Say You'll Remember Me(32)

I woke up in Minneapolis today, worked. And now I was on a Ferris wheel, looking at the ocean. With her.

I tucked her under my chin and breathed in the smell of salty sea air and listened to the muffled sound of people a hundred feet below.

They say that you won’t remember what someone said, but you’ll always remember how they made you feel. I don’t think this moment would be the same if it wasn’t for how it felt. Ocean or no.





16





SAMANTHA


WE WERE SITTING on the beach on two Barbie towels we bought at a souvenir shop. We had our shoes off. The sun set an hour ago. We’d done all the things. Took scooters to Venice Beach, got ice cream on the Third Street Promenade, did the pier, shared some calamari at a seafood place, and then walked along the surf.

I liked talking to Xavier. I liked hanging out with him. I liked the contemplative gazes, the little upturned corner of his mouth when I said something funny. I liked how reflective he was. How he didn’t speak until he had something thoughtful to say. He was observant.

But mostly I liked that he felt turned toward me. Like I was the only thing interesting in this place full of interesting landmarks and people and things. He never once pulled out his phone for anything other than taking pictures. I told him I loved shells and he spent our walk along the water looking for ocean jewels to hand me like it was his new job. I preferred his ice cream more than mine and he switched with me, he wouldn’t take no for an answer. When it got windy on the beach, he wrapped me in his towel.

I felt courted.

It was weird, but there was no other word to describe it. I had obviously never been properly courted before because now that I was, I was giving those other guys some serious side eye. Damn if Xavier wasn’t ruining me for all other men while he was here.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. Jeneva messaging me.

“Sorry, I have to get it. She wants to know how to take Mom’s makeup off,” I said, texting her to tell her where the makeup wipes are.

I’d done Mom’s face for the first time this morning. It hadn’t come out great. I needed to find some old photos or something to see how she used to do it because when I finished, she looked like a caricature of herself. When I showed Tristan he’d rolled his eyes and asked me if I’d ever heard of blending. Then he kicked me out of the bathroom and finished it himself. I would have handed him the torch indefinitely if he woke up early enough to take it from me.

I hit send and tucked my phone away.

“Can I ask you a question?” Xavier asked.

“Sure.”

“When did you first notice?”

“The dementia?”

“Yes.”

I played with the sand in front of me. “Mom’s had a lot of concussions. She cheered in high school. She was a flyer. You know, the one they toss in the air?”

“Yeah…”

“She bumped her head a lot. I guess that can cause problems later in life. She had a bad car accident ten years ago and then another one a few years after that. She never recovered from the last one. Her memory was never the same. It just got worse and worse and now…”

I lay back to look at the sky, wrapped in the towel, and he laid down with me. When he took my hand, my heart did a flip.

It flipped every time he touched me. It flipped every time he looked at me with those sharp blue eyes.

I think I was trying to convince myself all this was less than it was. I wasn’t falling for him. I wasn’t more attracted to him than anyone I’d ever been attracted to in my life. He wasn’t perfect, it was just that I remembered him that way and it was coloring how I felt now. Memories were like that, sometimes they bent reality.

Only the reality felt real. This day was perfect. All of it. Like a dream.

I closed my eyes and drew the air into my lungs.

I loved the smell of the ocean. I’d forgotten how much. The relentless sound of the waves crashing and the feel of the lumpy sand under a towel. We came here so often as kids, mostly with Mom. We’d go to Subway and get to pick a sandwich to eat when we got here. We’d have bottles of Snapple and sunblock that smelled like coconut and we’d lug our blankets and beach chairs to the water and just be here all day next to a tiny radio we could barely hear over the surf.

But being here at night was different. Familiar but not. Like being at school on the weekend or the power going out in the grocery store while you shop. Wrong somehow and discomforting.

I’d never been to the beach at night. Too murdery. But Xavier neutralized the danger of it. Made it feel fun and adventurous and safe. There is no way in a million years I’d be out here without him.

Maybe it was just him, or the trauma bond formed in the belly of the UFO, but I was convinced that nothing and nobody would ever make me feel as comforted and protected as being near him. Everything about him calmed me. His tone of voice, his smell, the warmth of his body.

He had imprinted on me.

Years worth of conditioning, set in stone over one night in an escape room.

I wondered if he felt the same way.

“I can’t believe you’ve never gone to the beach before,” I said. “It feels like a birthright.”

“My parents didn’t do that kind of thing. We never went on trips. Or anywhere, really.”

I lolled my head to look at him. “What were they like? I mean, I know they sucked. But why?”