Unbreak My Heart (14 page)

Sunglasses
. I grab the dark oval ones that make me feel like Audrey Hepburn and put them on even before I see a hint of sunlight. These will hide my eyes until they de-puff.

Dad’s in the kitchen making eggs, and Olive is refilling hot chocolate mugs with fresh boiling water.

“Good morning, Clementine,” says Dad, mussing my hair. He’s trying.

“Morning,” I say. I’m trying too.

“Here,” says Olive, handing me a steaming mug filled with big marshmallows. She smiles at me with all her teeth.

“Thanks.”

When I step out of the cabin, I see Mom throwing her head back and laughing at something James said.

“What’s so funny?” I ask.

I have to admit, it’s freaking gorgeous out. It’s only 8:30 a.m., but the sun is in full swing and the water is sparkling like it’s filled with floating diamonds. I sit next to Mom.

“Hey, Clem,” says James. “I just came over to see if you and Olive wanted to go for a ride in the dinghy. Dad’s taking care of some things today, so I thought I’d get out of his way and spend the morning somewhere else.”

“Oh yeah?” I say. I want to ask him if his dad’s okay, but somehow that moment where I saw Mr. Townsend crying felt so private that I hold back.

Olive pops up with a plate of eggs for James, and then goes back down to get more.

“I didn’t mean to invite myself to breakfast, but if someone’s making it, I’m eating it,” says James.

“Rob will be thrilled that someone outside of the family gets to try his famous scrambled eggs,” says Mom.

“Just remember to rave,” I say.

Olive brings up two more plates, and then she and Dad join us outside. James compliments the eggs just enough to sound sincere, but not over-the-top. I watch him tell my parents about how yesterday his dad got in a conversation with another boater, and they used bullhorns to yell back and forth until a third boater with his own bullhorn told them to “Shut up!”

“Dad just waved at the third boater and said, ‘Well, hello there! Fine day, isn’t it?’” says James. “The guy had no choice but to smile back.”

He talks about his dad with such admiration—he’s beaming through this whole story. My parents are laughing, Olive is riveted, and I’m just watching the way James’s mouth turns up, so easily, so quickly.

This guy is in touch with some deep inner happiness.

Mom and I take everyone’s plates downstairs, and I offer to help clean up, but she says, “Go on, go have fun.”

So I do. Olive and I grab life jackets and lower ourselves into James’s dinghy with two fishing rods and a bottle of sunscreen.

As we pull away from
The Possibility
, the boat sputters and makes crazy noises.

I look at James sideways, but he just laughs and pounds on the motor. “
LJ
purrs like a kitten, right?” he says. Then he lets out a huge laugh that makes Olive giggle. I have to admit that James’s joy is kind of contagious.

James waves to my parents in the cockpit. Then he turns to us and says, “Where to?”

“Uh, left?” I say.

“Port it is!” says James, steering the boat around the bend in the cove where we’d moored. We motor by a private swimming dock where a mother and her toddler are sitting on a blanket in the sun, we pass a great blue heron standing on its long, thin legs near the shore where it’s fishing for breakfast, and we come across a couple in a double kayak who wave hello.

When we turn around a second bend, Olive points to a fallen tree and shouts, “Fishing hole!”

James eases off the sputtering motor and we drift toward the spot.

Olive immediately opens up the tackle box and chooses a lure shaped like a tiny plastic frog. She expertly sets it on the hook and casts toward the tree.

I see James watching her, impressed.

“Total pro,” I say to him.

He smiles. “Do you fish?”

“Sometimes,” I say. “I like it, but I’m not, like,
really
into it.”

“Same here,” says James. “And I’m bad at unhooking wet, floppy things, so you’re on your own, Olive.”

Olive pays no attention to us—it’s like she didn’t hear him. She’s big on concentration.

I start to feel awkward, like I’m going to have to talk to James for an hour or something while my little sister sits there robot-fishing, so I open up the tackle box and look at the lures to occupy myself. There’s a hard plastic fish that’s silver and blue, some glittery green worms, and these crazy rainbow jigs that look like mini pom-poms.

I’m about to pick up one of the pom-poms when James asks, “Are you having a good summer?”

It feels like a casual question, one that anyone would ask when they first meet someone else, but I’m still not sure how to answer.

I could go with, “Great! How about you?” or I could say, “Yup, it’s fun to hang out with my family,” or I could say, “Not really. I’m actually having a pretty hard time with things right now.”

But right, like I’d choose option three. I go with “Yup, it’s fun to hang out with my family,” because it sounds less fake and blow-offy than “Great!”

“Yeah, I like being with my dad,” says James. “Guy time.”

He flexes his biceps in mock machismo and I grin. He’s totally skinny, but he does have some tight arms.

“Do you guys do this every summer?” I ask.

I think I see a shadow cross his brow—the first darkness on his face ever—but it’s gone in a split second and I can’t be sure I saw it, because he’s back to his default state: smiley.

“We’ve done it since I was thirteen,” says James. “So, for the past four summers.”

“You’re seventeen?”

“Yeah,” he says. “You?”

“I turned sixteen in June,” I say.

“Did you get your license?”

I nod. “Yeah, it’s ironic—right when I got my license, I gave up my freedom to be stuck on a boat with my entire family.”

“But you said you like time with them,” he says.

“Well, yeah, but not
constant
time like I’m getting.”

“That’s what the dinghy’s for.”

“I guess.”

“No, but seriously, I think of the boat as my freedom,” he says. “Out on the water with the wind blowing through the sails … it feels like flying.”

“Unless your mom is yelling at you to untie the ropes and your dad is shouting ‘helm’s alee’ or some other nautical jibberish,” I say. “Sometimes I wish I could get in a car and drive away for a while.”

“Nah.” James shakes his head. “You’re wrong. Being out on the water is the best feeling in the world. So much better than just driving with the windows down.”

I flash back to the country drive with Ethan, and suddenly I’m picturing it all over again—“Beautiful Girl,” his hand on mine over the shifter, lying back in the tall grass … Amanda on the porch. I grab the side of the boat to steady myself.

“Whoa, you okay?” asks James.

“I’m fine,” I say, too quickly.

Olive looks at us then, and I know she’s paying attention; she heard the
not
-fine tone of my voice.

I smile at her halfheartedly. She frowns.

“Do you want to go back?” she asks. I feel like I might cry. Again.

I shake my head no, and as I will myself to stare at the fishing lures one more time—red, yellow, blue—I push Bishop Heights out of my head. I’m here, on the water, far away from all of that. I’m okay.

“Want to hear a joke?” asks James. He’s smiling warmly at me.

“What?” I ask, still feeling slightly disoriented.

“A joke. You know, to make you smile again.”

“Sure!” says Olive, reeling in her lure and looking up at James attentively.

“Okay, this isn’t mine—it’s from my favorite comedian, Mitch Hedberg. He died, but I can’t stop telling his jokes.”

I nod.

“Wait—you guys have seen Pringles, right?” he asks.

“Pringles?” I ask.

“The potato chips,” he says.

“Uh, yeah,” I say.
Duh
.

“Okay, cool. So here goes,” says James.

Olive looks up at him expectantly.

“I think Pringles is a really chill company,” he starts. “Their original intention was to make tennis balls, but on the day the rubber was supposed to show up, a truckload of potatoes came instead. Pringles is so laid back they just said, ‘Whatever. Cut ’em up!’ ”

I try to suppress a grin, but I can’t. I have always thought Pringles cans looked like tennis-ball holders. I give James a small, but real, smile.

Olive holds her stomach because she’s laughing so hard.

“Overkill, Livy,” I say.

“What will it take to make you laugh out loud?” James asks me.

“Clem used to laugh all the time,” says Olive. “She used to be funny and bubbly and bright and—”

“Olive, enough.” My tone is firm—James doesn’t need to know how I used to be. Or why I’m not that way anymore.

“She still seems like all of those things,” says James. “If you catch her unaware.”

I look at him sideways and resolve to
not
let him catch me “unaware.”

James drops a fishing line in then, and he and Olive keep casting, getting a few nibbles but no real bites over the next hour or so. They ignore me, but in a way that respects the quiet nature of the day, I guess. Like they know my thoughts are complicated right now.

I watch the waves come in, watch a tiny bird on the shore hopping around and looking for washed-up clams, watch the kayaking couple go past us one more time.

While I’m still, I think about all the things I’d like to talk to James about. The old me would ask him how he got into drawing, what his land life is like, which bands he likes, what TV he DVRs, and maybe even if he has a girlfriend.

Olive’s right. I used to be brighter.

I feel like a dull and worn-out version of myself, and for some reason I just can’t bridge the gap between who I used to be and the sad sack that’s sitting here now. I don’t know how to reach through it.

I’m staring down at my left thumb, picking at the skin around the nail, when James says my name.

“Clementine.”

He sounds like Ethan when he says it. Why can’t I just go back and
not do
what I did? Then Amanda and I would be
dying
over being apart this summer, and I could save up stories for her about how my mom is making us eat from a can every night and my dad is being supercheesy and Olive is trying to discuss literature with me. Maybe I’d even tell her about today, about James. Because then meeting him would be this uncomplicated, fun thing. Not that I think he’s in love with me or anything, but let’s face it, we’re out on the water. The pickings are slim.

But I can’t even talk to Amanda. Because I’m a bad person.

I look up at James and have to shake my head for a minute to remember where I am. I bite my bottom lip because, for the hundredth time this summer, I feel like I might cry.

“What happened?” he asks.

“Nothing,” I say, faking a smile. “I guess I just zoned out for a sec.”

I look over and see that Olive is watching us.

“No,” he says. “Not just now. I mean, what happened to you?”

“What happened to me?” I echo.

“Did something—” he starts. Then he looks at Olive and sees her listening to us. He holds back. “I mean, I know what it’s like to have something make you sad.”

“No, it’s nothing,” I rush to answer again.

“You just looked like—”

“You don’t really know me,” I say, annoyed at how much he sees. That drawing of me with the sad eyes—what was that supposed to be? And now he thinks he can read my expressions? So presumptuous. “We just met.”

James looks hurt for a moment, and then he glances at Olive. I glare at her to let her know that she’d better not butt in with whatever crazy version of the Ethan story she thinks she knows.

She stays quiet, and I look down at the bottom of the dinghy with its dirt scuffs and brown pools of water, wishing I could bubble up and be the old me again. But I don’t know how.

chapter twenty-two

Dear Amanda,
On my birthday, it wasn’t what you thought—

The day I turned sixteen was a teacher workshop day, so I spent the morning at the DMV and passed my test with flying colors. Dad handed over the keys instantly. “Go have fun,” he said.

I dropped him off at home and sat in the driver’s seat as I texted all my friends to see who could hang out with me.

The first reply came from Ethan:
I’m in. come get me
.

I waited exactly twelve minutes, by the clock on the dashboard, to see if anyone else would answer. They didn’t. I felt a small thrill at the thought of picking up Ethan and driving around with him, alone.

He was standing in his driveway when I got there. His hair was wet from the shower. I wondered if he had taken one after I texted, if he was clean just for me. When he got in the car he smelled fresh, like Old Spice and spearmint gum.

It was a sunny day and the temperature was in the seventies, so we rolled down the windows and took a left on Rural Route 102. You take a right to go into town; there’s no real reason to go left—it just leads to a narrow stretch that passes some farmland out in the county, and eventually it becomes a dirt road. But Ethan hadn’t been out that way, and it’s pretty in some parts. It seemed like a good idea.