My tangled nerves don’t go unnoticed. “What’s going on?” he asks. “You’re acting different all of a sudden.”
No kidding. “I am different,” I tell him flat out. “That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.” His look of confusion doesn’t come as a surprise. “Can we walk?” Without waiting for an answer I slip off my flip-flops and toss them onto the grass behind me.
He nods and removes his shoes as well.
Side by side we high-step through the loose, dry sand. Once we reach the cooler, wetter stuff near the water, I set a course for the tide pools on the south side of Haystack Rock. We are halfway there when he finally asks what this is all about.
“My dad’s crazy,” I say, not really answering the question. Or maybe that’s the perfect answer. “I think most lawyers probably are, but he takes it to an extreme sometimes. You were right about what you said about him being overprotective. He’s very afraid of me getting hurt. But with him—with me—it’s not just the normal overprotectiveness that your dad mentioned. My dad is sort of over-overprotective, which is why there’s something I need to tell you, so you know what you’re getting into when you hang out with me.”
Tanner stops walking, making me think I’ve already said too much—or the wrong thing, or…who knows. There is nervousness in his eyes. And doubt.
Maybe he’s just realized he’d be better off asking out the younger of the Bennett girls.
We stand there, quietly staring at each other, sinking into the wet sand. Finally he clears his throat. “My mom says bad news doesn’t get better with time.”
At least he knows it’s bad news. “My mom always says not to beat around the bush, but this is a very big bush, and maybe the only way to get around it is to beat it a little.”
Frowning, he says, “Just tell me already.”
“Fine. For the record, though, I’ll totally understand if you change your mind about our date.”
“Why would I do that?”
It’s all I can do to answer, but eventually the words come out. “Because I lied to you.” I wait to see how he’s going to react, but Tanner’s face is granite. “I made you think I’m this carefree, do-whatever-I-want kind of girl, but I’m not like that at all. In fact…I can’t be that kind of girl. I have limits, you might say. Some self-imposed, others simply as a precaution. Do you remember you said you wanted to teach me to surf, and I thought that would be totally cool, and I told you I’d always wanted to try surfing?”
“Yeah. That was a lie?”
“No, that’s all true. It does sound cool, and I would love to try it sometime. But the truth is…I can’t. Not right now.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t swim.”
“But you said…”
“Oh, I can swim. I’m a fantastic swimmer. I just can’t swim right now. I was a competitive swimmer a couple years back, but then…everything changed.”
“What happened?”
I take a deep breath. There are tears just waiting to let loose, but I won’t let them fall because crying right now would prove that I still feel sorry for myself, and that’s not what I want him to see. “My toes are cold,” I whisper and then ask if we can go back to the warm sand. Without waiting for Tanner to respond, I make a beeline for higher ground, hoping he’ll follow. Once I find a nice spot, I carefully smooth out the sand with my foot and then sit down facing the ocean.
Tanner quietly takes a seat next to me.
I have to take another deep breath or I might faint. The coastal breeze fills my lungs to capacity as I focus on the horizon. When I stop to listen, the volume of the world somehow turns up a notch, which is exactly what I need right now. I take solace in the chorus of waves and wind and gulls, all singing and crying just for me. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“The best.”
“I can’t imagine anything more inspiring. Lately, when I look out past the waves, I find myself wondering how far I can see. From here it looks like the water goes on forever, but I know there’s an end out there. Somewhere.” I pause, then whisper, “Everything has an end.” Inside, I can feel my emotions rising quickly now, like the tide, but I press on. “And I know that on the other side, there’s this whole great big world out there, full of sights and sounds I’ve only dreamed of, and there’s probably some girl over there, just like me, staring back this way right now wondering what’s going on over here, wishing she could see what it’s like. But our worlds are just too far apart.” I take another long look, from north to south, soaking in the majesty. I’m stalling, and I know it, but that’s infinitely better than leaping straight to the part of the conversation where I tell him everything, and then, out of fear of being with a time bomb, he cancels our date and walks away.