Alex, Approximately: Chapter 14

“To repress one’s feelings only makes them stronger.”

—Michelle Yeoh, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

“I have to find Grace,” I shout at him as we’re racing across the sand.

It’s total chaos, everyone scattering, half of them clogging the upward trail to the parked cars—but that’s where the police lights are.

“Gracie knows how to take care of herself,” Porter yells back. He’s got my hand locked in his, and he’s shouldering his way across the main path, heading toward the dark area of the beach, away from the bonfire. Away from the people. “She’s been in this situation before, and she’s got a million friends who can get her home.”

That doesn’t feel right to me. I try to tell him that, but it’s so loud, I can’t even hear my own voice. Now it’s two cop cars—not one. And it strikes me just now: What if it’s Wanda? Would she arrest me, even if I haven’t been drinking? I picture Dad having to come pick me up from the police station and my stomach twists.

“CCPD,” a booming male voice says over the squad car speaker. “Hands up where I can see them.”

Holy crap. They’re arresting someone. Hopefully it’s Davy and his rock-blasting shotgun.

Porter gets us past the main herd of fleeing cattle. We jog around a boulder and he spots a secondary path through dry coastal brush that a couple of other partygoers are climbing. It’s dark but serviceable. “Stay low,” Porter tells me, and we head that way, sneaking through the dry grass. Just before we crest the hill, we have to stop and wait for a cop car with a high-beam spotlight to finish sweeping the area. When I’m half a second away from having a stroke, I get a text from Grace: Where are you? To which I reply: Escaping with Porter. Are you safe? She answers: Yes, okay. Was worried I lost you. Tell P to go N on Gold to Cuangua Farm. Text me when you get home.

I show Porter the texts. He nods, and when the coast is clear, we jog past a million parked cars until we get to what appears to be a sky-blue Volkswagen camper van—the kind from the 1960s and ’70s that are long and surrounded with a ring of windows. Surfer vans, my dad calls them, because they’re big enough to haul longboards on top. This one is covered with peeling surfing stickers on the back windows and has painted white fenders. Porter opens the passenger side and slips into the driver’s seat from there, then beckons me in after him.

“Shit!” He’s shoving the keys in the ignition as flashing lights head in our direction again. The engine protests and doesn’t want to catch, and it’s like a bad horror movie. “Come on, come on.” And then—finally!—it rumbles to life, loud as you please. Wheels spin, kicking up sand, and then we’re off, turning away from this nightmare, trundling as fast as a fifty-year-old bus can go, which isn’t very fast at all, but who cares? The whole nasty scene is in Porter’s rearview mirror.

I click on my seat belt and immediately melt into the seat. “Jesus.”

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want to talk about what happened back there?”

“No.”

His brow furrows. “I’m sorry about all that . . . about Davy.”

“Yeah. He’s a complete dirtbag. No offense, but why are you friends with him?”

Fingers lift and fall on the steering wheel.

“We grew up surfing together. He used to be my best friend. His family life has gone down the toilet, so my dad took him under his wing for a while, trained him. My mom felt sorry for him. He practically lived at our house for a while. Then he got hurt surfing a few years ago. Has a leg full of metal and pins.”

The limp.

“He’s in a lot of pain, and it screwed up any chance he had of surfing seriously. Made him bitter and angry . . . changed him.” Porter sighs heavily and scratches his neck. “Anyway, he started screwing up, and I told you about how my dad is. He wouldn’t tolerate Davy’s BS, so he stopped training him until he gets his act cleaned up. And on top of all that, Davy basically thinks I’m an idiot for not wanting to go pro, because he says I’m privileged and throwing it away. Also . . .”

Whatever he was going to say, he seems to think better of it and clams up. I wonder if it had to do with all the drunken smack talk Davy was spewing at the bonfire. About that girl they mentioned outside the vintage clothing shop, Chloe.

“Anyway, I’m sorry about all that,” he says. “I’ll go talk to him tomorrow when he’s sobered up. No use seeing him tonight. It’ll just turn into a fistfight. Always does. And who knows, maybe he got arrested this time. Might do him some good.”

I don’t know what to say to that. I can’t imagine having a best friend you hate. That’s messed up.

“It smells like you in here,” I say after a long moment.

“It does?” The steering wheel on this van is enormous. I just noticed. Also, the seat is one giant thing that goes across the whole front of the van. And there’re tiny rubber monsters stuck to the dash: an alien and a hydra and a Loch Ness Monster and a Godzilla. Wait, not an alien: a green shark. Huh. They’re all sea creatures—all famous water monsters. What doesn’t kill you . . .

“Coconut,” I say. “You always smell coconut-y.” Then, because it’s dark in the van, and because I’m wiped out from all the panic and my guard is down, I add, “You always smell good.”

“Sex Wax.”

“What?” I sit up a little straighter.

He reaches down to the floorboard and tosses me what looks like a plastic-wrapped bar of soap. I hold it up to the window to see the label in the streetlight. “Mr. Zog’s Sex Wax,” I read.

“You rub it on the deck of your board,” he explains. “For traction. You know, so you don’t slip off while you’re surfing.” I sniff it. That’s the stuff, all right.

“I bet your feet smell heavenly.”

“You don’t have a foot fetish thing, do you?” he asks, voice playful.

“I didn’t before, but now? Who knows.”

The tires of the van veer off the road onto the gravelly shoulder, and he cuts the wheel sharply to steer back onto the pavement. “Oops.”

We chuckle, both embarrassed.

I toss the wax onto the floorboard. “Well, another mystery solved.”

“Not a big one. Let’s get back to yours.” He turns down a small road on the edge of town. This must be the way Grace suggested. “I remember you mentioning something about not liking movies with guns in them when you were with Patrick in the video store.”

Ugh. This again. I hug my stomach and look out the passenger window, but there’s nothing but residential houses and it’s dark outside. “God, you really did hear everything that morning, didn’t you?”

“Pretty much. What happened? I mean, I did tell you about the whole shark incident, and I barely knew you then.”

“Yeah, but you’re all open and talkative. You probably tell everyone that story.”

“I actually don’t.” His head turns toward me, and I see his eyes flick in my direction. “People at school know better than to ask me.”

And I didn’t.

“Look, I’m not going to force you to talk about something,” he says. “I’m not a shrink. But if you want to, I’m a good listener. No judgment. Sometimes it’s better to get it out. It festers and gets weird when you bottle it up. I don’t know why, but it does. Just speaking from personal experience.”

I don’t say anything for a long while. We just ride in silence together through the dark streets, silhouettes of mountains rising on one side of the town, the ocean spreading out on the other. Then I tell him some of it. About my mom taking the Grumbacher divorce case when I was fourteen. About her winning it for the wife, about the custody she got for the wife’s daughter.

And about Greg Grumbacher.

“He started harassing my mom online,” I say. “That’s how it started. He’d post nasty comments on her social media. When she didn’t respond, he started stalking my dad, and then me. I didn’t even know who he was. He just started showing up after school a lot, hanging outside where the parents carpool. I thought he was one of my friends’ fathers, or something.

“We only lived two blocks from school,” I continue, “so I usually walked home with a friend. One day when I walked home alone, he walked with me. Said he was my mom’s coworker. And because he’d done all this detailed research online, he rattled off all this stuff about her, so it seemed like, yeah, he did know her. And I was too trusting. A stupid kid.”

“I did stupid things when I was younger too,” Porter says softly. “What happened?”

“I knew something was wrong by the time we’d gotten to the door, and I wasn’t going to let him into the house, but it was too late. I was small and he was big. He overpowered me and pushed his way inside. . . .”

“Shit,” Porter murmurs.

“My mom was home,” I continue. “She’d forgotten some paperwork she’d needed for a case. It was just a lucky coincidence. If she hadn’t have been there . . . I don’t know. Everyone’s still alive today, so that’s a good thing. Still, when there’s a crazy man waving a gun around in your house, threatening your mom—”

“Jesus Christ.”

Deep breath. I check myself, making sure I’m not heading into shaky territory again, but I’m okay this time. “It was the sound that caught me by surprise at the bonfire. That’s what does it to me in movies, too. Cars backfiring sometimes have the same effect. I don’t like loud explosions. Sounds stupid to say it like that.”

“Umm, not stupid. If that happened to me, I’d probably be the same way. Trust me, I’ve got hang-ups.” He makes a broad sweeping gesture toward the collection of sharks and hydras on the van’s dash.

I chuckle a little at that, touching one of the bouncy sharks’ heads, and relax. “Yeah. So anyway. I guess a gunshot wound isn’t the worst possible outcome. And the guy went to prison, obviously.”

“God, Bailey. I don’t know what to say.”

I shrug. “Me either. But there you go.”

“Is that why your parents divorced?”

I start to say no, then think about this for a minute. “The divorce happened over a year ago, but now that you mention it, things never were the same after the shooting. It put a strain on our family.”

He nods thoughtfully. “Mom says misfortune either breaks people apart or brings them closer. God knows our family has seen enough of it to know.”

“But your parents are still okay.” I try not to make this a question, but I don’t really know.

He smiles. “My parents will be one of those couples you see on the news who are ninety years old and have been together forever.”

Must be nice. I want to say I thought that about my parents too, but now I wonder if I ever really did.

He asks me for directions to my dad’s place and knows the neighborhood; he’s lived here all his life, so that’s no surprise. As the van climbs the last few winding redwood-lined streets, we’re both quiet, and now I feel awkward about what I just told him. And there’s something else, too: a nagging sense that in the midst of all this, I’ve forgotten something. A block away from home, I remember. Alarm floods my chest.

“Stop the van!”

“What?” he slams on the brakes. “What’s wrong?”

I unclick my seat belt. “I . . . I’ll just get out here. Thanks for the ride.”

“What? I thought you said it’s the next street?”

“It is, but—”

“But what?”

I shake my head. “I can walk the rest of the way.”

The confusion behind Porter’s eyes sparks and catches fire. Now he’s insulted. “Are you kidding? You don’t want your dad to see me, do you?”

“It’s not personal.”

“Like hell it’s not. What, my camper van is too busted for Redwood Glen? Are all the BMWs and Mercedes going to chase me back down to the shore?”

“Don’t be an idiot. There are no BMWs here.”

He points to the driveway in front of us.

Okay, one BMW. But it’s not like my dad drives a brand-new luxury vehicle, or that we live in one of these fancy houses—his place used to be a vacation rental. He’s dating a cop, not a doctor; he watches sci-fi movies, not opera. Come to think of it, Grace’s family is way better off than we are. But Porter is being stubborn, and it’s closing in on midnight. I don’t have time to argue with him about petty stuff like this.

“I have a curfew,” I tell him impatiently.

“Fine.” He leans across my lap and pops open the door handle. “Get out, then. I don’t want to embarrass you.”

Okay, now I’m mad. How did we go from me spilling my guts to fighting? I’m totally confused as to why his feelings are so hurt. Is he really this sensitive? So much for the stereotype that girls are the only ones who wear their feelings on their sleeves. I think about something Alex told me online once: Boys are dumb.

Irritated and a little hurt myself, I push open the heavy door and swing my legs outside. But before I jump out, all my tumbling feelings stick in my throat and I hesitate. This isn’t how I wanted things to end tonight.

Maybe he’s not the only one being dumb.

“The problem is,” I say, half inside the van, half out, “that my dad is dating a cop, and the three of us were eating at the posole truck the other day, and Davy was there, and he made an ass out of himself in front of them . . .”

I rush to get the rest of it out before I lose my nerve. “And she told my dad that he’s bad news, and that he’s involved with a bunch of serious narcotic stuff—and after tonight, I really don’t ever want to see him again, no offense. But during all of this, Davy brought up your name in front of them, so when he left, I was trying to defend you to my dad and Wanda, and she said your family is okay, but by then the damage was already done. Because my dad has blacklisted Davy, and I basically lied to go to the bonfire tonight, so he thinks I’m at the boardwalk with Grace.”

Porter makes a low noise.

“Anyway, that’s why,” I say. “Thank you for rescuing me. And for listening.”

I get out of the van and shut the door. It’s old and ornery, so I have to do it again. Then I slog up the hill toward my dad’s house. I don’t get far before the van’s headlights go out and the engine cuts off. Then I hear change and car keys jingling as Porter jogs to catch up.

Wary, I glance up at his face as he falls in step next to me.

“You shouldn’t walk alone at night,” he says. “I won’t let your dad see me.”

“Thanks,” I say.

Three slow steps in tandem. “You could have just said that in the first place, you know.”

“Sorry.”

“Forgiven,” he says, giving me a little smile. “Next time tell me the truth before I mouth off and say stupid stuff, not after. Saves me from looking like a jerk.”

“I kind of like you being all hotheaded,” I joke.

“Hot Stuff, remember?”

“I remember,” I say, giving him a smile. “That’s my house, there.”

“Oh, the old McAffee place. That’s got the tree going through the sunroom in the back.”

“Yeah,” I say, amazed.

“My parents know everyone in town,” he explains.

Maybe now he believes me about not being fancy. I whisper for him to follow me to the far side of the house near the mailbox, where my dad won’t see or hear us approaching if he’s in the living room or his bedroom. His muscle car is parked in the driveway, so I know he’s home, but I can’t see a light on. I wonder if he’s waiting up. It’s the first night I’ve stayed out this late, so chances are good that he’s still awake—especially since we made such a big deal out of the curfew. Now I’m feeling guilty again. Or maybe that’s just all my nerves jingle-jangling because it’s almost midnight and I’m standing in damp grass with a boy I’m not supposed to be seeing.

“So,” Porter says, facing me.

“So . . . ,” I repeat, swallowing hard as I glance around the dark street. A few golden lights glow in the windows of nearby houses, but there’s no sound but the occasional passing of distant cars and a frog singing along with some crickets in the redwoods.

Porter shifts closer. I back up. He’s always in my personal space, I think weakly.

“Why did you come to the bonfire tonight?” he asks in a low voice.

I fiddle with the zipper on my hoodie. “Grace invited me.”

“You snuck out of the house because Grace invited you?”

He steps closer.

I step back—and my butt hits cedar. Crap. I’ve run into the mailbox post. I start to shimmy around it, but Porter’s arm shoots out and blocks me. Damn! Ten points for surfer agility.

“Not this time,” he says, trapping me with his hand on the mailbox. His head dips low. He speaks close to my ear. “Answer the question. Why did you come to the bonfire? Why sneak out at all? Why risk it?”

“Is this a quiz?” I ask, trying to sound mad, but I’m really just insanely nervous. I’m cornered—which I hate. And he’s so close, his hair is tickling my cheek, and his breath is warm on my ear. I’m scared and intoxicated at the same time, worried that if either of us says another word, I might push him away.

That I might not.

I’m trying-trying-trying not to breathe so fast. But Porter shifts, and the hand that isn’t trapping me falls to the side. His fingers dance over my hand, a gossamer touch, and he traces soft patterns on my open palm, Morse code taps, gently urging, send a thousand electric currents of signals up my nerves.

“Why?” he whispers against my cheek.

I whimper.

He knows he’s won. But he asks one more time, this time against my ear. “Why?”

“Because I wanted to see you.”

I can’t even hear my own voice, but I know he does when a sigh gusts out of him, long and hard. His head drops to the crook of my neck and rests there. The fingers that were teasing me with their little tap-tap-tapping messages now curl around my fingers, loosely clasping. And the arm pinning me to the mailbox is now lifting away, and I feel his hand smooth down the length of my hair.

A tremor runs through me.

“Shh,” he says softly against my neck. I nearly fall to pieces.

I don’t know what we’re doing. What he’s planning to do. What I want him to do. But we’re swaying and clinging to each other like the earth might crack open beneath our feet at any given moment, and I’m a little bit afraid that I really might be having a stroke, because I can hear the blood swishing around in my temples and my knees suddenly feel like they’ve gone rubbery and I might collapse.

Then he freezes against me.

“Whatwasthat?” he slurs, pulling all his wonderful warmth away.

Now I hear it. Windowpanes shaking. “Oh, God,” I whisper. I’m going to have a heart attack. “It’s the surround sound on the TV. My dad’s probably watching some stupid sci-fi movie. It shakes the windows during the battle scenes.” Now come back here.

Then we hear a slam. That was no TV. That’s the door to the—

“Carport!” I whisper. “Other side of the house!”

“Crap!”

“That way!” I say, shoving him toward a bush.

Two quick strides, and he’s hidden. I hear the squeal of the trash bin in the carport and exhale a sigh of relief; Dad can’t see us from there. But that was close. Too close.

“Bailey?” Dad calls out. “Is that you?”

“Yeah, Dad,” I call back. Stupid curfew. “I’m home. Coming around.”

Movement catches my eye. I turn in time to see Porter sneaking across the street. He’s pretty good, I must admit. No Artful Dodger, but still. When he gets to the other side, he turns to look at me one last time, and I swear I can see him smiling in the dark.