“Hey,” he says quietly, one hand in the air, the other rubbing the back of his neck.
I close my mouth and square my shoulders, feeling Dad’s presence behind me. He’s here to protect me, and knowing that creates an ache in my chest. Two years ago, I’d laid down in the middle of a basketball court, holding hands with the boy in front of me, a boy who declared that he’d never let anyone hurt me. That I’d never have to be afraid of him. But here I am…
Josh looks over my shoulder. “I’m sorry for coming over unannounced like this—”
“How’d you get my address?” Dad asks, his voice deep, intimidating.
Josh steps back, his demeanor proof he felt the threat in each word. I turn to my dad, pleading with my eyes for him to back off, just enough so I can
breathe.
So I can sort through the havoc in my head. Dad rolls his eyes. “He could’ve at least brought us coffee.” Then he spins on his heels and walks away.
I look over at Josh, his eyes wide as he points his thumb over his shoulder. “I can go get him a coffee.”
I smile. I can’t help it. Shaking my head, I mouth, “It’s fine,” and step out onto the porch, closing the door behind me. I raise my eyebrows. He rubs the back of his neck again. “Do you—I mean—can we go for a walk, maybe?” He grins the same crooked grin that used to give me butterflies, and I’d be lying to myself if I said it didn’t have the same effect now. “Honestly, Becs, I thought your grams was scary, but she’s got nothing on your dad.”
I laugh, and even though he doesn’t hear it, he
sees
it.
He
sees
me.
—Joshua—
I have no
idea what I’m doing here, walking side by side next to the girl I’ve spent endless nights dreaming about. But after she left last night, I couldn’t get her out of my head. Not that I expected to. Every moment seemed to replay in my mind, and I questioned everything.
Everything.
Not just about our pasts or the decisions we made, but even the small things that shouldn’t matter. I examined every word I spoke, every movement I made, and I wondered how it was she could so easily walk away with nothing but a computerized “Thanks for your time,” and leave my sorry ass standing there in a pool of my regrets.
I woke up this morning and looked out of the hotel room window and saw the sun rising, letting me know it was a new day, and I gathered all the courage, all the confidence I had, and decided I wanted a do-over. And then her dad answered the door and asked me what the hell I wanted, and the only thing I could think to say was, “Becca.”
I wanted
Becca
.
And now I had her. Even if the few minutes we’d been walking were spent in silence, her feet following mine, her long jet-black hair whipping across my arm, I still
had
her.
I just need to come up with something to say to start my do-over. “So you’re on the school paper?”
God, I’m pathetic
. I look over at her and wait for her response, but there isn’t much of one, just a slight nod of her head followed by an unsure shifting of her eyes. I kick myself for suggesting we walk because it makes it difficult to read her, to
see
her. And so I walk a few more steps until we reach a bus stop, and I sit down and hope she does the same. She hesitates, just for a moment, but then she joins me. I face her. She looks straight ahead. “Are you enjoying it?” I ask. “I mean college. Classes. All that stuff?”
She nods again, palming her unruly hair away from her face.
“And do you like St. Louis?”
Another nod.
“And your dad?”
She inhales deeply, her hands gripping the edge of the bench, and turns to me, her head tilted to the side. “You?” she mouths.
“Me?” I shrug. “I think I’m still adjusting to everything, to be honest. Things kind of took off insanely fast and I still don’t think I’m ready for it. It’s a lot of travel and a lot of meetings and phone calls and, like, putting up a front on social media and stuff.”
Becca turns to me now, one leg bent on the bench, the other outstretched, her foot on the ground an inch from mine. She waves a hand in the air, asking me to continue, so I do. “I guess I’m kind of blessed,” I tell her, and I don’t know why I’m saying all this stuff, especially to her, but she’s here and she’s listening and it’s more than I ever thought I’d get. “I’m lucky I get to do it all before Tommy has to start school, so he can travel with me, and Nat and Justin are beyond helpful when it comes to doing the whole co-parenting thing around my schedule. They’re gone three months at a time, so when they do come back, they make sure to be wherever we are, even if it means staying at hotels with Tommy when I’m at tournaments.”
Her features soften as she listens to my words.
“Chris and my mom handle everything and I get told where to be and when to be there, and I get to skate.” I choke on a breath and look away from her eyes, because watching her watch me feels like a knife piercing my heart over and over, or maybe it’s the guilt of giving her lie after lie after goddamn lie. Each one rehearsed in the car on the way to her house. I thought it would be easier to give her the same version of me as everyone else gets. I told myself if I gave her that, then I could walk away—not happy—but not as miserable as I felt when she left me last night. I was wrong. But what was I supposed to say? That the only part of my life I loved anymore was Tommy and skating? The truth is, I’m not even sure if I love skating anymore or if I do it for Tommy and for his future and to make two certain people proud of me. One of those people is dead. The other is staring at me, her eyes, her lips, her entire body void of any emotion. She lifts her hand and forms the sign for “phone,” so I reach into my pocket and hand it to her. I scoot closer so I can see her thumbs working over the screen. She taps on the Notes app, types away on the keys, and I read the words she’s written:
What are you doing here, Josh?
I clear my throat. “I have a comp,” I mumble.
Her thumbs move again.
Not here in St. Louis. HERE. With me. Why did you come to my house?
I drop my gaze and cut the bullshit. “I don’t know, Becs. Maybe for the same reason you came to interview me yesterday.” I feel her shift next to me, both her feet on the ground now. “I looked you up online and on your college newspaper. You got a lot of photographs there. Really good ones, too. But all art based. None for sports. And you’ve definitely never done any interviews—”
She stands up before I get a chance to finish, and I know I’ve blown it. Whatever the hell
it
is. She’s looking down at the ground, her head moving from side to side. Then she hands me my phone and starts to walk back to her house. I follow after her, because I can’t not, and I rush my steps until I’m in front of her, walking backward, giving her no option but to deal with me. “I’m sorry, Becca.”
She might be looking at me, but I can’t tell because her hair’s flying everywhere, and for a second, I get lost in the scent of it, lost in the memories of how the strands felt between my fingertips and on my chest, and I want nothing more in the entire fire-trucking world than to go back there, back to a place and time where we existed only for each other.
I sigh when her steps hasten and mine do the same. “I’m sorry, okay? I don’t care
why
you came to see me and I don’t know why I’m here, but the fact that
you did
and
I am
has to mean something. Doesn’t it?”
She pauses, just for a moment, before moving ahead, her steps faster than before.
“Stop,” I tell her, but I don’t dare touch her. “We need to talk about this.” As the words leave my mouth, the mistake like acid on my tongue, I freeze. So does she. Then she holds her hair behind her neck, and I see her eyes, bright behind the layer of tears. “Fuck.”
She starts to walk again, only now it’s slow, as if the thoughts in her head are preventing her pace. And again, I follow. Because I’d follow her to the end of the fucking earth, even when she’s pissed, if it meant being with her. Or being
around
her. Or just breathing the same damn air as her. We make it halfway up her porch steps, my mind racing, trying to find a way to say goodbye without saying
goodbye
. But then her front door opens and a guy wearing a Washington University Basketball jacket, a stupid
C
on the chest, steps out of the house, his glare directed at me.
Next to me, Becca covers her mouth with her hands. She looks from him, to her dad standing behind him, and then over at me. The air turns thick, the silence palpable, and the knives are back, stabbing my heart over and over and over.
I wish for death.
As stupid as it sounds, I almost beg for it.
Anything would be better than what I’m experiencing.
Her steps are rushed now, moving toward him, and he tears his glare away from me to look down at her. Her hands are moving between them, fingers switching positions, and his focus isn’t on her face like when I look at her, it’s on her hands.
“Okay,” he says, and she drops her arms to her sides, her shoulders relaxing with her exhale. Then she’s gone, past her dad and through her front door, closing it after her. This time, I don’t follow her, because she’s no longer mine to pursue. And as the knives twist and prod and poke at my battered heart, I look up at the guy whose hand is out, waiting for me to shake, and I succumb to the pain, to the loss, to the
grief
. “I’m Aaron,” he says. “You must be Josh.”
I shake his hand, my fingers numb caused by my dead, non-beating heart, and I murmur a “Hey.”
Before he can respond, the front door opens again and the cause of my grief walks through it. She’d changed into a dress that shows off the tanned legs and arms and curves I’ve craved. After going through her bag, she looks up at Aaron, her hands and fingers a blur as they move in front of him.
He nods.
Swear, I actually hear the clicking of the pieces in my head.
One by one.
Click.
Click.
Click.
She’s
signing
.
And
he
understands her.
“Becca wants me to tell you that it was good seeing you again, Josh,” Aaron says. “We’re running late, so we have to go. But she’s glad she got to catch up with you.”
Becca’s hands move again.
“She says to take care of yourself, and of Tommy.”
Becca waves a goodbye, her eyes blazing against the morning sun. But she’s not looking at me. She’s looking past me, hoping to find a way to make me and the entire situation disappear.
I stand and I watch, unwilling to say goodbye, as they walk down the steps and toward his car. He opens the door for her, and she settles into the seat, like it’s something they’ve done a thousand times before. She doesn’t look up. Not once in the time it takes him to close the door, make his way to the driver’s side, start the car, and drive away does she look at me.
“They met in group therapy…” Martin says from behind me, “that’s where they’re going now.”
I face him, but the racing of my mind and the lump in my throat prevent my thoughts from forming into words.
He steps closer, his arms crossed. “It’s a group for young adults who’ve overcome some form of tragedy. She says it helps her.”
I’m not exactly sure why he feels the need to tell me any of this but I take it in, as much as I physically and mentally can. “Is um… Aaron—is he deaf or…?”
Martin shakes his head. “No. His ex-girlfriend was, though. That’s why he learned to sign. And that’s how he was able to teach Becca and it’s how they communicate.” He exhales loudly. “She passed away in a car accident. He was driving. Hence the therapy.”
I nod, not knowing how else to react.
He steps closer again, his threatening demeanor relaxing a little. “I’ve thought about this moment a lot since Becca moved in—what I would say to you if I ever got the chance. Truth is, I don’t know how to deal with any of this, Josh. I can look at you as a punk kid who hurt my daughter, and that side of me makes me want to punch you in the face and tell you not to contact her again because I can guarantee you she didn’t sleep a wink last night. Then I see you as a dad, and that part of me hopes I can reach out to you and you’ll understand what I say next…” He takes a breath. And then another. All while I pray for the ground to swallow me whole. “She’s doing better. A lot better than when she moved in. The therapy helps. She seems to like college and likes this area, and I think she even likes me. As a father, you should know what it feels like—this need to protect your child—so I’m telling you this because she’s gone through enough in her life that I couldn’t protect her from, and now I
need
to do that, Josh. I
need
to make sure that she keeps taking steps forward.” He gives me a once over before saying, “Unfortunately, I don’t think that you being in her life is going to allow that.”
I shove my hands in my pockets, his words clearing my mind, each one seared into my memory.
“I don’t exactly know what happened to you guys,” he adds. “But I do know the reason she went to see you yesterday is because it’s on The List.”
Looking up, I raise my eyebrows. “What? Like a bucket list?”
“Yeah, Josh. A bucket list of
fears.
”
—Becca—
“I
’m just going
to make an assumption here and tell me if I’m wrong, Becca,” Aaron says, glancing at me quickly from the driver’s seat. “Your interview with Josh last night didn’t go well, or something happened, and you had to do it again?”
I look down at my hands and stay silent. Because silence is all I can give him.
“It’s just that I’m finding it hard to come up with any other reason as to why you were with him this morning.”
I grab my phone from my bag and type away, then hit
speak
and wait for the speech to come through his car speakers.
“He just showed up at my door. I wasn’t going to tell him to go away. It would’ve been rude.”
“Rude?” he asks incredulously. “What’s rude is showing up at your house when he has no business to do so.”
I watch him a moment, surprised by his tone. He’s never spoken to me like this before. My shoulders drop with my silent sigh. I lower my gaze and focus on my phone.
“I don’t know what you want me to say, but I don’t deserve the way you’re talking to me right now. You’re trying to make me feel guilty or apologize for something, when I haven’t done anything wrong.”