Underwater(22)

We study quietly, side by side. It’s nice to have someone else here. It feels more like real school, even if we aren’t sitting in a classroom with a teacher and a whiteboard.

But then Evan starts groaning and erasing things, tearing through notebook paper with what’s barely left of the eraser on the top of his pencil. It turns out he really is behind in trigonometry, so I admit I can help him.

“How do you know all this?” he asks after I’ve walked him through half a dozen homework problems.

I don’t like to brag, so I just say I worked hard at it. And I did work hard at math. I used to work hard at everything. I worked so hard that working hard became my whole life. Brenda said that being that way probably led to me having the kind of meltdown I had. She said I had a predisposition for that sort of thing because I was focused and precise. Sometimes positives are negatives. She explained that overachievers sometimes end up like me after something tragic happens. It’s a reaction to realizing we can’t control everything. I also worry that I’m the way I am because of my dad. Like I inherited something.

“Where’s your dad?” I ask Evan. And the way I say it comes out loud, like an accusation. He shifts on the couch, keeping his grip on the folder on his knee.

“He’s still in Hawaii. My mom and dad are divorced, in case you were wondering.”

“Mine too,” I say. “Why didn’t you stay with him?”

His jaw clenches in the slightest way. “Not an option.”

Okay.

“Have you always lived in Hawaii? I mean, until now.”

“Yah, sistah. I da kine, one hundred pah-cent local boy, li’ dat!” He elbows me in the ribs, laughing, which makes me laugh, too.

“I have no idea what you just said, but I think you made it clear you’re from Hawaii.”

“You heard right.”

“You must miss it. And your friends. They seemed fun in that surf video.”

“They are. We had good times.”

“I feel like I know them.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

And maybe he thinks fifteen minutes isn’t enough to be able to know anything. But in my experience, fifteen minutes can make all the difference. Fifteen minutes can change your whole life.

“Are you going back? After school gets out?” I ask, hoping he says no.

“Not permanently. I have to visit my dad as part of the custody agreement, which is stupid because it’s really only about leverage for him.” Evan scowls. “But I’ll get to see my friends when I go. That’s the one good thing about it.”

“Does your mom want to go back?”

“No way. My mom’s had island fever for years. She met my dad on vacation there a couple years after she graduated from high school and never left. But that didn’t work out, obviously. And then it was just a matter of finding the right time to get off Oahu—to get my dad to okay the move, I mean. Since he doesn’t want me living with him year-round, here we are.”

Yep. Here he is. On my couch. With his arm touching mine.

“Hey,” Evan says, nudging his elbow into my side. “Where’s your dad?”

“I don’t know.”

He nods like he gets it. “That sucks.”

“Yeah, it kind of does.”

After an hour, Evan slams his book shut. He stretches his arms high above his head. His shirt rides up, and his tanned, toned belly peeks out between his shorts and the bottom of his T-shirt. I try not to look, but come on. He reaches across me to grab the remote control from the table and flicks on the TV.

“Cool?” he asks, cocking his head at the set.

“Okay.” I could use a break anyway.

He settles deeper into the couch, really getting comfortable. I sit there with my arms flat against my sides, my fingers gripping the edges of the cushion as I watch the TV channels pass by. Please don’t let anything be on the local news. Please don’t have a panic attack in front of Evan.

He changes the channels slowly, pausing on practically every station to see exactly what’s showing. It’s after five p.m. The news could be anywhere. A reporter could be at my old school, standing in front of that building again. The idea of it makes my scalp sweat. I can smell the hallway at PPHS. I can hear the screams and then the silence.

“Go faster.” My words come out like a shout.

“You okay?” Evan asks. He’s looking at me in a way that says I can tell him anything. But I can’t. I can write about it, yes. I can put things down on a piece of paper, then fold it over twice and stuff it into an envelope for him to read. But I can’t talk about it out loud. Not now. Maybe not ever.

“I don’t want to watch the news. Can we skip over those channels? Like, immediately?”

Evan punches a number into the remote and, like that, we’re way off into the bottom-tier cable channels. My mom doesn’t make enough money to afford the really good stuff like HBO.

“Better?” he asks.

“Uh-huh.”

“You’re sweating.”

“I know.”

“Should I be worried?”

“Please don’t be.”

“Okay.”

He finally settles on some reality show where everyone is fighting and nobody uses proper grammar. My English teacher from last year would’ve hated it. Reality TV is like fingernails on a chalkboard, she used to tell us.