Page 47 of Road Trip

I grinned at him and gave him a friendly shove and he stumbled sideways, water splashing up around his ankles. He shoved me back, harder, and I ended up far enough into the ocean that the hem of my shorts got wet. I took a rapid step away from him and raised my hands. “Wait! My phone!”

Matt paused just as he’d been about to push me again. “Shit, is it wet?”

“Nah.” I patted at the pocket of my shorts. Cool water lapped at my calves, and suddenly I couldn't think of anything better than submerging my body into the ocean with Matt one last time. “You know what? We should go for a swim.”

Matt looked at me like I'd lost my mind for a second, and then his face split into a wide grin. “Yeah,” he said, splashing through the shallows toward the beach and peeling his shirt off as he went.

We dumped all our stuff in a pile and then ran into the ocean like we were a couple of little kids, splashing and laughing as the spray hit our skin. When we were deep enough, I swam out past where my feet could touch the bottom and let the waves buffet me from side to side, and Matt appeared next to me minutes later, his head popping up suddenly from under the water the same way a seal’s might. He was grinning from ear to ear, his dark hair slicked back and water dripping down his face, and my chest ached at the knowledge that this was the last time I’d see him like this for who knew how long.

I leaned forward impulsively and kissed his cheek, then wrapped my arms around him. We floated there together like a tiny two-person island, the silence between us only broken by the cry of the gulls that were wheeling overhead, the splash of the waves breaking on the shore, and the thump of my heart in my chest as I held on tight and tried not to drown in self-pity.

I'd miss Matt like crazy, but this wasn’t about me.

Matt was finally doing something for himself, something that would make himhappy,and I wanted that for him, because Iloved him and I always had, even when I was too dumb to realize it. And hey, at least we were together now. It had taken a road trip, a tent, and a skunk to help us figure our shit out, but now that we had, we weren’t going to let a few miles come between us, right?

Right.

“Hey, we’d better head in,” Matt said close to my ear, and I saw that the pull of the tides had dragged us farther out than I’d thought. It was a stark reminder that this wasn’t my ocean. I let him go and we both swam toward the beach, and once we were in the shallows we splashed our way back to shore. I expected Matt would want to go to his dad’s right away, but maybe he was as reluctant to say goodbye as I was because he sat down on the beach next to our stuff. “We can dry off here,” he said and flopped backward, spread eagle against the sand.

I lay down next to him, closing my eyes and breathing in the salt air. After a minute, Matt’s hand brushed against me and he hooked his little finger in mine. We didn’t speak. We didn’t need to. I didn’t know how long we spent like that soaking up the sun’s rays and each other’s presence, but I treasured every golden moment.

The mood was broken when a volleyball hit the ground next to Matt’s head and sprayed us with sand, and Matt jolted upright. He scowled at the guy who’d thrown the ball, then stood up and brushed himself off and shrugged into his shirt.

And just like that, it was time to go.

Matt’s dad lived in Del Mar on a street lined with fan palms, cactuses, and purple bougainvillea. The house was a couple blocks back from the beach on a street that sloped upward. It looked very different from Cape Charles, where the houses in my neighborhood were tall with sharply pitched roofsand built close together. Here they were low-set and sprawling and spread out like sunbathers soaking up the rays.

Very different houses for very different oceans.

“This is nice,” I said when we pulled into the driveway of a sun-soaked ranch-style house with a front yard full of red hibiscus bushes.

Matt nodded sharply, his fingers drumming on his thighs.

After almost three thousand miles from Cape Charles, I turned the engine off. We sat for a moment in silence as the heat leached slowly into the car now the air was off. I could hear sounds from the street: a passing car, a distant siren, someone’s sprinkler stuttering as it turned. I wondered what Matt would do if I reversed out of the driveway and headed back the way we’d come, just so we wouldn’t have to say goodbye.

I didn’t, though. I gripped the steering wheel tight and let out a long breath. “So.”

“So,” Matt echoed. His mouth quirked, but it wasn’t a smile. “Are you gonna camp on the way back?”

“Not alone,” I said before wincing at how harsh that sounded. “I’ll need someone to protect me from skunks, is all I mean.”

“Yeah.” Matt’s fingers tapped against his thigh, but he made no move to get out. Knowing Matt, he was probably imagining some scenario where his dad had changed his mind or something.

“Hey,” I said, “want me to come in with you? Help carry your stuff?” Because I knew there was no way Matt would admit to needing emotional support.

He blinked at me and then gave a terse nod. “Yeah. That’d be good.”

He still didn’t move, though, and the silence stretched between us, as fragile and delicate as spun glass. Finally Matt broke it. “Call me every night, okay?”

“Every night.”

“And don’t do dumb shit without me.”

“So I should wait until you’re back visiting to do dumb shit?”

That earned me a raised eyebrow. “Dipshit.”

“Yeah, but you love me anyway.”

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