Spill Over (9 page)

But what do I do now? I know I could go back. I could get emancipated or whatever, but
I’m almost eighteen anyway, and
then what? At the same time, do I really want
to stick around here?
On a
boat
?

“Antony?” Amber’s voice calls through the boat. “You here?”

I shake my hands through my hair.
I’m a complete mess.
Wh
atever. It’s Amber. N
o big deal. Right. But I have these nerves that start to build in the center of my chest, because even though I don’t want it to be a big deal to see Amber, it sort of is.

“Yeah,” I call back.

“You gonna show your face or aren’t you pretty enough yet?” she teases.

“Tho
se are the first words out of your mouth?” I chuckle as I open the door to my room
,
and then I freeze. She’s in a sweatshirt and teeny running shorts. I’m sure my mouth drops open
,
or I do something equally embarrassing because all I can think right now is how much I’d like my hands on her legs, or to have them wrapped around my waist.

“Hey, you here?”
She darts her head back and forth to catch my eyes.

“Sort of.” Now I wish I would’ve taken the time to shower or shave or something.

“I’m driving up to P
oint
No P
oint
beach
to run. I thought maybe you’d want to
come along and
sit.
You game?”
Her glass-blue eyes sparkle with friendliness as a corner of her mouth pulls
up.

“To watch you run?” I’m an idiot. Why the hell did that just have to come out?

She smiles.
“No. To write, or read, or
sit or something. I
didn’t
think you like
d
being
underwater
much.”

I look down.
Right. My hole in the water.
The one I haven’t left in days.

“I don’t have time to shower or shave or anything.” I run my hand over my face. It feels good to know I need to shave to stay smooth.

“Whatever, Antony. We’re not going downtown. We’re going further into nowhere, okay?”

I stuff my feet into shoes and grab my iPad on our way out. This way I can read or write. One day they’ll do better screens so the sun doesn’t mess crap up.

Dad gives me a nod, so I guess he knows what we’re up to.

Once we’re in the car I reali
ze the last time I talked to Amber was the
bizarre conversation
we had
while I was in New York. Now what?
I’m surprised that whole thing didn’t scare her away from me forever. I’m sure I sounded crazy.

“You’re talkative this morning.” She
puts
her old truck
in gear, and we start up the road.

“Um…” Crap,
Antony. Just get it out. “When you called me
, I wasn’t really myself, and I’m. I guess I’m sorry.”

“I
was the one who called, and I said we could talk anytime
.” Her hand
s grip the steering wheel and she stares at the road
.
She’s not looking at me. What does that
mean
?
“I meant it.”

And I’m searching her face or her body language
for something, anything more than friendship. I come up empty.

“I was really mess
ed up.”

“You said.” The corners of her mouth twist around, holding her smile.

I almost thank her because
I’m pretty sure
she read to me until
I fell asleep
, but I realize that might say something about me.
“So, beach?”

“Yeah, but the water here’s freezing, so it kind of loses something with that.
You know, the ability to jump in after a good run.
”

“Been to lots of places with hot, sandy beaches?”
Places you’d wear a teeny bikini?
And I can’t keep my mind out of the gutter with her
, especially not with her toned thighs a mere couple of feet from me
.
Also, th
e thought is a nice distraction. I
t shoves the
suffocation
of loss aside. Not away, but moved, different.

“Mom and I were almost always somewhere hot. I mean, if you’re going to live on a boat, you should do it in the tropics, right?”

“Exactly.”
That was one of my first thoughts when coming here.

“But then she found this sailboat up here,
and
it was exactly what she wanted. We were going to do a long trek out into the Pacific, through the Panama Canal and back to the Virgin Islands.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Your dad. I know it. But she’ll never say.”
Her eyes meet mine, and that little smirk that makes her look so cute is back. I never thought I’d go for cute, but in shorts this short? Cute is pretty awesome.

“So, not only do we need to get them together, but we nee
d to convince them to
sail
somewhere warm, is that right?”

“That would be ideal, yes.”
She hits the turn signal, and pulls her lips into her mouth as if concentrating. “
She said that things changed for her after my
dad left.”

“And when was that?” I figure it’s okay to ask since she brought it up.

“Oh.” There’s surprise in her voice. Did she not mean t
o tell me? I wonder if she
blurts stuff out around me like I seem to do to her? “I think when she was pregnant.”

I open my mouth to call him a jerk, but keep it to myself.

She pulls her car to a stop. “This is it. High tide right now. Sorry, it means most of the beach disappears.”

“That’s cool. I’m going to park myself somewhere an
d try to soak up some vitamin D. Y
ou run.”
T
he weight pulling on my insides is still there, but I almost forgot about it for a minute
when she was talking
.

We step out of the car and walk through some tall reeds to the large chunks of driftwood and thin, long strip of beach beyond. There’s a small lighthouse on a point, and I can see the beach curve again on the far side of it. Cool.

Amber
bends forward
stretching
, resting her forehead on her knees, which turns me on way more than it should.
“See ya.”
S
he’s up and running in long powerful strides on the upper part of the beach. Her large sweatshirt bo
unces with her, but her legs are
strong, and push hard. And who would have thought that running in anything but a swimsuit could be sexy?

I
let myself watch
her run until
she’s so far away that
I can’t really see her anymore. I
start to read, but my brain keeps going back to this little boy I met in South Africa. I keep thinking I want to write his story, only it would be a made-up story, but partially based o
n truth. I could do that.
It’s sort of what I did with the first two
I wrote
.

I sit on a large driftwood tree. The boy’s
voice is
suddenly in my head so clearly that
I have to get it down.

Mom’s mad because my brother spilled water on the clay floor. It turns it slippery and makes it hard to clean.
But wh
en she yells, the guy from next-
door bangs on the wall between our houses.
The noise rattles through all of us.
She’s silent. Sometimes I wonder why she’s so scared of him.
Maybe just because h
e’s an angry man.
All the men around here
are
angry, crazy or
tired..
.
             

His
simplistic view of the
problems facing the people of the outskirts of Johannesburg keep hitting me. My fingers fly across the keys on my iPad. I’m lost, taken into the world of a five-year old boy, now ten, and trying to help his mom keep them i
n food. Working harder than
I’ve
ever worked. I feel his
desperation. His determination.
I wonder if he’ll remain determined or if that place will beat him like it does to so many others.

People move by. Dogs run in and out of the waves. It’s like none of it’s happening.
It’s all outside of the world of heat, oppression, and poverty
—
the world
I’m writing
. A life I’ve never lived, but the desperate
,
aching feeling in my chest pushes me further. Tells me more of his story.

There’s movement next to me, but I’m still in it. He’s twelve
now
and his younger brother is missing. It happens. Sometimes they’re taken. Sometimes they run away. Sometimes they just disappear. Maybe I’ll write his story next. Maybe I’ll finish with the mom’s point of view. But how do I write from
the point of a view of
a mom, when I’ve just lost mine? I gasp.

“You okay?” Amber whispers next to me.

“So
rry.” My eyes meet hers. “I
got lost. T
hat’s all.”

“You’re not like this at home, are you?”
She looks way too comfortable,
legs crossed in front of her, leaning back on the log. H
ow long have we been here?

“In my apartment, yes. Out? No.” This girl pr
obably already thinks I’m insane
. I
t’s like honestly just pours out of my mouth. Seems stupid to
try and
stop it at this point.

“You’re writing?” she asks.

I nod. The iPad suddenly
feels heavy in my hands. I give
it to her without thin
king. “I’m going to walk.”

“You want to be alone?”
She pushes a few damp, sweaty stray hairs back off her face.

As I look at her, I know she won’
t be offended if I say yes. “I…
I don’t know.” And it’s the truth.

She stands, the iPad in her hands
,
and walks slowly next to me. The sand is uneven, but there’s a lot mo
re of it than there was earlier.
T
he tide’s going out—
another sign we’ve been here longer than I realized.
She’s staring at
the screen, clutching it tightly
. I try not to think about her reading what I wrot
e. I guess me handing it to her
was sort of an invitation. I didn’t mean for it to be.
But I also don’t mind. Way too late for me to make a
good
first impression
anyway
.

I stuff my hands in my pockets and keep to the sand that’s still damp. It’s easier to walk here.
My chest is so weighted and so tight, that it still feels like I’m concentrating on each breath.
The air is cold, but the warmth from the sun penetrates my black jacket.
The wet sand meets the dry sand, which meets stacks of driftwood and rocks, and then fores
t—
huge old trees stand tall against the graying sky.

Mom would love this.

The thought’s h
ard and heavy. Will it always
be
? Every
time I see or feel or think about something she’d love, will I feel it like this? I blink a few times and press my palm to the outside edges of my eyes. I need to shove this away. But before I can, Amber’s arms are around me, holding me tightly.

There’s no think
ing, only
pulling her as close as I can. I breathe in her damp hair
. S
he’s still sweaty from running, and I love it. I love that she doesn’t care.
Her arms are strong, and we’re both holding on, like we’ve become the anchor for the other.

My body shakes once. The shadow of Mom’s death hangs, hovers
,
and threaten
s
to take over.
Shove it away, Antony. P
ush it down. A sobfest won’t help anything.

“Sorry.” I jerk away, my heart racing. No way am I going to stand on some beach and cry while hugging a girl I barely know.

“Don’t be
sorry
.” Her forehead’s wrinkled in something that looks like confusion. “You wrote this?”

“This morning.” I nod, pressing my hands to my eyes one last
time, pulling in a breath to contain the grief inside, in the cage that’s stro
nger by the day. I’m doing good.
E
ventually it’ll disappear. It has to. No one could live a whole life feeling as suffocated as I feel now.