Page 63 of Wham Line
Fox, Millie, and Keme huddled together under one of the pines.Their expressions ranged from truculence (Fox), to guilt (Millie), to adolescent combativeness (Keme).
I knew I should go track down Jethro.Or, failing that, call the sheriff.I had a solid—nay, alegitimate—excuse for telling Bobby to move his SUV so that I could go solve a murder.And it made sense, didn’t it?To have this conversation later?It would give both of us time to cool down.And we were talking about a murder after all; what were my priorities?
The wind picked up, stirring the trees.Branches creaked.Needles whispered against each other.Something wet struck the back of my neck.
With one last look over at the group of troublemakers—so that they knew I would find a way to pay them back for this—I clomped down the path toward the cars.
Bobby watched me come.
“Which one of them do I have to murder?”I asked.
Some of the tension in his shoulders relaxed.“Take a guess.”
“Keme.”
Bobby’s smile hovered somewhere between wry and fleeting.And then it was gone.“Dash—”
“Oh no.I’m not having this conversation with those—” I pitched my voice to carry.“—thosemeddlerseavesdropping.”
Fox booed.Then they hissed.
Millie said, “WE’RE NOT LISTENING!”
Keme’s silence was, to put it politely, pugnacious.
Bobby only nodded.
“Come on,” I said and started off down one of the trails.
To be totally fair, it was a beautiful corner of the world.The pines were big and old.They did a lot of creaking, and the wind made that rushing noise you hear in tall trees, carrying with it the sweet-sharp scent of resin.The duff was thick underfoot and swallowed the sounds of our steps, and we’d only gone a hundred yards when the trees closed behind us and we were alone.
I stopped at a spot on the edge of the path where a break in the trees let us look down the hill.Below us, more trees spread out toward the narrow ribbon of the state highway.On the other side of the road, the Pacific broke against rocky bluffs.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Bobby shook his head.
“Please let me talk,” I said.
Here’s the thing about Bobby: he’s so kind that it gives people like me an unfair advantage.Distress showed in his face; he wanted to apologize, but he also wanted to let me say whatever I needed to say—because that was who he was, and because he loved me.I almost smiled.Thiswas my Bobby.
“I want to apologize,” I said, “for not telling you about the rejections.You were right.That’s an important part of my life, and you’ve been so supportive, and you’ve had to talk to me—or listen to me talk—about every possible scenario a million times.”I stopped.I pressed my hands against my thighs.My heart thrummed in my throat.“The first time, I shook it off.It was one agent, you know?And it was easy to say that they didn’t know what they were missing.And then it was another.And then another.And it was harder and harder to tell myself it was them and not me.And—and it hurt, Bobby.It was embarrassing, but it hurt so bad.And they kept coming.Or they didn’t say anything at all.And I was going to tell you.When I got the last one, I was going to tell you—mostly because I was in the process of having a meltdown.And then you told me your mom had passed, and it wasn’t important.”
“Itisimportant—” Bobby said.
“I know.”A little more gently, “I know.But I think you know what I mean, too.I wasn’t trying to keep it from you, not this time.But I do want to apologize that I didn’t share what I was going through.That I didn’t tell you sooner.I love you so much.And I know this is going to make me sound crazy, but I want you to be proud of me.And it is so—so freaking humiliating that after all this time I’ve spent going on and on about writing and how I’m a writer and then I finally finished a manuscript and I thought it was good, Bobby, I really did, and then nothing.Worse than nothing: no after no after no.”I took a deep breath.The air stirred, cold and wet against my face.“I want you to be part of my life.And I want to share everything with you.I want you to know how much this hurts, and how hard it is for me.I’m not saying it’s anywhere near the same scale as you losing your mom.That’s not—” I stopped.I shook my head, and I thought of Indira, and how she’d stared off into the distance, shaking her head, and my throat closed up.I wanted to tell him that it was okay to do this, to share even the things that made you feel most vulnerable.But I couldn’t put it into words, for one thing, without going on a rant about his dad and his brother and how I wanted to shake everybody in that family and introduce something I’d just invented called the talking stick.And that didn’t seem like it would get me any points in the boyfriend column.
“I’d like to give you a hug,” Bobby said quietly.“Would that be all right?”
I nodded.
He slipped his arms around me.His embrace was light, uncertain.I pressed my face into his shoulder; his jacket was pleasantly cool against my flushed cheeks, and I wiped my eyes against the fabric.Slowly, his arms tightened around me.He was warm and solid and real, and when he ran his hand over the bumps of my spine, I had to fight another wave of tears.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he said in that same low voice.“And God, Dash, I’m so sorry I grabbed you.I—I don’t even know what to say or how to make that right.And West—I never should have called West.I don’t know what I was thinking.”
After drying my eyes one more time on his jacket, I straightened.I broke his hold, but as I stepped back, I took his hands in mine.“No, I’m sorry for saying that about West.I want you to talk to your friends.Of course I want you to be able to tell them what you’re feeling.But it brought up a lot of insecurities for me.”
Bobby’s hands tightened around mine.Something startled overhead and scurried along the branches.And then there was silence again.
