Page 127 of Here & There

Shelby laughs. It’s the first smile I’ve seen since we left the restaurant, and though she’s still crying, it gives me a glimmer of hope that what just happened might not have ruined the whole night.

We’re at a shipyard down at the harbor, and even at nine o’clock on a Saturday night, the place is alive with activity. Massive cranes like dinosaurs lean over enormous ships bigger than whole buildings. Shipping containers in blue and orange and red swing from chains as they’re loaded onto the ships.

“You used to be able to drive right down there,” she says. “One time when I was a kid, they even let me and my friend board a ship to look inside. It was grain transport or something; it was just a giant cavern with, like, thousands of tons of grain down at the bottom. I don’t think we were really allowed to be there.”

“Who were you with?”

“Jessica and her best friend. Her friend’s dad worked in the shipping office, so he probably pulled some strings. He was sucha nice guy. I remember wishing he were my dad, even back then, when Jessica was still…well, when everything was good.”

I reach for her hand. Outside, a man shouts something in a different language from the dock. Tagalog, I think.

“I’m sorry,” I say, looking at Shelby in the passenger seat. “What is it you said to me? Family is hard?”

She laughs softly, this time without much humor. “Something like that.”

Shelby touches the necklace at her throat. She put it on at some point. “She called me Shelby. Did you hear that?”

I did. I hadn’t thought much about it, but I remember now her mom called her Bryony the last time we met.

“Maybe it’s her way of reaching out to you?”

Shelby grips the necklace tight in her fingers, pinching her lips like she’s trying to keep it together. Like she doesn’t want to hope her mom might want her as badly as she wants her. Fuck, I just want to pull her onto my lap and tell her everything’s going to be okay. Even if I don’t know if it is.

She sets the necklace softly on her shirt. “Finding this necklace…it’s the single nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.” She looks out at the cranes. Then she turns to me. “Did you mean what you said before, Mac? That you love me?”

“Yes.”

My heart thumps as the silence stretches out between us. She saidI love youto me, but what if she takes it back? What if she decided it’s too hard, that loving me would mean something more, something like family, and yes, family is so fucking hard it’s not worth it?

“Okay,” she says. “Then I guess I’m moving to Redbeard.”

My heart does a full loop-de-loop. “What?”

“Well, we can’t be in love with each other and not be together, can we?”

“But your business…”

She looks away. “It’s fine. I can figure something else out.” She glances over at me and smiles. “I’m creative. And slightly ridiculous. Maybe I can make posters for the businesses in town. Maybe I can be your assistant when you become mayor.”

“What?”

She laughs. “You’d make the best mayor. Everyone knows it.”

“My dad was mayor. It’s not for me.”

“No? I bet your dad would be beside himself if you decided to run.”

I shift uncomfortably in my seat. I can’t say I haven’t thought about it before, but I don’t like the limelight. Besides, I don’t want to think about it now. Shelby said she’s moving to Redbeard.

Which I can only assume is permanently.

I reach over and pull her to me, but hugging her isn’t close enough. I back my seat up, then pull her right up onto my lap. Then I bury my face in her neck, inhaling her scent. My whole body feels loose, like I’m ascending into fucking heaven. And the back of my nose tightens too. I think I’m going to fucking cry. “Do you mean it, Shelby? You really want to leave everything you have here?”

I think of her apartment, done up with camels everywhere, plants lovingly attended to. The pretty neighborhood, the views, the bustling street downstairs. And her job?—

“I love you, Mac. It’s a no-brainer.”

I can’t see her face, but I’m lost in those words. She loves me. I never dared to think about what we could be. I didn’t dare dream of a future with her. But now she’s holding it out to me on a platter. The woman I love is here, in my arms.

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