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“He just came out with it,” Rina rasped. “Just like that. Like it was nothing.”
Steve was quiet. Rina didn’t want him to think she was blaming him. After all, he’d done precisely what she’d asked him to. He’d played the part of her boyfriend so they could get information out of her father. And boy, had they gotten information.
“It was obviously something to him,” Steve said quietly. “He kept it from your mother for a month, he said. It terrified him to know about her. He didn’t know what to do.”
Rina ground her molars together and took a big swig of beer. “They blamed me for her disappearance, you know. All those years. They told me it was my fault she was gone.”
Steve’s face was stony. After a long pause, he finally said, “From what you’ve explained to me, it sounds like your parents aren’t good people, Rina.”
The statement rang so true that it brought tears to Rina’s eyes. She turned to face Steve fully. Just then, she wanted to drown in the tenderness he showed her. She suddenly felt as though nobody in the world had ever known her the way Steve did. As though, all these years, she’d been searching all over the world for missing people, and she’d been the one who was gone.
“She’s just two hours away,” Rina whispered. “All those years, I was looking for her. How did I not find her?”
Steve raised his shoulders. “She didn’t want to be found.”
“But why did she reach out to my father instead of me?” Rina blared. She smashed her fist on the countertop, and her hand stung. “I’ve been here. Like a lighthouse. Waiting to guide her home.”
Suddenly, Steve took Rina into his arms, and Rina bawled into his chest. Her body shook violently, and she fell off the stool and stood in the warmth between Steve’s legs. She was swallowed by him. She never wanted to step away from him. All she wanted was to inhale the salt of his skin and hear his beating heart, just on the other side of his ribs.
Back at the restaurant, as Rina had gaped at her father in stunned silence, Wally had said he hadn’t yet seen Penny in the flesh. He’d wanted to wait to take Ellen with him. They’d only spoken on the phone once. When Zach had pressed Wally for details, asking where Penny had been all these years and why she left in the first place, Wally had laughed and said, “I don’t know! I was so excited that I forgot to ask.”
“I’ll go with you,” Steve said quietly, wrapping his hand over Rina’s head. “To see your sister.”
Rina froze. She felt jagged, sharp, as though she couldn’t trust anything she said not to be cruel. Suddenly, everything crumbled around her, and she snapped away from Steve and blinked up at him. The white shirt she’d bought him was a mess, stained with black eye makeup and red lipstick. His face was so handsome, like an East Coast James Dean, and she suddenly hated that he was here, that he pitied her so much. She regretted that she’d shown him so much of herself.
“No. You can’t go with me,” Rina blurted. “I don’t even know why you’re still here.”
Steve hardly flinched. It was as though he’d sensed her mood change and was ready to accommodate it. This annoyed Rina even more.
Rina flattened a twenty-dollar bill on the counter and stormed back into the night. Steve rushed after her. There was nothing but the Pacific winds in her ears, the thick ache of the salty air. There was nothing but the moon, pregnant on the horizon, casting its glow on the frothing waves. Everything felt terrible, like a car accident you couldn’t help but watch.
“Rina!”
Steve’s voice was almost violent, and it stopped Rina in her tracks. She turned to glare at him. She was gripping the keys so hard that they’d nearly torn the skin of her palm.
“You don’t understand,” she called through the rushing winds. “And I can’t explain it to you. Okay? We aren’t in one another’s lives. We aren’t anything to each other. And I have to deal with this on my own. Just like I’ve dealt with everything else.”
Steve stepped closer, and a wrinkle formed between his eyebrows. He looked confused, quizzical, on the verge of figuring out a crossword puzzle.
“Don’t you get it, Rina? Don’t you get why I’m here? Why I bailed on the auto shop? Why I left my family and friends back home?” he continued, his voice breaking. “I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you for months. And I haven’t known what to do about it. I’ve been scared, so violently, achingly scared, that I haven’t been able to say it aloud. And we’ve been living in that purgatory together—a purgatory I created. And I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I did that to us. But I want to start over. I want to try.”
Rina gaped at him, struggling to breathe. She felt as though she’d just run ten miles.
“You don’t have to lie,” Rina rasped. “I’m having a bad day. So what? I’ve had bad days before. I’ll deal with it. I don’t need any heroic gestures.”
Steve laughed, clearly exasperated, and placed his hands on his hips, like a cowboy. “As far as I can tell, you come from a horribly narcissistic, manipulative, selfish family. Your sister is included in that. You’ve never needed anyone but yourself. And that’s fantastic. Really. It’s a life skill that many don’t have. But I want to be here with you. I want to help you through this. And I don’t want to do it as your friend.”
Rina pressed her hand over her stomach and tried to fill her lungs. The tequila shots rang through her, and the lights over the bar blurred.
“She was my best friend. I did everything for her,” Rina muttered, thinking again of Penny—of her silly stories, the way her laughter rang through the halls at school, of how proud Rina had been of her when she’d won academic awards and been voted class president. Their parents hadn’t cared a lick about Penny or Rina’s achievements—and Rina had had to care doubly, for the both of them.
“You owe it to yourself to find out why,” Steve said, stepping forward to take Rina’s hand.
Rina nodded. It was exactly what she told so many of her clients, who were flabbergasted when their family members, friends, or lovers had spontaneously gone away. It was startling to be on the other side of that conversation.
Rina placed her hand on Steve’s cheek and gazed into his eyes. A voice in her head told her not to; that it was too messy, but the tequila shots made her feel like honey, and she rose onto her tiptoes to kiss Steve’s perfect lips, to close her eyes as the world spun around them. Steve’s arms wrapped around her, and he lifted her against him, there in the terrible shadows of the dive bar parking lot. And for the first time since Penny’s disappearance, Rina had the ridiculous sensation that everything would be okay.
“Shall we go back to your place?” Steve whispered as he returned her to solid ground.
