Love Songs & Other Lies(3)
Logan strides toward me. “Aren’t you glad you came, Vee?” His eyes glow with excitement. “This is going to be epic.” Logan lunges at me, throwing his arms around my waist and hoisting me in the air. Our chests press together as he lifts my feet off the ground and bends backward. He has the biggest grin I’ve ever seen, and it looks like it may split his face in half. Logan thinks he’s making me happy. Poor, delusional Logan.
CHAPTER TWO
THEN
CAMERON
It hurts to move. The beach is nearly empty, my skin is hot and tight, and the walk back to the apartment is beginning to feel like an epic pilgrimage. My sand-covered surfboard, Lucy, is scraping between my ribs and bicep with every step, slowing me down. I could dump her in the woods along the sidewalk and cover her with some leaves. Maybe no one will notice her. I can just grab her tomorrow on my way back. I hesitate along the trees, but can’t bring myself to do it. Lucy feels like the closest thing I have to a friend in this town. Or at the least, the closest I want. It’s a dick move to abandon your only friend in the woods.
I’ve spent the last two months in Riverton doing pretty much nothing. During the day, I walk from my apartment down to the beach that edges the town. A lot of my time has been spent making failed attempts at freshwater surfing. I was sucked in by the bastards who sell the fancy, airbrushed boards downtown. I bought myself Lucy as a belated eighteenth birthday present. “Lake surfing is the next big thing,” they’d claimed.
Those assholes are delusional.
The store is covered in pictures of surfers standing on top of rolling waves. Every one of them looks carefree. Like the two guys in my junior-year Trig class who always had weird half smiles and reeked of weed every time they came back from lunch. From what I’ve personally seen of Lake Michigan, those photos aren’t the real deal at all. Despite spending most of my time staring out at that giant blue puddle, I haven’t seen anything close to a surf-able wave. I should know—I’m from California. I’ve surfed before, on actual waves. Not freshwater hopes and dreams.
Still, I spent six hundred bucks on the board, so the least I can do is drag it down to the beach with me every day. That way I feel like I’m actually using it. Even if I’m just lying out on the water paddling out of view. If I can’t ride a wave, then I figure lying under the sun—feeling the swells roll under me—is as close to happy as I’m going to get. Just me, the board, the waves. Life’s a lot less complicated out on the water, away from everything. I can shut my brain off for a little while and I’m normal; I feel almost numb out there. Maybe it’s just the chill of the water, but I don’t think so.
*
My new apartment isn’t far from the beach, but by the time I take a shower and change into a fresh pair of board shorts and a polo, it’s nearly seven o’clock—hours past my normal visiting time. Lake Terrace Assisted Living is only a few miles away, sitting along Riverton’s busiest street. It’s a long, curved cluster of gray three-story buildings flanking a kidney bean pond. Tiny evergreen trees line the winding sidewalks. There are small patches of flowers scattered throughout the large yard, and wooden benches are everywhere.
I’ve come here exactly sixty-three days in a row, and I’ve never seen anyone outside. Not walking the sidewalks or at the picnic tables. Or sitting in the rowboat that lies suspiciously next to the pond (which I’m pretty sure is just a wooden prop to make it look like people actually go outside). It probably makes families feel better to think their loved ones are wandering around in fresh, colorful gardens, rather than lying in stale, white beds. A wave of cool air engulfs me as I enter the double doors and goosebumps spread across my sunburned arms. Behind the half-moon reception desk, a nurse absentmindedly waves me on. Everyone visits on the weekends. It’s always quiet—almost eerie—when I come on weeknights, and it’s my favorite time to be here.
A nursing home has become your own personal sanctuary. You’re pathetic, Cameron.
Down a long hallway—covered in a flowery red-and-green wallpaper my mother would hate—room 207 smells like eucalyptus, baby powder, and lavender. It’s a mixture of the two women who share the room—my Gram, and another elderly woman named Evelyn, who, like Gram, seems to be asleep ninety percent of the time.
I sit at the far end of the room next to the bed, facing the blue fabric curtain that acts as a wall, breaking the room into two halves. Gram has one side of the room, farthest from the door but closest to the window, and Evelyn occupies the other. Gram doesn’t talk much, especially in the evenings, but when she does it’s usually to call me by my father’s name.
She usually wakes up to find me sitting beside her bed, scribbling in a notebook or with earbuds in. “Trevor?”
“No, Gram, it’s Cameron.”
Every time.
“Oh. That’s my grandson’s name too.” Her face lights up whenever she says this, and I just nod, holding her hand. When I first started visiting, I tried to explain to her that I was that same Cameron she seemed so fond of. But as the weeks went by and she never caught on, it got depressing. So I keep quiet. I hold her wrinkled hand in mine, and I nod and smile. Nod and smile. Nod and freaking smile. Like a bobble head.
The reasons I moved to Riverton are simple:
1.??Gram is here.