A Very Large Expanse of Sea(19)

And he sighed. “Hey, really, though—are you okay? I can’t believe he did that to you.”

“Yeah.” I looked away. “I feel kind of bad for Travis.”

Ocean made a sound of disbelief. “Travis will be fine.”

“Yeah.”

“So you’re okay? You don’t need me to go back in there and kick his ass?”

And I looked up, unable to contain my surprise. When had Ocean become the kind of guy willing to defend my honor? When had I leveled up to become the kind of person for whom he’d even offer? I barely talked to the guy, and even then, we’d never discussed much. Last week he’d hardly spoken to me in bio. I realized then that I didn’t know Ocean at all.

“I’m okay,” I said.

I mean, I wasn’t, but I didn’t know what else to say. I just really wanted to leave. And it only occurred to me that I’d said that last part out loud when he said—

“Good idea. Let’s get out of here.”

“What?” I accidentally laughed at him. “Are you serious?”

“You were about to cut class,” he said. “Weren’t you?”

I nodded.

“Well,” he said, and shrugged. “I’ll come with you.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“I know I don’t need to do that,” he said. “I just want to. Is that okay?”

I stared at him.

I stared at him and his simple, uncomplicated brown hair. His soft blue sweater and dark jeans. He was wearing very white sneakers. He was also squinting at me in the cold sunlight, waiting for my response, and he finally tugged a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on. They were nice sunglasses. They looked good on him.

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “That’s okay.”





10

Ten

We walked to IHOP.

It wasn’t far from campus, and it seemed like an innocuous enough destination for cheap food and a little change of scenery. But then we were sitting in a booth, sitting across from each other, and I suddenly had no idea what I was doing. What we were doing.

I was trying to think of what to say, how to say it, when Ocean seemed to suddenly remember he was still wearing sunglasses.

He said, “Oh, right—”

And took them off.

It was such a simple thing. It was a quiet, completely unmomentous moment. The world didn’t stop turning; birds didn’t suddenly start singing. Obviously I’d seen his eyes before. But somehow, suddenly, it was like I was seeing them for the first time. And somehow, suddenly, I couldn’t stop staring at his face. Something fluttered against my heart. I felt my armor begin to break.

He had really beautiful eyes.

They were an unusual mix of blue and brown, and together they made a kind of gray. I’d never caught the subtleties before. Maybe because he’d never looked at me like this before. Straight on. Smiling. Really, smiling at me. I only then realized that I’d never gotten a full smile from Ocean before. Most of the time his smiles were confused or scared or a combination of any number of other things. But for some reason, right now, in this extremely ugly booth at IHOP, he was smiling at me like there was something to celebrate.

“What?” he finally said.

I blinked fast, startled. Embarrassed. I looked down at my menu and said, “Nothing,” very quietly.

“Why were you staring at me?”

“I wasn’t staring at you.” I held the menu closer to my face.

No one said anything for a few seconds.

“You never came back online over the weekend,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Why not?” He reached forward and gently pushed the menu away from my face.

Oh my God.

I couldn’t unsee it. I couldn’t unsee it, oh my God, someone save me from myself, I couldn’t unsee his face. What had happened to me? Why was I suddenly so attracted to him?

Why?

I reached around blindly in my mind for walls, old armor, anything to keep me safe from this—from the danger of all the stupid things that happened to my head around cute boys—but nothing was working because he wouldn’t stop looking at me.

“I was busy,” I said, but the words came out a little weird.

“Oh,” he said, and sat back. His face was inscrutable. He picked up his menu, his eyes scanning its many options.

And then, I just, I don’t know. I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Why are you hanging out with me?” I said.

The words just kind of happened. They just came out, breathless and a little angry. I didn’t understand him, didn’t like what was happening to my heart around him, didn’t like that I had no idea what he was thinking. I was confused as hell and it made me feel so off-kilter, off my game, and I just needed to break this thing open and be done with it.

I couldn’t help it.

Ocean sat up, put down his menu. He looked surprised. “What do you mean?”

“I mean”—I looked at the ceiling, bit my lip—“I mean I don’t understand what’s happening here. Why are you being so nice to me? Why are you following me out of class? Why are you asking to have dinner at my house—”

“Oh, hey, yeah, did you ask your parents about tha—”