“Hell yeah,” Parker replies happily.
“Parker!” I scold, but it lacks any heat at all, as the pair of them crack up laughing. I glance back at Parker. “You’re taking the piss, mate.”
As I knew it would, this sets off another round of hilarity, Parker tipping his head back and howling. I smile, letting the sound wash away the stress and fear of the morning.
25
Jack
Desmond starts flagging mid-afternoon.It’s like he’s a balloon with a small puncture, air slowly being let out as the day goes on—his shoulders start to slump, and he lapses into silence. His face looks drawn and tired, eyelids lowered like he’s struggling to keep them open. I wonder if he got any sleep last night at all.
Sitting next to him on the blanket he keeps in the trunk of his car for beach excursions, I watch Parker look for shells. It’s a hell of a lot calmer today than it was the first time Desmond and I came to the beach, the ocean rolling in gentle waves and the air still. It’s warmer, with the lack of a breeze, but I sit closely to Desmond anyway. I want the heat of him, even if I don’t need it. I nudge him with my shoulder, waiting until I can see the brown of his eyes before speaking softly.
“Tired?”
“Exhausted,” he agrees. “I feel like everything added up and hit me all at once today.”
“Did you sleep at all last night?”
“Not a wink.” He leans against me, looking out at Parker, walking along the water’s edge, before focusing back on me. “I was hoping the ice cream sugar rush would get me through.”
I smile, even though I’m pretty sure the exhaustion isn’t so much a lack of energy on his part, but more the accumulation of months and months of emotional trauma. He’s tired because he’s been fighting against the world and now he’s being allowed to stop.
“Was it bad?” I ask.
“No,” he replies on a laugh. “It was…it was so easy. It didn’tfeeleasy, but the actual process was nothing. It’s frustrating. Why couldn’t we have done this months ago, and been spared all the stress and worry?”
“I’m sorry,” I respond quietly, shifting my hand on the blanket so my fingers are brushing his.
“It all worked out.” He shrugs, trying to play it off, but fatigue and dejection twist around the words.
Parker shouts, drawing both our eyes to where he’s kneeling in the sand. After a few seconds of digging, he jogs toward us. Even from a distance away, I can see something in his hand.
“Look.” He pants, coming to an abrupt stop near us, dusting the blanket with sand. He holds out a seashell to Desmond.
“Whoa,” I murmur, looking at the shell. It’s huge, compared to the small ones that litter the beach. Desmond grins at me, some of the gloom receding from his eyes.
“It’s a trumpet shell,” he explains, as Parker drops down onto the sand in front of us. “Atlantic trumpet triton, if you want to get fancy about it.”
“It’s pretty,” I tell him, reaching a finger out and touching the striations. “And big.”
“The pointy part was sticking out of the sand,” Parker tells us as Desmond holds it back out to him. Jumping to his feet, he shakes his head at his uncle. “You keep it, I’m going to go look for more.”
He brushes off his butt, bottom half of his jeans soaked and covered in sand. Even without the wind, his hair is wild around his face; cheeks flushed and eyes bright. He looks so young.
Desmond waits until Parker jogs off, back to the water’s edge where he came from, before holding the seashell out to me to inspect. I slide a finger along the inside edge, admiring the brown markings against the white. When I look up, Desmond is watching me.
“Want to go help him look for more?” he asks. I blush a bit, surprised that he was able to read my mind so easily. He smiles and pushes to his feet, holding his hand down to me. “Come on, Bluey, let’s go hunting.”
We leave Parker’s trumpet shell on the blanket and join him at the water. Splitting up, but staying close enough together to talk, we walk along the sand and dig for shells. Despite all my efforts to stay clean, I end up nearly as wet and sandy as Parker. Desmond somehow remains perfectly pristine other than his bare feet.
We don’t end up finding any more trumpet shells, but Desmond spots a tiny piece of green sea glass. After rinsing it off in the ocean, he holds it out to me, dropping it in my palm. Perfectly smooth, the little piece of glass is an almost impossible shade of pale green. I can’t help but smile as I inspect it, miniscule and worthless though it is. It feels like a treasure.
“Way to go, Des!” Parker says, providing his uncle with a high five before bending over and going back to his search.
“I can’t believe you found this,” I tell Desmond. The small piece of sea glass is so beautiful. I feel like I’m holding a rare ocean relic.
“Pretty, right?” he asks, grinning at me.
