Boys of Summer (35 page)

I'm alone. Alone on this bridge. Alone on this island. Alone in this world.

“It's so far down. I don't want to fall.”

“You won't fall, Ian. I won't let you. Just hold on tight.”

What would happen if I stopped struggling? If I stopped pushing against gravity? If I just let myself succumb to its relentless pull?

If I stopped fighting.

Altogether.

It would be easier. I learned that lesson a long time ago, when I lay on the floor of Whitney's bedroom two months ago and let that douche nugget pound on my face. I didn't fight back. I just let it happen. And it was easier.

It's always easier not to fight.

Especially when there's nothing left to fight for.

“Ian!” I hear voices coming from the woods, followed by footsteps. I don't look up from the ravine. I don't want to lose my balance. Not that way. If I'm going to lose my balance, it's going to be my choice.

For once in my fucking life, it's going to be my choice.

“Oh shit!”

That's Grayson. I'd recognize his voice anywhere.

“Oh my God!”

That's Whitney. She's crying. Tough, ballbuster Whitney is crying.

“Ian, what are you doing, man?”

That's Mike.

“Do something!”

That's Harper.

They're all here.

“Ian,” Mike says, “talk to me. What's going on?”

I don't respond. I'm too tired. I'm too focused. I'm too done.

“Stay here,” Grayson tells someone, and then I hear footsteps. Quiet, tentative, careful. Like someone sneaking up on a scared, trapped animal.

That would be me.

The scared, trapped animal. With nowhere else to go and a useless leg stuck in a snare.

I brave a glance to my left. Mike and Grayson are there, halfway across the bridge, their faces lit up by the small lamps attached to the posts.

“Just leave,” I tell them angrily. “I don't even know what you're doing here.”

“We're here because we care about you,” Mike says.

I snort. “No, you don't.”

Mike and Grayson share a glance. “Yes, we do,” Grayson confirms. “And we're sorry we haven't been there for you this summer. We . . .” His voice trails off. It almost sounds like it's breaking. Is Grayson Cartwright going to cry? That's an even bigger surprise than his sister.

“We've been preoccupied,” Mike says apologetically. “With our own stupid shit. And that was wrong. What you're going through is so much worse.”

“You have no idea what I'm going through!” I yell, feeling a sudden burst of rage. Admittedly, it feels good. It feels like
something
. “Because you never asked.”

“We did,” Mike vows, but there's no conviction in his voice. He knows it's bullshit. “We tried.”

“You didn't try,” I shout, and the outburst of emotion almost makes me lose my balance. I grip the handrail tighter. “You asked me stupid, pointless questions like, ‘Are you okay?' ‘How's it going?' ‘How are you holding up?'
Those aren't the words of someone who gives a shit. Those are the words of someone who wants to fulfill an obligation. Check something off their daily to-do list so they can feel better about themselves. Of course I'm not okay! Of course I'm not holding up. I'm falling apart. I've been falling apart all summer, and none of you fucking cared enough to ask the real questions. To find out how I
really
felt.”

“You're right,” Mike says, and I hear the agony in his voice. “You're right. We've been insensitive assholes. I guess we just thought that if you'd wanted to talk about it, you would have.”

And I just thought that if you'd cared, you would have asked.

“Yeah,” Grayson agrees. “We were just trying to give you space. Because we thought that was what you wanted.”

Space.

I stare into the ravine deep below. Into all that space. I wonder if it would hurt. I wonder if I would black out before I hit. It can't possibly be worse than the pain I'm feeling right now. The pain I feel every day.

“I don't know what I want,” I admit, and it's the truth.

Actually, no. It's a lie.

I want my father back.

I want my life back.

“You don't want this,” Mike says, taking a tentative step toward me.

I feel tears prick my eyes. The ravine is so dark. So vast. Like a black hole. It seems fitting. Since that's what my life has become.

“Just leave,” I beg them again. “Please.”

They are all silent. I can't even hear Whitney's whimpering anymore. For a minute I think that maybe they really did leave. Maybe they really don't care. Maybe if I go through with this, no one will miss me.

I don't dare look up. Because I'm not even sure what I hope to see if I do. That they're all still there, standing by me. Or that they're gone. And I'm finally alone. Just like I wanted.

For some reason both outcomes make me feel empty.

A stiff wind blows across the bridge. I can actually feel the air moving. Traveling. Crossing to the other side. Banging recklessly through the trees as it goes. It's not a peaceful sound. It's a wild, uncontrollable gust that tears through the island with abandon, leaving behind carnage in its wake.

It's a tornado that takes no prisoners.

It's a hurricane that leaves no survivors.

It's everything I've felt since that harbinger of death called my mother with the news.

I close my eyes, feeling the wind whip past me. Feeling it threaten to take me with it. I could escape into that tempest. I could get lost in that wild breeze. I could let it knock me over and shove me to the ground.

Like I said, it would be
so
easy.

It would be like falling.

But then, as swiftly as it came, the fierce wind is gone. Moved on to ravage another island. Off to torture another soul.

And Mike's voice rings out, clear and unwavering, from the middle of the bridge. “No,” he says. “We're not leaving. Not this time. We're staying right here.”

I close my eyes tight. But the tears leak out anyway.

“I have nothing left,” I whisper. I'm certain the words will be lost to the ravine, swept up in the wind, scattered to the trees. But somehow, by some miracle, Mike and Grayson hear them. Maybe it's the first thing they've heard me say all summer.

But maybe it's the thing I needed them to hear most.

“That's not true,” Grayson says. “You have your mom, who loves you.” He chokes up, unable to continue.

“And Whitney,” Mike says.

“And us,” Grayson finishes, getting his voice back.

“And us,” Mike echoes softly.

I finally lift my head and look at them again. Something is suddenly different about them. In such a short time something has changed. Just a few moments ago they seemed so separate and distant. So far away from each other. So far away from me.

But now they're standing side by side, like a unified front. Like an army, ready to go to battle.

It's what my father loved most about the military. The sense of comradeship. It was like a family. A brotherhood. That's why he threw himself in front of those men. To shield them from the bomb. He sacrificed himself. Because he loved them.

Staring at my two best friends standing on this bridge, I suddenly realize that I would do the same for them. In a heartbeat. I would throw myself in front of a bullet or a speeding train or a grenade to save their lives. I would rescue them. Just as they've come to rescue me now.

I would
fight
.

Not because it's easy. But because it's what you do. You fight for the things that matter.

My dad always wanted me to enlist. To have what he had. To live the life he loved. But I didn't need to join the army to find that. It turns out I had it right here the whole time.

In Winlock Harbor.

TWO WEEKS LATER

GRAYSON

I
nervously drum my fingers against the small table at the Winlock Café, glancing up every five seconds whenever I hear the little bell above the door jingle. It took me a week to build up the courage to call, and another week to figure out the scheduling, but now the day is finally here. She's coming. Her ferry docked ten minutes ago. There's no turning back.

Whitney was right. We all make mistakes and we all deserve a chance to fix them.

After the incident on the bridge, I think Mike, Ian, and I started looking at our lives a little differently. Especially when it comes to the mistakes we've made. And we've all made them. Maybe me worst of all.

But time heals a lot of things. It's kind of magic like that. The bruises on my face from the fight with Mike are almost gone. Ian has moved back into his grandparents' house. And Mike has been mostly able to forgive me for everything that happened with Harper. I think if anything, in a strange way, it's helping him move on. He's finally coming to terms with the fact that Harper isn't his future. And she may not be mine, either.

Harper and I haven't talked much since that night
when Mike saw us kissing. We've decided to give each other some space.

The door chimes, and I glance up. My whole body seizes when I see her. She looks exactly as she did the last time I saw her, when she walked out that door with her bags in her hand and an apologetic frown on her face.

“Mom,” I say, my voice thick. I stand up, and she immediately rushes over and pulls me into a hug. My body stiffens at her touch. It wasn't what I was expecting. Of all the times I played out this very moment in my mind, touching wasn't part of it. Affection wasn't in the plan.

“Oh, Grayson,” she says, stroking my head like she used to do when I was a little kid. But now I'm taller than her and she has to reach up to do it. “I've missed you so much.”

She's crying. I can hear it in her voice. Now I suddenly don't want to pull away, because I don't want to see her crying. If there's one thing that I've always had a weakness for, it's my mother's tears. But it doesn't seem to matter, because when she does pull away, she reaches out to wipe my cheeks, and I realize that I'm already crying too.

“I'm so glad you called,” she says, her hand lingering on my cheek.

I pull away and sit down. She smiles and sits across from me. For a while neither one of us speaks. I'm not sure how this conversation is supposed to go. All of the scripts and possible scenarios I created in my mind flew right out the window the moment I started blubbering like a baby.

“I guess I'll start,” she says after a while, exhaling a gust of air that I'm convinced will start a hurricane on the other side of the world. “I know you must be angry with me.”

I feel tears burning my eyes again, but I blink them away and look down at the table.

“I'm angry with me too,” she goes on. “I handled the
whole thing poorly. I acted like a child, and I'm sorry. I'm supposed to be the adult here. I'm supposed to make the wise, mature decisions, but, honey, sometimes adults make mistakes too. Sometimes the right decisions are just too scary to face.”

My gaze flickers up to her. I think back to what my dad said about genetics. That I got his strength and athleticism, while Whitney got my mother's looks. But her words are hitting so close to home, I'm starting to realize that I may have gotten something from my mother too. An impulsive nature.

She ran.

Then I ran.

And I've been running ever since. Knocking things over in my path. Kissing people I shouldn't be kissing. Jeopardizing friendships. Hiding from the things that scare me.

“I'm sorry,” my mom goes on, wiping at her eyes. “I'm so sorry, Grayson. I love you so much. Can you ever forgive me?”

My mind flashes to that night on the bridge. To the way Mike looked at me when we told Ian that he would always have us. No matter what. He forgave me. After I made one of the worst mistakes of my life. Because he knew something that I'm just beginning to see.

We are bigger than our mistakes.

And that's what allows us to rise above them.

“I think I can,” I whisper.

My mom lets out a whimper and starts crying again. And before I know it, I'm crying again too. She reaches across the table, grabs my hand, and squeezes it.

“What about Dad?” I ask quietly. “Are you going to talk to him?”

“Oh, sweetie. I
have
been talking to him. Hasn't he told
you? We've been meeting on the mainland every week.”

Suddenly I remember all of those times when my father was gone this summer. He kept saying he had business to take care of. I always assumed it was work. I never considered the possibility that he was meeting with my mom.

Were they having romantic rendezvous? Secret affairs in hotel suites? As much as the thought of my parents hooking up repulses me, I feel my hopes rise. The shattered image of our little family slowly starts to piece itself back together in my mind.