Page 86 of Bring You Back

“He’s worse than that,” Tommy mutters back.

Banks parades to the trash can and drops the bottle on top. It falls out to the floor, and with a groan, he snatches it back up and stomps the trash down, slipping and almost losing his balance.

“Banks, didn’t anyone ever tell you not to kick your friends?” I snark.

“Stop slipping and sliding,” he scolds the trash. “This isn’t a fucking water park!”

“Language,” Naomi chides again.

Banks laughs as if Naomi hadn’t admonished him,twice. “Why am I so funny?”

“You’re not,” I say, and his self-amusement shifts to a hard stare at my smug smile. I love dulling his blade.

His face shifts again, his features scrunching like he’s about to vomit. “I feel the best and worst shit coming on.”

The threenormalsin the room grimace with various forms ofUgh. Naomi tells him, “Banks, just get out of the kitchen.” To soften her shunning, she adds, “Come back when we’re done.”

“Or don’t,” Tommy mumbles.

Banks starts toward the hall and stops when I call out, “Use theotherone,” with a gesture tohisguest room. “I’m going to shower and you’re not getting your stink in the hall bathroom.”

“I will get my stink in your bed,” he threatens, and I roll my eyes at its emptiness.

Tommy leaps forward and steps in front of him, acting as a blockade between Banks and the hall. Banks takes a step forward, and Tommy holds up his batter covered hands, waving his fingers in a threat of using them. Banks halts, eyes narrowing, then points at him with a returning threat.

“One of these days. . .”

“Can’t wait,” Tommy deadpans.

Banks shakes his head and hurries to his guest room. I give Tommy a pat on the shoulder as we pass each other, leaving him and Naomi to finish the cake while I washoffthe cake and the rest of this sticky day from my skin.

Julian

The pier is empty this time of day. The setting of the sun sending most tourists back to their temporary sleeping quarters, and the night dwellers—tourist or regular—to the sand or the boardwalk. Even the locals prefer the boardwalk in the summer.

Some birds take flight, their bodies whipping in and out of my vision as I stare down at the waves I’ve spent the evening riding.Riding.My feet stayed planted on my board at every leap up. The surf carried me, welcomed me home with consistency and I met its energy with speed, balance, and a clear head. I found my peace, felt the power again. And when I came out, wet and whistling, I felt renewed as always. I propped my board in the sand and plopped to my back, reveling in the feeling, the victory, the comeback, smiling up at the clouds that I still can’t fucking name.

I rinsed off, changed, wandered here.

Because of course I did. I wandered here drunk, why not wander here sober?

This is where I woke up. Literally and figuratively. My head was the clearest it had ever been the night I stood out here with Camille. I knew what I wanted, and I knew exactly how to get it. But I had no clue of the things that were working against me. Against us.

Camille and I didn’t fight them then, and look what happened. We’re apart because of us. We’re here—wherever the fuckhereis—because of our own shit decisions, and … I don’t know. This seems to be the place for answers, so I’m here, trying to find them, that clarity. Trying to wake up again.

I haven’t fucked Reyna since our botched attempt in my Jeep. I’ve barely kissed her during the days we’re together, and I’m spending the nights at home, listening for signs of movement from Camille when I can’t sleep, listening for her to find her way back to the porch light. I’ve found my way to that light a few times myself, staring, trying to figure out the tie between it and Camille. Every time, I’ve come up with nothing. There’s nothing in my memory. It’s a memory we don’t share, one she picked up in Ohio. One related to Caleb, that much I know. But the things she sees, feels, thinks when she looks at that light are her own.

For now.

“There you are.”

Reyna’s voice breaks through my thoughts first, followed by the quickness of her shoes flip-flopping on the planks.

“We gotta get back to the house,” she says as she meets me at the railing. She links her arm through mine, trying to catch my eyes. “Are you okay?”

I voice the first thought I had when I walked the pier. “I was thinking of watching the fireworks from here this year.” Our group normally watches the Fourth of July show out on the sand with everybody else. A tradition of sorts that we started the summer after freshman year. Last year, Camille was already gone. She missed them, so I missed them, too.

This year, I don’t want the sand. I don’t want the group. I want this pier, to watch the night sky light up, right here, with Camille.

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