I’m riding shotgun in Will’s Jeep on the drive home from school on Thursday, just the two of us because Holden has football practice, when my phone vibrates in the back pocket of my jeans. I tune out of Will’s rant about how much of an asshole his Biology teacher is and fish my phone out of my pocket, glancing down at the lit-up message displayed on my screen. It’s from Jaden, and although the message is rather blunt and vague, my heart does skip a beat or two when I read the words he’s written.
Meet me at the lake at five. Same spot as last time.
Jaden and I had no plans together tonight, but luckily I don’t happen to be slotted in for a shift at The Summit, so I’m free and more than willing to spend time with him, even if I don’t know what exactly he has in mind. I like the demanding tone to the message, however. I like that it’s not a question. I like that he knows I’ll be there. We haven’t seen each other outside of the school walls since last weekend, so I’m more than desperate to hang out with him anywhere other than by my locker for once.
“What are you smiling about?” Will asks, eyeing me suspiciously. He moves one hand from the steering wheel to lower the radio and then teasingly wiggles his eyebrows at me. “Talking to your boyfriend?”
I roll my eyes at him and look back down at my phone, quickly typing a reply. “He’s not my boyfriend,” I say. At the same time, I hit send, letting Jaden know that I’ll definitely be there.
“Whatever you say,” Will continues to tease, and then as he pulls into my cul-de-sac, he adds, “Are you inviting him to my party?”
I slip my phone back into my pocket and straighten up in the passenger seat as my house comes into view. I grab my bag from the floor and pull it onto my lap, then release my seatbelt and get ready to jump out, my hand resting on the door handle. I look over at Will and nod. “Yeah, if it’s okay with you.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” he asks. Pulling up outside my house, he unlocks the doors and tilts his head to look at me, hair flopping into his eyes. He should really get his hair cut. “You know me, I go with the flow. Invite Dani too. She’s nice and she could use it.”
“Sure thing,” I say. I was planning on inviting Dani, anyway. She most likely won’t come, but at least the offer will be there. “Catch you later!” I tell Will as I slide out of the Jeep and slam the door shut behind me. He doesn’t wait around for me to get inside my house, and within a matter of seconds, he’s gone.
Swinging my bag onto my shoulder, I run across my lawn and onto my porch. Mom and Dad are both at work, so I have the house to myself, though I hardly notice that they’re not here. They’ve been so quiet this week. Last night, I found Dad sitting at the kitchen table in silence, staring at a cut on his palm for almost an hour. He didn’t hear me when I asked him if he wanted coffee. Yesterday morning, Mom skipped work and was still wrapped up in bed with water and painkillers on the bedside table when I got home from school. She was ill, she told me. But I knew better: She’d drunk her way through three full bottles of wine the night before.
I rush upstairs to my room and throw my bag down on my bed. I have an hour and half to spend getting ready before I meet Jaden, and I definitely need it. I ran track third period, so my makeup has more or less sweated off and my hair is stuck in a messy ponytail. There’s no way Jaden can see me like this, so I hop in the shower, get dressed, straighten my hair and apply fresh makeup.
I’m drowning myself in body spray and perfume when I hear Mom finally arriving home from work.
I get everything together: my phone, my keys to the house, some cash. If I’m meeting Jaden at the lake, then I most definitely don’t want to be late, so I make my way downstairs. When I reach the hall, I catch Mom walking into the kitchen and kicking off her shoes with a sigh of relief. I head into the kitchen to try and get her attention, but she’s standing in front of the counter, her hands gripping the edge, breathing deeply.
“Mom?” I say carefully, trying not to startle her. “Can I borrow the car?”
Mom glances sideways at me, the exhaustion in her eyes evident. She can’t even bring herself to open her mouth to ask where I’m going or who I’m going to be with, most likely because right now she simply doesn’t care. Her mind has been elsewhere the entire week. She lethargically reaches into her purse, grabs the keys and then dumps them down on the counter in front of me. She turns away then, walking over to pull open one of the top cupboards. There’s a clink as she fetches a glass, and then nothing but silence as she pulls a fresh bottle of white wine from the rack next to the flowers Darren sent last weekend. I keep forgetting to water them, so they’re withering already.
I watch in silence as Mom screws the cap off the cheap wine and pours a full glass with no energy whatsoever. Never looking at me, she carries both the glass and the bottle over to the kitchen table and sets them down. She pulls out a chair, drops down onto the edge of it, and focuses her blank stare on the window. I don’t want to be around to witness her take that first sip, and I know there’s nothing I can say that will prevent it, so I grab the car keys from the counter and walk away, turning my back to her. It is easier to do that, to just walk away. I can ignore it that way.
When I pull into the lake’s parking lot exactly four minutes before 5PM, it’s only half full. There are some parents and their kids playing at the Boardwalk Park playground and a woman strolling by with her dog, but it’s relatively quiet compared with the summer months. Suddenly, I spot Jaden standing in the middle of the road only a few feet away from my car, and I brake harshly. He jogs over, wearing his favorite black, ripped jeans and a red flannel shirt that’s too big around the sleeves. As he approaches, I roll down my window and he presses both hands against the door, leaning down to look at me.
“I got a permit,” he announces immediately, grinning widely from ear to ear. It stretches all the way up his face, capturing his glistening eyes. “And the boat is finally registered again and fully insured, so park and let’s go!” He thumps his hand excitedly against the metal of the car door, playfully urging me to hurry up. “We’re taking her out to see if she still runs as well as she did.”
I can’t believe it. I lean forward in my seat so that I can peer around Jaden. Behind him, his grandparents’ Corolla is reversed onto the launch ramp with Brad’s boat perched on the trailer that’s attached, already half-loaded into the water. Terry is in the car with a beaming smile on his face, and when he sees me, he sticks his arm out of his rolled-down window and waves.
I look back up at Jaden, still blinking in surprise. I thought we were going to go for a walk around the lake or sit on the beach, not take his parents’ boat out onto the water together for the very first time. “You’re really taking the boat out?”
Jaden nods, glancing over his shoulder to steal another look at it. “You were right,” he says when his eyes meet mine again. His grin transforms into a more sincere, grateful smile. “Dad wouldn’t want it sitting on the driveway. He’d want me to take a girl like you out on it, so what do you say? Are you coming with me?”
“Of course I’m coming with you,” I say, placing my hand on top of his on the door. I know how big a moment this must be for him. He wanted to get rid of the boat, after all, so it must be difficult to take it out on the water again, given how special it was to his father. With my eyes never leaving his, I gently squeeze his hand. “Give me a second to pull up.”
Jaden nods again and steps back from the car, pulling his hand free from beneath mine, and I roll the window back up and drive into the closest free parking spot. I’m not sure if I’m dressed appropriately for going boating, so I grab an old hoodie of mine from the back seat and take it with me just in case it’s colder out on the water. I lock up and then sprint over to join Jaden and Terry on the launch ramp as they release the boat from the trailer, and I follow Jaden as he walks along the edge of the dock while the boat drifts into the water, tying it to the dock with thick rope.
“Got it?” Terry yells out of the car window, and Jaden throws him a thumbs-up. “Alright, be careful and have fun! Call me when you’re done.” He rolls the window up and drives forward, pulling the trailer out of the water and back up the launch ramp. Then he drives off, disappearing out of the parking lot much to my surprise.
I drop my gaze to Jaden, who’s still crouched down, pulling the boat against the dock. “He’s not coming?”
“What?” he says, glancing up at me. He pulls a face and then laughs a little, straightening up in front of me. “You thought my granddad was gonna join us?” He shakes his head, still laughing as I shrug sheepishly, and then points to the boat. “Okay, jump in. We’re only allowed to stay out on the water until sunset.”
“Okay,” I say, and step closer to the edge, running my eyes over Brad’s boat now that it’s finally back in the water where it belongs. It’s the first time I’ve seen it without its cover on, and I’m amazed by the pristine condition that it has been kept in. There are no signs of corrosion or scuffed paintwork, no dirt or dampness on the seats. Although it looked abandoned and uncared for in the driveway, it clearly has been shown some attention over the past year so as not to let it deteriorate. Along the bow, in perfect, large letters, it says: Hunter.
The water is calm, so the boat doesn’t bob around too much as I step one foot inside it, and then the other, carefully climbing in. There are only four seats: the two in the front where Brad and Kate had sat that summer’s day last August, and the two in the back where Jaden and I had been, exchanging flirtatious glances with one another behind his parents’ backs. My stomach lurches as I stand in the center of the small boat, glancing around, imagining Brad and Kate here now, still smiling, still living.
The boat jerks slightly as Jaden steps in next to me, and he pauses in front of me when he sees my expression and gently grasps my arm. “Are you okay?” he asks, concerned. “Don’t tell me you’ve developed motion sickness within the space of a year. Kenz?”
I press my lips together and try to force the bile that’s rising in my throat back down, shaking my head slowly. “Do you know how to . . . how to drive this?” I ask through ragged breaths, trying to focus on something else, anything else.
“Sit down,” Jaden urges. With his hand still on my arm, he gently guides me into the front passenger seat, the same seat where his mom once sat. “And yes, I know how to drive this thing. Dad taught me,” he explains as he slips into the seat next to me behind the controls. He rests one hand loosely over the steering wheel and presses the key into the ignition, turning it with concentration until the engine splutters to life, forcing the boat to shudder beneath us. “Now tell me,” he says, looking back over, “are you okay?”
I still feel as though I might throw up all over the white leather seats, so I keep my mouth firmly clamped shut and breathe deeply through my nose, giving Jaden a small nod. He doesn’t look entirely convinced, but he stands up and moves back to the boat’s edge to untie us from the dock. I close my eyes and grab a fistful of my hoodie in my lap, desperate for the overwhelming sense of sickness to disappear. I just can’t shake Brad and Kate from my mind. I can see their faces, their beautiful smiles. I can hear their voices, their lively laughter.
I sense Jaden walk back over so I force my eyes open, keeping them trained on him as he settles into the driver’s seat. The boat is slowly drifting away from the dock with the gentle flow of the lake. “If you want to get off, just tell me and I’ll take you straight back, okay?” Jaden says. There is still worry written across his face, but I don’t want to ruin this experience for him, so I promise myself that I’ll stick it out. This is supposed to be a special moment.
Leaning back against the leather seat, I watch as Jaden rests one hand over the control levers and adjusts them. The boat increases in speed, spewing out water in our wake as we head across the open lake. Apart from a small sailing boat far off at the other side, we have the place to ourselves, and Jaden seems to use the space to its full potential. We speed through the water, engine growling, bow rising up. Splashes of water lightly spray over us and my nausea begins to wear off after a few minutes when I switch from thinking about Brad and Kate to thinking about how much fun this actually is.
I laugh a little as the wind relentlessly blows my hair across my face and I steal a glance over at Jaden. His face is aglow with pure joy as he races the boat around the full perimeter of the lake. “I told you I knew how to drive this thing!” he yells over the sound of the engine and the crashing of the water, and with a satisfied smile, he begins to slow the boat down.
We come to a stop in the very center of Windsor Lake. The boat sits idly on the water, drifting back and forth only barely, and there is no one else around. In the distance, the stunning peaks of the Rocky Mountains are visible in the clear, light sky. There is nothing other than complete silence out on the lake and I like how alone we seem out here, so far from everything else, just Jaden and me.
“Mom would have yelled at me for driving like that,” he says, propping his elbow up on the back of the leather seat and lazily slumping against it. His smile is warm as he looks over at me, his gaze content. “Dad would have told me to go faster.”
I stare back at him, but my eyes don’t mirror his. My gaze is full of confusion, my mind full of so many questions. I really like Jaden. I do, but sometimes I just can’t understand him. I don’t understand how he can possibly talk about his parents so casually, so playfully, without even so much as a flicker of pain and longing in his eyes. He has been so open and so honest with me about them and about himself, yet I still don’t understand any of it. How can he possibly be so happy?
Jaden has let me straight back into his life, every single part of it. Taking this boat out again for the very first time after the death of his parents is a big moment for him, but he still brought me. He fully trusts me, I can see it, but I know that he shouldn’t, because I haven’t been telling him the truth. I’ve been evading it, keeping secrets and holding up barriers this entire time. I’ve been lying to him. I haven’t told him the full truth as to why I couldn’t bear to be around him for an entire year. I have never told him about Grace.
I want Jaden to truly understand me, the same way I want to understand him. I need to be honest. I need to tell him the truth, every single tiny fraction of it.
My chest feels heavy and I drop my eyes to my hoodie, my hands trembling slightly as I fumble anxiously with the material. I’ve never been good at this. “Jaden,” I murmur, “there’s something I need to tell you.”
Jaden must tell from the terrified look in my eyes and the quietness of my voice that whatever I’m about to tell him isn’t going to be light, because he immediately wipes the smile from his face and sits up. “Kenz?”
God, where do I even begin? There is so much to say, and I don’t know how to say it. It’s impossible to look at Jaden right now, so I keep my head down and my eyes on my hands. “That night at the store . . . I wasn’t buying the beer for myself,” I admit. My breathing is shallow and I feel ashamed to have to tell him about Mom, but I know that it’s necessary. “I was buying it for my mom. There were no bottles in the kitchen, so she gave me her ID and sent me out for some more.”
I swallow hard and force myself to bravely steal a sideways glance at Jaden to gauge his reaction. He’s watching me, listening very carefully, his expression calm but focused. He’s waiting for me to continue, but it’s so hard to say these things out loud. I’ve never told anyone about Mom’s self-destructive behavior, not even Will and Holden. I always found it easier to just push it to the back of my mind, but it’s time I admit it not only to Jaden, but also to myself.
“She’s been drinking for four years now,” I continue, shifting my nervous gaze to the Rocky Mountains over in the distance behind Jaden. I focus on their peaks as the sun gradually lowers. “Every year, it seems to get worse and worse. It started with a couple glasses during the week. And then a glass every night. And then several glasses a night.” I try to relieve some of the pressure that’s building in my chest by pausing to exhale, but it makes no difference. “And now we’re counting how much she drinks in terms of bottles rather than glasses.”
Jaden is silent for a moment. He slides forward to the edge of his seat and places his hand on my knee. “Kenzie, I’m sorry,” he says.
“There’s a reason why I avoided you,” I splutter abruptly, choking out the words that are stuck in my throat. My eyes flicker down to meet Jaden’s. My entire body is trembling, not because it’s cold out on the water, but because nerves are consuming every inch of me. I hate this, but I have to push through it. “A real reason. I didn’t tell you everything that I should have.”
“What is it, Kenz?” Jaden urges. His eyes dilate with a mixture of both panic and intrigue as he searches my terrified expression for answers. “What didn’t you tell me?”
The pressure in my chest only continues to build, growing more painful with each moment that passes. Telling Jaden the truth means opening up about everything that I have spent so long repressing in order to move on. For four entire years, I have done a relatively good job at keeping Grace out of my mind. I see her name in our hall every day, but apart from those fleeting seconds when the thought of her crosses my mind, I rarely think about her. It has always been easier that way. Thinking about Grace and everything she would have been would only send me into a downward spiral exactly like Mom. That’s why it is so difficult now to force Grace to the front of my mind. To talk about her. To tell Jaden about her.
I angle my head away from him again, turning to face the calm water that surrounds us. All I can hear is my ragged breathing and the pounding of my heart against my ribs. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut and focus on the darkness. I have been silent for too long. “My sister would have been four this week,” I whisper. My throat is so dry, my voice cracked, my words pained. I refuse to open my eyes. I like it better in the darkness. “Her name was Grace, or at least it would have been. She was stillborn when I was thirteen, so we never got to meet her.”
I hear Jaden release a long breath of air as his hand tightens on my knee. His other hand finds mine and he grasps both my hands under his in what I can only sense as empathy and reassurance. Warmth radiates between our skin and I’m thankful for his supportive touch as he remains silent, allowing me time to continue when I’m ready. My eyes are still closed, though now I’m squeezing them even tighter, fighting back the tears that I feel forming. I feel so vulnerable having to expose myself bare like this, and I’ve only just begun.
“My parents . . . They’ve never gotten over it. They’ve never been the same since. I’ve watched how it’s changed them. They don’t laugh as much as they used to, and there’s always this sadness in their eyes even when I think they’re happy. Mom’s one and only pastime is sitting with a glass of wine in her hand, and Dad works around the clock now just so he doesn’t have to be home to witness it,” I tell him in a trembling mumble. The words are spilling out of me and so are the tears. Now that I’ve started, I can’t stop. “Grace is the only person I’ve ever lost in my life, and even though I never had the chance to meet her, the grief is unbearable,” I whisper, and there’s a pang of hurt in my chest that finally bursts the pressure that has been mounting. My tense body seems to collapse and my shoulders sink as I force my damp eyes open, looking over at Jaden through a thick, blurred layer of tears. “That’s why I couldn’t be around you, Jaden,” I confess in a choked sob. The tears are streaming down my cheeks in hot, stinging rivers. The relief of finally letting the truth out of my system is painful, yet the pain is satisfying, as though I can feel it filtering out. I’ve been holding it in for too long. “Because you . . . you had it even worse,” I continue, still crying out my words. He’s never seen me like this, because this isn’t usually me. There’s understanding and compassion in his eyes as he squeezes my hands even tighter, letting me know that he’s still there, still listening. “You knew your parents. You knew what kind of people they were, you knew what they loved and what they believed in and what they stood for. You have memories with them, so how do you possibly move on from that? How do you cope when you lose someone you truly knew? How do you keep on living without them when you have already experienced what life is like with them?”
Jaden and I may have both lost someone in our lives, but I can’t even begin to imagine what he’s been through. Unlike Jaden, we didn’t have Grace in our lives. The only thing we had was the idea of Grace. The thought of her. We only lost what could have been, whereas Jaden lost so, so much more.
I look down at my hands in Jaden’s and only then do I realize that it’s not him who’s tightening his hold on me, but rather I am tightening my hold on him. I’m squeezing my hands around his so tightly that my fingers are rigid from the tension, my knuckles pale. If I’m hurting him, he doesn’t show it. “I couldn’t be around you when you were figuring that out, Jaden,” I admit, frantically shaking my head at him, ashamed. I wish I was stronger. I wish I could handle grief. “I’m so sorry. I just couldn’t, because I thought you would never find those answers. I thought you would be a different person. I thought you would never be happy again, and I couldn’t bear to watch that happen all over again.”
“Kenzie,” Jaden whispers, sliding off the seat and dropping to his knees on the tiny floor of the boat in front of me, looking up at me from beneath his eyelashes. He moves his hand from my knee and cups my face, brushing away my burning tears with the soft pad of his thumb. “I cope because I have memories,” he tells me firmly. “I got to live sixteen years of my life with my parents, and I feel lucky for having every single one of those years. I knew they were happy, and although their time here was cut short, they had a good ride. They loved each other and they loved Dani and me, and I know them well enough to know now that they wouldn’t want me to spend the rest of my life hung up over them. They would want me to be as happy as they were, they would want me to keep on living. That doesn’t mean that I don’t miss them, because God, I really fucking do.” He exhales and glances up to the sky full of clouds, blinking several times and then looking back down at me. “But I cope because they will always live on in the memories I hold of them, so you were wrong. It’s not worse. It’s bearable, because I can’t imagine how it would feel to lose someone without having a single memory of them. Kenz,” he says, tilting my chin down toward him so that his eyes can meet mine. The sympathy within them is true and sincere. “I’m sorry.”
“Tell me something normal,” I whisper, a tiny hint of a smile cracking through my pained expression. I feel lighter now, less weighed down somehow now that I have everything off my chest. I understand Jaden, but I may also understand myself. Now that I’ve said it out loud, I understand why I feel the way I do.
“Okay,” Jaden says with a small smile. “I like you even more than I did an hour ago, and I thought that was pretty impossible,” he admits, “so thanks for proving me wrong.”
He glances out over the water, back in the direction of the dock. With his hand still in mine, he straightens up from the floor of the boat and then places his free hand to my cheek, feeling the dampness of my skin. I know I’m a mess right now. A complete, utter mess. My mascara stings my eyes, so I roll my hoodie up and use it to dab at them.
“Kenz,” Jaden says softly, and I pause, glancing up at him. He leans forward, hand still pressed to my cheek, and gently places his cool lips just above my temple. “Thank you for telling me everything that you just did.”