Page 30 of Into the Deep Blue

Some people sleep on couches really well. I’m not one of them. In a hungover haze, I roll over and fall off, my face smacking against the rim of a plastic bowl so considerately placed next to me. Thankfully, it’s empty. I hover over it on my elbows for a second, just in case. The smell of freshly brewed coffee wafts through the air, but it may as well be garbage. It takes a hero’s courage to not throw up. Then it dawns on me: this floor isn’t mine, it’s Fi’s, and I have no idea how I got here.

I pat down my pockets for my phone and keys, but they’re not there. What did I do? When I peel myself off the floor, I spot them on the table by the door. Flakes of dry mud from my jeans fall with every step I take.

There are like ten billion texts from Dad on my phone. Awesome.

Something sizzles in the kitchen. Zombie Bob is at the stove making an omelette, and I swear he’s doing this to torture me.

He pointedly looks from my mud trail to me. “Morning.”

“Morning, Sir.”

“Breakfast?”

he asks, as if having the swamp thing in his kitchen isn’t remotely weird.

“Mmm.”

I hold out my hands and turn my face away from the eggs.

“No, thank you, Sir, but I have a bit of a headache . . . ”

He gives me an amused look before pointing to a cupboard next to the sink.

“Tylenol’s on the second shelf.”

“Thanks. Is Fi up?”

“What do you think?”

I fill a glass with water and throw back two pills.

“You mind if I go up?”

He eyes the walking disaster that I am.

“I think I’m okay with that.”

On my way to the stairs, I’m feeling all kinds of guilty, like I’ve let him down, and it throws me because I never feel this way with my dad. Or wow, maybe I’ve always felt this way with my dad.

“.”

I stop.

“I talked to your dad last night.”

It takes everything I have not to answer with sarcasm.

“Yeah? How’d that go?”

“He was upset. It wasn’t a long talk, but I told him where he could find the truck and asked him to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

Dad must have loved that. It was nice of Bob to try, but I bet Dad will hold it against me.

“Thank you, Sir.”

I nod.

“For . . . everything.”

I hope he knows how much I mean it.

“And ?”

I look up.

“You can call me Bob.”

The word sounds foreign, like speaking alien or something, and I would feel nothing short of ridiculous speaking alien to Fi’s dad, but it means a lot.

“Thanks . . . Sir.”

He turns back to the stove, shaking his head, and slides his omelette onto a plate.

***

Fiona’s door is open a crack, so I knock once and push it open the rest of the way. She’s out cold.

It’s like walking through a snow globe—blindingly white—feminine but not girly, although her pillowcases have legit ruffles on the edges. Oh, Fiona. She acts like she doesn’t know what she wants, but she always does. It’s the kind of room that begs for a California sunrise to fill it and for the photo to be posted on Instagram.

A small, square photo is pinned on the wall next to her bed. It’s the picture of us with the sea lion in Monterey, with a red heart drawn around it. That was a good day. I try not to read into the heart because Fi draws them on everything.

“You’re alive.”

I turn at the sound of her sleepy voice and hand her my phone with Dad’s messages open on the screen so she can read the one hundred and one ways he’s going to kill me.

“Not for long. How pissed was your dad?”

She rubs her eyes.

“Well, you know he loves a project.”

“Right.”

After a few seconds of snooping around her desk, I realize handing her my phone was a giant mistake. The texts from May are a few under Dad’s, and when I go back to her, she’s already scrolling through them. She doesn’t let go easily when I try to pull my phone from her hands.

I don’t have anything to hide, so I’m not overly bothered by her snooping, but all of May’s texts to me are flourished with suggestive emojis. Every sentence is punctuated with hearts, winks, and odd assortments of fruit. I don’t think Fi will read into those. She’s known her longer than I have, and has to know May is just one of those people.

“Is it cool if I take a shower? Might help my case if I don’t look like one of the ‘Walking Dead’ when I get home.”

“Yeah. Towels are in the closet.”

She doesn’t say anything about the texts, and I don’t know if May ever told her what went down between us, but she deserves to hear something from me.

“Hey.”

Fi looks up at me.

“You know, nothing happened, right? Like nada.”

Her eyes are wide, as if she’s surprised I went there. I nod, then leave for the bathroom.

“.”

My hand grips the doorway, and I duck back in. She props herself up on her elbows—God, she’s beautiful. She’s in a white tank top that’s not totally opaque, and I mean, it’s impossible not to notice. A flake of mud hits the floor, reminding me of how awesome I must look right now.

“Are you okay?”

I’m not sure how to answer that, so I just kind of shrug.

“You know . . . ”

“Yeah.”

She hesitates then says.

“What happened to the truck?”

Her words are tinged with judgment, and my eyes flicker with surprise.

“I was sideswiped.”

“Were you drinking?”

“At the falls.”

“Not before?”

It hurts to hear the doubt in her voice, even though I’m the one who put it there. “No,”

I say as openly as I possibly can.

“I’m serious.”

“Okay.”

She nods.

“Maybe you should talk to your dad. Tell him—about the falls.”

It takes all of two seconds to think about it.

“Yeah, I don’t think so,”

I say and leave. I bet she thinks he’ll go easier on me, but he doesn’t deserve to know. The falls are sacred. I’m not filling him in on the memories he chose to miss out on. I’m not telling him a damn thing.

***

Surprisingly, the shower didn’t wash away this shitty feeling, but at least I’m clean. Fiona’s deodorant is some organic spray, and it feels weird spritzing my pits with neroli essence, but it smells like her, so there’s that.

Her toothbrush is on the counter. She’ll kill me for this, so I turn on the faucet to drown out the buzzing sound. Then I remember I have a clothing problem. My muddy jeans are congealed in a glob on the bathroom floor.

I go back to Fiona’s room with a towel wrapped around my waist. She’s still in bed, deeply invested in something on her phone. She’s fiddling with the necklace I gave her and moves the charm up to her lips. Then she stares at me, like really stares, with the charm still pressed against her mouth. I wait for her to make some kind of joke, but she doesn’t. It’s hard to tell if she’s thinking about me or yesterday.

I swallow.

“Do I have any clothes here?”

It’s not an unusual question.

“Uh maybe. Check the closet.”

Fi doesn’t have a ton of clothes, and I love that about her. There’s a pile of old schoolbooks on the floor, a few pairs of sneakers, nothing of mine.

“I’ll put the jeans back on.”

“No. I don’t think you can wear those—ever!”

She gets out of bed, steps around me and digs through her closet. I glance at her phone on the bed and see her open Instagram feed. It’s not a guy like I thought it might be, but New York streetscape photography. Our plan. I’m relieved. She still wants this.

Black Adidas jogging pants fly from the closet and land at my feet. I pick them up.

“These aren’t mine.”

“So, they’ll be capris. Or I can get something from my dad.”

“These are great,”

I say, stretching the waistband.

“You got any shirts? Preferably of a boy band? To solidify my humiliation for all eternity.”

Fi pops her head out of the closet and studies me like she’s trying to figure something out. Then she leaves the room for a minute and returns with a perfectly wrapped gift. The paper is black with sparkly gold dots, and there’s even a bow, and not those plastic bows, but a proper bow made from tulle or chiffon or whatever puffy fabric dresses are made of.

“Happy Birthday!”

she says in a sing-song voice like it’s no big deal.

I’m confused.

“My birthday’s in November.”

“I know.”

She has a fully wrapped present for my November birthday in August.

“Open it,” she says.

I slide off the bow and tear the paper. Inside is a navy T-shirt with the word bullshit in small white block lettering on the top left corner.

It’s all kinds of perfect.

“I love it.”

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Yeah?”

She’s staring at the floor, trying to be cool, and I just want her to look at me so she can see how much this means to me.

“It’s the most thought anyone has put into a gift for me.”

She shoves my shoulder lightly.

“It’s just a shirt.”

“It’s not. Turn around,”

I say with exaggerated modesty.

I’m rewarded with her instant laughter.

“Seriously?”

“Go on!”

She faces the wall, and I slide the new shirt over my shoulders. Why do new shirts feel so good? The fabric is always extra soft like they’ve been spun from some magic wheel. The pants, on the other hand, fit like I went shopping in the kids’ department. “Ready.”

She turns around. “Hey!”

She cheers, smoothing the fabric on my shoulders and judging the fit. She takes in the whole outfit.

“It’s definitely . . . a look.”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah,”

she waves it off like it’s nothing.

Fiona always gets weird when people thank her. She just does things from her heart and never wants any kind of acknowledgment. She pulls her bathrobe from behind her door.

“Give me fifteen, and I’ll take you home. Did you eat?”

“No.”

“Grab an Eggo or something.”

“I’m afraid Eggos would be ruined for me forever.”

“Toast then. You should eat something,”

she calls out from the hall. The bathroom door closes behind her.

I wait for it.

“!”

she yells.

“Did you use my toothbrush?”

“No,”

I yell back.

“Honestly?”

And I won’t do it. I won’t lie to her, so I say nothing. I wait for her to open the door, but she doesn’t, so I flop into her bed and sink into the soft sheets, still warm from her body. If this were my room, I wouldn’t want to leave it, either.

Fiona’s only one room away, and I miss her already. Whenever I’m with her, it feels so right, and I know that I want this. I want her. But how can I tell her now, when yesterday was such an epic fuckup?