“So we were thinking,” my dad said on Saturday. “Maybe you could take Oliver out this afternoon.”
I glanced up at him from an old issue of Real Simple that my mom hadn’t recycled yet, no longer interested in the best way to iron a linen tablecloth. “What?”
My mom came over to stand next to my dad. Ah, the parental sneak attack. I should have seen this coming. Seventeen years of living in the same house with them and yet they still surprise me.
“We were talking earlier with Maureen,” my mom said. “It seems that Oliver is having a hard time making friends at school.”
I snorted a little, but my stomach was flipping around just like it did whenever I saw a wave that seemed a little too big to ride and a little too strong to avoid. “Get in line, Oliver,” I said to my parents, trying to keep my voice light.
“You know what I mean,” my mom said. “Maureen says that he spends all of his time in his room watching movies.”
I already knew this, of course. “So don’t give him any more space, is what you’re saying? Basically, just do the opposite of everything that you said two weeks ago.”
My mom rolled her eyes as my dad patted my arm. “Maureen’s worried, kiddo. Maybe you could just hang out with him for a few hours, show him around town or something.”
I bit the inside of my cheek as I thought about it. On one hand, I would finally get to really talk with Oliver. On the other hand, I would finally have to really talk with Oliver. It was different on campus last week, back when I had Drew right behind me. What was I supposed to say if it was just the two of us? “Sorry your dad kidnapped you ten years ago and ruined your life”? Yeah, that probably wouldn’t do much to stir up conversation.
“You’re not worried about his dad being out there somewhere?” I asked.
“We’ve discussed that with Maureen,” my dad said carefully. “And we’ve all agreed that Keith is probably not going to try anything.” My mom looked slightly less sure of that, but she nodded, anyway. “It’s best if we all just move forward. Including Oliver.”
“What if I say the wrong thing?” I asked my parents, pointedly not looking at them. “What if I ask him something and end up traumatizing him and he goes completely mute?”
My parents glanced at each other before looking back at me. “You,” my dad said, “give yourself entirely too much credit.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Maybe you could go out for ice cream—” my mom suggested.
“You mean coffee?”
“—or the movies?” My dad dug his wallet out of his pocket and fished out a few twenties. “On the house, of course. You could discuss—the movie! See, no trauma there. Make sure it’s a comedy, though. And be back by seven.”
I looked at my dad, who was doing his best “I’m kidding, but no, seriously” face. “You mean right now?” I asked him.
“You had plans?” my mom asked.
I had actually planned to say I was going to hang out with Caro, then secretly sneak down to the beach to surf for a few hours, but I was still a little suspicious of my parents’ motives. “You’re not trying to set me up with Oliver,” I asked them. “Because that would be creepy and invasive, right?”
I waited for them to agree. “Right?”
“Of course not!” my mom said. “We just thought that maybe Oliver would like to make a few friends and since you were friends . . .” Her voice trailed off, her eyes hopeful.
I sighed as I took my dad’s still-offered money, and he kissed my forehead just before I ducked away and went to find my shoes.
My mom watched as I trudged through the back door a few minutes later, her eyes on me as I slipped through the broken slat in our backyard fence. “Drive safe!” she called. “And check in after the movie, okay?” I pretended I didn’t hear her, even though I always heard her. In the years since Oliver had disappeared, my parents had reacted by making sure I wouldn’t disappear, too: early curfews (in the summer, the last dregs of sunset still streaked the sky when I had to come home), homework first, and a slew of extracurricular activities up until this year, when I put my foot down and insisted that I needed more time to study. It was kind of true, but I had really wanted—no, I needed—more time to surf. And breathe. And get some space from them and all their nervous reminders of the ways things could go so wrong, so fast.
Oliver’s backyard had gotten weedier and more overgrown in the past two weeks, which was understandable. Who has time to mow the lawn when your son comes home after ten years? I knocked on the back door, three fast knocks that echoed my rapidly beating heart. I squinted a little against the sun, and when Oliver opened it, I sort of took a step back. “Oh,” I said. “Um, hi. Hi.”
“Hi,” he said. “My mom’s not here, she took the twins to get new shoes.” His hair was rumpled, like he had been lying on his bed for too long, and his shirt was a little wrinkled.
“Oh, cool.” Why would that be cool, Emmy? Shoe shopping with four-year-olds is not cool. “No, actually I’m here to see, um, you? My mom and dad thought that maybe we could hang out?” Once the words were out of my mouth I wanted to cram them back in. I sounded ridiculous, like some made-up character in a health class textbook. No, thanks, I don’t want any drugs. Hey, how about we play a board game instead?
“Hang out?” Oliver repeated, but he didn’t sound entirely disinterested. “Yeah, sure. Okay.”
“Okay!” I said, entirely too cheerful. “Cool, yeah! Okay. Cool. I have my car, or you could drive or—”
“I don’t have a license,” he said. “I didn’t really need one in New York.”
“Oh yeah. Right. Okay. Well, then, I guess I’ll drive. Don’t want to do anything illegal, right?” I tried to smile as I realized, I just made a joke about illegal activity to someone who had been kidnapped for ten years. Oh God. Let the trauma begin.
But Oliver just turned around. “Give me a few minutes. Gotta find my keys.” He patted his pockets, like they were hiding somewhere in his jeans.
“Sure!” I said, then went to fire up my car, my jaw tight with embarrassment.
This was all my parents’ fault.
“So,” I said once Oliver was settled in the front seat of my car, “what do you want to do?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “What do you do here?”
“Not a lot,” I admitted. “The movies, coffee, ice cream. Just hang out at the Spectrum, usually.” I paused for a few seconds before adding, “It’s a new shopping center. Well, not new new, but it went up right after . . .”
Right after you were kidnapped.
I needed a subject change, fast. “What did you do in New York?”
“Oh, you know, movies, coffee, ice cream,” he said, then looked over and smiled. That motion made something in my heart seize up for a few seconds. “No, seriously, whatever you want to do,” he said, not realizing what he had done. “It’s cool. I have one question, though.”
“Yeah?” I asked as I backed down the driveway. I could see my parents peeking through the blinds and I ignored them.
He glanced down at the floor. “Why the hell is there so much sand in your minivan?”
I glanced over at Oliver, then back at the blinds, which had quickly snapped back into place. “You really want to know what I do around here?” I asked him. “Because if you do, you cannot tell my parents. They’ll murder me.”
Oliver raised an eyebrow. “Literally?”
“Metaphorically,” I amended. “Which would probably be worse.”
“Deal,” he agreed.
“Cool,” I said. “Do you have swim trunks?”
Oliver hesitated for a few seconds. “Yes?”
“Go get them and then we’ll find Drew.”
Drew lived five minutes away and when we pulled into his massive driveway, he was standing in the garage, surrounded by boxes and a broom. “I’m helping my dad,” he said before I could even ask. “We’re”—he made finger quotes around the word—“bonding. Oh, hey, Oliver. Hey.”
Oliver startled a little but just nodded at Drew. “Hey, man.”
“Drew,” he introduced himself. “I’m Drew.”
“Oh, right,” Oliver said. “Right. Sorry.”
Drew gave me a look that clearly begged to know more, but I ignored him. “Can we borrow your board and wet suit?” I asked him. “I’m going to teach Oliver how to surf.”
“You’re what?” Oliver and Drew both said.
I grinned at them. “You asked me what we did around here,” I said to Oliver. “This is what I do. Just don’t tell my parents, remember?”
“Because they’ll metaphorically kill you,” Oliver repeated dutifully. “Got it.”
“They will,” Drew agreed. “Or send her to Bible camp.”
“My parents don’t even go to church!” I said.
“Bible camp is the last refuge of every desperate parent, regardless of religious affiliation,” Drew said, his eyes cutting over to Oliver as he realized what he said. Luckily, Oliver just seemed amused. “C’mon, dude, let’s get you suited up.”
We left a few minutes later, Drew’s old wet suit and board shoved next to mine in the back of the minivan. “So when did you learn to surf?” Oliver asked as we waited at a light, the ocean shimmering down the hill below us.
“A few years ago,” I admitted. “Drew’s older brother, Kane, taught me when I was fourteen. It was the summer before he went to college and he had already taught Drew and it was just . . .” I searched for a word that didn’t exist. “It just felt like I discovered something that made me feel different than I had felt before. It made me different. I didn’t think I’d like it at first, but I loved it. I still love it.” I adjusted my sunglasses as the sun came pouring in through the windshield, the afternoon bright and warm. “Drew goes out a lot with me, but Caro doesn’t like it too much. She hates the seaweed.”
Look at me, conversing with Oliver! I thought to myself. And no one’s been traumatized yet!
“Got it.” Oliver had his elbow resting against the open window, the air blowing his hair back and forth across his forehead. “So how long has Drew been gay?”
I bristled immediately, my voice sharp. “Um, since he was conceived?”
“No, I meant—sorry, that’s not what I meant at all. I meant, when did he come out? Or—has he yet?”
Stand down, tiger. I told myself. Just some innocent questions.
“He came out to his parents last year,” I said, my spine relaxing. “But we’ve known for, like, ever. It wasn’t exactly a secret, but I think Drew’s parents were a little surprised. They were cool with it but . . .”
“But not really?” Oliver offered.
“They say they love him all the time,” I told him, remembering how Drew’s voice had shaken when he told Caro and me about that. “But I think they have to learn to love a different version of him than the one they were expecting. Which is silly, because Drew is just Drew. He’s not different, you know? It’s just the way they’re looking at him that’s changed.”
Oliver nodded, his lips pursed as he thought about that. “Sometimes love isn’t something you say, it’s something you do,” he finally said. “Or, I don’t know, at least that’s what it seems like.”
I glanced at Oliver and wondered whose parents we were discussing now.
“Agreed,” I said, then decided to take a risk. “I’m sorry people are being such creeps at school. It sucks. And that milk carton shit was stupid.”
“Yeah, well, what are you gonna do?” Oliver shrugged. “I’m the star of the month, I guess. My mom and the principal had a meeting about it, which was totally helpful.” The sarcasm practically dripped off his teeth. “Don’t tell anyone about that, okay? It won’t help.”
“No worries,” I said. “What’d they say, though?”
“That I should see the guidance counselor in addition to a therapist.” Oliver sighed a little, his breath disappearing into the wind as I turned a corner. “Don’t tell anyone about that, either.”
“Well, lucky for you, you are in the perfect car for keeping secrets.” I gestured to the surfboards in the back. “And therapists are the worst,” I added. “If you wanted to talk about things, you’d talk about them, right?”
“You’ve been?”
I realized my mistake too late. “Yeah, well, after you . . . you know.”
“After my dad kidnapped me. You can say it.”
“After your dad kidnapped you,” I echoed, but the words sounded a lot sadder coming out of his mouth than they did coming out of mine. “Me and Caro and Drew, we all went, but then one of them made Drew cry—I don’t remember what he said, exactly, but he said something—and so Caro kicked the therapist and then I kicked him and we didn’t have to go anymore.”
“Why’d you kick him?”
“Because I,” I said, placing my hand over my heart, “am a very loyal friend, Oliver.”
He startled a little again, even as he laughed. “Good to know. So you’re saying I should kick my therapist?”
“You have a real gift for reading between the lines,” I said, then pulled the car into a parking space and clapped my hands down on top of the steering wheel. “Now then. Are you ready for the best surfing lesson of your life?”
“You mean first and maybe only surfing lesson?”
“Possibly.”
“Absolutely,” he said, and we climbed out of the car.