Jake
The bell rings, echoing out and splitting the silence in two. I open my eyes and look around. Em’s walked off.
She’s standing looking down over the water, a sad expression on her face. I walk toward her slowly, enjoying the chance to observe her. Summer has tanned her face, but she has dark bruise-colored shadows beneath her eyes that I want to brush away. Sadness hangs over her like a fog. She doesn’t smile anymore. Not like she used to. How long has she been like this?
I want to bring back the old Em, the one with the dangerous tinder spark in her eyes, the wicked grin, and the manic laugh that sounded like a donkey braying. I want to breathe life back into her. Because this Em is a pale, broken imitation of the Em I once knew. Can she get that spark back, or is it gone forever? Did I help snuff it out? Or was it the sum of everything? Of everything that happened and everything that didn’t? I can’t help but wonder too what part Rob might be playing in her unhappiness. Every time I think about them together, I grimace and have to stop myself from confronting her about him. It’s not my place.
There’s a bench a few feet away from her and I amble toward it. She doesn’t follow. I sit. And I wait, wondering if she feels it too—that pull that I’ve been feeling ever since I saw her again. Maybe she doesn’t. Maybe I’m imagining it. She’s forever walking away from me, refusing to look me in the eye.
But just as I’m about to stand up again, she sits—as far away from me as she can possibly get without falling off the bench, but it’s something.
“I’m sorry about your dad,” I say after a minute.
Em’s head flies instantly toward me.
“I went around to see your mom, to tell her I quit,” I explain quickly.
Em looks away, a frown line furrowing her forehead.
“I had a good conversation with him.”
She turns to look at me again, frowning this time. “What?”
I shrug. “We talked, about hockey and stuff.”
“Stuff?”
“Yeah.”
Her mouth tightens. What’s she angry about?
“When did he get diagnosed?” I ask.
Em doesn’t speak for a second, and I wonder if she’s going to, but then she sighs heavily. “Three years ago.”
There’s a catch in her voice and her nostrils flare.
“Is there anything the doctors can do?” I ask.
Em shakes her head. “No. It’s the most progressive type. It’s just going to keep getting worse until . . .” She breaks off, biting her lip.
I inhale softly. Shit.
“Em . . . ,” I say, trailing off. What is there to say? Without thinking, I reach over and take her hand. At once she stiffens. I glance down at my hand resting on top of hers. Does she feel the same electric heat that I do? God. I think about sliding her palm over and threading my fingers through hers. I want to do it. I’m about to do it. But before I can, she pulls her hand out from under mine and swipes at her eyes. She’s angry. She always hated people seeing her cry. And perhaps I should have thought twice before reaching out to her. I have no idea how she must feel about people touching her without permission. It was a stupid thing to do.
“Can you get any help?” I ask her.
She shakes her head again, shoving her hands under her thighs. “No, the insurance company won’t pay up.”
“What?”
“They won’t cover any home assistance. They won’t even cover all his meds or help us adapt the house for a wheelchair. We’re completely on our own.”
It takes a few seconds for me to process what she’s saying. They won’t cover his medical needs? It’s no wonder her mom looks so worn-out. No wonder too that Em looks so defeated. It’s just her and her mom looking after her dad and the house and the business. I also figure something else out, stupidly late. “What about college?” I ask her. “Is that why you never went?”
Em turns to me, eyebrows raised, and laughs—a short, bitter laugh that cuts like a knife because it sounds so wrong coming from her, so unfamiliar.
“Who else was going to help my mom look after my dad? And besides, there was no way—” She breaks off abruptly.
“No way what?” I press.
She glares at me, her cheeks flushed. “There’s no way we could afford it. My college fund went to medical bills.”
With that, she stands up and starts walking rapidly back toward the road. I chase after her. “Em,” I say, darting in front of her to block her path.
“Listen, Jake,” she says. “It is what it is, okay? It’s fine. It’s not your problem.”
“But . . . ,” I argue. “I want to help.”
She takes a deep, angry breath in. Her eyes glance off me and out across the bay. Finally, she releases the breath. “If you really want to help me,” she says, “then don’t quit. At least, not until I can find someone else to—”
“I didn’t quit,” I interrupt.
She looks at me in confusion. “But Toby said—”
“I went around to your house to tell your mom I was quitting, but I didn’t get around to it in the end.”
“Oh.”
“I’m not going to quit.”
She nods. “Thank you. I’ll put an advert in the local paper tomorrow.”
“You don’t need to. I can stay for the whole summer.”
She frowns again. Her nostrils flare. “Okay.”
What does that “okay” mean? Are we friends again? Does she want me to stay for the whole summer? Our eyes stay locked. It’s the first time Em’s looked me in the eye for longer than a couple of seconds, and it feels like a breakthrough of sorts. I can’t read her expression, though—there’s too much going on beneath the surface. It reminds me of the riptides you sometimes get in the sound, invisible fast-flowing currents churning beneath a seemingly calm, flat ocean. It bothers me. Em was always so transparent. She could never hide what she thought of anything or anyone. She was famed for her flaring nostrils and for telling it like it was. When she was eleven, she told a famous ice hockey pro who came to guest coach the team that he was “full of bullshit” after he said that girls couldn’t play goaltender as well as boys because of their size.
Time stops still as we stand there and my hand itches to reach for her hand again. I try to tell her just through a look that I’m sorry, but she tears her eyes from mine and starts marching toward her bike.
I walk alongside her, aware—so aware—of her bare arm close to mine, of how much my body is trying to veer toward her—but careful not to touch her, to respect her space.
Em stops by her bike and bends to unlock it. She swings her leg over the saddle, and now I have to try not to stare at the long, lean length of her bare thighs. I fail.
“I’ll . . . um . . . see you tomorrow, then?”
She nods and cycles off, but then she slows and looks over her shoulder at me. “Jake?” she says.
I nod, blood quickening, hope flooding through me.
“I’m glad we talked.”
I smile. The weight rolls off my shoulders. My lungs fill up with air. Maybe there’s a chance . . .
“But just so we’re clear,” she adds as she pedals off, “we can be civil, we can work together, but that’s it. We’re not friends anymore.”