The Sea of Tranquility(78)
Author: Katja Millay

“Tell me where you got the scar.” It comes out of nowhere and from everywhere.

“No,” I whisper. He can’t hear it over the mixer, but he knows I said it. The worst thing is that there’s a part of me that’s starting to want to tell him, and that scares the living crap out of me. Josh makes me feel safe and safe is something I never thought I’d feel again.

He pulls me back against him and holds me there. I can feel the warmth of his fingers imprinting the skin at my waist. His mouth is next to my ear, and for just one second I expect him to call me a Russian whore.

“Please.”

“I don’t even know which one you’re asking about,” I say and I’m thankful not to have to see his face. There’s something in the way he says please that won’t let me laugh this off or lie to him. There’s a desperation in it that I don’t want to acknowledge.

“Any. Just one. Just something. Tell me something true.” His arms are solid, wrapping around me, pressing my back against his chest, and it feels more like truth than anything has in such a long time. But I still have nothing to give him.

“I don’t even know what that is anymore.”

***

“Do you live here anymore?” Margot asks me one afternoon when I get back from school. I wish I could say it’s not a valid question, but I’m at Josh’s more often than not. I come home in the mornings before she gets back from work just so I can shower and change for school. Sometimes not even that. Little by little, my clothes seem to be making it to his house, also.

I can shrug or shake my head or play dumb and act like I don’t know what she’s saying, but I owe her more than that. There’s a part of me that almost opens my mouth, but I just can’t make myself do it. If I say something, I’ll have to say everything and that isn’t happening today. I pull some notebook paper out of one of my school folders and write.

If I say no will you make me come back?

“Sit, Em.” She pulls out a chair at the kitchen table and I do the same, keeping the pencil and paper in my hand.

“I know you’re an adult now,” she puts the word adult in air quotes and I want to shake my head at her and beg her not to make me lose respect. “But you’re not all grown up,” she continues. She’s not telling me anything I don’t know.

Point? I write and turn the paper towards her. I’m not trying to give her attitude, actually. I just want to know if I’m going to be fighting to keep the one thing that’s been keeping me sane. And, really, it’s not even as much Josh as it is that garage.

“Does it help? Being there?”

My instinct is to say that nothing helps, because that’s always my instinct, but it’s not true this time. Everything about being there helps. It’s a place to be and something to do and a person who doesn’t compare me to Emilia. I don’t just nod. I write yes on the paper.

“I won’t pretend to like it. But you’re alone here all the time and I don’t like that, either.” She hesitates and I don’t know if I should write something or just see if she says anything else. And she does. “Are you sleeping with him?”

Well, yes, I am, in fact, sleeping with him, but I’d put money on the fact that that’s not what she’s asking. I shake my head, no, because it’s true, even though I’m not sure for how long.

“Really?” she asks and I don’t know if she’s disappointed or relieved or just skeptical.

Really

“I still want to know where you are.”

I nod. I don’t blame her for that and it doesn’t matter anyway, because I know she can track my phone. It’s just courtesy and courtesy I can do.

“He’s really cute,” she smiles, her face full of mischief.

And I nod to that, too.

CHAPTER 42

Josh

“How many miles did you run?” I ask when she walks back into the garage just after ten and strips the can of pepper spray from her waist and the heart monitor off her wrist.

“Didn’t track it. Just ran,” she pants while the sweat drips down her face. She grabs a bottle of water and comes up next to me, looking over my shoulder. “How far did you get?”

“Almost done. I was about to quit. It’ll be ready to finish tomorrow, if it’s not raining.”

“I can help when I get done at Clay’s.” She’s been at Clay’s at least twice a week for a month. He’s doing some sort of freaky layered montage thing. I don’t get it. I like the ones where I can just see her face.

“Tell him he’s monopolizing you and I’m starting to get jealous.”

“I’ll let him know,” she smiles. “He’s got that competition next month and I can’t sit this weekend so I said I’d do it after school.” Between researching with Drew, sitting for Clay, running, school and building with me she never stops for a second. She just signed up for some Krav Maga class, too, whatever that is. She’s not good with down time.

“Is that the one you’re going to with him?”

She nods, tilting back the rest of the bottle of water. “It’s at some art gallery in Ridgemont. They use it every year for the state competition and they display all the finalists’ work.”

“Still going home this weekend?” I wish she wasn’t because I’m used to her now. I realized how much it sucks to cook alone and eat alone and watch TV alone and generally be alone.

“I said I would.”

She never sounds happy about going home and I have absolutely no clue why, except that it has something to do with all the scars she has and the stories she won’t tell me. Whenever she comes back from there, it’s like she’s out of focus for a few days, like a hologram that keeps blurring in and out. She’s always been like that, like music and lyrics to two different songs. It’s just worse after she’s been back to Brighton.

“You don’t talk to anyone in your family?”

“You know I don’t.” She’s getting the where-are-you-going-with-this tone in her voice that I’m so familiar with now.

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t tell them what they want to hear. If I talk to them, I’ll have to lie and I don’t want to.” It’s more information than she’s ever given me before and it’s still not enough. It doesn’t tell me crap.

“You stopped talking just so you wouldn’t have to lie?”