All We Can Do Is Wait(15)

The night before they left for the Cape that summer, Alexa knocked on Jason’s bedroom door. He grunted an “It’s open,” and Alexa walked in, finding her brother standing in a sea of clutter, a mostly empty bag sitting on his bed.

“How’s the packing going?”

Jason gestured to everything around him. “Great.”

“Cool.” There was a strained pause, not uncommon in interactions Alexa had with her brother. “So . . . I can’t believe we’re actually going. I mean, the whole summer.”

He shrugged, threw up his hands. “Yup. Pretty much sucks.”

“What are you going to do?” Alexa asked, leaning on the door frame, arms crossed over her chest.

Jason sighed. “I don’t know, Alexa. Nothing? Sit around. Go to the beach. Whatever.”

“Maybe it’ll be good for you,” Alexa offered tentatively.

His head jerked up and he glared at her. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Here we go, Alexa thought. “Nothing! Just that, like, I dunno. You seem so miserable here all the time.”

“Well, so do you.”

Alexa was surprised. Most days she wasn’t sure Jason even noticed that she existed, let alone had any insight into her emotional state. “I’m not miserable,” she said, more meekly than she meant it to come out. There was another pause while her brother stuffed some seemingly random items of clothing into his bag. Alexa hesitantly continued, “Maybe we could, I dunno, hang out or something. When we’re there.”

Jason looked up at his sister again, a hint of surprise in his eyes that quickly dimmed into another hard stare. “Yeah. Maybe.”

Which wasn’t a no, exactly, but Alexa knew that, barring some miracle, it was unlikely she and Jason would have some kind of bonding time on the Cape together.

“You’re gonna have to hang out with somebody, Jason. We’re there for three months.”

“Alexa, why not worry about your little job or whatever and let me figure my shit out myself, O.K.?”

“Do you even have the first idea how to figure your shit out, Jason? What even is your shit?” Alexa snapped back, not wanting to get in another fight with her brother but also so frustrated with his moodiness, his dismissiveness, the way he was always cutting through her hope and optimism with snideness and ridicule. This time, though, Jason didn’t take the bait. He just sighed again, looked around his room, and said, “I can’t find any shorts.”

Alexa stayed leaning against the doorway until she was sure the conversation was over. Jason was back to ignoring her, caught up again in his own gloom and fog.

In the hospital, Alexa longed for the Jason who had emerged so soon after that little spat, something about the Cape that summer turning Jason into someone so sharp and fun and brotherly for a few months. He had been so present. It really was something like a miracle.

The two of them even went for evening swims together on a few days when Alexa had worked a morning shift. Most of the other swimmers already gone home for the day. They had the water to themselves, and they swam out further than they might have if the other wasn’t there. The water was bracing, but Alexa liked it, feeling her body cool down after a hot day, just as the sun was beginning to set. Jason would lie on his back, staring up at the sky, bobbing along like a bit of seaweed. There was something dreamy and childlike about it, her brother floating on the waves. Alexa watched him and wondered what he was thinking.

After their swim, they’d often sit up in the high dunes to dry off, like they used to when they were little. Most times Alexa would just babble on about work, joking about how Amelia, a kind, scrawny fifteen-year-old who manned the prize booth at the arcade, had a big crush on Jason. Amelia had seen Alexa’s brother all of once, when he picked up Alexa, begrudgingly, to drive her home. But Alexa had heard whispers since, and she and Kyle would laugh, imagining Amelia trying, in vain, to find Jason on Instagram or Facebook or anything so she could stalk him. She wouldn’t have any luck; Jason wasn’t on any of them.

But one evening, after a particularly invigorating swim in chilly, post-rainstorm water, Alexa leaned back on her towel and turned toward her brother, who was poking at the sand with a stick.

“Are you O.K.?” she asked him.

He seemed startled out of some deep thought. “Huh?” he said, dropping the stick. “Oh, I was just . . . digging, I guess.”

Alexa laughed. “No, I don’t mean with the stick. I mean, like, in life. Are you O.K.?”

Jason held her gaze for a moment, something he hadn’t done in some time, before looking away. “Uh, yeah. I mean, the new school’s good. It’s better than the other ones.”

She nodded. “Right, right. But I mean, otherwise? Beyond school? I don’t even know what you’re doing half the time. Like, if you’re with friends, or if you’re dating someone, or . . .”

Jason let her trail off. He shrugged. “I’m with friends sometimes. I don’t know. Everyone’s so boring, you know?”

Boston Alexa would agree with him. But Cape Alexa, quietly having the summer of her life, didn’t agree. “I guess. But not all of them. Kyle’s not boring.”

“That’s true.”

“But you’d tell me, right?” Alexa asked, trying to get her brother to look at her again. “If something was wrong?”