Another laugh. “I passed a dude busking on the street yesterday, playing sax. He was, like, one of the best players I’ve ever heard. And he was busking, Cass. People don’t want to pay for music. But people will pay for sports.” You shrugged.
I looked down at my dirty Converses. I felt like such an idiot. I had shouted at your dad and for what? For no reason at all.
“Anyway, what about you?” you said.
“What?”
“You, lecturing me about doing what my dad wants. What about you?”
“I don’t …”
“You think I’m stupid? Your dad busts us and you disappear for three whole days, and then suddenly you’re with some guy on the street? And you want me to believe you didn’t see me before you kissed him? I saw you notice me. My truck. I don’t even know what you’re doing. But you’re ****** with my mind, whatever it is. And you’re not even doing it for your own reasons—me, I have a feeling you’re doing it because of your dad, because of whatever messed-up thing is going on between the two of you. It’s not even you pushing me away. It’s him. I think that’s the hardest thing to forgive.” You climbed into the truck. “I hope for your sake you sort your **** out.”
It wasn’t him, not really. It was me. You know that now.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry.” I was crying again; I felt like there was a heat behind my eyes that I had to get out.
You were half in the truck, one leg inside it, the other out. Something about your stance softened then. “Listen, Cass. If you didn’t do anything with that guy, not really … You could tell me. If your dad is … I don’t know. If he’s hurting you, or threatening you or something … I could help you. We could face it together. But you have to be honest with me.”
I was wrong.
That was the moment when my heart broke.
“My dad isn’t threatening me,” I said. Which was true. Kind of. “He has never hurt me. Not once.”
“Then what?” you said. “What are you afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid of you. I just cheated on you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
I shrugged. “I’ve known him longer than you. Sometimes we hook up. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just sex.”
I used the word deliberately. I wanted its hardness.
You stared at me, like I was someone you didn’t know anymore. The sun caught on the hood of the Ford and flashed white, blinding me for a second. I couldn’t see your face. I couldn’t see you at all. It was like the light was washing you out of existence, washing you out of my life.
“Also,” I said, every word feeling like a heavy stone that I was having to lift out of my mouth, with my tongue, so heavy, so hard to say. “Also he kisses better than you. Is that good enough for you?”
I turned around and walked away. I didn’t look back. A moment later I heard the engine of the truck start again. And you drove out of my life.
Please come back?
I mean, I want you back.
I was stupid. I know that now.
But I didn’t do the thing they said I did.
I swear.
I changed to the 7 bus.
I mean, what else was I going to do?
I rode for fifteen minutes. Something like that. Finally I got off, which was a relief because there was a creepy mustachioed guy in a shiny plastic jacket who was checking me out the whole time, thinking he was being subtle. I was like four blocks away. I walked and turned, following the little map I had drawn, after looking up the place on Google Maps on Dad’s computer in his study.
The same computer I’m sitting at right now. With the insects around me. Appropriate, I guess. Being surrounded by lowly little insects.
Am I overdoing it with the self-flagellation? I think maybe yes. I’ll stop now. I mean, either you’re going to forgive me or not.
It was weird, walking the north side of town. The buildings got dirtier, and more run-down, as you walked. Once past the piers, the poverty and dilapidation set in and everything seemed to slump. Like a time-lapse movie of the aftertimes—once nuclear war has come or a virus or whatever—the whole town slowly rotting, falling into the sand and the marsh, once all the people are dead and no longer caring for it.
That was the kind of very cheerful thought I was having.
Anyway.
For a while, I walked on the beach, listening to the gulls, breathing in the ocean air. Then I turned up, past the tufted dunes, to the streets. This was Bayview, the part where Paris had gone missing. I was walking the street closest to the beach; there were swirls of sand on the cracked concrete, abstract shapes, as if the wind was trying to write something, to pass on some message that no one could understand.
I kept walking. I was on the block now, maybe a hundred yards from the house—I glanced at my hand-drawn map again. Yes. Nearly there.
And …
And just then a black Jeep came driving toward me, down the perpendicular street to the one I was on, slowing as it reached the junction with the beach road.