Where Sea Meets Sky

It’s so easy to think that, but I wonder if I still believe it deep down. I’m great at lying to myself.

But I don’t go into the kitchen. I stay in my room, attempting to draw her, but after a while it all looks like shit so I toss the sketchbook across the room. I go to my computer instead, put on Tomahawk’s “God Hates a Coward” and start looking up everything there is about New Zealand.

It’s more than just hobbits and Kiwi birds, I know that. But I had no idea how beautiful it really was, how adventurous, how fun. It looks a lot like British Columbia but with a hint of the tropics thrown in.

Suddenly I find myself wanting to go there. To see something. To see her.

“Jesus, Josh,” I mutter, pushing myself back in the chair. I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to shake some sense into myself. I’m contemplating some crazy fucking stuff that might just make me a pathetic stalker.

Yet I realize it’s not about Gemma at all. I don’t know her. Yes, we had amazing sex and I can’t stop thinking about her, but the fact remains: I. Don’t. Know. Her.

Of course, I want to know her. I want to get to know everything about her. I want to touch her. Kiss her. Fuck her. Be with her. Just to see if it was everything I remembered. Just to see if it’s the same girl in my drawings, or if I conjured her up from thin air.

But what intrigues me more than her is what she represents. She’s the freedom. She’s the unknown. She left her home for whatever reason and went traveling by herself, to a whole new land. She had boobs and balls. I saw this life and vitality and courage in her that I didn’t realize I lacked in myself.

I want to feel her, I want to feel like her. I want to do the running man and throw caution to the wind and do something a little bit crazy. It worked for my sister, after all. Why should she get all the adventure that life has to offer?

I’m not as impulsive as Vera, though. I take a look at my bank and credit accounts, take a look at my work schedule, take another look at the acceptance letter. There has to be some strategy when you’re dealing with such a big trip and such little money.

I’ve almost got it all figured out when my mother knocks on the door. I tell her to come in and she does so cautiously. She looks tired and wired, her hair starting to come out of her tight bun, her glasses perched on the end of her nose. I remember how scared Vera was when she told her she was moving to Spain to be with a man. I remember how mad Mom was. But I feel no fear. I feel clarity jiggling through my bones.

I haven’t decided anything and even that is enough to get me revved up. Gotta get your motor running, your engine humming.

“Haven’t seen you all evening,” she says to me, stopping just a few feet away. She always acts like she has to wear a hazmat suit whenever she’s in my room.

I nod and try to contain my smile. Smiling too much around her is dangerous. “I have some news.”

She tilts her head and appraises me. “Oh?”

“Two things, actually,” I say. I lean over and pick up the acceptance letter, handing it to her. “One is I got accepted to Emily Carr. I start January fifteenth.”

She looks skeptical at first. Then she takes the paper from me and she nods as she looks it over, as if she’s impressed. “Very good, Joshua. I guess that means you’ll have to cut your hours at work.” A line of worry threads her brow. “Have you talked to them about this? Will they let you?”

I lean back in the chair. “It doesn’t really matter. I’m going to quit. Tomorrow.”

And then I’m smiling because I said it and it’s real.

“Well, you need to have a job, Joshua,” she says, tossing the paper back on the desk. She tips up her chin and folds her arms. She looks like a disgruntled schoolteacher from an Archie comic.

“I’ll get something,” I say. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Someone has to,” she says. Her voice is still stern but she seems to be relaxing a bit.

So I ruin it. I’m good at that. “So the second thing is that I’m going to New Zealand for a few months. I won’t be home for Christmas. I will be back for school.”

She’s stunned. She’s trying to process what I said and realizes it doesn’t make a lick of sense.

“New Zealand?” she mouths.

“I just bought a plane ticket,” I tell her but I’m lying. I haven’t done that yet, I’m just curious about her reaction. If I say it, it will happen. “I leave November twenty-third and come back on January tenth.” She’s still speechless, so I go on to add, “I’ll find a new job when I get back. Something I want to do. Something that works with my school schedule. I’ll pull it off, I always do.”

“But you don’t,” she says, and I’d be lying if I said that didn’t sting like a wasp. But as with a wasp, I swat it away.

“I will, Mom,” I tell her. I’m starting to feel defensive, and when I get defensive I get angry. There’s no use being angry with my mom; she always uses it against you. It’s her weapon, along with her overly pointy fingernails. “It’s just a short trip, what’s the big deal?”

She narrows her eyes. “The big deal is you have no money.”

“How do you know? You have no idea what I save.” And that’s the truth. I have been saving for emergencies, for rainy days, for the moment I’m sure she’s going to kick me out of the house. It’s probably the most responsible thing I’ve done, and I’m about to do the most irresponsible thing with it.