“For what?”
“I don’t know. You’re so mad at me. Please don’t be mad. Haven’t I already been punished enough? All that guy talks about is wrestling and Van Halen, my two least favorite subjects.”
He looks like a little boy. I feel terrible. None of this is Jonas’s fault, but there’s nothing I can say that will make him understand, because there is nothing that can be said. “It could have been Best of Bread.” I sit down beside him. “I’m sorry I was mean.”
* * *
—
Three weeks into sailing camp, Jonas and I are upgraded from a Sunfish to a Rhodes. We each receive a small iron-on badge. Jonas is the natural sailor, but I’m a decent second mate, and I feel peaceful when I’m out on the water with him. The boat typically holds six of us, but our instructor wants us to be “self-sufficient,” able to navigate with a two-man crew. So, today, Jonas and I get to team up on our own. It’s been drizzling all morning, and we are far out on the bay in our bright yellow slickers. The wind is fickle, changing direction every ten seconds. I’ve been hit by the boom so many times that even Jonas stops laughing at me.
“This is ridiculous,” I shout.
“I agree. Let’s head back.” He trims the sheet and tries to come about, but the wind refuses to cooperate. Our boat bobs around in the surf, its sail flapping slack.
“We should call out for a tow,” I say. Our instructor will come get us if we need him.
“No way. It’s our first two-man. It’ll pick up.”
Instead, the rain begins to bucket down on us so hard that my ears fill with the water dripping off my hair. I can no longer see the dock. Nearby, in the mist, our teacher is towing in another boat.
“I’m calling him over.”
“Give it five more minutes.”
“I’m freezing to death.”
He stands up, fiddles with the jib.
“Fine. Five.” I pull my collar up and scrunch down in the cockpit.
Jonas leans against the mast, gazing out at the rain as if he is looking for answers.
“Penny for your thoughts?” I say.
A sea gull flies out of the fog and lands on the bow. It cocks its head and looks at Jonas, unblinking. Jonas looks away first.
“I don’t want you to get mad,” he says.
“I won’t.”
He sits beside me, with a resigned breath. “Have you and Conrad ever, you know, done anything together?”
“Done anything?” I spit-take the words. “Done anything how? What does that even mean? Why would you ask me that?”
“It’s just, he said something that day after you left the beach.”
I brace myself. “What? What did he say?”
“He said you let him feel you up. He said you fool around. He said I shouldn’t get my hopes up.”
A hysterical laugh escapes from my mouth. My windpipes start to close in on themselves. “That’s so disgusting.”
He laughs, relieved. “Well, technically you aren’t related, but the thought did make me want to puke.”
“What’s wrong with him? I hate him so much. I would die before I ever let him touch me,” I say, voice shaking.
“I never really thought you had.”
I will myself not to cry in front of Jonas, but the tears start slipping out against my will.
“Elle, forget it. He was joking around, being a jerk.” He takes the bottom of his T-shirt and wipes the rain and tears off my cheeks. “So, I can get my hopes up again?”
“I’m too old for you,” I say, though I’m not sure I believe myself.
“I know you think that, but you’re wrong.”
“And you’re way too good for me.” And this I know is true.
He reaches into his slicker, pulls out a smushed Peppermint Pattie and tears it in half. “Lunch?”
There is something so sweet about everything he does, something in his gesture that breaks my heart and makes me start crying again.
“What? You hate mint?”
A sob bursts out of me, half laughter, half pain. Conrad has stolen everything from me. I will never be sweet again. I will never be clean again. I always imagined my first time would be with someone I loved. Someone like Jonas. I’m sobbing uncontrollably now, all the terror and shame I have held vomiting out of me in massive heaves and gulps.
“Elle. Stop, okay? I’m sorry I brought it up. I’m an idiot.”
I try to stop, to catch my breath, but the more I try, the harder I cry. The sea fog rolls in now, so thick it muffles my sobs, turns us both into specters.