suck it, Google,” I say. “Did you ever hear Theo say that?”
“Yup. It was like a cowboy match with him to see if he could answer something before I could draw my phone and look it up. Theo would’ve kicked ass at Jeopardy.”
I turn away from the movie. Jackson gets what it was like to be with you so much, I could hug him. “I bought him the Jeopardy video game, which was a huge mistake. I felt like the hugest idiot whenever we played.”
“You’re not an idiot.”
I shake that off. “Did you ever feel smart around him?”
“No, and I’m older. I probably felt worse than you did.”
That age stuff is stupid and almost cost you and me our friendship, but I get where he’s coming from. “Theo was never trying to be superior about it, which I loved. He was just so excited to be learning everything to the point that it sometimes felt like he didn’t have enough room in his head to remember the little things . . . and a couple of bigger things. It’s weird how all the information Theo spent downloading into his stupid beautiful brain is now gone.”
I nod, the happiness between us gone, as well. I turn back to the movie, but I’m not watching.
“He left all his knowledge with us,” Jackson says. “Some of it. I can’t really remember all of it. But the stuff I do know will probably never come up in real life, fun facts basically. Like how the Hoover Dam was built to last two thousand years. And how in the Middle Ages, cats were shoved into sacks and thrown into bonfires and hurled off church towers because they were associated with witchcraft. He also got me hooked on tons of older songs, like ‘All Out of Love’ and ‘(They Long to Be) Close to You.’” Jackson goes through his phone and plays “Come Sail Away,” cranking it up. “This is one of my favorites.”
“Mine too.”
Jackson inches toward me, very close. “Okay, please don’t punch me, but I want to show you something Theo taught me.”
“Why would I punch you?”