Unbreak My Heart (22 page)

I can’t stop replaying it in my mind. I even have an on-the-go playlist dedicated to it now. It includes the Elliott Smith song, of course—and I pictured my day swimming with James while I listened to it before bed last night.

But then I started to worry.

What if James finds out what I did with Ethan and decides that I’m a bad person? What if he thinks I’m a liar and a cheater and an awful friend? What if he never knows Amanda? What if he doesn’t understand what I’m starting to realize: I don’t miss Ethan, I miss
her
. James doesn’t know me like my family does—he could easily just turn his back on me when he finds out.

What if he never kisses me again?

I have to tell him.

So when I finally do see
Dreaming of Sylvia
coming around the bend, I feel a mix of excitement and terror.

I go back into the cabin and put on more sunscreen, staring at my face in the mirror and steeling myself for what I need to do. James was strong enough to tell me about his mom. He trusted me that much. He deserves to know.

I peek around the corner, and I can hear that Olive is in the nav station with my dad. He’s explaining the next leg of the trip to her. Her patience for nautical charts is inexplicable.

Outside in the cockpit, Mom is reading a detective novel. I hurry past her.

“I’m going to go say hi to James!” I say, edging toward the dock.

Mom smiles with pursed lips, like she thinks I’m up to something scandalous. That look is so embarrassing.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing,” she says, looking back at her book. “Have fun!”

I scowl for a second, but then I look back at her and feel a surge of affection. I’m so lucky to have my mom. I walk over and give her a quick kiss on the cheek. Before she can ask, “What was that for?” I’m hopping off the boat in hopes of getting ahead of my sister’s “wait for me!” cries.

I reach the other end of the pier just as Mr. Townsend pulls
Dreaming of Sylvia
into the slip. James smiles and throws me a rope.

“Tie us up, Clem!” he shouts.

I show off my cleat knot, which takes about three seconds.

“That’s a beaut!” says Mr. Townsend.

“Thanks,” I say.

He goes around the other side to drop the dinghy in the water.

James jumps off the boat and onto the dock, then heads right for me, arms outstretched. It’s a hug. Like, a boyfriend hug. A big haven’t-seen-you-in-a-couple-of-days boyfriend hug. I think.
I hope this doesn’t go away
.

“Want to swim?” asks James, pulling away from me and peeling off his shirt.

“Sure!” I’m already ahead of him, slipping my cotton dress over my head to reveal the floral bikini that has just the right amount of ruffle (which is “very little, but enough to flatter your butt,” according to Amanda).

We jump off the dock to cool down and paddle around for a minute before I hear a third splash.

“Clem!”

Olive
.

“Crazy Olive!” shouts James, swimming over to my little sister. He dunks his head underwater and then shows her the George Washington trick, which she finds hysterical.

This is not how I wanted today to go.

“Olive, can you swim to our boat and see if there’s more sunscreen for me?” I ask. “I need to reapply.”

“I just got here,” she says.

“Please?” I ask sweetly.

She nods okay and starts breaststroking back to
The Possibility
. I feel guilty. But I have a plan, and I need to do this now before I chicken out.

“Hey, want to take me for a spin in the dinghy?” I ask James, already hoisting myself up over the side of the
Little James
. I do an incredibly clumsy leg-split-flop into the boat, and then I look down at James with a goofy grin.

He’s trying not to laugh.

“It’s okay,” I say. “Even I know that move was ridiculous.”

He bursts. It’s not just a laugh, it’s a
guffaw
. Then I start to laugh, too, and I sit upright, adjusting my bathing suit to be sure everything’s covered.

James climbs in beside me and starts up the engine just as I see Olive get to the top of the swim ladder of
The Possibility
. She looks over at us.

“Wait!” she says, starting down the ladder again. “I’m coming!”

I look at James. He shrugs like it’s fine with him. But it’s not okay with me. I need a break from my little sister. I pretend I didn’t hear Olive.

“See you in a little bit!” I shout. “Tell Mom we’ll be back in an hour!”

I don’t look to see her face fall, I just tell James to gun it, and he does. The engine sputters and we cruise out of the cove and around the corner. I don’t look back, because I’m sure Olive is waving like mad to try to flag us down and come with us. James stares straight ahead too.

“Remember when you asked me what happened?” I say to James after he turns off the loud engine and we idle on the water for a minute. I have to jump into this or I’ll avoid it forever. No small talk, no beating around the bush, just straight-up telling.

“Yeah,” he says.

“I fell for my best friend’s boyfriend,” I say. It’s just seven words, and it sounds so innocuous and so terrible all at once when I hear it out loud.

“Did you hook up with him?” he asks.

I can’t read his eyes—I can’t tell whether they’re judging or curious or surprised, or something else entirely.

“No. I mean, not exactly.” I look down at my hands, which are twisting in my lap. “I really liked him, and he really liked me. We kept spending time together, and … it was just really not okay.”

It would almost be easier to explain if we
had
hooked up, because then there’s this thing—this tangible thing—that was wrong. But as it is, I just have this bad feeling, and a whole lot of guilt.

James isn’t looking at me anymore. He’s frowning and staring at the water.

His silence makes me nervous, so I start to ramble. I try to express how it was with Amanda, how close we were. And then I tell him how Ethan and I just clicked in this way that made it seem like we were supposed to be together. But that I realize now that it’s about Amanda, and I’ve lost her. And it’s my fault. My heart starts pounding a little when I explain things—it sounds so dumb in parts, and so awful in others—but James just sits quietly, listening.

“I’m not sure what to say, Clem,” he says when I’m finished. His eyes are still cast downward.

I feel a surge of regret for having rambled on so openly. Maybe I was wrong about James and this new thing we have. Maybe now that he knows this about me he won’t want to hang out anymore. I can’t blame him if he thinks I’m a bad person, but I can’t stand the thought of the rest of the summer without him.

“Do you think I’m horrible?” I finally ask.

He doesn’t answer, but when he looks up at me, his eyes are squinted in disapproval.

“We should go back,” he says. He starts up the engine before I have a chance to stop him.

I feel my bottom lip start to quiver as the wind hits my face, and I lower my sunglasses and point my head up toward the sun—somehow that helps me avoid crying. When we get to the marina, I jump out into the water and swim to the dock ladder, climb it, and walk hurriedly to
The Possibility
.

I hate the look I saw on James’s face. It’s the same look I saw all over school the week after my drive with Ethan. It’s the same look Amanda gave me. And I know exactly what it means: whatever we had going on, whatever James felt for me, is over.

In my rush to get away from him, I trip over something on the dock and land on one knee with my hands out in front of me.

“Ouch!” Great. There’s definitely a huge splinter in my left palm.

I raise my sunglasses and look around to see what caused my fall. Mrs. Ficklewhiskers is behind me, giving me the eye. Is it me, or does she look amused?

“Clem, dear, are you all right?” Ruth is pushing herself up out of her folding chair.

I put up my hand. “Don’t get up, Ruth—it’s okay.” I stand and inspect my palm. The splinter is too small for me to grab with my fingers. How can something so tiny pack such big pain?

“George, get the kit!” shouts Ruth, who has appeared at my side. “That wily old cat!”

She takes my hand gently and leads me to her chair. “Sit, dear. We’ll fix you up in no time.”

George sticks his head out of their cabin and steps out onto the dock with a green metal box in his hand.

“I was a nurse in the Korean War.” Ruth takes the case from George and opens it up.

“I bet you looked cute in your uniform,” says George, looking at her affectionately.

“Oh, Georgie, stop!” says Ruth, giggling.

I smile in spite of myself.

“It’s not bad,” I say. “Just a splinter.”

“Let Ruthie take it out,” says George. “Those things can get infected.”

Ruth grabs the tweezers from her kit and focuses in on the sliver of wood poking out from my palm. Her hand wavers a little bit at first, but it steadies as she grabs the splinter and pulls it out cleanly.

“You’ll live.” She winks at me.

“I don’t know,” says George, helping me to my feet. “I think she may need some extra medicine. James! Get over here!”

I freeze.

“Come on!” George shouts, waving his arm in the direction of James’s boat. “Your girl needs a kiss.”

Obviously James is refusing to come over and help me because he hates me and thinks I’m a monster, which I am, so who can blame him? I will myself not to look.

“Oh, honey, what is it?” asks Ruth softly.

That’s when I realize that the tears I’ve been holding onto since James first looked at me all squinty on the dinghy have started to leak out. I put my hand on my cheek and it’s wet.
Ack
.

“Nothing,” I say, quickly wiping my face with the back of my hand.

George gives up on James and kneels down next to my chair.

“Did you have a fight?” he asks.

How did I end up here, on a dock in the middle of nowhere, with two old people saving me from splinters and asking about my love life?

I nod and sniffle. There’s no point in hiding it now that I’m openly crying.

“Fights come from relationships with great passion in them,” says Ruth.

“That’s right,” George agrees. “You don’t get mad at people you don’t care about.”

“Georgie and I have had some doozies.” Ruth puts her hand to her forehead like she can’t even bear to
think
of how bad their fights have been.

I smile meekly. “Thanks … I’m sure it’ll be okay.”

“You don’t sound sure,” says George. “Want to talk about it?”

I shake my head no. Then I stand up quickly, realizing that I’m keeping a seat from the two practically elderly people who are kneeling near me. Something is wrong with this picture.

“I have to—” I start. But then I remember that I don’t really have to do anything. I just want to get out of the sun, back to my tiny cabin, where I should have stayed all summer, listening to sad music and punishing myself rather than venturing out and hoping against hope that someone would see past the fact that I’m a lying, cheating, horrible person.

Ruth looks at me with sympathy in her eyes. “Whatever he did, he’s a good kid,” she says. “We know James.”

I nod again.
But he didn’t do anything
, I think.
It’s me you don’t know
.

“It was my fault,” I say.

“Nonsense!” George shakes his head. “You’re too sweet to be at fault.”

I raise my eyebrows at him. “That’s what you think,” I say.

“What could you have possibly done?” asks Ruth. “We know you didn’t run around on him—the only other boaters out here have one foot in the Senior Center.”

I shrug and turn to go. They wouldn’t understand.

“James had a hard year,” says Ruth, grabbing my arm. “I don’t know if he told you why his mom—”

George puts his hand up. “Now, Ruth,” he says, “that’s not ours to share.”

Ruth purses her lips but doesn’t finish her thought. She smiles warmly at me. “Whatever you fought about, he’ll come around.”

“Thanks.” I take a step back toward
The Possibility
. “I hope so.”

chapter thirty-three

When I come out of my room later for dinner, I’ve decided something. I need to tell my family what happened too. Not, like, exactly—but I want them to know. I want it to be out in the open, even if it means them looking at me like James did today.

So when Mom asks if there was something that upset me today, instead of saying no or shrugging it off, I just tell them.

“I told James about the whole thing with Amanda from last year,” I say. “And he pretty much defriended me. Just like Amanda did on Facebook. But she didn’t defriend Ethan.”

I’m not sure they’ll even know what I mean, but I can tell instantly that they want to try.

“Clem, what is it that really happened last year?” asks Dad.

I look up at him. His eyes are teacher eyes, the ones he gets around a student who’s in trouble. They’re understanding, but they’re also my father’s. How can I tell my father what I did? Do I even
get
what I did?