Girl Out of Water(79)

In the darkness, I realize how well I know my own home. I drop my keys into the porcelain bowl that sits on our entryway table, and the clatter rings through the empty house. I’m tempted to open the junk drawer, check if the postcard is still there. Maybe it was all some early summer hallucination.

But then Lincoln bumps into me, and we both trip and almost fall on the uneven floorboards. “Ow!” I say, then steady him, hands reaching out to his strong form. “Way to be clumsy dude.”

“I wouldn’t call tripping in a pitch-black house I’ve never been in before clumsy,” he mutters.

“I’ll take what I can get. Gotta keep your perfect athlete ego in check.”

“Could you turn a light on maybe?”

“Okay, okay.” I take us a few more steps down the hall and into the kitchen. The moonlight creeps in through the bay window. I’m not sure I’m ready to see Lincoln standing in the full artificial brightness of my kitchen. Out of place. Like a famous actor making a cameo on a RV show or Dad showing up at school.

So I walk over to the stove and flick on the dim overhead light. It illuminates the room enough to prevent Lincoln from tripping. Suddenly I’m having trouble looking at him. I’m in my house alone with a guy. A guy I really like. Growing up on the beach has provided plenty of relatively secluded opportunities to be alone with a boy. But there’s a big difference between being alone on the shore where technically anyone can walk by, including Dad, and being alone in an empty house where there are empty beds, and Dad is sleeping many states away. I had no intention of having sex with Lincoln—I have no intention of having sex with Lincoln—but that doesn’t keep me from being aware of how easy it would be.

Lincoln’s stare is on me. I look away and pull open the fridge door. The light spills out, and I blink twice. “Hungry?”

There’s a pause. Or at least it feels like a pause, enough time for Lincoln to choose words instead of just say them. “I could eat. Is there anything in there?”

“Good question.” The fridge is almost entirely bare, save some of those orange Kraft cheese slices and half a loaf of bread. It’s not stuff we normally keep in the fridge. Maybe Dad had some weird food cravings when flew back alone. “Grilled cheese?”

“Sure,” Lincoln says. “Want help?”

“I’ve got it.”

I’ve never actually cooked grilled cheese before, but after all that driving, Lincoln deserves to rest. Besides, I’m not sure I’ll make responsible choices if he stands close to me right now.

Behind me, I hear him settle at the kitchen table. The chairs drag against the floor as he rearranges them. I keep my eyes on the stove as I heat up a pan. Move back to the fridge for butter. Drawer for a knife. Slice off the butter. Sizzle. Bread in the pan. Peel the plastic wrapping off the slices of cheese.

My heart thumps. When did it start doing that? My hands shake the slightest bit as I carefully settle the slices of cheese onto the bread. I hope the bread doesn’t burn. Why did Dad put bread in the fridge in the first place? We never put bread in the fridge. I guess so it wouldn’t go bad.

I turn around to ask Lincoln how toasty he likes his grilled cheese and find him draped across two chairs, legs propped up, head nodding off to the side, snoring lightly.

“Right,” I say to myself. “Okay then.”

The grilled cheeses look kind of lonely sitting there in the pan, so I eat them both myself.

? ? ?

I wake up completely disoriented. The light slants into the room at the wrong angle. I reflexively turn over and startle when I don’t see Emery in a bed beside me. Oh. I’m home.

Last night after finishing the sandwiches and staring at a sleeping Lincoln for a solid thirty seconds, I woke him up and led him to the guest bedroom, where I was able to avoid all questions of sex when he climbed onto the bed and passed out. Apparently after twenty-four hours of driving, cuddling up with a down comforter is more appealing than cuddling up with me. The vast size of the West defeated Lincoln and his infallible energy.

After dropping him off in bed, I stripped out of my salt-crusted clothing, dropped them outside the washer in the hallway, and zombie-walked to my room. I pulled on an old cotton T-shirt, comforted by the scent of my own detergent. Then, I promptly collapsed on my bed, curled up with Tess’s quilt, and fell into a deep sleep.

I now grab for my phone on the nightstand. My jaw drops when I see it’s half past noon. I never sleep this late. Waste of wave time. Crashing past ten is an absurdly rare occurrence. This is just ridiculous. I also have about twenty texts and missed calls, most of them from Tess saying something along the lines of: WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU I WANT TO SEE YOUR FACE.

The most recent text message reads: Fuck it, I’m just coming over. That one was sent more than half an hour ago…

And then I hear the muffled voices. “Oh fuck.” I rip off my tangled sheets and jump out of bed, yanking on a pair of shorts under my sleep shirt. I hurry down the hallway toward the sound of voices. In the kitchen, I find Tess and Lincoln casually chatting like they’re already best friends.

Midday light sweeps in from the windows. Lincoln cooks at the stovetop, presumably more grilled cheese since that’s the only food we have. Tess sits on the counter, book abandoned beside her, and chats with Lincoln. The scene is so surreal that I wonder if maybe I’m still dreaming. Two parts of my life intersecting over melted cheese. She looks different. Hair a bit longer. A new piercing in her left ear. Her skin its deep end-of-summer bronze. Before I have a chance to truly comprehend the moment, Tess spots me standing there and stops midsentence.