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What if we’re doomed to bring each other nothing but disappointment and unsatisfied longing?
I stare at Kent’s name, hovering there in my phone, and wonder if it’s practical at all for us to even entertain a relationship. Between my tiresome job, his work and family obligations, and a daunting five hours of traveling distance between us, we are looking at a very bleak future. He doesn’t even own a car. We took Rico’s car this weekend because my old piece of shit is lucky to make it thirty miles before crapping out.
Are we kidding ourselves here?
Then my phone buzzes. A call.
I blink.
It’s Kent.
All of the doubts and fears vanish like a storm cloud wiping itself out of the sky, and I slap the phone to my ear. “Hey!”
“Wow, that was quick,” he says.
“Oh.” I smirk. “Should I have let it ring longer? Let you wait and suffer?”
He chuckles. “Well … on the flip side, I could’ve just sat around all day waiting for you to call me. But I’m chilling here on the beach with my brother, and … thought I’d see if you made it home safely.”
“I did. We did.” I hear a distant yet distinctly brusque, hearty laugh coming somewhere from Kent’s side. “Wait. Which brother?”
“The least likely,” he answers.
I’ll assume he doesn’t mean Brett. “You’re hanging out with Adrian …??”
“Yep. And it’s kinda your fault. You were all thoughtful and sensitive and shit. We had a heart-to-heart. Now the two of us are drinking Mom’s old beers and putting the weekend behind us.”
I’m about to laugh at that.
Until suddenly I rehear what he just said—putting the weekend behind us—and find my face frozen.
Kent seems to have belatedly heard it, too. “I mean, not … uh … I wasn’t talking about you and me.” He sighs. “That came out wrong.”
I lean back against the railing of my balcony, deflated.
Maybe I was right.
“Jonah? Hey, I didn’t mean putting us behind us. Just all of the other stresses of the weekend. We do this every weekend. Just … sorta … recalibrating. Or, uh …” He sighs. “Now everything I say sounds shitty.”
My heart’s far too heavy right now for even an ounce more of misgiving. “It’s okay, Kent. There’s no need to feel bad about it. We’re …” I try to laugh it off. “We’re ordering Chinese takeout right now, determined to get back to our normal selves, too.”
“I see.” His voice deflates, too. “Yeah, I got you. Back to your normal selves.”
“Yep.” I stare down at my feet.
Everything is awkward suddenly.
And horrible.
And painfully reeking of the biggest reality check that has ever been slapped across my stupid face.
I take a breath. “Well, I don’t want to keep you from your brother.”
“Nah, it’s okay. We’re just hanging out. Actually, he just went back to the house. I think Mom came home.”
“Cool.” I clench my eyes shut. This would be so much easier in person, to be able to see his face, touch him, and sense how he’s feeling.
Why is everything so different now?
Then he says, “I really wish you were here.”
For a moment, I feel his words like a sweet, tender hug. The tiny crack in his voice. The softness. The sound of his words pressed to my ear. It is instant medicine to my scared, vulnerable, uncertain heart.
It probably took a lot for him to say that.
To be so bold.
To lunge forward, despite the lingering doubts.
I decide to do exactly the same: “I really … really wish I was there, too.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Right there, sitting by you on that beach.” I let on a smile. “With a can of that premium piss.”
He snorts. “It’s damned good piss.”
I feel a little revived again. Is it because I’m exercising an amount of denial? Is that what hope really is? Just a bit of denial, cocktailed with fleetingly blind happiness and a splash of intentional naïveté?
“How about I call you tonight?” he asks. “Before you go to bed?”
“That sounds great. Around ten or eleven is best.”
“Perfect. I imagine you’ve got work in the morning?”
“Yep. Morning shifts, all week. The boss is really 9-to-5-ing me this week.”
“I go in around noon. It’s summer, so it’s pretty much seven days a week of anything-can-happen,” he admits. “Not like the off seasons, when a lot of us gotta find some mainland jobs and side gigs to keep afloat. Anyway, I really doubt this week is gonna be anywhere near as busy as the weekend was. It’ll probably seem downright calm.”
A police car whizzes by below, its siren filling the air with panic. I watch it disappear around the corner of the block. “Wish I could say the same.”
He takes a breath. “Well, I guess I’ll … call you later tonight. I miss you, Jonah.”
My eyes close again. “You too, Kent.”
I hang up right then, not even sure if that was the end of our conversation. I press the phone to my chest, feeling an ache so deep, I’m certain there’s no bottom to it.
