Summer of Seventeen (31 page)

I read the note again, smiling. I hadn’t accepted a new board from Mr. Alfaro, but this—hell, yeah! I knew it was Sean’s way of apologizing for before.

I sent him a quick text message, but he didn’t reply.

I hurried to take a shower before heading to work. At least now I had a skateboard, I wouldn’t be late.

But as I was pulling on my jeans, I heard voices yelling in the hall. Well, one voice. Camille.

“You are not serious about anything, Marcus. Except surfing. It is like a drug to you. Or … surfing is the problem, but it is also the solution. For you. It is like you are … playing at a relationship. Sometimes I think this.”

“Why are you here, Cam?”

“I saw that girl leaving your room.”

Uh oh.

Marcus’ voice was calm when he replied.

“I didn’t know you were going to be here.”

“It was a surprise. To me as well, I think now.”

“It didn’t mean anything, babe.”

“I would have given you my life! I don’t understand why you have done this.
You have killed our future. You are a … pig!”

And then there was a lot of screaming in French.

I heard the front door slam, and everything went quiet. So I ventured downstairs and nearly tripped over Camille sitting on the bottom step.

From the look on her face she knew that I’d heard everything. I didn’t know what to say to her. We stared at each other for a few seconds.

“Are you okay?” I asked quietly.

She didn’t answer immediately, just looked at me calmly, although her eyes were glistening with tears.

“You could be just like him, Nick. I see it in you. Yes, it’s there. But maybe there’s more, I don’t know. I think you could be more. He could have been more, but chose to be alone.”

I stood uncomfortably, waiting for her to leave. She stared at the front door, but I wasn’t sure she was really seeing it. Then she turned to look at me again.

“He never wanted to be ordinary—whatever that is. Marcus, I mean. He wanted to be a musician. Did you know that? He said he did, but I couldn’t see it. I tried, I did.”

She smiled sadly and looked down.

“I got stupidly cross with him because he insisted he is an artist, and yet the music is never his top priority. I don’t know, but an artist to me is someone who loves it so much they just have to do it. He does it after surfing, screwing and smoking, and it makes me want to smack his face.”

She shook her head.

“He is addicted to this life, this part-time life. Yes, addicted. He says it’s because surfing is the only time he gets peace from the noise in his head, and the pressures of society and other people. He can be out there for nine hours at a time and still doesn’t understand why he has no money, and why he never gets to finish any music. So there is an element of stupidity and denial.”

She looked up to meet my eyes.

“He doesn’t have any roots.”

“Not everyone has large families or people who care about them,” I said carefully.

I’m not sure she even heard me.

“So, why am I telling you this? Because I see it in you, Nick, this addiction.”

I was confused and beginning to feel angry. Who the fuck did she think she was to talk to me like this? She was just pissed and taking it out on me. But no, I wasn’t really so dumb. I knew she was telling me something real—and it scared the fuck out of me. Because she was right, because I felt it, too.

Marcus kept life simple and did things the way he wanted. No one relying on him, no one expecting anything from him. I could see that it made him free. It also made him alone. But as he always said—it was his life.

Camille stood up slowly. “I think he wanted me to find him with that woman. So he didn’t have to make a choice.”

She straightened her skirt and swept a hand through her hair.

“Goodbye, Nick.”

And she walked out.

I listened to the front door slam behind her, and sat down heavily.

When I woke up on Sunday, I was tired from working late at the Sandbar, muscles sore from six hours of standing washing dishes. So I wasn’t in a great mood. Sean had left me a text, reminding me that I’d promised to meet him at the pier for a dawn surf. I wasn’t happy about it, and I’d tried to text him back, but he wasn’t returning my messages or answering my calls, so I had no choice but to go.

I was just glad we weren’t fighting anymore. I rode the Z-Flex to work the night before, and it had been awesome. A really smooth ride. I guess I owed Sean. Mofo knew it, too.

The only good thing about getting up so early for a dawn surf is that cold water is a fast way to shake you awake. Hard to be half asleep when salt water is shooting through your body.

I saw Sean’s car as soon as I arrived at the pier. It was parked at a crazy angle in the lot at the top of the dunes. Surely the dude couldn’t be wasted at this time in the morning? But after the last couple of days he’d had, I guess I couldn’t blame him. Not much surprised me about Sean anymore—because I’d stopped knowing what to expect. Nothing was familiar. It was all changing. We were changing.

It made me pissed that he might have been driving while he was drunk. I hoped not. And he really needed to give up the weed. It was making him a little crazy, and with everything that was going on, he was even more unpredictable than usual.

I walked down to the shore and dumped my skateboard and backpack under the pier, laying my thruster on top, then searching the waves for a sign of him. I squinted into the gray light, the rising sun slowly turning the tops of the waves pink. I breathed in the clean scent of salty air, enjoying the coolness after another humid night of trying to sleep. I searched the line-up, and wondered where the hell he was.

Then I spotted his board half hidden behind a small dune. As I got closer, I could see that it was lying in two pieces. Damn. That was a nice board, too—Quiksilver Pro—about eight hundred dollars worth of shortboard. He must have caught a bad wave and snapped it on the beach break. But it was odd, because the leash was still wrapped around the tail, something we all did to stop it dragging in the sand when you were carrying it. But why bother when it was already broken?

And where the hell was he?

Maybe Sean was taking a leak somewhere in the dunes.

I called his name loudly.

“Sean! Where are you, you crazy fucker?”

But the only reply were the seagulls wheeling overhead.

Damn it! He’d probably gotten wasted again and was sleeping it off somewhere in the dunes.

I searched the beach and wandered along a short distance until I found his backpack, but still no sign of him.

And then…

You know that moment when you feel something is wrong and you have no clue what it could be, but you just
know?
A sensation like iced water was being pumped into my veins began to chill me, and I started to jog across the dunes, calling his name, searching, searching.

And then I saw him, and relief washed through me.

But only for a second. He was lying face down by the shore, and the falling tide was tugging at his boardshorts, his feet moving lazily as if he was dreaming about swimming.

Face down.

I ran faster, calling his name, waiting for him to sit up and laugh his ass off.

But he didn’t. And I ran.

I ran towards him and maybe I was calling his name, I don’t know.

How did this happen? The surf was small today—kids stuff. How? HOW? Sean could have nailed these waves with his eyes closed.

I slid on my knees next to him and grabbed him by his shoulders, rolling him over.

His eyes were open and I knew, I just knew.

I felt for a pulse, trying to see through the haze of tears, but his skin was cold, and I knew. I didn’t want to admit it, but I knew.

And I was on my knees in the wet sand and hugging his cold body against my chest and begging him to wake up, and begging and pleading and promising to be a better friend, promising I’d save him this time if only he would just wake up.

The CPR skills I’d learned came back to me, igniting my brain, making promises I wanted to believe. So I laid him on his back.
Breathe, Sean, breathe
, I begged
. Find the place on his chest, pump eight times, breathe, pump eight times, breathe. Just fucking breathe!

Again and again, I pumped his heart and breathed air into his lungs. I kept pumping and I heard a crack as I broke a rib, but I kept pumping his heart because I didn’t know what else to do.

When my arms were burning, and sweat was running off my body, my own ragged breath roaring in my ears, I stopped.

We stayed there, I don’t know how long. Me crying and begging, him silent and cold.

I stopped.

And nobody came.

I sat there, my body cooling in the morning breeze. But not as cold as his body. Getting colder.

And when I was done and all cried out, I dragged his body up the beach. He was heavy, so heavy, and I pulled and dragged until my frozen limbs were burning again.

And I realized something, why he was so heavy.

The pockets of his boardshorts were full of stones. Pebbles from the beach. All sizes, round and smooth. His pockets were weighted down with stones.

And I knew. I just knew.

He’d walked into the ocean with his pockets full of stones.

Now I knew why he’d insisted that I came to the beach this morning; I knew why he’d made me promise; I knew why he’d texted to make sure I was going to be there. Because he wanted me to find him at the beach, because I was his best friend and this was the last thing I’d ever do for him, for his family, for his brothers. The last act of friendship in this life.

So I reached into his pockets and I pulled out those pebbles one by one. One by one. One by one, until I had a small pile, a memorial in stone. And then I threw them into the ocean, one by one, one by one, one by one. Because Sean was a stupid fucker and a dickhead and an asshole, but he didn’t want his family to know that he couldn’t stand to be who he was anymore—to live his life anymore. But he’d let me know. Just me. His friend. His best friend.

And then I walked to where I’d left my backpack. I walked, because running wouldn’t make any difference now. It was too late. I was too late.

I pulled out my phone and I made the call.

Then I sat in the sand next to his body.

“What the fuck were you thinking, man? I thought we were friends? Why couldn’t you tell me? You should have told me what you were thinking? You could have come live with me and Julia. We’d have figured something out. You didn’t have to fucking kill yourself. Christ, Sean, I would have helped you. I would have. Why didn’t you let me help you? You stupid, thoughtless, fucking prick! You were my brother!”

They sent an ambulance. Too late. Much too late.

The sirens shrieked through the morning air, heads turned and people stared, but I didn’t turn to look at them. A crowd was forming by the pier, and I didn’t turn around. I didn’t turn around when voices called to me or when someone pulled me away. And I didn’t take my eyes from Sean until he was gone, in a body bag, in the coroner’s van: they took him away.

And then there were police. And questions, questions. More questions. And the police officer’s eyes were tired, and I didn’t know if it was because it was the end of his shift, or because now he had to tell a family that their son, their brother was dead.

And when they let me go, after all their questions had been answered again and again, I went home.

Julia went to pieces when she saw me at the door with a police officer. And because I didn’t have any more words, he had to explain to her what had happened—or what they thought had happened.

She hugged me and cried and hugged me again. And Ben was there, saying over and over, “I can’t believe it. I can’t fuckin’ believe it.”

No. Neither could I.

It sucks being pissed at someone who’s dead.

They’ve got a name for people like me—I’m a suicide loss survivor. I guess they have a name for everything.

Except that nobody knew it. I looked it up online: shock, numbness, detachment, confusion, irritability, guilt. Yep, checked those boxes. I couldn’t talk to anyone, so I pushed everyone away.