Page 36 of The Cadence

“She bought it when she agreed to let me live with her, and it was tiny,” I said.

“It was meant for a much smaller girl, like I had been when my mother took off with me. It was hard for Grandma to acknowledge that I wasn’t the same little girl anymore and she was scared, too.

Her son had turned so awful as he got older and I think she wanted to keep me as a kid for as long as possible so that I wouldn’t go bad.

” I paused. “But I wish she had told me. I wish you had talked to me directly.”

“I didn’t think that I should.” He spoke the words very quietly, but I heard them and I understood. After how we had parted, I could see why he thought it was for the best.

I looked at the lake, at all that water.

If my understanding of science was correct, then eventually, each little molecule in there would probably wash back onto the shore at this same place.

Even if it took a hundred years, they would return, and I figured that our human history was the same.

Sometimes it was distant and felt far removed from today, but ultimately, it would come around again.

And that was enough deep thinking, because here I was at the beach for the first time and I was with a shirtless Will Bodine. “I’m going to try the lake,” I said, and stood. Carefully, I took off my clothes and I didn’t look back as I walked toward the shore.

“Don’t go out deep,” he called to me, but he didn’t have to worry. The shock of the cold water took the breath right out of me.

“Holy Moses!” I gasped. The waves only hit around my knees but I broke out in goose bumps all over my body and my skin turned several shades paler. I saw Will laughing again as I turned and ran back, kicking up sand behind me.

“It’s like ice!” I told him, and he said it wasn’t so bad. But he did help out with the towel, which I wrapped around my entire body since I’d been chilled to the bone. “Do you really swim in that?”

“I really do and it’s fun. You can learn, too, and then we can go together.”

“Maybe in a pool, where the water is heated to a better level.” I shivered. “But I do like being here. Everything feels fresh and the sand is much cleaner than what you would find at a playground. You know, with cats…”

He looked repulsed.

“Anyway, I like this a lot and I would come again. Next summer, for example,” I said.

“You could do a lot between now and then,” Will told me. “You could keep developing your furniture business, for one thing. I could help you set it up. You could think about beauty school and if you want to restart that. You could take classes at the college here, or consider a trade.”

“I never thought I’d get so many chances,” I said. “I never looked too far ahead.” I reached and poked his chest, which was much the same as poking a large boulder. “I didn’t make lists of goals in my phone, like the smart guys did.”

“I didn’t do that to feel smart,” he told me. “I felt like, you know.”

I waited.

“Everything was out of my control,” he said next.

“So you felt helpless, and maybe scared?” I suggested.

“No,” he responded, shaking his head. “I felt like I should take steps to rectify the situation.”

I refrained from saying that “steps to rectify the situation” wasn’t how someone felt, because it wasn’t an emotion. “You said that you were going to talk to a doctor, right?” I reminded him, and now he nodded.

“I had some realizations while I was away.”

“Like, things about your ex-girlfriend?”

But he seemed puzzled. “Nicia? What do you mean?”

Well, now I had to admit to what I’d been spiraling over. “I thought you went to see her,” I answered. “You had told me that you got together when you went to Alabama.”

“We used to, sometimes, but she texted me not too long ago to say that she’s engaged. She moved to Oklahoma to be with her fiancé.” He tilted his head. “Were you worried about that?”

This was a perfect time for a lie, the kind that you told for the greater good. The greater good in this case was protecting my pride. “Not really,” I answered.

“Even if she had been there, we wouldn’t have gotten together,” he said.

No, of course not, because she had the fiancé. I nodded.

He continued to explain himself, although it was none of my business.

“I did go out more than I usually do. The night before the game, I went with Ray Bishop, the former Woodsmen, to meet a fan. Bishop works with a lot of kids’ charities and he wanted my help with something.

I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to make you upset. ”

“Why would I get upset?”

“I went to meet a fan of mine, a little boy who has the same cancer that your grandmother did. It’s very sad.” He watched me closely.

“Oh. I get it.” I tried not to react like he’d thought I would, but I failed a little. “Poor little guy.”

“That was what I thought, so I went over there.” This time, he took the edge of the towel wrapped around me and carefully patted under my eyes. “That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

“It’s ok.” But I did have to wonder if I was ever going to be more stable with my emotions, or if I would always be on the edge of crying like this.

I missed my grandma a lot and I also missed knowing that there was somebody who loved me so much.

At least I’d had it once, and that was very special.

“Are you still cold?” Will asked. He moved his legs and angled up the uninjured one. “You could sit here, and I’d block the wind for you.” He patted a spot on the towel.

It meant me moving to sit in the V he’d created. “Ok,” I agreed. I carefully positioned myself so that I wouldn’t touch his injured ankle, and then I slowly leaned back against his bare chest. Despite the little fall bite in the air, his skin was warm and he felt so solid.

“Better?”

I nodded and let myself fully relax. “You’re a nice windbreak,” I complimented.

“Good.” We both watched the water breaking over the little rocks and sand. “I hope that you’ll let me be a part of your future.”

I felt my heart start to pound and I wondered if he could feel it, too. “I hope that I’m a part of yours.”

“You don’t need to worry,” he said. “We can take on what’s coming, whatever it is.”

The thing about Will was that he meant what he said, and I believed him. I turned my face away from the waves so that my ear was against his chest, and I could hear his heart pounding, too.