“DID you know grief can literally kill a person?” I ask Leigh. We’re sitting in Iz’s front seat in the school parking lot after school. I prop my bare feet on the dash and watch Wil heading for his dad’s pickup a few rows over. His shell is the same, but his head is down and his walk is syrupy; nothing like the loping gait that used to make it so easy to find him on the beach.
“Makes sense.” Leigh slurps the last of her Big Gulp. “When the heart chakra is blocked—”
“No. I’m talking about the pituitary gland, which is an actual thing.” I keep my eyes trained on Wil. He stops at the truck; notices the envelope I slid under his wipers at lunch. I see the moment—the exact moment—that his fingers recognize the scrap of sail tucked inside. One of the countless boat treasures Wilson had passed my way. On the corner of the sail, in Wilson’s precise handwriting, is the name of the boat. Freedom. Maybe Wil wants nothing more to do with me. But I know what he needs. And right now, he needs this small piece of his dad more than I do.
Wil’s face shatters, and he sweeps up the pieces quickly. He stuffs the sail into the back pocket of his jeans and dives into the front seat, deflated.
“Um, rude,” Leigh announces. “The heart chakra is absolutely a thing. And a certain person’s heart chakra is totally blocked right now.” She elbows me, hard.
“Ow. I’m serious,” I protest. “The pituitary gland secretes this chemical in your brain that puts you in fight mode.” My toes curl against the glove box. “I read this article last night. After you lose someone close to you, your body is in this heightened state of stress all the time. Your cells actually start to die.”
“Bridge. My love.” Leigh turns in her seat and interlaces her fingers with mine. Her mood ring hurts like hell. “First, he’s gonna survive this. But in the meantime, it’s just going to suck, you know? You have to let it suck.”
“Let it suck. The lesser known follow-up to Paul McCartney’s—”
“And second, this is too much neuroscience for my brain.” She jams her keys in the ignition. “Come on. I’ll drive you home.”
“Nah. That’s okay. I could use the walk.” I lean over the console and kiss her on the cheek. When I glance in Wil’s direction again, the truck is gone.
I take the beach route home. The air is hot and thick, an August day that has wandered into spring. I slip out of my sneakers and jog barefoot on the soft sand until my lungs aren’t big enough, and in minutes I’m slick with sweat and the muscle fibers in my legs are sparking. My skin is flushed the ugly, pale girl kind of pink.
Looking out over the water, I think, I could take a running dive and I could swim and swim until the beach is gone. I used to have those kinds of thoughts as a kid, and sometimes I still do. Driving over the Hart Bridge I’ll think, I could veer off this bridge and for a second it would feel like flying, or I’m sitting in class and it will cross my mind: I don’t have to go to college at all. These are my secret urges. I won’t do any of these things. But I like thinking I could.
I could run to the workshop. Refuse to leave until Wil speaks to me. Until he explains what’s changed since he broke up with me. What’s so big, so important, that I don’t understand his family anymore.
By the time I turn down my street, I’ve decided: He doesn’t mean it. He’s angry. He wants to hurt me like I hurt him. I kick through my front gate, sweat stinging my eyes and the spot above my ankle where I cut myself shaving this morning. I’m wiping my face with my T-shirt when I hear his voice.
“Took you long enough. What’s that? Like, a thirty-minute mile?”
I yank down my shirt. Wil is sitting on my front porch, folded in half. His crumpled backpack sags on the step.
“What are you doing here?” I let the gate snap shut. I want to be pissed. I want to be pissed and I don’t know if I can be pissed at a boy whose family is in pieces.
“I don’t know,” he says. His eyes are foggy, a murky green that won’t let me see past the surface. “I was a dick the other day. In the shop.” He stands up and sort of sways in place.
My T-shirt melts into my skin and I wish I’d worn shorts. “I probably shouldn’t have shown up like that.”
“I don’t know,” he says again. “I really don’t. There’s no manual for this shit.” His hands curl into fists, then relax and curl again, as if they are beating hearts resting outside of his body. I want to hold all his hearts close to mine, but he won’t let me. I grit my teeth until my head hurts.
“I know. No manual.” I don’t want to take a step. I don’t want to breathe. We are fragile.
He rubs the back of his neck. “Ana keeps asking what kind of casseroles I like, and it’s like, My dad is dead, so really I don’t give a fuck about casseroles. But you’re not allowed to say that, you know?”
“Chicken tetrazzini. Done. She’ll never ask again.” I don’t know whether to smile or not.
His lips curve up, and I relax a little.
“We literally don’t have room in the freezer for another casserole,” he says. “I want her to know that. I don’t want to have to tell her. She just—” He blows out a breath. “Whatever. I can’t talk about this with you.” He looks past me.
That whatever isn’t just a whatever. If you cut the word open, so much more would spill out.
“This you?” He leans to one side and reaches into his back pocket.
“Yeah,” I say before I see the scrap of sail.
“You have anything else like this? Stuff from other boats?” His eyes light up.
“Yeah, definitely. Lots of stuff. Yours, if you want it all.” I take a step toward him, and his face hardens.
“Nah,” he says. “I have too much of his stuff already. I’ve been packing it up, and it’s, like . . . It’s the weirdest thing, trying to pack up another person’s life. It makes you think that we’re nothing more than the books we always said we’d read and old underwear and spare change.”
“No. Wil.” I cross my arms over my chest, reminding me to keep the space between us. “Your dad was so much more than those things. Your dad was this—”
“Stop it, Bridge. Stop.” He covers his face with his hands.
“Okay. Okay. I’m sorry.” Emotion rises up in my throat, fills my eyes, bobs beneath the surface of my skin.
He clears his throat, hard. “I found something. Thought you might want it.”
I blink and he’s small, like the grief is shrinking his cells right in front of me.
“What?” I ask softly.
“This, ah—this.” He tears open his backpack and pulls out a cap. It’s worn and dirty and I haven’t seen it in years, since Wilson tugged it over my head to shield me from the sun.
“Mama P’s Seafood Shanty,” I murmur.