Page 58 of Second Story

There’s that word again, one that Luke suggested for me.

Play.

Right now, I can’t help thinking he was onto something. After last night, I could fucking hop, skip, and jump like Lenny does towards his friends, only I’d do it straight back to Joe’s bedroom and get back to another type of playing.

Joe might be asleep in the bed we didn’t even make it into, could be as bare now as when water pounded both of us before he pounded me even harder. That was good—what I needed—but right now, what I want more is what came after. A repeat, and not just of sex.

Joe shut the world out for a while, and it didn’t matter if that was only for an hour. I’ve woken a different person this morning, one who doesn’t only hear a clock ticking down to a trial. I can almost see beyond all of Lenny’s black-crayoned crosses and believe in a happy ending.

With Joe.

For now, I stare up at his bedroom window with only seagulls bearing witness. Or that’s what I think until Luke speaks from behind me.

“What did I tell you?”

“About Joe coming back to Glynn Harber for longer?” My mind does some hop, skip, and jumping all of its own but not because the cobbles in this fishing village cover actual magma. “You told me to…”

Luke might have told me to play, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want the details of how we banged or how I’ve woken with volcanoes on the brain. Only I can’t forget Joe flinching when mentioning how people change their minds after seeing the long-cooled lava his clothes cover.

That isn’t what Luke asked me, either.

“You told me…” I wet dry lips and take another look up at the glass panes and fabric between me and someone I want to see so much more of. I don’t only mean more of Joe’s shower-wet skin. I want to see everything that matters to him and hear more stories across candlelit restaurant tables. Then maybe I’ll understand why the only other time I’ve seen him flinch is when he mentions his family. They should be so fucking proud of howhe didn’t give up, of how he rewrote his own story, and I can’t find the words to tell Luke how welcome he should make him.

“I… Y-you…”

Luke stops me in my stuttering tracks with a murmur that shouldn’t carry over the shriek of gulls. My own internal birds swoop all over again at his quiet instruction. “Breathe.”

I do, and that shrieking lessens.

Laughter drowns it out, and I see why when Luke steers me to the waist-high wall between us and the rock pools the tide has pulled back to reveal.

Tor has caught a crab that an older man examines. He points out its claws, and Lenny copies his nipping motions, hero-worship mode engaged as he watches this Sealife School leader wind a crab line.

“Fight or flight?” Luke asks from beside me. “Freeze or…” He casts a glance back at the pub, so I finish for him.

“I’m not fawning. I looked it up, like you said. I’m not seeing good where it isn’t deserved. And I’m not clinging to someone instead of detaching enough to think clearly.”

“Good. I didn’t think so. But maybe take a minute to feel.”

“Feel?”

“That’s what my dad taught me to do here. Well, not here exactly.” Luke points further along this craggy coastline. “He did it up on those cliffs when I was having a difficult time. I wasn’t much older than Lenny when he asked me to sit with whatever I was feeling, and with him, until the sun rose. To trust that it would shine again. That it would always come up, just like he planned to always be here for me.” His shoulder nudges mine once, twice, then stays put, rock fucking solid. “I’m not going anywhere either, so you can go ahead if you want. Have yourself a good long think about why me asking youa question just spiked panic.”

“Panic? I’m not?—”

“What’s your heart doing right now?” He tilts his head as if he can hear the drumming in my ears that rivals what I last heard coming from a music practice room. Then he nods at Lenny, who looks like he can’t get enough of hearing about the sea life in each rock pool. He hangs on each of that older guy’s words like I hang on Luke’s. “Because I’m pretty sure all I told you was that Lenny would love this.”

Oh.

Of course that’s what he meant.

I nod at what else he tells me.

“It’s the weekend. I’m not the boss of you until Monday morning. Frankly, I don’t feel the boss of myself most days, let alone of other people.” He leans on the seawall and shares what sounds confidential. “Keep waiting for someone to notice and point out that I’m making up how to run a school based purely on gut instinct. I do a whole lot of feeling out of my depth, and when that happens, I remember what Dad told me. I breathe, let myself sit with whatever I’m feeling, and then I wait for the sun to come up so I can see a bit more clearly.”

I do the same while watching my brother pay close attention to a teacher who winds and unwinds a crab line several times in silence. His voiceless demonstration ends with him placing that line next to Len, which couldn’t be any clearer.

This is for you.

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