A lagoon littered with leathery babies from Northern Jersey, screaming at their kites while their parents get drunk and talk about how much value their million dollar properties have lost. The girl in the tight red dress plays coy to the fat man in the white button up shirt, walks away, plays with the children for a moment just long enough to demonstrate her inherent motherly skills, returns, cackles loudly as he tells her something with exaggerated arm motions. The children go to bed, and the two disappear up the stairs of a three story mansion.
Agoraphobia must be seeded in the liver, right? By this time I’ve had at least ten beers, a couple vodka cranberries, and a Caribbean “pain killer.” To my dismay, my brain is still functioning on a painfully sober level, and I sit and listen to him and his brother and their step-dad’s brother talk about which states have the worst drivers, about “Mass-holes,” about how ignorant people are that don’t regularly take toll roads. All I can think about is how disinterested I am in the whole thing. “You’re awfully quiet,” they say every now and then. “I don’t drive.” “Then what would you like to talk about?” Then I realize I’m disinterested in most things.
Eighteen miles of beach stretched on either side of me. Testaments of how warm and nice the water is. But I stay inside, on the far left couch closest to the door. After their swims, they pack inside the small house and read books, beach butt rock radio playing in the background. I brought a book too, but I feel phony, so I leave it on the coffee table, stare at the wall, and think about how if I finished college, I would be able to move from that spot on the couch.
Violent lucid nightmares. I scream for him to wake me up, but he can’t hear me. When I wake up, he’s gone from the bed.
On the drive home, he doesn’t say anything and neither do I. I try to catch his eye, but when I do his smile is flat and forced. The whole thing makes me question why I exist.
His brother and sister meet us with smiles. Brother gives me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Sister charms me with androgynous teenage sass. The two of them teach me how to longboard. When I fall, they compliment the grace of the fall and offer me an umbrella to use as a sail as I sit on the board. Sister and I race, scooping air with Kraft umbrellas, free and childish, laughing, alive.
Brother hands me another beer, and another, and another. He points out flaws and absurdities in everyone’s word choices. I’m the only one that hears him or the only one that’s laughing. He teaches me how to open beers with a lighter. We talk about how disappointed we both are that Mary couldn’t make it this time. “Mary says hello, by the way.”
His mother is quiet. We exchange few words but plenty of bashful, communicative glances. He tells me that I’m a lot like her, more than he realized before. An hour ago, he told me that she’s the biggest support in his life. She was there for the abortions, for the lost job. A smart, strong woman.
“None of my exes even compare to this girl,” he says to Brother, passing the one-hitter. “I never even thought it was possible to have a girlfriend this cool.” I shove myself under his arm, and for the rest of the night to my relief, I can’t stop slurring.
Late at night, six of us hop on bikes or skateboards and ride to Barnegat. Late at night, his drunk step-uncle takes us on his boat, and we sing and dance to Motown music. Late at night, the sky is glittering, the water is black, and I’m convinced that we must be far from earth.
I run back into the boat, our temporary home, frozen from a twilight sea breeze. He cocoons me with his sleep-warmed body. I stop shaking. My eyelids are heavy. I’m ready to sail back into my subconscious, but before I can, he has my pants off, and we are making love—unusually quietly, perfectly. He comes on my stomach like he used to before the pills, wipes it affectionately, and I sink back into the nook between his arm and his chest, baptized.
This is why I exist.
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