A Very Large Expanse of Sea(60)

I felt then, in that moment, the insubstantial weight of my sixteen years in a way I’d never felt before. I had no control here. No power. I didn’t even have my driver’s license. I didn’t have a job, I didn’t have my own bank account. There was nothing I could do. Nothing I could do to help, to make this better. I had no connections in the world, no voice anyone would listen to. I felt at once everything, everything, and nothing at all.

I didn’t have a choice anymore. Ocean’s mother had taken my options away from me. She’d screwed up, and now it was my fault that Ocean would have no money for college.

I’d become a convenient scapegoat. It felt too familiar.

Still, I knew I had to do it. I’d have to drive a permanent wedge between us. I thought Ocean’s mom was awful, but I also knew that I could no longer let him get kicked off the team. I couldn’t bear the weight of being the reason his life was derailed.

And sometimes, I thought, being a teenager was the worst thing that had ever happened to me.





30

Thirty

It was horrible.

I didn’t know how else to do it—it’d been so hard for us to find time alone together—so I texted him. It was late. Very late. Somehow, I had a feeling he’d still be up.

hey

i need to talk to you

He didn’t respond, and for some reason I knew it wasn’t because he hadn’t seen my message. I thought he knew me well enough to know that something was wrong, and I often wondered if he knew right then that something terrible was about to happen.

He texted me back ten minutes later.

no I called him.

“Stop,” he said, when he picked up. He sounded raw. “Don’t do this. Don’t have this conversation with me, okay? I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m so sorry about everything. I’m sorry I put you in this situation. I’m so sorry.”

“Ocean, please—”

“What did my mom say to you?”

“What?” I felt thrown off. “How did you know I talked to your mom?”

“I didn’t,” he said, “but I do now. I was worried she was going to try to talk to you. She’s been on my ass all week, begging me to break up with you.” And then, “Did she do this? Did she tell you to do this?”

I almost couldn’t breathe.

“Ocean—”

“Don’t do it,” he said. “Not for her. Don’t do this for any of them—”

“This is about you,” I said. “Your happiness. Your future. Your life. I want you to be happy,” I said, “and I’m only making your life worse.”

“How can you say that?” he said, and I heard his voice break. “How can you even think that? I want this more than I’ve ever wanted anything. I want everything with you,” he said. “I want all of it with you. I want you. I want this forever.”

“You’re seventeen,” I said. “We’re in high school, Ocean. We don’t know anything about forever.”

“We could have it if we wanted it.”

I knew I was being unkind, and I hated myself for it, but I had to find a way to get through this conversation before it killed me. “I wish this were simpler,” I said to him, “I wish so many things were different. I wish we were older. I wish we could make our own decisions—”

“Don’t—baby—don’t do this—”

“You can go back to your life now, you know?” And I felt my heart splinter as I said it. My voice shook. “You can be normal again.”

“I don’t want normal,” he said desperately. “I don’t want whatever that is, why don’t you believe me—”

“I have to go,” I said, because I was crying now. “I have to go.”

And I hung up on him.

He called me back, about a hundred times. Left me voice mails I never checked.

And then I cried myself to sleep.





31

Thirty-One

I had two weeks off for winter break and I drowned my sorrows in music, I stayed up late reading, I trained hard, and I drew ugly, unimpressive things. I wrote in my diary. I made more clothes. I threw myself into practice.

Ocean wouldn’t stop calling me.

He texted me, over and over again— I love you

I love you

I love you

I love you

Part of me felt a little like I’d died. But here, in the silent explosion of my heart, was a quiet that felt familiar. I was just me again, back in my room with my books and my thoughts. I drank coffee in the mornings with my dad before he left for work. I sat with my mom in the evenings and binge-watched episodes of her favorite TV show, Little House on the Prairie, after she’d found the DVD box sets at Costco.

But I spent most of my days with Navid.

He’d come into my room, that first night. He’d heard me crying and he sat down on my bed, pulled the covers back, pushed my hair out of my face, and kissed me on the forehead.

“Fuck this town,” he said.

We hadn’t really talked about it since then, and not because he hadn’t asked. I just didn’t have the vocabulary. My feelings were still inarticulate, comprising little more than tears and expletives.