He shrugged, but I could tell there was heaviness in that movement.“I don’t remember him.”
I ran my hand through the sand and looked at him.“Do you want to talk about it?”
He gave a faint smile and settled down on the rocks warmed by the sun.“He left my mom when I was still a baby.Ran off somewhere.My mom doesn’t talk much about that time.I stopped asking questions too.I know she’s not the easiest person to deal with, but you have to be a selfish jackass to leave behind someone with a kid to raise.”He paused.“And my mom doesn’t have siblings.My grandparents passed away.It’s just the two of us.”
I listened attentively.Sometimes a person doesn’t need words of comfort.Just the comfort of someone to listen.
“You lost your grandparents recently?”I asked gently.
He shook his head.“I never got to meet them.They passed away before I was born.”
“Oh…” I didn’t expect that.“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he said.“We’re actually living in their house now.They left it to my mom, but we never came to Evermere until this year.I’ve been trying to picture their life together in the cracks of that house.”
“That’s nice, in a way you have roots here.”I smiled at him, and he smiled back.
“The other day I asked Miss Amara if she knew my grandparents.And she said she did know who they were.”
“Oh, of course!Miss Amara, and others too, for sure!”I said, genuinely happy for him.Getting to know family you never had the chance to meet through other people’s stories was still a beautiful way of knowing them a little.“And what did she say about them?”
“She said that my grandmother was an extraordinary woman.She told me a story about their first ball.But she also said that later in life, she didn’t see her much.That she lived for my grandfather.”
I didn’t know what that meant.And I didn’t know if he knew.But he lay back, his hands supporting the back of his head, and closed his eyes, relaxing at the warmth of the sun.I let him sit with his thoughts.
I lay on my towel next to him, getting lost in the soft sound of the waves.And on that day, I realized we were comfortable in each other’s silence.There was something special about that.
Chapter 20
Ella
February 10th, 1999
Wednesday
The months flew by.The last year of high school was intense, in an exciting way.I had everything planned for college next year.I would leave in September, sleep at the dorms, and catch trains home fairly often.But despite all the future planning, I still felt that I was living in the present.
Miles and I spent hours talking on the phone, sharing our day-to-day or discussing life resolutions.Our calls kept getting longer and more and more frequent.We usually walked together to the CIC on Tuesdays, studied at the library on Wednesdays, and visited the elderly center on Thursdays.
We would escape to the beach whenever we could, and it was no longer just me convincing him to go, he had started suggesting our own little getaways: walks through the fields, a quick swim, lying on the grass soaking up the sun before Miss Amara called us in for our Tuesday shift.I started joking that his heart was changing color and that he was becoming a true countryside boy.
I always carried Miss Amara’s Pentax K1000 film camera with me, so stopping by the local photo shop to develop the photographs and laugh about them had also become a ritual of ours.
Miles wasn’t sure if he wanted to go to college right away.He had the idea of taking a gap year in Evermere, volunteering at the CIC, working somewhere to help his mother financially, and figuring out what to do next.I had encouraged him to apply for a music scholarship, but he always dodged the conversation about it.I knew it was his passion, and that he had the capabilities to achieve it.Every time he brought his guitar with him, or when he played the violin that had been donated to the CIC’s music room, I would be spellbound, lost in the music as I listened to him get lost in it too.
January had been a month of midterm exams, so Miles and I ventured out less during that period.We still tried to catch shooting stars, patiently watching the sky while talking about school subjects.
I told him I enjoyed sitting and observing the world from a perspective where everything looked tiny.It made me think about how so many more things were happening at the same time.So many more lives.And at night, with the lights flickering on and off, I felt it the most.
Whenever I felt like I had an unresolved problem in my head, looking at the world from those viewpoints made my mind weigh the space that it was allowing the at-the-end-solvable problem to occupy.
We spent many nights keeping each other company, talking about everything and anything, gazing at the panoramic view from that street near my house, where we had met for the second time.
I started venting about life not only to my quiet horse friends, but to my quiet horse friends and to Miles, who would talk back — when needed.Or listen and nod — when preferred.He was myhighest-qualityfriend.
Chapter 21
Miles
