Invincible Summer(50)

He’s doing the same thing to Mom and Dad, and everyone’s getting so frustrated with him that Noah says, “Look, we’ll take him down the beach, all right?” He takes Melinda by the hand and they sign Come Gideon come and he follows them, signing lots of things neither of them can either see or understand.

Eventually Claudia and Shannon and Bella and I wonder

what the hell we’re doing not tagging along, so, after making sure Lucy’s firmly asleep under my mom’s chair, we grab one another’s hands and run down to the beach, shrieking. The beach is so long so long and we’re trying to make it all the way to the water without stopping to gasp for breath, but it’s so far. The stars have this extra intensity, but it’s like there are not enough of them tonight. The beach is four shades darker than usual, and everything is eerie and beautiful and temporary. The ocean roars behind everything.

I can’t believe how important this all feels. It’s the birthday thing. Growing old over the course of one day always feels to me like I’m living my last hours on earth.

Melinda and Noah are lying in the sand halfway between the house and the beach, laughing and tickling each other.

Gideon’s near them with the raft, riding it in the sand.

Claudia runs up to me and nudges my shoulder. “Tag.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“You’re it!” she shrieks. She runs up to Shannon and jumps on his back. “You’re it, Chase!”

I look at Noah for help. He shrugs. “What can I say?

You’re it.”

“I’m also twelve, apparently. . . .”

“Go play. We’ll watch Gideon.”

So I sprint after Claudia and Shannon to tackle them into the sand. We run around and scream and play tag, and eventually wrestle Melinda and Noah back to the ground, together, and they kick at us and scream back and Shannon calls me “soldier” but Melinda doesn’t call me “Everboy.”

We’re lying in the sand, staring up at the sky, having our love and our innocence. Bella sits up and says, “Where’s Gideon?” “Noah’s got him,” I murmur.

Beside me, Noah sits up. I wait for him to raise his arm and point, to say, “He’s right there. Gideon’s right there.”

He’s frozen, eyes scanning the beach over and over. His fingers tighten and dig into the ground, like he’s trying to steady himself with the sand.

I sit up and search the beach, the ocean. There’s nobody there, just the seahorse float bobbing up and down in the breakers.

It’s so far away from us. Maybe he’s on it, or next to it.

Maybe we just don’t see him. It’s so far away.

“Gideon!” I call, and nothing, ever, has sounded more futile.

But then they’re all on their feet with me, and we’re running toward the water, calling him with our voices and with our hands. It’s so far away, the ocean’s so far away, it takes us a million years to get down there . . .

The waves are positively brutal—how did we not notice

how tall they were? Stupid optical illusions of this new beach placated us, we’re not used to it, and he’s not used to the water . . . he gets dizzy. . . .

Noah was supposed to be watching him, but he was with

Melinda, he was watching Melinda. . . .

Noah and I are the first ones in the water, the first ones to splash over the seahorse float. “Gideon!” he’s screaming, but I can’t see any of Noah except for where the stars shine off his wet hair. I’m so afraid he’s going to disappear. That he’ll sink underneath the water and then he’ll be gone.

And I can’t see any of Gideon, nothing, except a torn piece of his bathing suit snagged on the float’s nozzle.

“Gideon!” everyone’s screaming from the shore—Shannon sprinting back to get the parents, but he’ll never make it, the beach is too long—he’ll make it, but so long from now, what’s the point— Noah and I take one look at each other and we’re diving, searching around with our hands and our squinted worthless eyes and our worthless ears, screaming with our mouths open under the water—-he has to be here somewhere, he has to be, he cannot just disappear on us, he has to come back, he cannot just be nowhere, not now— Gideon! We’re all screaming.

“Two minutes,” Noah’s gasping. “It’s been two minutes,”

and Gideon hasn’t come up for air, hasn’t come up for anything, hasn’t bobbed out of the water to tell us it’s okay, it’s okay, you tried your hardest— “Gideon!” we scream.

Why I am I wet why am I cold why can’t I breathe I’m out of the water they took me out of the water I don’t want to be in the water why am I so cold why am I shaking is it because I’m so cold why don’t I know what my fingers are saying why is it cold why is there water in my mouth why are they yelling at me.

“Hey! Chase! Chase McGill! Are you with us, soldier?”

It’s Shannon. It’s Shannon, holding me against the wall of the shower.

“Are you with me, soldier?” he’s asking, his face covered in scratches the size of my fingernails.

People are talking. . . .

“Are you with me?” Shannon yells.

I am with no one but Noah and Camus.