Rewind to You (8 page)

“Is that okay?”

I exhale and nod. “Sure. I’ve just never been on one before.”

“Are you serious?”

I nod again, and Austin mistakes my anxiety for excitement. He hands me a helmet, unfolds the rear pegs for me, and hops on. My hands tremble as I pull the helmet over my head and fasten it beneath my chin.

I can’t believe I’m doing this. A motorcycle. What if the accident bombards me again and I faint? Right here on his motorcycle.

Oh, that would be epic.

“Hop on,” he invites with a glance over his shoulder that makes my knees weak. I straddle the seat behind him, acutely aware of his back and shoulders and every muscle in front of me. I could close my eyes and inhale his scent forever. Some earthy, fresh smell with a touch of cologne. He revs the engine, doing little to subdue my adrenaline surge.

“As much as your boyfriend wouldn’t like it, you’re going to have to hold on.”

He says
boyfriend
like my mom says
dirt
when it’s on our kitchen floor.

I whack his arm playfully. “Hey, he’s not that bad.”

Austin glances back and gives me a look. He takes my hands and secures them around his waist regardless. I feel the ripple of his abs against my arms, and suddenly I consider unraveling all ties to Kyle and throwing them behind me as we zip away from the curb.

We put the pavement behind us, mile by mile of wide sky and salt marshes. Before long my tight grasp on Austin’s shirt loosens and I relax against his back. I watch fishing boats motor around the marshes, enjoying the ride more with each passing mile.

As we enter the city and slow down, I ask, “Have you ever been in an accident?”

He chuckles. “Have I got you worried?”

“No, just curious.”

He shakes his head.

“Ever been close?”

“Nope. But there are plenty of moron bikers out there who buzz around like they’re invincible.”

“And you don’t?”

“Drive like an idiot and it’s only a matter of time,” he replies.

“That’s good,” I say, “that you’re careful.”

“Being careful isn’t enough. Not always. It’s true what they say; people don’t see motorcycles. When you’re on one of these, you’ve gotta watch for the accident before it happens.”

Guilt stabs me. Shouldn’t have brought this up. I was watching the fireworks that night, not the road. “So you’re saying this is pretty dangerous?” I tease, an effort to keep the accident from consuming my thoughts.

We park on the side of the street, and Austin takes off his helmet. “That’s why you’re wearing the good helmet.”

I notice the helmet he’s wearing: worn, scratched, falling apart. I pull off his nice helmet. Shiny and black. Plain. Not like the one the motorcyclist wore that night. I can’t remember exactly what made that helmet different. Something distinct yet far from reach. My brain won’t let me pull that image out. “What about you?”

Austin kills the engine and gives me a hand off. “Your face is a lot prettier than mine, and it’s worth a lot more to me, too. Come on,” he says and leads me into a tree-covered square of land nestled between city buildings. “Do you know what this place is?”

Spanish moss drapes from oak trees all around us. A statue marks the middle of the square. Some guy holding a sword. I squint to read a sign. “Chippewa Square?”

“Yep,” Austin says. “This square honors the soldiers killed in the Battle of Chippewa during the War of 1812.”

“Who’s the dude?” I ask, pointing to the statue.

“General Oglethorpe.”

I send Austin an appraising glance, impressed.

He smiles and points to a corner of the square. “I’ll bet you’ve seen this place before.”

I look around. “Nope. I don’t think so.”

“Do you watch movies?”

“Who doesn’t?”

“Then guess what this spot is famous for.”

“This has something to do with a movie?”

Finally he gives a hint, mimicking a southern drawl. “ ‘Life is like a box of chocolates.’ ”

“
Forrest Gump
!”

Austin gestures to the ground beneath our feet.

“Get out! This is where that whole bench scene was filmed? Right here?”

Austin nods and gently guides me along, his hand on the small of my back raising little goose bumps along my spine. Then some husky voice shouts out, startling us both.

“It wasn’t there, you bum!” one of three guys sitting on a cement bench yells. This guy sports a bushy, graying beard and a tie-dye bandana over greasy hair, and he seriously just called Austin a bum.

“It was that spot right there,” lisps one of the other guys. He leans over and points to the ground, like, maybe a yard away from our feet. He looks like the kind of guy who could spit tobacco without anyone even seeing his lips part. The third guy simply points to the sky, gazing upward as though he’s seeing stuff no one else can. Probably is.

Austin holds his hands up in a gesture of innocence. “Hey, man, I’m not about to argue with three hippies. I’m outnumbered.”

I whack his arm. “
Austin
,” I whisper sharply, not even sure whether
hippie
is an offensive term or not.

The bearded guy jumps to his feet and starts throwing one arm up and down, strumming an imaginary guitar. “If you’re going to San-Fran-cisco . . .” he sings.

Austin laughs and I relax. “How’s it going, Milo?”

“Hey, bro,” the bearded hippie replies.

Of course. Just another few random guys Austin knows in a city he’s lived in for one year. Austin introduces me to Milo, Tolby, and Freedom.

“ ‘Freedom’?” I repeat the name, not sure I heard correctly.

Freedom plants a kiss on the back of my hand. “If we don’t got freedom, baby, we don’t got nothin’.”

Whatever Austin doesn’t know about
Forrest Gump
, these free spirits do. They tell us more than we need to know. Before we leave, they inform Austin that he’d better make a palm-leaf flower for me, or they’ll beat him to it.

Freedom beams a smile of yellow teeth my way. “Then she gonna hafta fall in love with me instead of you.”

I grin. Mmm, tempting.

I can’t stop smiling as Austin fidgets with the leaf of a palm tree, twisting and folding it into a three-dimensional creation. He finishes what looks like a wilting rose, kneels on one knee, and offers it to me, receiving a round of applause from the hippies. And a silent sigh from me. He seriously got down on one knee.

I take the palm-leaf rose.

“Make love, not war.” Tolby bids us good-bye. Before I have a chance to draw back, however, he embraces me in an awkwardly long farewell hug. Nonetheless, their hospitality makes me think twice about my first reaction to them.

I jump on Austin’s motorcycle and wrap my arms around him. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“You’ve lived here one year, and already people know you by name. People in the store. People in the street. It’s like they’re drawn to you.”

He makes a face. “
Drawn
to me?”

I blush because only someone who is drawn to him would put it that way. “Come on, I’ve been here every summer of my life and hardly know anybody. You know everyone.”

“I don’t know
everyone
.”

“How do you do it?”

His lips twitch, an expression of thought. “I don’t know. They’re good people. I’m here, they’re here, and we end up talking.”

“And then you’re friends, just like that?”

Austin shrugs. “Everyone wants a friend.”

“They want
you
for a friend.”

“No, they just want someone they can count on,” Austin says and starts the engine.

That came out of nowhere. As he drives away I wonder if he said that with some resentment, like maybe someone let him down in the past. And perhaps Austin’s smile isn’t merely an expression of charm; it’s something people can count on. Something, maybe, he doesn’t have.

The sun fades into the western horizon as we finish our little motorcycle tour of Savannah. Austin pulls off Broad Street and parks by a restaurant, a building of aged bricks and wooden slats with a sign that reads
The Pirate’s House.

“I’ve heard of this place before but never been,” I say as we enter.

“Well, apparently it’s the place to be tonight,” Austin says as we take in the line of people already waiting to be seated.

A group of kids gather around someone in costume down the hall, snapping pictures like they’re on the red carpet. When I hear the man’s voice, I recognize him easily—or at least the person he’s mimicking.

“Drink up, me ’earties, yo ho,” he sings as the crowd parts enough for me to catch a glimpse. I drag Austin in to snap a picture of Captain Jack Sparrow with my iPhone because, well, why not?

“Elizabeth!” Jack Sparrow calls out to me. “Is it really you, darling?” He drapes his arm around my shoulders, acting just as drunk as the swashbuckling pirate from the movie. Most likely, he is. “I hate my job,” he teases and plants a juicy kiss on my cheek as Austin snaps the picture, a kiss that would have crushed my lips had I not inched away at the last second. “Would you like me to take one of you, love?” Sparrow offers afterward with obvious dejection. He points to me and Austin.

“Oh, sure.”

Austin and I waver like relatives meeting for the first time, unsure whether to hug or shake hands. Finally, he slings his arm over my shoulders, and I wrap mine around his waist for an
I-can’t-wait-to-see-this-picture-and-relive-this
moment that’s pulled to a close with the click of my camera.

“Call me if it doesn’t work out between you two, darling,” Sparrow says and saunters off, his boots clanking on the wooden floor.

“First Brian, then Kyle, and now I’m up against Captain Jack Sparrow,” Austin teases as the waiter delivers our menus. Sparrow peeks around the open doorway, swigging his beer with a seductive glance my way. Austin’s eyes flash open. “Jeez, he’s tough to compete with.”

Our eyes find each other as I laugh, and we hold our gazes. I throw a nervous glance at my menu. Finally, Austin does the same.

“Have you always loved history?” I ask, remembering all of the little historical facts he shared on our tour of the city.

Austin shrugs.

“Did your dad like history stuff, too?”

I can’t quite interpret Austin’s reaction. Finally, he rubs his lips together and shakes his head. “Nope.”

“Your mom?”

Austin holds back a chuckle. “Unless it’s the history of country-fried chicken or the evolution of the oven, she doesn’t care.”

“She likes cooking.” I state the obvious as our waiter sets a basket of corn bread and biscuits on our table, fills our glasses with water, and promises to be back in a flash before rushing back to the kitchen.

Austin pulls a face, not quite a roll of the eyes. “Yeah, she’s a great cook. Anyway, what about your parents, what’re they like?”

The question has the same effect on me every time someone mentions my parents in the present tense, as if they’re both alive. I take a deep breath. “My mom used to dance, too. She majored in nutrition, though. Really into health stuff.”

Austin nods. The thought of my dad weaves a sharp stitch in my heart, so I’m more than happy when our waiter interrupts to take our orders.

“Go ahead,” I tell Austin and glance one last time through the menu.

“I’ll get the shrimp scampi,” Austin says.

“I’ll have the same.”

“You can get whatever you want,” Austin assures me as the waiter leaves.

“Oh, I love shrimp. It was my dad’s favorite, too.”

Austin nods, holding my gaze, no doubt putting it together.
Was.
I said
was
, not
is.
“He was a good man, then.”

I try to smile, but soon the bustling tables around the wood-paneled dining room feel empty, the space silent. “He died,” I say, nervously spinning my glass of water in a slow clockwise motion, “last summer.”

Austin lets a few seconds of silence pass before softly replying, “That . . . sucks.”

Despite myself, I chuckle.

He pulls an apologetic face. “That was so wrong. My bad. I just know the whole ‘I’m sorry’ thing gets old.”

“It does.”

“Not that what I said was any better, but—”

“No, it’s fine.” I laugh. “Actually, it does suck. It really does.”

I hardly notice him leaning forward. Suddenly his hand covers mine so I have to stop spinning my glass of water, his touch electrifying and comforting all at once. “I’m sorry.”

Our gazes lock. I talked a lot about my dad right after he died, mainly with Kyle because my mom couldn’t handle it and neither could Spencer. But I always wondered if Kyle was really listening. He seemed distracted with football or the next party—too happy to entertain the thought of something like death. So eventually, I stopped talking about my dad altogether.

I close my eyes and breathe in to ease the sickening nerves in my chest. “Can I ask you a question?”

Austin leans in. “You bet.”

“When I passed out on River Street and you caught me, how long was I out before I woke up?”

Austin thinks. “Five, maybe ten seconds.”

“Ten seconds!” I exclaim. The entire dream with my dad, seeing him in the garden and talking with him . . . “Wow.”

“What?”

“It felt a lot longer,” I say, entertaining the idea of telling Austin everything: that I passed out twice, and the part about the dream I had with my dad both times.

No way. He’d think I’d gone to crazytown.

“I passed out once,” Austin volunteers when things get a little too quiet.

“Yeah? How?”

“Concussion. During football.”

Kyle got a concussion once, too,
springs to my mind, but I hold my tongue.

“Got a feeling I’m not going to live very long,” Austin adds out of the blue.

“What?”

“It was actually two concussions.”

“
Two?
”

“Yep.”

“Isn’t that, like, dangerous? Three strikes and you’re out?”

“I guess you could put it that way,” he says. “There you have it. My days are numbered. Just a hunch.”

He’s joking, but still, it rubs me wrong. I got way too close to death once, and it made me realize what the will to live can do for someone in dire straits. “Don’t say that. You have to live a long time.”