Beyond the Break Read online

  “Oh, Jake.” I have no other words. This horrible person I’ve envisioned his father to be fades away. Now I feel like the horrible person for thinking of him that way. “Your dad did the right thing.”

  He nods. “He did. Carried his friend out. Held on to a kid. But his brain doesn’t give a shit. It keeps looping the scenes at night, ya know? The images. His best friend burning to death. Holding a child while she’s dying and looking up at him as if to ask why, and he has no answer.”

  “So your black eye . . .”

  He laughs gruffly. “Had to wake him up. He was gonna wake the neighbors with all that yelling. Turns out he has great aim in his sleep.”

  I think of how much I had assumed. “I’m so sorry.”

  He shakes his head. “Don’t be. He’s no holiday. When he first got back, he couldn’t sleep. So he drank. No sleep makes you crazy. Drinking makes you ugly. Awesome combo.”

  “That why your parents split up?”

  He finds a gravel rock and chucks it across the pavement like he’s skipping stones in a pond. It bounces four times. “Yeah. Finally Mom said, enough. She couldn’t live with it. I don’t blame her, but I hate her for it just the same. Schools are better out here, she argued. In the end, she wanted out from anything that reminded her of him. And sadly, I’m one of those things.”

  “That can’t be true.” He stands, holds out his hand. I take it, and he pulls me up. I wipe the dirt off my backside and shake my head. “Gosh, I feel stupid for crying now.”

  He grabs me by the shoulders and looks at me squarely. “I didn’t tell you this to make you feel bad about feeling bad. What Cecilia did sucked. Sure, my mom left me with a guy who sucker punches me in his sleep. But you were abandoned for a year while your parents took care of your brother. We all have our stuff.”

  “Then why—”

  “Because by now, you’ve seen the real me, and you know my dad doesn’t define me. What happened back there”—he lets go of my shoulders and offers a lazy swat of his hand toward the cafeteria—“doesn’t define you.”

  I rub my chin, crusty with dried tears. “It’s not just that. The letter. She added stuff, crossed out stuff.” I feel my heart quickening again. “It makes Jesus look like a moron.”

  “So?”

  So?

  But then he adds, “You think this is the first time someone’s made Him look like a moron? He’ll be okay. I think He can take it.”

  I’m thankful for Jake’s response. I can’t imagine having feelings for someone who didn’t care about the One I loved most. Then I remember the words of my assignment: My first kiss is going to be at the altar when the pastor says, “You may kiss the bride.” It’s the most romantic thing I can imagine.

  Jake read that, and the humiliation returns. “But the other stuff,” I say, my face hot again. “I’m not even sure I believe that anymore. I mean, I still don’t believe in sex before marriage. But now everyone knows. Lovette’s a virgin. Lovette’s never kissed. Lovette’s never had a boyfriend. Lovette signed a contract with God. Lovette’s training to be a nun. If they see me even holding a guy’s hand, they’ll be like, ‘See? All Christians are hypocrites.’”

  He steps forward so we’re face-to-face, and my breath hitches. The bell rings to go to sixth period, but I don’t move. He takes my wrist gently and lifts it, places our hands palm to palm, fingers pointing toward the sky. I feel a charge like electricity from his touch. Then he opens his fingers and slowly interlocks them with mine.

  He’s held my hand before when he led me out to the ocean. But now with our fingers meshed, it feels intimate—like we’re naked or something—and my eyes dart around before meeting his gaze. He motions to our two hands, fingers braided, palms squeezing tighter. I’m not pulling away, and he knows it.

  “We’re all hypocrites, Lovette. Trust me, if they don’t want Jesus, it’s not your hypocrisy holding them back.”

  He releases his hand from mine, and I almost reach for it again. Almost.

  “I gotta get to sixth period,” I say. Sixth period is through the cafeteria. I lick my chapped lips and reach in my pocket for my Dr Pepper ChapStick.

  “I’ll go with you,” he says, and I almost start crying again.

  “Thanks,” I manage, and then I remember Jake’s words: “What happened back there doesn’t define you.”

  You define me, Jesus, and You don’t cower. To prove it, I stand tall, shoulders back, and sling my backpack over one arm.

  “Attagirl,” Jake says, like I caught a good wave, and I smile.

  When we push through the double doors, I slide to a stop. The cafeteria’s cleared of students, except for my best friends. Niles, Kaj, Lydia, and Kelly are walking around with trash bins. Lydia is stripping every last xeroxed paper off the walls. Kaj is on his knees, shuffling a bunch into a pile. Kelly’s got the tables, and Niles is cleaning the benches. They work as a team, cleaning every piece of the cruel joke. My eyes fill again, but for way better reasons than before.

  “Well, hey!” Niles says as we enter. “If it isn’t the lady of the hour!”

  “Thanks,” I cough out. They stop what they’re doing and walk over. “You didn’t have to.”

  “Of course we did,” Niles says. “Any excuse to ditch Mr. Flannigan’s.”

  Kelly wraps her arms around me and squeezes until I might pop.

  Kaj adds, “Besides, we can’t have you bringing down our status.”

  Lydia punches him in the side.

  “Ow! I’d like to turn in my girlfriend for domestic abuse.”

  She punches him again, and he grabs her, and then they’re kissing.

  My heart feels full. “Seriously, thanks. You all still gonna be my friends now that I’m the most unpopular girl on campus?”

  “You kidding?” Niles says. “Now that everyone knows you’re a virgin, you’ll have the entire senior class of guys after you.”

  “Gross,” I say, but Niles and Kaj laugh.

  “What’re you doing tonight?” Lydia asks, but she knows. It’s Friday.

  “Going to this club called the Venue. Why, you wanna come?”

  Her hips shake. “Seven thirty?”

  “Right after family dinner. Which reminds me—I need to get to sixth before my family grounds me from fun.”

  “Go!” Kelly says and motions to the few papers still strewn about. “We got this one.” She’s ignored Jake this whole time, but her love for me is so palpable that I overlook it for the moment.

  We get to my classroom nineteen minutes after the late bell. Luckily, Ms. O’Toole will let it slide. I’ll talk to her after class. I start to turn the door handle, then stop and turn to Jake.

  “Um, do you—do you want to come to family dinner tonight?”

  His dimple creases his cheek. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I feel as if I’m going to puke into the meatloaf as I set it down onto the dinner table. Jake’s here, sitting in Matt’s usual spot, and the table is set like one of Mom’s million-dollar open houses. Everyone looks at ease except me, who just remembered that Jake thinks I’ve told my parents about surfing. I’m not sure how I’ve pulled As in three AP classes and yet can’t remember the SINGLE MOST CRITICAL PIECE OF INFORMATION THAT COULD RUIN MY LIFE. I guess I’ve been keeping those realities separate for so long that I forgot until right now when Jake says there’s a sale at Dive N’ Surf.

  “Oh no,” I say. I grip the sides of the table.

  Jake thinks I’m talking about the sale. “I know, right? Dangerous!”

  My father asks him, “Do you scuba dive?” because of course, Jake wouldn’t be talking about the “surf” part of Dive N’ Surf. Not in this household.

  Jake’s momentarily distracted from the sale, which he probably brought up because my wetsuit has a hole under one armpit. “Actually, yes
.” I notice how he makes eye contact and addresses my father with yes instead of yeah. Definitely a military kid. “My father taught me when I was eight.”

  “Good man.”

  “Yes. He was.”

  I don’t miss the past tense, but Jake says it with a smile, and no one else notices. He adds, “Haven’t been out recently, though. You dive?”

  Dad nods. “In my early years with the Navy, I worked with dolphins—you know, training them for underwater mine location, object retrieval, swimmer detection.”

  “Incredible. Such intelligent creatures.”

  “And total assholes!” Dad laughs. He goes on to tell how the Navy puts the dolphins through drills in open water to test them. As soon as the dolphins do the drill, they’re rewarded with fish back in their aquarium cages. The drill could take as little as an hour, and the dolphins know it. They also know they’ll no longer be in open water once they finish the drill. So instead, they throw a party in the open water, playing and flopping around. They know what they have to do, but if they don’t feel like it, which is every time, they play. I imagine my dad and his buddies out in the open water climbing back on the boats, grumbling and cursing at the dolphins as they switch out their tanks because the dolphins are taking their “damn sweet time frolicking.” When they finally get hungry, they’ll do the drill. By that time, Dad and his buddies are furious that it’s taken seven hours to do a one-hour assignment. The worst part is, they still have to reward the dolphins, or as my dad calls them, “the smug SOBs,” with buckets of fish for a job “most inefficiently done.”

  I’ve heard this story a zillion times—and Dad uses the same phrases every time—but it still makes me laugh the way he tells it. I always think my dad looks younger when he talks about his enlisted days. Before the conversation dies and we can go back to surfing sales, I say, “These are lovely.” Jake brought flowers (for Mom, not me) and she placed them on the table in a crystal vase I’ve never seen before, which doesn’t surprise me. Mom works with a realtor staging homes for open houses. She designs the rooms from a warehouse of furniture so that when people come by, they think, I could sit in this cozy chair and think about my life and feel perfect and intelligent. Why haven’t I bought this house yet?

  “Oh, yes!” Mom adds. She beams at the flowers, then Jake. “I hope you rub off on my husband.”

  Dad chuckles, but I remember him bringing flowers home to Mom when I was a kid. Like, a lot. Then, when the accident happened, we received so many flowers, our house looked like a Rose Parade float. I wonder if flowers remind them of that painful time. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen a petal in our home since Matt left rehab.

  I’ve just gotta make it through dessert without any ocean talk. The rest of dinner, I flood Mom with questions about her home decorating so she can share with Jake what she does. So far so good. It tickles her that she’s the focus, I can tell, but Dad interjects as he clears the plates and brings out the brownies.

  “So Lovette tells us that you lived in Hawaii?”

  “Yessir. Originally from here, but we were stationed there for five years when my dad was deployed eighteen months and then another eighteen.”

  “And now your father is stationed—?”

  “Pendleton. I live with my aunt in Manhattan during the weekdays.”

  “Are there no schools there? Oceanside High?” Dad says it nicely, but I want to crawl under the table.

  “Dad!”

  “What? What’d I say?”

  Jake pauses and picks at a brownie, deciding how he can answer. He doesn’t look bothered when he finally says, “It’s temporary. It’s nice for my aunt, who lives by herself. My dad’s schedule’s pretty packed during the week, so it works out.”

  “Well!” says Mom, who’s noticed that my eyes are screaming, Please don’t ask about his mom please don’t please don’t. “We better clear the table so you can get to the Venue on time.” She tilts her head at Jake. “It was so lovely to finally meet Lovette’s boyfriend.”

  “Mom!”

  Jake smiles. “It was lovely to meet you, too.” Man, he’s good. I’m dying, my insides curling in on themselves, sweaty armpits, the works, and he’s all dimply and charming.

  We’re standing up to leave when Jake adds, “Maybe you could come watch us surf sometime.”

  No.

  Please no.

  No, no, no, no.

  My mouth opens to a capital O and stays there. Dad stops mid-step, and Mom grips her empty plate, arms extended, like we’re holding still for Jake to snap a family action photo. Only no one’s smiling.

  A dawning realization comes over Jake as his eyes land on me last. “If, that is, Lovette ever gets back out there.”

  Everything clicks back to life. “Oh,” Mom says, “Lovette didn’t tell you? I just assumed, since you’ve been so intimate.”

  “Mom!” Jesus, couldn’t you have given me a mom who says normal things?

  “She’s a no-go for the water,” Dad finishes. “Ocean, that is. You seen her in the pool? Regular fish.” He salutes me like trout and bass are saving lives.

  “Our son had an accident a few years back,” Mom continues, setting down the plate. “We feel it’s best if she—”

  “She’s a darn good swimmer.” Dad isn’t as ready to open up about the family secrets. “Don’t know if she tells you how much she practices at the Y pool after work. I’m sure you know.” He wipes the table with a napkin, which I’ve seen him do, well, never. “I tell her every year to go out for the swim team. But she always says no time left between her job and school.”

  “The ocean’s . . . unpredictable.” Mom wrings her hands.

  “Of course,” Jake agrees.

  “But we love that you surf,” Mom adds. “Nothing against that of course.”

  “Great sport,” Dad says. “It’s just not for Lovette.”

  Jake smiles. “I remember she used to be good.”

  “Jake remembers when I used to surf in sixth grade,” I blurt. He’s not remembering last month and the killer heel edge I carved.

  “Ah,” is all my father wants to say to that.

  Mom says, “She always wanted to be like her brother.”

  “Shame,” Jake says. “I remember being out on the waves with her and the other guys. Never saw someone who loved the sport more. Never watched her brother ride, but”—he pauses to put his jacket on—“she lit up the ocean without his help. That’s for sure.” Mom looks at me like I’m a stranger in her daughter’s skin. She never considered that I liked surfing. It was my brother’s thing. Dad’s smile turns tight. He’s at his limit, and Jake picks up on it. “Good night, Mr. and Mrs. Taylor. Thank you for your hospitality.”

  We don’t talk the whole drive to the Venue. Jake has the music on full blast, and it bounces in my rib cage and hurts my ears. No room for other noises. Voices. Explanations. He doesn’t want one, he informs me by the bass pounding in my skull. We park in the back near the service entrance. Finally I disconnect his phone from the speakers. The music jolts to a stop.

  “I’m sorry,” I start. He doesn’t move. “I tried. But you saw them. It’s impossible. There’s no way . . .” His eyes stare out through the windshield, giving me no indication that he’s listening. “If I told them, I’d never even be able to get away with swimming at night anymore. They’d be all over me to make sure I stayed away. I can’t imagine losing the ocean. It’s like a part of me would die. I couldn’t risk it.”

  “So you lied to me?” He still won’t look at me.

  “Not exactly. You just assumed I told them. And I didn’t have the heart—you were so excited—and I guess I didn’t want that to go away.” I reach out and touch his arm, but he flinches. I return my hand to my lap, a little confused that he’s so irritated by this. “Maybe you didn’t know what I was risking. It’s the place where I feel closest to myself.
And where I see God the most. Like, sometimes it’s like He’s literally out there with me in the water. I couldn’t chance losing it all.”

  His voice is eerily calm. “I had every idea what you were risking. I know it was a shit ton of a big deal. Possibly losing what you love most. Leaving things is hard. That’s why I was so impressed when you did it.” He swallows. The next words are difficult. “You changed me by it.” My insides warm at hearing that, but he turns away, like he’s embarrassed by those words, and looks out of the driver’s-side window. “I was like, if Lovette can face up to this, then maybe I can man up and—I mean, you were the whole reason—” He doesn’t finish. He rakes his hand through his hair, pulls at it in sharp tugs. He hits the steering wheel, and it makes me jump. “You should go.” And that’s when I realize he’s not coming.

  “You’re not being fair.” I shift in my seat so I can face him. “You didn’t correct my mom when she called you my boyfriend.”

  “Neither did you.”

  “I correct her every day! It’s not like you told the truth.”

  “Why does it matter?”

  “Because it’s the truth!”

  “Are you hearing yourself?”

  I throw my head back against the headrest. “I’m just saying I’m not the only one lying.”

  “I’ll drive back right now and tell your mom we’re not dating. It doesn’t matter to her. We’re talking about things that matter.”

  “My mom thinks you’re my boyfriend, and maybe that doesn’t matter. But you think it wouldn’t matter to Hannah?” I don’t even know why I said that. I’m not concerned about Hannah’s feelings. But he’s being totally unfair, and it’s the only ammunition I can think of. By the look on his face, it worked. I see the way I’ve stunned him, and for one lousy moment, I revel in it. I get out of the car and slam the door for effect. He rolls down the window.

  “I wouldn’t know, Lovette.” This makes me stop mid-turn. I look back, and his laser eyes bore into me as he says, “I stopped talking with her two weeks ago. Right after someone taught me the reward was worth the risk.”