Things We Know by Heart (17 page)

 

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”

—Thornton Wilder

WE DRIVE. WINDOWS
open, wind swirling wild around us, filling the space of our silence with cool salt air. I can feel the tension rolling off Colton as he shifts and turns. I don't know where we're going, but it doesn't matter. We drive like that, trying to block out the noise of our thoughts with the sound of the wind; and it's not until we're out of town, on the empty two-lane coast highway, heading north into the rolling hills, that Colton's shoulders, and his grip on the steering wheel, relax the slightest bit.

“You ever been up to Big Sur?” he asks, his voice heavier than normal. It's clear in this question that he doesn't plan on acknowledging the fight he just had with Shelby in the store, but I can't let it go, not anymore.

“Colton . . . ,” I say tentatively.

He glances at me out of the corner of his eye. “There's this place up there called McWay Falls. It's probably my favorite place, but I haven't been there in a long time. It has
the clearest, bluest water you've ever seen. Some days you can see twenty feet, straight to the bottom. And there's a waterfall that comes down off the cliff, right onto the sand. I've been wanting to take you there,” he adds with a smile. That familiar optimism has crept back into his voice, and he sounds more like himself now. Or more like the Colton he lets me see. “We could grab some food on the way, eat at the falls, take the kayak out, have a perfect day—”

“Colton.” My voice comes out firmer this time, and I hope it's enough to say to him that we can't ignore what just happened. That as much as we both may want to, we can't go any further with so much left unspoken between us.

He sighs. Looks out his side window for a brief moment before bringing his eyes back to the road. “I just want to get outta here for a little while.” He shifts in his seat, thrums his fingers on the steering wheel. “That, back there with my sister . . .”

“It's okay,” I say quickly. I can see how uncomfortable he is, and it weakens my resolve to talk about it. “You don't have to explain. Mine can be the same way when she gets worried, and it's between you guys anyway, and . . .”

Now I'm talking around it. Again.

“So you heard that whole thing,” Colton says.

I look out my window, out to the hills covered in rolling summer-gold grasses, away from the words I keep replaying
over and over. Shelby's words, and his. And then I tell him the truth.

“I did. But it's not any of my business, I—”

“It's okay,” Colton says. “I wasn't trying to keep it secret from you.” He glances over at me. “Not really.” The word
secret
sticks in my gut, and though I feel his gaze linger on me, I can't meet it. I roll down the window even farther, wishing the wind would just swirl in and carry all our secrets away.

“Anyway,” he says, shifting in his seat again, “there's not a whole lot to tell.” He slides his eyes back to the road. “I got really sick a few years back—a viral infection that got into my heart and tore it up so bad I needed a new one. I got put on the transplant list, spent a lot of time waiting, in and out of the hospital, until last year when I finally got a new heart.”

I inhale sharply. I know all this already, but to hear him tell it himself hits me in a whole different way.

Colton pauses, and in the edge of that pause I can hear all the things he doesn't say to me. The things he said to Shelby about Trent, and the letter. The things about how his life was during that time, and how it is now. I wait, quiet. Brace myself for him to say them to me, but he doesn't. He just keeps his eyes on the sharp curve of the road and gives the slightest nod, like that's it, that's all there is.

I nod slowly in answer, like I'm hearing all this for the first time, like it's all that simple, but it takes everything in me to keep my breaths even, my face neutral. The way he put it, like that's the whole story, feels like a closed door meant to keep me out. Maybe it's to keep me safe from it all, but it's far too late. I know too much for that.

I know that behind all the pictures of him smiling through it and beneath the surface of Shelby's posts about how positive her brother was through it all, I know there was pain, and suffering, and guilt. There was sickness, and weakness, and being hospitalized. Losing weight, and swelling up, and procedure after procedure. Machines, and tubes, and endless medications. Soaring hopes, and crashing letdowns. Fund-raisers, and family vigils. Big scares and little victories.

There was life lived from behind the glass of the hospital and the confines of his house while his friends and family felt the ocean air in their lungs, and sunlight and water on their skin. There was a roomful of ships that would never leave their clear-glass ports. But he smiled for the camera every time. And he traded death for more than just a lifetime of medical care. He traded it for an anchor of guilt.

I can't handle the thought of making it any worse. Not now. Not when I know how much all that still hurts him. I turn my face to the window so that the air rushing in will be a good excuse for the tears that prick hot at my eyes.

“It's okay,” Colton says. “I'm good now.” He smiles, trying to lighten the tone, and brings a fist to his chest. “Strong. And it was gonna come out sooner or later.” He shrugs. “I guess I just really liked that you knew me without all that.”

“Why?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.

He tilts his head, considering, then opens his mouth to say something but reels it back in. I look straight ahead, try to give him space to find his answer as we round another sharp curve. The road hugs the mountain high above the ocean, and from the passenger side I can't see the drop, which I'm thankful for.

What I can see is the sky, and the ocean spreading out from the cliffs, wide and sparkling in the afternoon sun. It makes me wish we were out there in the kayak, floating on one of the aquamarine, sun-soaked patches of water, in that safe place between the ocean and the sky, where nothing else matters but the moment.

Colton shrugs. “Because I don't think about any of that when I'm with you, and that's—” He stops. Smiles, but not like the smile I know. There's a vulnerability in this one, and in his eyes. “That was a pretty dark time of my life, and you . . .”

He glances over at me again, eyes serious. “You're like light, after all that.”

I come undone right there. Tears wells up, and I take his
hand in mine and hold on, and try to hold them back, as I see it all. Me, noticing him for the first time in the café, him standing on my doorstep with the sunflower in his hand, the two of us inside the hollowed-out rock with the sunlight streaming in and then paddling over the surface of the water, silhouetted between a glowing ocean and a sky exploding with fireworks.

I can't risk losing it all. All of this light.

He's looking at me, waiting for me to say something back, to say I feel the same way. The road in front of us pins itself into a curve so sharp, it forces Colton's eyes back to the road, forces him to slow down, and like so many other moments, forces me into him, and this time I don't fight it.

Leaned into him, I catch a glimpse of the cliff's edge, and the ocean and the wave-crashed rocks far, far below, and for a brief moment it feels like my toes are hanging over the edge and I'm deciding whether or not to jump. But then I realize I already have. I've fallen so far, so fast that I didn't see it happening, and now there's no going back, nothing to hold on to but him.

 

“Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.”

—Martin Luther King Jr.

AFTER MILES OF
twisting turns, sheer cliff on one side and lush green hillside with ravines and tiny waterfalls on the other, the highway finally winds inland just a bit, and we pass a small sign that reads
STATE CAMPGROUND.
Colton doesn't turn into the campground but makes a left into a parking lot on the coastal side of the highway. There's no one in the kiosk to take our money, and since the parking lot is deserted, we have our pick of spots. Colton pulls the bus up next to the fence, under a cypress tree that spreads its rich green branches out wide and flat, like an enormous bonsai tree.

It's quiet when he looks over. “I can't believe you're here with me.” He leans across the seat and gives me a kiss, and I
can feel a smile on his lips. “This is my favorite place. Ever. Come on.”

We both get out and stand near our open doors, stretching in the afternoon sun. The air is different here: cooler, and more layered. The smell of the salt water mixes with scents of the trees and flowers that grow wild and tumble over the hill. We can't see or hear the ocean from where we stand, but I can feel it, just like I can feel the last bit of tension slip off Colton as he breathes it in too.

“Let's go see the water,” he says, and before I can answer, he grabs my hand and leads me to a short wooden staircase that goes up and over the fence, to the other side, where a trail winds through the tall green grass, then disappears at the edge of the bluff. We climb up and over, then walk, hand in hand, down the trail. We don't say anything, but we don't have to. The sweetness of the air, and the feel of each other's hand, the distant sound of the ocean—all of it is perfect. All of it feels like what we need, and where we should be.

When we get to where the trail leads to a steep set of stairs, the view of the ocean unfolds in front of us. It stops me in my tracks.

“Wow,” I breathe. “This is beautiful.”

“I knew you'd love it,” Colton says with a grin as he runs his eyes over the wide cove of sapphire water below. At the southern end of it, a graceful white arc of water dives
over the cliff and spills out onto the sand before meeting the ocean. Colton inhales deep and slow, like he's drinking it all in, comparing every little detail to the picture in his memory.

“How long has it been since you've been here?” I ask.

He doesn't take his eyes from the water. “A long time. It was with my dad, maybe ten years ago? We came camping, just us, right on the beach.” He smiles. “Brought the kayak and our surfboards and stayed in the water all day, then came in and cooked hot dogs and s'mores over the campfire, and watched the shooting stars over the ocean at night.”

“Sounds perfect.”

“It was. A perfect day. I remember it that way anyway. Thought about it a lot when I was sick.” He glances at me. “I thought maybe that would go down as my best day.”

We both watch as a wave, much bigger than what I've seen in Shelter Cove, rises, gathering speed and height, then crashes in a fast line with a thunder I can hear, even this far away.

Colton lets out a low whistle. “You feeling brave?”

“Not that brave,” I say as the next wave does a repeat, shooting white water high up into the air when it crashes. “It's wilder up here.”

He nods. “Yeah, it's not really kayak friendly out there.” We watch as another wave peels across the cove in a perfect,
empty line. “Good surf, though.”

I watch it, amused by the fact that every time I've heard him say that, my thought is that it looks downright scary. I still like catching the white water next to the pier.

“You can surf if you want, I don't mind. I'll watch.” The platform we're standing on has a bench and a view, and I know it would do him some good to get in the water.

“Really? You wouldn't mind?”

“No, go. I'm not quite ready for those waves yet, but I've seen what you can do. “

He turns to me and smiles, then pulls me in for a sweet, quick kiss that surprises us both. “Thank you. I won't be long.”

“Take as much time as you want.”

“Okay. I'm gonna go change and get my board.”

He starts up the trail, then stops and comes back for one more kiss. This one is deeper and sends little waves of warmth all through me.

He pulls back a little, rests his forehead on mine, so we're eye to eye. Smiles. “Okay. I really am gonna go change.”

“Okay,” I echo. “I'll be here.”

He takes a few steps backward, keeping his eyes on me until he has to turn around. I watch as he jogs up the trail to his bus, wanting him to come back and kiss me again, knowing that if he does, I won't be able to hold back anymore.

By the time he does come back with his surfboard, I've found my way down to another little wooden platform, midway between flights of stairs, complete with a bench, a railing, and a perfect view of the waterfall in the cove below.

“I brought you a sweatshirt,” Colton says, handing it to me. “Just in case.” He leans in for another quick kiss, then bounds down the stairs in his rash guard and trunks, board under one arm, and it makes me happy inside to see him this way. The lightness is back in his step.

I stand at the railing for a moment and watch as he throws his board into the deep blue of the water, jumps onto it, and starts paddling with the grace and ease of someone who never spent a single day away from it. You'd never know it'd been any other way for him. You'd never know any of it from the outside.

A tall wave rises up in front of him, and I get nervous, like I would if it were me out there, but Colton digs his arms in and paddles hard, then pushes the nose of the board down just as the wave pitches forward and begins to break. For the briefest moment I can see his silhouette in the face of it, the light shining through the water, and it's so beautiful it makes me want to cry at the impossibility of this situation I've created.

A cool breeze swirls up from the water, carrying on it
a chill, and the slightest hint of rain. It rolls over my bare skin, and I pull the sweatshirt around me as he finishes out the wave and turns to paddle for another one. There's a flash out on the horizon, so quick I wonder if I saw it at all, but a few moments later I hear the low, telling rumble of thunder. The clouds have moved in closer already, trailing faint gray streaks down to the water, starting to crowd the sun that was so bright only moments before.

Colton catches the next wave just as another flash of lightning zags the sky. This time only a few beats pass before the rumble of thunder follows again. I can see whitecaps begin to form out on the water as the wind picks up. I expect Colton to paddle in, but he turns his board around and heads back out toward the building surf. A fat drop of rain lands on my cheek, and I wipe it away. I look out at the water, at Colton paddling his board against the backdrop of the stormy sky, and I wish he'd come in. Lightning flashes again, and he sits up and turns toward the shore. He waves from the water, nods like he's okay, and then raises a single finger, like “one more.”

I wave back, and raindrops begin to fall, one after another, dotting the staircase all around me and adding a new layer to the air. Another flash of lightning zips across the sky, then a crack of thunder opens it up. I yank the hood over my head and squint through the downpour as Colton
goes for a wave and catches it. As soon as he finishes out the ride, he paddles the rest of the way in; and when he gets to the beach, he stands up and waves again, then tucks his board under his arm.

Colton hits the beach running as the thunder booms above us. He yells something to me, but his words are lost in the wind. The rain pours down in a steady sheet, creating little pinpricks of cold all over my face and bare legs, soaking through the sweatshirt fast.

When Colton reaches me, he lets out a whoop, and I can't help but laugh at how I must look standing there, the rain plastering my hair to my cheeks. “C'mon,” he yells above the storm and the surf. He grabs my hand and pulls me toward the stairs, motioning for me to go first, in front of him. I take the stairs two at a time, driven hard by the rain, and the cold, and the fact that he's right behind me. Another flash of lightning makes me scream, and I feel the boom of the accompanying thunder clap in my chest. Colton laughs out loud from behind me. “Go, go, go!”

By the time we get to the top of the stairs, the dirt trail has become a small, rushing river, and my flip-flops slip with every step I take. Colton's bus sits beside the fence, a bright-turquoise splash in the gray blur of rain. I climb up over the little ladder with Colton right behind me. The rain pounds loud on the roof of the bus and almost drowns out
the sound of the door when I slide it open. We tumble in, Colton right after me, and he slams the door closed behind us, all in one motion.

For a second it seems like the volume has been turned down, but then the sky unleashes another torrent of rain, this one even louder than the last. I lean against the seat to catch my breath, and Colton scoots himself back next to me to catch his. We're quiet a moment before we both burst out laughing. Colton shakes the water out of his hair, and I wring it from mine and pinch his soaked sweatshirt away from my chest.

“That was crazy,” he says, still out of breath. “That came out of nowhere.”

“No, it didn't. I could see it coming, all the way in. I've never seen anything like it. I thought you were gonna get hit by lightning out there.”

“I kinda did too,” he admits. “Nothing like a little brush with death to remind you you're alive.” He smiles, then reaches behind him and grabs two towels. Hands me one.

He runs his over his hair first, and I do the same before I peel off the wet sweatshirt and drape it over the back of the driver's seat. Another flash-boom erupts outside, and the rain pounds harder in answer. I wrap the towel around my shoulders and pull it tight; then we sit there on the bed, our backs leaned against the wall, catching our breaths and watching the rain streak down the windows.

“Looks like we may be camping out here after all, the way it's coming down out there,” Colton says, glancing over at me with a smile. “We didn't even make it to the waterfall.”

“No shooting stars or s'mores either.”

“I know,” Colton says, shaking his head. “All I've got is”—he leans over me and rummages around in the center console—“half a bottle of water, four pieces of gum, and two Rolos. I don't know how we're gonna survive.” He does his best to put on a serious expression, but the corner of his mouth twitches up. He shivers.

“We should get these wet clothes off,” I say, conscious now of the cold.

A smile breaks over Colton's face. He raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

I laugh. “That came out wrong. Sort of. I meant—”

Colton just keeps smiling as heat floods my cheeks and I try again. “I meant because of the cold, because we're wet, and you can get . . .”

He laughs softly and reaches out, tucks a damp strand of hair behind my ear. And in that tiny moment when his fingers brush my skin, there is an unmistakable shift in the air between us. The rain falls in a steady hush, a soft-gray curtain that blurs everything beyond the space where we sit, and I lean into him.

Colton's arms come around me and lift me onto his lap
so we're facing each other. The towel slides from my shoulders, and a shiver runs through me, but I don't feel cold. I only feel the heat of his hands as they slide up my back, into the wet tangles of my hair, and travel down over my neck and shoulders, leaving a trail of tiny sparks everywhere they touch. I kiss him, and he tastes like the ocean and the rain, and everything I want in that moment.

Thunder booms low and distant, and I feel a wave of need rise up in us both as our lips come together with more urgency. Our bodies follow, pressing against each other, wanting and needing to be closer. Colton shrugs off his towel, and my lips move to his neck as I run my hands down his chest to his stomach, where they trail along the edge of his trunks.

He pulls me into him like a reflex and finds my mouth again as I find the edge of my tank top. I peel the wet fabric away from my skin and pull it over my head, and the coolness of the air sends another shiver through me as I reach back and find the hook of my bra.

When I let it slide down my arms and drop to the floor, I feel the sudden inhale it causes in Colton. His hands come to my face, and he presses his forehead against mine, breathing hard. Out of focus. Eye to eye.

I hear the rain on the roof again. Feel my heart, pounding in my chest, and our breaths, shaky and uneven.

Colton pulls back the slightest bit and brushes his thumb
over my tiny scar from the day we met. I close my eyes as he kisses it. He breathes in deep, then leans back, and when I open my eyes, he's reaching for his rash guard. He pauses, just barely, then pulls it up over his head, and we sit facing each other.

Bare, in the soft light.

My breath catches as my eyes travel away from his, down to his chest, to the part of himself he's kept hidden away for so long.

The scar starts just above the notch where his collarbones meet and cuts a thin, clean line down the center of his chest. I can feel him watching me take it in, feel him waiting to see what I'll do, and in that moment, the need to reach out, to touch him, is overwhelming. I raise my hand, but hesitate in the space between us, not sure if it's okay.

Without saying a word, he takes my hand in his and guides it to the center of his chest. Presses it against his skin so I can feel the pounding there that echoes my own.