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Chapter Nine
Malcolm
I pull up to the beach right as Nala’s group is disbanding the following week.
Her mother has been by to see me, and it was a shock to open my front door and see Reece Jansen standing there—partly because I know exactly what Nala will look like in eighteen years, and partly because I haven’t seen her since I hurt her daughter.
But she didn’t mention any of that. Instead, she cupped my cheeks, gave me a kiss on each, and then walked inside of my house and started setting down stones of varying shapes and sizes and sparkle. Something about healing powers and positive energy. She stayed for an hour, making me tea that tasted like dirt with a floral undertone, and asking me every question under the sun about my life and how happy I was.
When she left, she asked if I need a ride to my doctor’s appointment, and I told her I was covered. Then she kissed me again, told me she was glad I was home, and left, putting away in her rusted VW van with its scarred white top and tie-dye covered seats. Just like when Isa’s family left, that ache appeared in my chest, right under my heart.
Which is why, after my appointment, I’m at the Cove, waiting for Nala to be done talking to her group of girls so I can try and find some way to mend the rift I put between us, not just last week, but all those years ago when I was too stupid to know any better.
Although my clock reads that it’s almost fifteen past the hour, Nala is still surrounded. Some girls linger, girls who look no older than sixteen, hoodies and sweats on to ward off the chill brought on by the wind and overcast skies while they cluster near one another. I stay in the truck, not wanting to disturb them, taking the moment to watch Nala while she isn’t fully aware.
She’s beautiful.
As always, it’s the first thing that hits me—more so because I know the beauty runs through her in a way that’s not ingrained in the rest of the world. Girls on tour…girls I’ve spent the night with, they always had an end goal. Always flipping their hair, lowering their chin, lifting their shoulders, and fucking me with eyes that begged me to do anything and everything, so long as I paid attention to them.
Girls I used, who used me back, because we were both looking for someone to show us we had value in that moment. No trophy, no podium, no trick, no fuck was going to give me that, though.
Only Nala, with her million bracelets on both wrists, silver rings glowing over brown skin. Her hair, out of its braid and piled on top of her head, pieces tugged free from the wind to blow around her face. She’s wearing a hoody that slips over her head and fits loosely against her skin, ending just below her butt.
Her legs are bare beneath, except for one ankle, wrapped in more bracelets the same color as the sand.
While I watch her, my heart rate calms, and I notice things I can’t when I’m close to her and she’s got her shield up. Like how she makes sure to reach out and touch each girl who surrounds her, making a small, but very real connection. How she’s able to listen and speak to everyone, shifting herself so whatever she says encompasses not one, but all of them. And how she never looks anywhere but at them when they are talking, no matter how many cars come and go from the parking lot, or how many surfers, joggers, and walkers pass them on the sand.
Nala never strays from the girls in her care, and it reminds me of when we were friends—secret friends who were closer than even Brooks and Hunter knew—friends who somehow gravitated toward one another and forged a bond so strong, it seems like it broke both of us when it disappeared. In those moments when it was just the two of us, she looked at me like this, with absolute care and attention, and I didn’t realize until right now how much I miss the genuine-ness of it all.
Not just her, but our friendship.
I wait for almost ten minutes for the last girl to leave, one with black, stringy hair and small features dwarfed by an oversized sweatshirt, noting the way she hunches her shoulders when she walks, as if the wind is physically harming her. When I open my door, Nala shifts, lifting an eyebrow when she sees it’s me.
“Not even two weeks. Without wheels,” she adds when I raise my brow in question.
I grab my crutches, hating the fact that I need them to get the twenty feet from the truck to her spot on the sand.
“Did you go out today?”
She nods, motioning to the gray skies and the white caps on the normally calm water. “We beat the wind. It was calm as a lake forty-five minutes ago.”
“Do you always meet at the beach?”
She nods, biting her lip when I get to her. I don’t know if it’s because of me, or something else, but she doesn’t offer to help me, or mention the fact that I’m sweating from such a short walk, so I don’t press her. Instead, I stand next to her, leaning my weight on my crutches while I look out over the Cove and the small clusters of boarders who are brave enough to still be out there, despite the cold temperature and wind-roughened water.
For a while we stand, staring out at the water, exactly like we used to do. Only now, the silence borders uncomfortable, where it used to be anticipation, or reverence.
I want to apologize for the other day…to explain that it was hard to be near her and not be as strong as I want. But I can’t find words that don’t sound lame, so instead, I settle for just talking to her.
“What’s it like?”
My question startles her, and she looks over at me. “Group?”
I nod. “Is it all feelings and Kumbaya in a circle? Sobbing stories of low self-esteem and bitchy moms who just don’t understand?”
She laughs, and though it’s small, it has humor. “It would be easier if that’s what it was. I can’t tell you about the girls,” she says, eyes meeting mine again. “It’s their privacy, and they have a right to it.”
“Okay, tell me about the process then.”
