Spill Over (17 page)

I take a deep breath, go back underwater, and swim for the ladder.
I stay under until my lungs burn, and I start feeling that weird
tight
forehead feeling I get just before passing out. My face breaks the surface
,
and I gasp in for air.

“You okay?” Amber calls.

But I don’t have the voice to
answer. I should. I can breathe.
I’m alive
. B
ut words won’t come.

All I want is to push down the
weight, the sadness.
D
eath
plays over and over in my head and I want that to go away, too. But I don’t know how to get rid of the weight, or the sadness or the though
t
of
your mom is dead
.

I pull myself out of the water and go straight for my bathroom.
Head
. Whatever. My hands are shaking
,
and I keep holding my breath, as if that somehow will help me keep in the pressure of the pain I’m feeling.

I stand in the hot shower for longer than I should. Water on the boat’s a big deal, but right now I don’t care. I slide into sweats and a plain
white t-shirt and lie down on my back
. My knees are up
,
and I stare at the ceiling with my hands resting under my head.

How do I get rid of the heaviness of death?
The
craziest things bring this on. Ordering a c
offee.
Standing on the beach. Jumping into the ocean. It’s all random.
I can’t figure out a way to avoid everything that’ll pierce me like this. Not when I don’t know what they are.

I pull out my phone. I haven’t been answering anyone, so I haven’t been hearing from anyone. Nothing.
I don’t even
want
to see my email inbox right now.

There’s a soft knock on my door.

“What.” It come
s out sharper than I mean it to.
I just have no idea how to make nice with anyone right now.

“Your dad and my mom
are occupying the other shower. D
o you mind?” Amber’s standing with her towel around her waist, in her swimsuit top, shivering in my doorway.

I half leap to sitting
,
and then all I want to do is touch her. That would make this go away.
Make me forget for a while.
“Yeah. Sure.”

S
he has to walk right n
ext to me—
m
y room being the size of a large cardboard box and all. I reach out and let my fingers touch her side and then her back as she passes. She gives me a wary glance over her
shoulder
as she steps in my bathroom
, closing the door behind her
.

Why can’t she be like other girls I’ve been with? The kind who would look at me and say,
Antony, you look so sad
.
And then rub their hands over me and take off their top, or put my hands on their bare waist or
something
.
Even a hug.
Instead I
get a wary look from Amber. Why does she think
I
’m this
big of a jerk?

I pull out my phone and send
Hélèna
a text as the shower turns on.
And yeah,
okay, I know this is kind of an asshole
thing to do, but seriously, I can only take so much.

I MISS YOU

She answers immediately.

MAYBE I’LL SEE YOU SOON

JE L’AIMERAI

And I
would
love
i
t. A smile spreads wide across my face. Okay, so maybe Amber’s right to think I’m a jerk, but a visit from
Hélèna
, especially when Amber’s still so distant, sounds about perfect.

Amber uses a nice small, respon
sible amount of water. The weight of disappointment adds to the rest of the weight
when she comes out fully dressed.

“Can I hang with you in here?” she asks. “Our parents get all crazy on each other when they let themselves
,
and I don’t think I could stomach it.”

“I won’t be good company.”
Mostly I’ll be staring at you, wishing I could have something that’s apparently off-limits and wishing I didn’t miss my mom so much.

“I’m in the middle of another good book.” She
winks
.

Right, she’s reading mine. “Sure
.”

In two minutes her head is on the opposite side of my bed and she’s stretched out on one side, and I’m stretched out on the other. She lounges with her kindle resting on a knee so she can r
ead. I try not to watch her, but do anyway
, glancing over my iPad every few minutes.

She twirls this loose strand of hair without conscious thought. Her lips press together occasionally
,
and every once in a while, her eyebrows twitch. It’s killin
g me to not know what she’s think
ing.

Dad’s chuckle
from the other room
is followed by her mom’s flirtatious l
aughter, and now I know what Amber meant
, because they sound like a couple of kids chasing each other. When I look back toward Amber, she’s watching me. Her blue eyes look soft, and suddenly her whole demeanor changes
as her face pulls into a smirk
.

“Told you they got obnoxious.”

I nod once in response, every part of my body wishing she
was
closer. She’s back into the
book
,
but her leg rests o
ff to the side and touches mine. I
t’s casual but so much.
It sends waves through me. N
ever has something so relaxed on a girl’s part, made me so tense on mine.

“Sorry.” She jerks her leg up.

“It’s fine.” I reach out, touch the inside of her knee and relax her leg back down.

Now, instead of smiling and making eye contact, like I
’
d do with anyone else. I pick my iPad back up and continu
e reading.
I think that s
howing her I want her here
will only scare her further away.
It feels like I’m
doing everything opposite of what I normally do
with girls.

After about 30 minutes, our legs are a tangled mess between us, and I can’t think about it too much because getting excited with her here, and while I’m in loose knit sweatpants, probably won’t help my cause
of getting close
r
.

For me, us sitting here in our hang out clothes, legs t
ogether,
is way more personal th
an kissing. To Amber it isn’t. But i
t leads up to it. I hope.
             

Maybe I shouldn’
t have sent
the text
to Hélè
na.

- - -

“The girls went to town,” Dad says.

“I figured.” We’re outside of so
me small
city
in B
ritish
C
olumbia
.
If the girls aren’t on the boat, they’ll be
shopp
ing for food or books
.

“I need
to change one of the batteries. I
t’s not charging. I could use some help.” Dad pulls a few small tools out from under the sink.

“From
me
?” I ask.
To change batteries?

“
Y
eah.” Dad chuckles as he looks up from where he’s crouched on the floor. “From you.”

“Uh…
okay.” How the hell am I supposed to help him with a project like this?
             

Dad tug
s on a small metal nub on the floor and pulls up a huge board, taking away
a panel
. There’s a large bank of eight batteries below us.

“H
ow do you know which one to change?” I ask.
I don’t even know where to start with
a project
like this.

“The boat tells me.” He smirks. “Otherwise, we’d be down here with electrical testers to figure it out.”

I don’t even want to know what that entails.

“Here.” He hands me a flashlight.
Flashlights I can do.
El
ectricity…
not so much.

Dad climbs down into the hole. I
t’s almost as deep as his waist.
He’s standing on
first
layer of the hull underneath us
.

“Is that fiberglass?” I ask.

“Oh.” He looks from the battery to his feet. “Yeah.”

“So, we’re on a kind of plastic boat?”
I chuckle. I hadn’t really thought about it.

“Kind of
.” He pulls the battery from it
s spot and hoists it to me.

I nearly drop it when I take it from him. The thing is heavy
—
like 20 textbooks in a square the size of a loaf of bread
.

“I need the light again,” he says.

Right. I pick the flashlight back up
,
and Dad sets the new battery in place. “I don’t like the idea of owning a boat where the individual pieces don’t float if we were to be dashed apart on the rocks or something.”

“Dashed apart on the rocks?” I
force out a
nother
chuckle
, but it’s not really funny
.
It
n
ever struck me as a possibility. M
aybe it should have.

“You know.” He stands.
“
In bad weather, or whatever. I like that even if the boat were filled with water, it’d still float.
”

“Oh.” Wait. “So, maybe I’m about to sound stupid here.”

Dad laughs. “We all sound stupid sometimes.”

“Great, thanks.” Back to my thought. “How do metal boats float?”

“Displacement.”

“What?”

“Concrete can float, if it displaces enough water.”

“So it’s just a matter of area, or space or whatever,” I say.

Dad nods. “That’s as good of an explanation as any. I think the important thing to remember is that with enough perseverance,
almost
anything can float.”
His eyes watch me way too carefully for a relaxed conversation about boats.

Great.
No way am I in the mood for some life-lesson today.
“Almost done down there?”
So I can hide in my room for a bit?

“If you’d keep the flashlight where my fingers need to be tightening these bolts, then yes.”
Dad hunches back over the battery.

Right.
When
I think
about displacement, what comes to mind
is how I got sent from New York, to here. And now, without Mom, even New York is a completely different spot. I’m displaced, here there, and pretty much everywhere. It’s suffocating, but I’m getting better and better at pushing that feeling away.

- - -

Amber’s in my room again—
for a movie this time
on the miniature TV attached to the wall
.

Neither of us are watching. Her head’s on one pillow, mine’s on the other.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

“What part of me?” I chuckle.

“Pick one.”

“It still feels
like I got kicked in the chest.
I don’t really ever forget it, only brief seconds pass when I
don’t feel the full force of
losing
Mom
.”
Crap. That was way more honest than I wanted to go for.

“I can’t imagine.”
Her hand touches mine
,
and it’s like elementary school all over again. I slide my fingers through hers, and I swear her breathing changes, from
holding hands.

I want her to relax, for this to be okay. “Part of me still feels like it can’t be real.”

“Maybe part of you will always feel like that.”

“Maybe.”
I don’t know if that’s comforting or really, really depressing.

My bedroom door opens, no knock, no nothing.

“Hey!” I spin to face Da
d
,
who’s
now a foot away from the bed
.