A Very Large Expanse of Sea(20)

“I don’t understand what you’re doing,” I said, cutting him off. I could feel my face getting hot. “What do you want from me?”

His eyes widened. “I don’t want anything from you.”

I swallowed, hard. Looked away. “This isn’t normal, Ocean.”

“What isn’t normal?”

“This,” I said, gesturing between us. “This. This isn’t normal. Guys like you don’t talk to girls like me.”

“Girls like you?”

“Yes,” I said. “Girls like me.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Please don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, okay? I’m not an idiot.”

He stared at me.

“I just want to know what’s going on,” I said. “I don’t understand why you’re trying so hard to be my friend. I don’t understand why you keep showing up in my life. Do you, like, feel sorry for me or something?”

“Oh.” He raised his eyebrows. “Wow.”

“Because if you’re just being nice to me because you feel sorry for me, please don’t.”

He smiled, a little, and only to himself. “You don’t understand,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“No, I don’t understand. I’m trying to understand and I don’t understand and it’s freaking me out.”

He laughed, just once. “Why is it freaking you out?”

“It just is.”

“Okay.”

“You know what?” I shook my head. “Never mind. I think I should go.”

“Don’t—” He sighed, hard, cutting himself off. “Don’t go.” He mussed his hair, muttered, “Jesus Christ,” under his breath, and finally said, “I just think you seem cool, okay?” He looked at me. “Is that so hard to believe?”

“Kind of.”

“I also think you’re really goddamn beautiful but you just won’t give me a chance to be cool about this, will you?”

I thought, for certain, that my heart had stopped. I knew, rationally, that such a thing was impossible, but for some reason it felt true.

The only time anyone had ever called me anything close to beautiful was when I was in eighth grade. I’d overheard someone say it. She was explaining to another kid that she didn’t like me because she thought I was one of those girls who was really pretty and really mean. She’d said it in an unkind, flippant way that made me think she really meant it.

At the time, it had been the nicest thing anyone had ever said about me. I’d often wondered, since that day, if I really was pretty, but no one but my mother had ever bothered to corroborate her statement.

And now, here—

I was stunned.

“Oh,” was all I managed to say. My face felt like it had been set on fire.

“Yeah,” he said. I wasn’t looking at him anymore, but I could tell he was smiling. “Do you understand now?”

“Kind of,” I said.

And then we ordered pancakes.





11

Eleven

We spent the rest of our IHOP experience talking about nothing in particular. In fact, we changed gears so quickly from serious to superficial that I actually walked out the door wondering if I’d imagined the part where he told me I was beautiful.

I think it was my fault. I kind of froze. I’d pushed him so hard to give me a straight answer but the one I got wasn’t the one I was expecting and it threw me off-balance. I didn’t know what to do with it.

It made me feel vulnerable.

So we talked about movies. Things we’d seen; things we hadn’t. It was fine, but it was kind of boring. I think we were both relieved when we finally left IHOP behind, like we were trying to shake off something embarrassing.

“Do you know what time it is?” I asked him. We’d been walking in silence, side by side, heading in no particular direction.

He glanced at his watch and said, “Third period is almost over.”

I sighed. “I guess we should go back to school.”

“Yeah.”

“So much for ditching.”

He stopped walking and touched my arm. Said my name.

I looked up.

Ocean was quite a bit taller than me, and I’d never looked up at him like this before. I was standing in his shadow. We were on the sidewalk, facing each other, and there wasn’t much space between us.

He smelled really nice. My heart was being weird again.

But his eyes were worried. He opened his mouth to say something and then, very suddenly, changed his mind. Looked away.

“What is it?” I said.

He shook his head. Smiled at me out of the corner of his eye, but only briefly. “Nothing. Never mind.”

I could tell that something was bothering him, but his reluctance to share made me think I probably didn’t want to know what he was thinking. So I changed the subject.

“Hey, how long have you lived here?”

Unexpectedly, Ocean smiled. He seemed both pleased and surprised to be asked the question. “Forever,” he said. And then, “I mean, I moved here when I was, like, six, but yeah, basically forever.”

“Wow,” I said. I almost whispered the word. He’d described in a single sentence something I’d often dreamed about. “Must be nice to live in the same place for so long.”