When We Collided(56)

I snort, thinking of my morning visitor. And the curiosity breaks my usual policy about meeting people’s ghosts for myself. Because Officer Hayashi wears a wedding band, but heartache rises off his skin like heat. “What’s Hayashi’s deal? He’s married, right?”

“Uh. Was. His wife and daughter died in a car accident when I was . . . seven? Eight? His daughter was in college at the time.”

My hand moves to cover my face, and I can barely whisper out the words. “Oh, good God. He lost his family?”

“His son is fine. He’s grown. Has kids, I think. He lives in Portland.”

Maybe I should be thinking that Hayashi had all the right in the world to tell me to deal with what I’ve got. But all I can think is that the world seems so pointlessly sad sometimes—so harrowingly, impossibly, uselessly sad.

I stare down at the ocean, which pools farther offshore but weaves in closer, between the craggy cliffs. To land squarely in the water, you’d need a huge running start and the wind direction working in your favor. A standing hop would plunge you straight into the rocks, but I can think of worse ways to go. It would feel like flying, like soaring, the wind barely resisting you, and you’d die on impact, or so they say. Still, God, the landing. I shudder to think.

“If you were going to kill yourself, how would you do it?”

Jonah is silent for a few moments, and I don’t turn to see his expression because I don’t care—if he’s shocked, if he’s judging me, if he’s offended, I don’t care. “Jesus, Viv. I have no idea. I’ve never thought about it.”

Ugh, of course he hasn’t, noble Jonah and his duty to his family.

“I’m just being hypothetical, Jonah.” Honestly, the sensitivity. Get over it, you know? I don’t appreciate how often people hide their scars and doubts. Really, it’s not fair to people who are struggling, to go on believing that everyone else just has it totally together and never has one bad thought in their lives. Like, I know you people sometimes lie awake at night torturing yourselves over the atrocities in this world and mortality and meaning. I know you’re not just daydreaming about riding a pink pony to your job as a cupcake taster. “Do you believe in heaven?”

I always think I don’t believe in God because I don’t go to church and I don’t care what people do as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. But if that’s true, then why do I mumble to a higher being sometimes? Please help me, I ask sometimes. Or I get angry at some unknowable form in the sky for my lot in life. This isn’t fair, I complain. You are not being fair to me at all. Sometimes I believe in reincarnation and sometimes I believe in the heaven that they tell little kids about, like golden streets and choirs in the clouds and being happy forever. Sometimes I believe in nothing at all because life can be such a wormhole of despair that I have to think we’re on our own.

“I want to,” Jonah says after a while.

“That’s not the same thing.”

“Yeah.” He sighs as if this thought has crossed his mind excruciatingly often. “I know.”

That’s it for Jonah, I think. I’ve sucked the energy right out of him—sapped his remaining ability to put up a cheerful front. If you want to push someone away, I strongly recommend rambling about death and theology. That oughta do it.

I watch the waves swell and break down the coastline, swell and break. My chest threatens to crack on the left side.

The heart is such a strange little beast—a lump of thick muscle with pipes sticking out. Sometimes I think my heart is made of rubber, and the world stretches it and twists so that it writhes in my chest and aches. This is why I have spent most of my time on this planet here but hurting. Sometimes I think a heart of porcelain would be easier. Let it drop out of my rib cage and break on the floor, no heartbeat, the end. Instead, I get a bouncy heart that bleeds when the world claws at it but keeps beating through the pain.

Near us, Sylvia sniffs the wildflowers. I scoot over to where Jonah’s sitting and position myself on his lap. I climb right in like a little kid, and he puts his arms around me, and I press my face into his warm neck. No matter what heaven you believe in, your time on this earth will end. What I’m saying is that you should listen—really listen—to the slosh of the waves and the distant call of Pacific birds. You should feel a boy’s pulse against your cheek; you should fill your lungs with ocean air. While you can, I mean. You should do these things while you still can.

“Hey, Jonah,” I whisper. “Can you sneak over and sleep in my room tonight?”

He thinks for a moment. “Yeah. Just tell Sylvia not to sound the alarm.”



That night, I let him in after my mom has closed her bedroom door, and we lie beneath tangled-up sheets. Sylvia’s fluffy body rises and falls at the end of the bed, where she is curled up like a powdered-sugar doughnut. Jonah and I are restless as we drift off—on a bumpy road to a peaceful destination. We curl together like heat rising from a teacup—swirls and arcs moving over each other, under each other, fluid and never still.

My head is against his shoulder, so I feel it when his breathing slows, and his lips barely part like a sleeping child.

“Jonah,” I whisper, just to check.

“It’s okay,” he says, eyes closed. He’s not even awake. “It’s okay.”