He’s silent for a moment, then says in a quiet voice, “I’m okay now. They’re just scars.”
I doubt that’s true. I don’t want him to have to think about it again, so I shake my head. “I didn’t mean to dredge up bad memories or anything.”
But I realize as soon as I say it that they’re already there for him—he doesn’t have to dredge them up. It’s me who’s inconvenienced by the uncomfortable emotion of it all. It’smewho feels guilty that I wasn’t here for him to lean on when he needed a friend most.
I wasn’t the one who was on a lake vacation in Massachusetts with my family—who was supposed to be watching my younger cousin Chloe while my parents drove to the store. Who, when all the cousins wanted to go swimming in the lake, said it was okay that she stay in the little lake house …
Who couldn’t swim fast enough, when there was a gas leak in the stove and an explosion.
He thought she was still inside. She wasn’t—she was fine, safe outside. But when he finally got to the other side of the lake, he rushed inside anyway … and he found nothing but a frightened, trapped black cat.
The same black cat that now lives in the boatyard.
The tattoo on his hand.
Lucky was traumatized. I think he couldn’t decide if what he’ddone had been completely pointless or if the black cat was the most important thing in the world. Maybe both. He was confused and in a lot of pain. But I was a kid, and I didn’t know what to do or say to make it better.
And then came the Big Fight between Mom and Grandma.
Then we were gone. And Lucky and I were ripped apart. And I was alone.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. I know that’s not nearly enough, but it’s all I have right now.
Unsure, I reach for him and catch his forearm. Maybe that’s too intimate for former childhood friends? How we touched on the boat seems a thousand lifetimes ago, and perhaps all the meaning I attached to it was in my head.
I start to let go of him, but as my hand falls away, he catches the tips of my fingers with his and oh-so-gently holds on to them. I don’t stop him. Not when he runs his thumb over my knuckle, sending shivers over my skin so intense, I have to shut my eyes for a moment. And not when he dips his head lower, and I can feel warm breath tickling the hair near my temple, and it makes my own breath come faster.
I don’t stop him.
He’s the one who lets go.
And when he does … when he drops my hand and turns away from me, I feel an awful, hollow ache inside. But now he’s shut down completely, as if he’s pressed a button and erected some kind of electric barrier between us that I can’t cross. He’s turningoff the light on his workbench, putting everything as it was, tidying up.…
“Better get back out there,” he says in a husky voice that sounds lost and cold. A voice that thinks he’s made a terrible mistake and is now overcompensating to correct it.
No!I open my mouth to be teeth-gratingly honest, but one of his little cousins bursts through the garage door, bringing with him the noise of the backyard and the little black dog … and all my honest words stay stuck inside my head.
I want to tell him that I’m glad he brought me in here to show me his work and be reunited with his stupidly nice, wonderfully loud family. That he’s not a monster. That he’s actually wonderful and kind and funny, and I never realized how much I missed my best friend until right this minute.
No, I don’t just miss him. I want my best friend back. My boy.
But I think Ialsowant Lucky 2.0.
Ialsowant to ask him if he would please hold my hand again.
Ialsowant to be a lot more than friends.
I’m greedy:I want it all.
Tick, tick, tick.
What in the world do I do now?
DRIVE LIKE IT’S YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD: Obnoxious red paper sign posted in the shop window of Regal Cosmetics in the South Harbor district. The shop’s owner has made multiple complaints to the police and during town hall meetings about speeding cars and loud music.(Personal photo/Josephine Saint-Martin)
Chapter 13
Of all the things I’ve inherited from my mother—the secret-keeping, my inability to communicate in a healthy manner, love for fried food, and intense loathing of the word “y’all”—the one thing I wish she’d passed down was her ability to chitchat in uncomfortable situations. She’s very good at it, and even when she’s putting her foot in her mouth, she’s usually able to laugh it off and talk her way out of things. Gift of gab.
