No going back, p.14
No Going Back, page 14
“It’s because Charlie—”
“Oh my God, Vaughn! We all know Charlie is a figment of your childlike imagination.”
“Doesn’t matter, Gary. The important thing is, Antonio knows what’s up with the money now, so you don’t have to pretend anymore. See you guys tonight at one thirty.”
“See you then!” I snatch the phone and shut it down.
“I don’t get it,” Gary says. “We don’t need a boat.”
“Of course we don’t need a boat. Vaughn knows that.”
“Then why is he talking about a boat? Why is he talking about a crab pot?”
“He’s, um, playing like we’re in Ocean’s Eleven or something, right? Everyone on the team has a job. He’s the boat guy! Even though there is no boat.”
“And no Charlie,” he says.
“Definitely no Charlie.”
“And no crab pot.”
“Did you really go crabbing up there back in the day?”
“Yup.”
“Your dad’s pots?”
“Nope. We partook of crabs from the pots of others.”
“Of course you did.” I march to the door. “See you tonight.”
“At two?” he says. “Or one thirty?”
“Definitely one thirty.”
Gary’s eyes brighten. “Stay and de-stress with me, Tonio.” He mimes lighting up a pipe.
“Can’t do it. My parole terms.”
“That’s okay. Soon enough we’ll be living the high life, lighting up all the sweet Kush we please, in the comfort of our very own condo.”
“We’ll see, Gary. Hey, it’s just me and you now. You wanna tell me where you buried that money?”
“Like I said before, Tonio, I love you, but…”
“Trust issues. Got it.”
Gary gazes up at me with big, sad eyes. “I’m worried, Tonio. It’s all right if you don’t shack up in that condo. But I’m afraid of what’s going to happen to us after tonight. I can’t take the idea we might be apart again. I just can’t.”
Oh God. The sincere love that pours out of this pathetic kid.
“We’ll make it,” I say. “We always do.”
“You’re right,” he says, his smile growing. “That’s the thing about us.” He launches into me and squeezes tight. He pats my back and releases. “See you, Tonio.”
“Goodbye, Gary.”
I spring down the stairs, sprint across the Viking Glen parking lot, and head north on 30th toward the cutover to Pac Highway. I don’t know if Vaughn’s Boston Whaler is real. But I’m thinking it might be. I don’t know if Charlie is real. But what is for sure real is, Gary’s plan for tonight is shot to hell.
I feel short breaths racing ahead of me. I close my eyes and try to slow them, but I can’t. Because of Gary Jr. And this time it’s not because I want to punch him. It’s because I just lied to him. I lied to the most loyal person I’ve ever met, about the most important thing in his life. Friendship.
Gary and me… we’re not going to make it past this moment.
That goodbye was forever.
Because I have my own plan for tonight. And it doesn’t include him.
It doesn’t include Vaughn. Or Lance. Or my dad. Or whatever chaos is going to ensue after I’m long gone with that money.
SUNDAY 4:35 PM
It’s a different librarian than last time. He asks me to describe my phone.
“A Samsung J3. I’m pretty sure I wrote my name on the back. Take off the cover. It should say Diego Forlán.”
He digs through a box. Finds it. Checks the back. Smiles and hands me the phone with a wink. “Good luck in the next World Cup, Diego.”
He knows about Uruguayan soccer. I want to tell him my mom is from there. I want to tell him the days of Forlán’s cannon shots off either foot are long gone. Now it’s all Suárez, Edinson Cavani, and a bunch of up-and-comers.
But there’s no time to chat. I walk out and check my phone.
There’s a string of messages from my mom, begging me to come home, promising me we’ll work things out, telling me how much she loves me.
I wonder how the same person who looked at me the way she did could write those messages. The same person who saw something in me she didn’t like. Something horrible.
I don’t like that thing either. Words can’t fix that thing. Talking isn’t going to win her trust. Or Maya’s. My actions have to do the talking now.
There’s another text. This one’s from Murdock.
C u in the morn. 7 sharp!
Sorry so slow getting back @ u.
Battery died. C u @ 7!
A cold wind whips through me. I shiver and look to the sky. Black clouds. There’s going to be more rain coming. I pull my hoodie strings tight. And get my legs moving. To the marina this time.
Bzzt!
A new text.
Where r u?
It’s Maya.
SUNDAY 4:45 PM
Maya squeals her Civic into the library lot, swerves into the book-drop-off lane, and slams her breaks. I see it in a flash of her eyes. She’s boiling.
I walk fast to the passenger side. She hits the locks and rolls the window down a tiny crack. “If you’re expecting some kind of fairy-tale news, you’re out of luck. Okay?”
I nod.
“Can you be both disappointed and calm?”
“Yes.”
“And you can be nice to me?”
“Yes.”
“Like my old best friend? And not some random jerk?”
“Yes. I can. I promise.”
She unlocks the door and tells me to get in.
I got this need to start apologizing. But I can’t catch my breath. I just get in the car. I press my back into the seat, close my eyes, and try to inhale.
But my breath catches in my throat as Maya stomps on the gas and we rocket out of there.
She whips into a spot in the Angle Lake parking lot and slams the brakes. She jumps out. I get out too and watch as she pulls a duffel from the trunk and slams the lid. She marches fast down the path lined thick and dark with ferns and evergreens, all the way to this hidden lake off Pac Highway in the heart of Airportlandia. This lake that always made me feel so far away from everything. And so close to Maya.
We end up at the massive log at the far end of the grass beach. Our spot. We drop our packs and sit, backs against that log like we’ve done a thousand times.
She leans forward and turns to me, like she’s ready to explode. Then she puts a hand up, stopping herself. She closes her eyes. Shakes her head slow. Takes in a deep breath. Leans back again.
We watch clouds for the longest time.
I start searching the trees.
Scanning the water.
Hoping our heron will make an appearance. Hoping Maya spots a bald eagle. Or that one of the river otters shows up. Or that some other miracle of nature will get us looking in the same direction, lighting up our eyes, allowing us to share a magical wish-worthy moment. Like old times.
No luck.
Eventually, she lets out a calm sigh. “Damn, Antonio,” she says. “It’s actually nice being back here.”
I nod because it’s smarter to not talk right now.
Then I talk, because I’m not that smart. “At Zephyr I dreamed about being together again. Here. At Saltwater State Park. At the marina. Just us.”
Eyes on the clouds, Maya’s jaw locks. Her cheek twitches.
“I understand things are different,” I say. “It’s just hard imagining my life without you.”
“I know,” she says.
“I guess that’s why I seem—”
“Desperate?” she says.
“Um.”
“Out of control?”
“Okay.”
“Violent?”
“Come on, Maya.”
“You were never like that before.”
I tell her it was stupid fighting over the door with her mom.
“And at Amanda’s? What was that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Antonio,” she says, voice trembling, “should I be afraid of you?”
“Damn, Maya, you know I would never—”
“Hurt me?” she says.
“I wouldn’t,” I say. “I couldn’t.”
The look on her face says she’s not so sure.
“I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry.”
“It’s not about sorry. It’s about are you gonna be a safe person when life gets difficult? Or are you gonna be like your dad?”
“Jesus Christ, Maya! No!”
“Maybe he taught you some stuff you should never have learned.”
I turn away. Lean back. Focus on clouds. And I try so hard to breathe.
“Get help, Antonio. Talk it out with somebody just in case.”
I nod and nod as a breath catches in my throat. I gasp for air and I can’t stop the tears.
“I know you started building up expectations ever since we kissed at the pier that night.” She reaches over and wipes my cheek with a finger. “And you thought we would pick up right where we left off.”
I nod, sniffling, snotting.
“Then I shot you down hard and fast. This idea of us in your mind, it went from being everything to nothing.”
More nodding and snot.
“I could have found a better way to break it to you,” she says.
“Was that the whole plan?” I say. “For us to be nothing?”
Eyes on the water, Maya shoves her hands in her pockets. “After I got sober, I realized I didn’t know how much of us kissing was us loving each other, like so deep it would be worth all the work it would take for people like us to be together and stay together… and how much of us kissing was us being lost and wasted and desperate.”
“It wasn’t any of that, Maya.”
“That was a hard time. It got worse after you went away. I’m getting better. But I still don’t know what I want. From other people. From myself. I’m still trying to figure it out.”
I don’t know what I want either. Besides Maya. I laugh. Quiet. Sad. Defeated. “I wanted to do step nine. I thought that would get us somewhere fast. I was stupid.”
“Look at me,” she says.
I look her right in the eyes.
“If it wasn’t for me, you never would have gone to school drunk.”
“What are you talking about? I was the one who—”
“Shut up!” she says. “I tried step nine at Amanda’s. You shut me down. Why?” She stares at me with big eyes, taking my heart into hers.
I get this feeling, like a tapping at my shoulder, something I been brushing away forever.
Maya is making me face up to it. To see it. To feel it.
I close my eyes and inhale deep.
I exhale slow and travel into a dark corner of my mind. I reach out for the thought, and when I’ve got it, I start crying again because I don’t want it inside me anymore.
“Okay,” I say, wiping my eyes. “You always brought the alcohol. I never needed it, Maya. I never wanted it. But I needed you. I wanted you. I always wondered who we’d be without alcohol. But I was too afraid to ask for that. Because maybe I’d find out you didn’t want me.”
“I know,” she says.
“I get it. Life is hard. People do stuff to deal. And people have stuff that, when they start doing it, they can’t stop, and there are other people that get mixed up in that. I know you were just doing the best you could to survive. But still, this part of me—this little part I’d shove down every time it got close to the surface—blamed you for the mess I got into.”
She’s still looking right at me. So calm. So open to me.
I say it again. “I blamed you.”
She nods.
“I’m doing something with that blame now. I’m letting it go. I’m forgiving you.”
I don’t look at her. But I hear her breathing deeply now.
“You need to let it go too,” I say.
Maya looks up at the sky. She wipes her tears. “I hated feeling like I had to convince you to drink all the time. I thought you were weak for letting me. I’m sorry.”
She pops up, grabs a big stick, runs at the water, and lets it fly. She waits till it splashes, then turns and shouts back at me. “I’m forgiving me,” she says, walking toward me again. “I’m forgiving you too, Antonio. For last night. For today. And for all those years of being my codependent copilot. I’m letting it all go. Every single thing.”
“That’s good,” I say.
“But I’m not all the way there in my program, in my life. And if we have any shot at being healthy together someday… friends someday… we have to get healthy apart.”
“How do we know when…?”
She shrugs her shoulders. Smiles. “When we like ourselves, maybe? Or mostly like ourselves? Maybe then?”
“You don’t like yourself ?”
“You do?”
“Come on, Maya.”
“You know what?” she says. “I’m getting there.”
“Good. There’s a lot to like.”
She sits up taller. “I’m a senior, Antonio! Can you believe that?”
“How did it happen?”
“Mrs. Lucrisia put me on a catch-up schedule. I’m doing independent study from home. Some online classes. I go to school and check in with her, and I have an in-person meetup in Burien with my online teacher once a week. I’ve even taken some classes at Highline College. I’m not quite going to make June graduation at Puget. But if I pass my classes this spring, I just have to take history online and a chemistry class at Highline this summer and I’ll graduate in August.”
“Congratulations, Maya.”
“Thanks.”
“What do you want to do after?”
She shrugs.
“What’s your wildest dream?”
She says she’s not thinking past tomorrow.
I tell her there must be something.
She wraps her arms around her knees and pulls them in tight. “There’s a research vessel in the marine biology department at U-Dub. You have to distinguish yourself to get on it as an undergrad. You can get on for sure if you’re a grad student. One way or another, I want on that boat someday. I want to sail to the Galápagos. To Antarctica. I want to study our orca pods. I want to let the world know what we’re doing to these animals, what we’re doing to ourselves.”
“Go for it,” I say.
She laughs a tired laugh. “I will. But for now, getting to my dreams means setting them aside and dealing with reality, and doing the next right thing today.” That’s when Maya reaches into her bag and starts pulling stuff out.
There’s a beaded bracelet I made her in middle school art. A perfect moon-snail shell I found at Saltwater State Park. A key to our old house. A seal plush toy from when we were still in elementary school. It’s a punch in the gut.
“You really need to give this stuff back?”
“It’s hard to let you go, Antonio.”
The way she’s throwing stuff at me, I’m not so sure.
As long as she’s at it, I ask her if she has my Forlán jersey.
She thinks about it, then says she remembers wearing it that last night together under the pier. But she gave it back in the morning and I wore it to school. She remembers me stumbling down the hall in it.
She zips the empty duffel shut. “That’s all there is,” she says.
I put everything in my backpack, then turn to face her. “I’m going to show you, Maya Jordan. I’m going to live right and show you.”
Maya’s brown eyes get bright, her smile wide. “Go for it, Antonio,” she says, so much love in her voice. “Seriously. But don’t do it for me. Do it for yourself.”
I get it. But the idea of doing great only for me feels so damn lonely.
She grabs the empty duffel bag. “You going to school tomorrow?”
I tell her about my transition meeting with Officer Murdock and Mrs. Lucrisia in the morning. I tell her it’s a term of my parole.
“Wow,” she says. “Get there on time, Antonio.”
“I will.”
“Hey, what’s going on with you and Gary Jr.? You two okay?”
“We’re good,” I say, a twinge in my gut.
We walk side by side to the parking lot. She asks me where I’m headed next.
I tell her maybe I’ll walk to the marina. I know she thinks I’m going to drown my sorrows in our memories. She’s half-right.
“That’s far,” Maya says. “You sure you don’t want a ride?”
I tell her yeah even though I’m sure I do want a ride. But Maya can’t know what’s really going on at the pier. “So, um, I’m just gonna…” I step away like showing her I’m walking.
“Hey,” she says, stopping me. “Bring it in.” She holds her arms out.
I hold mine out. And we slowly make a hug happen. She tightens her squeeze and holds on. And I exhale something deep I didn’t know was still inside me.
Too quick, Maya flashes me a sad smile, turns away, and springs toward her car. She gets in, yanks the door shut, backs up fast, and motors toward Pac Highway. I watch her Civic stop at the park entrance. Her left signal flashes. Traffic clears. She makes the turn. And she’s gone. No looking back.
Tears and rain start falling. I close my eyes and wish as hard as I can that when I open them, Maya will be driving right back into the lot.
Doesn’t happen.
As I cry my way toward Pac Highway and onto the Des Moines Creek Trail, I admit to myself that dropping a bunch of money on Maya and her mom would come off as a desperate attempt to pump life back into Antonio and Maya.
Goodbye can’t come with a catch. Neither can forgiveness. As much as I want to beg, to fight, to try… there is only one thing I can do for Maya Jordan. And that is nothing.
I try to breathe deep to stop crying. I can’t. My lungs ache. My guts ache. Saying goodbye to Maya aches.
But saying goodbye to wanting so much? Goodbye to unrealistic expectations? Goodbye to desperation? Goodbye to making someone feel like they could never give you enough of them? All that stuff has been inside me forever, sitting right on top of dreams of Maya, hopes for Maya, fantasies of Maya. Wanting. It filled me up. It propped me up. And now it’s gone. And the ache is my body fighting to keep upright, fighting to keep from imploding into the empty space that’s been left behind.
