Beach Read(63)

It was an unabashed moment, a comfortable silence. The kind of thing that, if I had been writing it, I might’ve thought I could skip right over.

But I would be wrong. Because here, in this moment when nothing was happening and we’d finally run out of things to say, I knew how much I liked Gus Everett, how much he was starting to mean to me. We’d let so much out into the open over the last three days, and I knew more would bubble up over time, but for the first time in a year, I didn’t feel overstuffed with trapped emotions and bitten-back words.

I felt a little empty, a little light.

Happy. Not giddy or overjoyed, but that low, steady level of happiness that, in the best periods of life, rides underneath everything else, a buffer between you and the world you are walking over.

I was happy to be here, doing nothing with Gus, and even if it was temporary, it was enough for me to believe that someday I’d be okay again. Maybe not the exact same brand of it I’d been before Dad died—probably not—but a new kind, nearly as solid and safe.

I could feel the pain too, the low-grade ache I’d be left with if and when this thing between Gus and me imploded. I could perfectly imagine every sensation, in the pit of my stomach and the palms of my hands, the sharp pulses of loss that would remind me of how good it felt to stand here with him like this, but for once, I didn’t think letting go was the answer.

I wanted to hold on to him, and this moment, for a while.

As if in agreement, Gus squeezed my hands in his. “I do, you know,” he said. It was almost a whisper, a tender, rugged thing like Gus himself. “Care about you.”

“I do,” I told him. “Know that, I mean.”

The tangerine light glinted over his teeth when he smiled, deepening the shadows in his rarely seen dimples, and we stayed there, letting nothing happen all around us.





20


The Basement





I HAVE BAD NEWS and bad news, Shadi texted me the next morning.

Which should I hear first??? I replied. I sat up slowly, careful not to rouse Gus. To say we’d fallen asleep on the couch seemed like a misrepresentation of the truth. I’d had to actively decide to go to sleep the night before.

For the first time since we’d started hanging out, we’d ventured to the world of movie marathons and binge-watching. “You choose one and then I’ll choose one,” he’d said.

That was how we’d ended up watching, or talking through, While You Were Sleeping, A Streetcar Named Desire, Pirates of the Caribbean 3 (as punishment for making me watch A Streetcar Named Desire), and Mariah Carey’s Glitter (as we descended further into madness). And even after that, I’d been wide awake, wired.

Gus had suggested we put on Rear Window, and halfway through, not long before the first hints of sun would skate through the windows, we’d finally stopped talking. We’d lain very still on our opposite ends of the couch, everything below our knees tangled up in the middle, and gone to sleep.

The house was chilly—I’d left the windows open and they’d fogged as the temperature began to inch back up with the morning. Gus was scrunched nearly into the fetal position, one throw blanket wrapped around himself, so I draped the two blankets I’d been using over him as I crept into the kitchen to turn the burner on beneath the kettle.

It was a still, blue morning. If the sun had come up, it was caught behind a sheet of mist. As quietly as I could, I pulled the bag of ground coffee and the French press from the lazy Susan.

The ritual felt different than it had that first morning, more ordinary and thus somehow more holy.

Somewhere in the last week or so, this house had started to feel like my own.

My phone vibrated in my hand.

I have fallen in love, Shadi said.

With the haunted hat? I asked, heart thrilling. Shadi was always the very best, but Shadi in love—there was nothing like it. Somehow, she became even more herself. Even wilder, funnier, sillier, wiser, softer. Love lit my best friend up from within, and even if every one of her heartbreaks was utterly devastating, she still never closed herself off. Every time she fell in love again, her joy seemed to overflow, into me and the world at large.

Of course you have, I typed. Tell me EVERYTHING.

WELL, Shadi began. I don’t know!! We’ve just spent every night together, and his best friend LOVES me and I love him, and the other night we just like, stayed up literally until sunrise and then while he was in the bathroom, his friend was like “Be careful with him. He’s crazy about you” and I was like “lol same.” In conclusion, I have more bad news.

So you mentioned, I replied. Go on.

He wants me to visit his family …

Yes, that’s terrible, I agreed. What if they’re NICE? What if they make you play Uno and drink whiskey-Cokes on their porch???!

WELL, Shadi said. I mean. He wants me to go this week. For Fourth of July.

I stared down at the words, unsure what to say. On the one hand, I’d been living on an island of Gus Everett for a month now, and I had come down with neither prairie madness nor cabin fever.

On the other, it had been months since I’d seen Shadi, and I missed her. Gus and I had that intoxicating rapid-release form of friendship usually reserved for sleepaway camps and orientation week of college, but Shadi and I had years of history. We could talk about anything without having to back up and explain the context. Not that Gus’s style of communication called for much context. The bits of life he shared with me were building their framework as we went. I got a clearer picture of him every day, and when I went to sleep each night, I looked forward to finding more of him in the morning.