When We Collided(25)
“The God of Midnight Swimming?”
“Well,” I say, “you may know him as the Moon, but he has many formal titles that I don’t want to get into right now. What was I saying? Oh, right. May he protect and guide you so you’ll stop being such a goddamn buzzkill and start acting like the supernova that you are.”
Jonah looks at me like I’m absolutely off my rocker. Or maybe it’s a look of amazement, like I’m a whole galaxy, glittering and vast and unchartered. But then he smiles in this way that makes me feel known. And now I can’t think of anything but snacking on black cherries at the beach earlier today. The way he licked the juice off his lower lip.
I close my eyes a split second before he kisses me, and I clutch the hem of his T-shirt to stay planted against the swaying waves. His hands are on my neck, pulling me in, and the ocean floor drops out from beneath us and the Moon himself whispers, Damn.
It is nothing like that first, quick kiss where I was moving on impulse. This is an exchange, intentional and charged: yes, we are doing this, yes, yes. The difference between a happy summer day and a hot summer night. We’re knee-deep in the ocean, and I’m starting to think I’m in over my head.
So I throw my arms around him and hang on, kissing him wholeheartedly but without the Where is this going? and Does he like me? and What does this mean?! And I know there are people who would judge me for this. Even Ruby once asked, Gosh, Viv, do you keep track of how many guys you kiss? Nope! Because listen here, sisters: it’s summer and this boy is handsome and kind, and, frankly, I want to kiss anything that makes me feel so seen. How do you like them cherries?
When we finally move apart, we’re breathing faster than when we started. Jonah’s eyes are more open than before—but not in height or width. In depth. Like he’s more awake. Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation indeed.
I expect to feel triumphant, but all I can do is stare back, clinging on to him still. My vision tilts, perspective shifting like everything I see is now one degree different—finally clicked into place. Like an opera singer onstage who believes she is the performer, only to find the orchestra—its earnestness, its unexpected soul—nearly moving her to tears. You mean to give, and find yourself taking and taking, soaking it in.
“All right, fine.” Jonah grins as he takes my hand, and we run into deeper waters, gasping at the cold and the beauty.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jonah
I don’t like running, but I do it any time Silas can be home in the morning. My feet plod along the sand. Really, it’s a fast-paced slog. I have an old iPod with shitty battery life, but it works. When running along the beach, I listen to metal. I used to hate the sound of all that screaming, but now it helps. It usually drowns out my thoughts, but not today.
Vivi has been by my side for almost two weeks now, but I needed to angst alone this morning. My worries woke me up early, pestering me like Leah on Christmas morning. I crept through rare silence in our dark house, left a note, then drove the car a few miles down the coast. I didn’t want to run in Verona Cove, down Main Street or along the beach path like I normally do. I needed to run in a place where memories don’t fill my peripheral vision, the ghosts of who we used to be watching me like marathon spectators.
I’m following a trail of questions down this long stretch of sand: What the hell are we going to do? Will Silas really defer college? Do I finally tell Felix that I think my mom needs real help? And my dad’s heart problem—I know it was genetic. Can I even get checked for that?
After my dad died, I looked up the most heart-healthy foods. Now I make oatmeal almost every morning for my brothers and sisters. They seem to understand that I have to do something. So I invent flavors to keep it interesting—peanut butter–banana oatmeal, maple syrup–walnut oatmeal, strawberry–powdered sugar oatmeal. When they demand pancakes as a change of pace, I use a recipe that includes oatmeal and chocolate chips. I’m not sure if shoving the maximum amount of oats down all my siblings’ throats is the best heart-health plan, but it’s better than nothing.
My dad was naturally big. Not round, but tall and wide. Vivi would say he was descended from redwoods. All of us kids have my mom’s build—medium height and lean. Naomi and I have my dad’s Sicilian dark hair and eyes. The rest of my siblings have the lighter coloring from my mom’s side. Ever since he died, I’ve been looking for my dad in Silas and Isaac, watching their faces for his nose, his expressions, his eye crinkles. Felix says I’m more like my dad every day, but I don’t see it.
Vivi relieves me of these thoughts. She lives in overdrive, and I have to work to keep up. It takes so much energy that I can’t concentrate on my own crappy life. She fills everything with new memories so that my life feels like more than “exactly like it was only minus my dad.” She makes me drive an hour to the nearest Target so we can ride the bikes up the aisles, and Leah can play with the bouncy balls until the manager asks us to leave. She writes a play with Isaac about an old-timey baker named Paunchy Paul and the many critters that sneak into his bakery late at night to eat his bread. In the one-night-only performance, Isaac played Paul, complete with our dad’s chef hat, a pillow stuffed down his shirt as a fat belly, and a mustache drawn with Vivi’s eye makeup. Vivi was costume director, lighting director, and Head Mouse. Bekah played a mouse in one scene and a raccoon in another; Leah played the squirrel that persuades Paul to bake them miniature breads stuffed with acorns. I baked bread to use as a prop, and Silas and Naomi whistled as they bowed. My mom didn’t come down. But the next morning, the littles reenacted their parts in her room. She laughed at their silly happiness until she cried. I hustled them out the door and left her in peace.