I Am Grey by Jane Washington
I realised, after passing a few of the houses, that I could see into them—those that still had their lights on. In one, an old man was sitting before the window, a mug of tea on a side table and a book in his lap. He had fallen asleep like that, and I stood, right before his house, my head tilted up to his window, until a young woman approached and laid a blanket across his lap, taking the book away from him. I moved on, then, to the next house and then to the next.
There was one up ahead that appealed to me. It was three stories high, and the lower story had a garden or courtyard of some kind extending from the house. It was enclosed by high trellises reaching all the way to the balcony above, and then higher, to the roof above that. The highest floor had no balcony, because it was a circular room, shaped like the top of a lighthouse. There were circular windows all the way around the room, but no light shining from within. After I noticed the lighthouse-themed feature, I had been drawn to it, but now that I was there, it was another feature that convinced me to stay. The trellises enclosing the back part of the house were covered in vines, providing a thick canopy of privacy.
There was a gate right at the back, leading to the little path that I was on, and I approached it, touching the vines as I went. It reminded me of Nicholai’s father’s restaurant, and I wanted desperately to be on the other side of the gate, as though I would find glittering lanterns and cosy red booths within.
I backed away, letting my hand fall to my side. I wasn’t crazy enough to break into a complete stranger’s private residence and take up on their patio. Not yet, anyway. I turned from the beautiful house and walked toward the cliff’s edge, trying to make out the waves below. There was something calming about that spot, right there. The waves crashed dangerously on one side, and the darkness swallowed the other side. I glanced back toward the lights in the distance, where the strip stretched out along the shore, and then I dropped my head to look at my shoes.
The line was there, too. On my left: civilization. On my right: wildness. I moved to the right, crouching and lowering myself from jagged rock to jagged rock, until I was a foot below the top of the bluff. There was a small crevice in the rock wall where a larger chunk of stone had become dislodged. It was just large enough for me to crawl into, so I did. I shrugged my backpack off, laying on the rock, and curled onto my side, resting my head on my backpack.
It was cold, my body shivering and slightly damp from the sea breeze, but it was also safe. Nobody could bother me there. I drifted off to sleep feeling a sense of calm, and didn’t wake again until the sun was beating down on my face. I could hear the cry of the birds, and the sounds of people below: surfers, calling to each other across the waves. It took me several seconds to crack my eyes open, and even longer to force my cramped body into a sitting position. The rock barely brushed the top of my head.
There were four surfers out on the water. Further down, toward the strip, there were people swimming in the surf, and others laying on the beach. It was a Saturday, I realised. The shops and restaurants were busy.
I shouldered my backpack and climbed my way out of the small alcove, a little more apprehensive of the climb up than I had been of the climb down. The rocks weren’t smooth, and in the daylight I could see the violence that churned below me, water smacking angrily against the cliff face. If I fell, it would probably kill me.
I climbed carefully, testing out each hand and foot hold before I trusted it, and when I pulled myself over the edge and slumped to the grass, I was almost crying with relief. My haven from the night before suddenly didn’t seem so safe.
I stood when I thought my legs would hold me again, and brushed off my clothing. I needed to shower and change, but I no longer had a shower or clothes. I still had my cell phone, if it had battery remaining. I could have called Jean, but I didn’t want to face her questions yet, and I knew that she would have them. Still, didn’t I owe it to her? Some kind of explanation? Wasn’t I her friend?
I pulled out my phone and dialled her number.
She answered after the second ring. “Grey? Are you alright? Where are you? I’m coming to get you.”
“How are you coming to get me? I’m at the beach.”
“I’m stealing Marc’s car. Be right there.”
“Ok—”
She had already hung up. I looked at the phone, a little bewildered, and then a smile started to curve onto my lips. It felt so alien, almost wrong, so I quickly wiped it away.
I liked Jean, I decided.
Despite everything, she still wanted to be my friend. It made me want to try harder, for her. To do better. To be a better friend. I followed the little path back toward the beach, instinctively waiting in the short parkland right before the main surfing area. This was usually where we ended our runs, so it seemed like the right place to wait. I sat on one of the benches facing the beach, my bag sitting on my lap, my arms looped around it. People barely spared me a second glance, but I still tried to make an effort to not look like I had slept outside all night.
I pulled my hair out of its ponytail, running my fingers through it before tying it up again. I ducked into the public bathrooms to splash water on my face and wash my hands. It wasn’t much, but it was the best I could do. I returned to my bench, resumed my position, and became engrossed in watching the waves until Jean appeared.
She was wearing cut-off, high-waisted denim shorts, a loose shirt that ended around her midriff, and her hair was loose, floating in chocolate-coloured waves around her face.
She hesitated when she saw me, but then quickly pulled me into a hug.
“Hey,” she muttered against my shoulder.
“Hey,” I said awkwardly back.
She laughed, pulling away from me and slipping the bag off her shoulder. “I brought you some stuff. There are nicer showers at the other end of the beach, want to walk down there?”
I took the bag from her, slipping the zipper down to glance inside. Clothes, toothbrush, toiletries.
“How did you know?” I zipped it back up.
She shrugged, and we started walking, gravitating toward the sand. We took our shoes off, letting the warmth sink into our feet.
“They told you not to come back, and you didn’t. I waited a while but you never showed. They didn’t ask where you were, didn’t seem concerned about whether you were okay or not. I guess I just assumed that you weren’t going to go back with them. I mean, if you could have lived with them, you would have been, right?”
“Right.”
“Anyway, where did you sleep?”
“Up on the cliffs.”
“Nice view?”
I laughed, surprising myself with the sound. “Yeah. Is Marcus going to be upset that you stole his car?”
“No, he’s trying to make profiteroles. He keeps getting it wrong. He won’t even notice if the world ends around him, he only cares about pastry right now.”
As if on cue, her phone beeped, and she pulled it out of her pocket. I could see the message flash across her screen.
I know you stole my car, asshole. I need more ingredients.
Jean groaned, grabbing my arm and turning us in the other direction. “On second thought, I have a better shower at home anyway—don’t worry, my mom is out.”
I stopped walking, forcing her to slow down. “Do you think we could stay here, just for a little bit?” I asked.
“Sure, he can wait.” She dropped where she was standing, patting the sand beside her.
I placed my bag down, and hers, and then sat, pulling my shirt over my head. She did the same—although she didn’t have a bikini on beneath her clothes like I did. She wore a bright purple bra. Not that anyone cared.
I leaned my head back against my bag while she leaned her head back against her own. Our arms were touching, the backs of our hands brushing. It was nice, the simple contact with someone who cared about me, who felt close to me. She grabbed our hands, interlacing our fingers.
“You know I’m gay, right?” she asked.
“Because I’m silent and sad, so there must be an issue with me. There must be some kind of tortured secret waiting to come out.”
“Oh,” I replied. “I guess.”
She laughed, squeezing my hand. “You’re not going to tell me you’re uncomfortable? You’re not going to ask if I’m into you?”
“Are you into me?”
“Nah, I like Latinos. You’re all blonde and beachy and gross.”
I found myself smiling again, but this time I let it stay.
“Also,” she added, “you’re straight. I like a challenge, but not that kind of challenge. You really never wondered?”
“It doesn’t seem like a tortured secret.” I shrugged against the sand: it allowed my shoulders to sink a little deeper. Sand had now managed to creep into the cracks between our clasped hands.
“You’re the only one who doesn’t seem to think that about me,” she muttered.
I turned to glance at her: she was staring up at the sky, her expression blank.
“I know your tortured secret and it isn’t that,” I told her. “You’re not scared of being gay. You have an eating disorder.”
She blinked. Once. Twice, and then closed her eyes. It was all the confirmation I needed.
“I’m sorry,” I found myself saying. It seemed like a lame offering, after the way I had just dragged out her secret. “You just never eat in front of me. At the hospital, when the nurse and your mom were talking about girls being worried about their weight, you left. When I fainted at your house, you checked out, because you’ve fainted before, too.”
“Just tell me you’re there for me,” she croaked out. “Maybe it’s time I let someone do that for me.”
“I’m there for you.” This was easier to offer than the apology, and I found that I really meant it. “Anything you need.”
“So now that you know my secret ...” she let the sentence trail off.
“They’ll think I did it.” I squinted my eyes and focused on the clouds above. They were huge and fluffy—a pure-white. The weather was beautiful. “The police, I mean. They’ll think I set the RV on fire, it will cause problems because I haven’t been out of the institution that long.”
Jean sat up, and I watched as she tried to brush the grains of sand from her back. She crossed her legs and scooted back a little so that she could see my face, and then she began to play with the sand, scooping it into her cupped hands and letting it trickle through her fingers.
“You never talk about any of it,” she said. “And you don’t have to, but I’m here if you want to.”
“There’s not much to talk about. I was drugged most of the time. They put me in there the week after my parents died. I had spent the night in the waiting room at the police station, and then it was straight to the institution. They allowed me out a few times, for police interviews, to pack up my things at the house. Only a few times, and I was always supervised.
“Why did they drug you?”
“Procedure?” I shrugged as I gave the answer. “I wasn’t a problem. I wasn’t violent. I was just nothing. They drugged me and I became less than nothing. I asked what they were giving me once. They didn’t answer, just handed me my pills and stood there watching until I swallowed them. It was two in the morning and two in the evening.”
Jean was shaking her head. Her hands paused in their scooping motion of the sand and she quickly brushed at her cheek. I realised that she was crying.
“It’s okay,” I told her.
“It’s not,” she countered. “You have family, you had friends. Didn’t anyone come to visit you?”
“Yes, but it didn’t go well. Apparently I started freaking out when they did. I shouted at them, drove them away.”
“You were in pain.”
“That’s no excuse to treat people badly.”
“Did you even know what you were doing?” She shot me a sharp look.
I smiled, but there was nothing funny about her comment, or my answer. “No,” I allowed. “I didn’t.”
“So that’s on them—for not understanding, for not putting in the effort, for not really wanting to help.”
“You don’t think I killed my parents?” The question burst out of me.
She sighed, her hands flattening against the sand. “You don’t seem like a psychopath to me, Grey. You’re never mean to people, just indifferent. You’re a good friend when people give you the chance. And psychopaths don’t fall in love. I read that somewhere. They can’t love.”
“Maybe I can’t love?”
She laughed, flopping back down to the sand and bending her knees, digging her feet in. “You’re already in love, or you’re well on your way to being in love. I’m not an idiot, you know. You disappear to his office. The day you left school without telling anyone, I went to his office to check if you were there. They told me he didn’t work there anymore. You freaked out that day, and bad. I saw you two at the beach after training. I saw the way he looked at you. I saw you come alive right there in front of him.”
“He’s not a possibility. I should be in love with someone else.”
“Well, can you switch it off?”
“You mean can I just stop having feelings for him?” I laughed, but the sound quickly died off.
Could I?
I thought about the way he had first kissed me, in his truck. The raw ownership I had felt as he had tilted my head back and pushed his tongue between my lips. I thought about the bright, almost frightening glint in his eyes right before he tossed me into the ocean. He was kind, dangerous, possessive, giving. Everything about him contradicted, and I was fascinated with the contrast his existence provided the world. He was something rare and beautiful, and he had always felt like something I could never possess, something I shouldn’t even be allowed in proximity to. I couldn’t bare to think of us together, it was too painful, the impossibility of it.
“He’s too good for me,” I muttered.
Jean froze beside me. “That’s bullshit, and I’m not saying that as a friend. He’s gorgeous, yeah, but—”
“I thought you were gay.”
“I’m also into guys, and that guy is from-another-planet-hot, so even if I was purely gay I’d still be allowed to say that.”
“Wait, so you’re bi?”
“Technically, but right now I’m into Latina chicks, like I already said, so right at this second I’m a lesbian.”
I pulled up to a sitting position, my eyes going to her face. “What the hell—” I started, but then I realised that her focus wasn’t on me. Her focus was ahead, toward the surf. I glanced over to where a tanned, dark-haired woman was walking out of the surf in a bright red bikini.
I fell back to the sand, laughing. “I get it.”
She giggled. “Anyway, Mr. Fell—or, I guess he isn’t Mr. Fell anymore. What’s his name?”
“Nicholai.”
“Well, Nicholai is basically a perfect specimen. But those are his looks, maybe underneath it all he’s an asshole and that brings his worth down to like ... a five out of ten. And you? You’re a nine out of ten. I took a point off your score for forgetting about our training date yesterday.”
“Heavy punishment.”
“That’s how I roll, Grey. So, is he an asshole?”
“A little bit, yeah.”
“Does it drag his score down?”
I grinned. “No.”
She groaned. “You’re fucked.”
Her phone rang then, and she fished it out of the pocket of her shorts, squinting at the screen before answering.
“Yo, Marc, what’s up? No, we’re at the store getting your damn potatoes. Oh, I could have sworn your text asked for potatoes. No, we’re not at the beach, I swear. Seagulls? No. You’re hearing things. You can’t feel the sunshine through your phone you damn drama queen. Okay fine, I’ll pick those up, too. Bye, love you.”
She hung up the call and then jumped to her feet, brushing away sand. I stood
“Let’s go.” Jean grinned, looping her arm through mine and pulling me back toward where she had parked.
We felt closer now, somehow. Our shared secrets had formed some kind of bond between us, and it felt nice.
“You know we’re best friends now, right?” Jean asked as we reached the yellow sedan.
I laughed, shocked, unsure if she was joking or not.
“Seriously.” She pulled open her car door, slid inside, and started the engine, waiting until I was seated before she continued talking. “I know your darkest secret, you know mine. We’re best friends. Nobody can break us apart.”
“Aren’t we a little old for that?”
“Never too old for a bestie, Grey.”
I paused for a moment, playing with the hem of my shorts, before I finally looked over at her. I could feel the solemnity sinking into my features.
“You don’t know my darkest secret,” I told her softly.
“Call me reckless,” she shot back. “You’re not a convincing villain.”
Was that a challenge? I thought, before mentally recoiling. Of course it’s not a challenge, you dickhead. Jean was not her brother, and she wasn’t Trip, either. I had to get out of the mindset of interacting with people like them, and start re-learning how to have normal relationships.
The thought shot fear through me, but I swallowed past it, finding my backbone somewhere behind the doubts that wanted to rear up.
Fuck fear. I was stronger than that.
19
Twinkle
We drove in silence to the store: Jean was retreating into herself again. I didn’t want to break through her concentration, it seemed private, in a way, so I turned my attention to the window until the car stopped moving. We grabbed Marcus’s ingredients quickly and were back at their house in another ten minutes. Marcus was in the kitchen, Smith sitting at the dining room table, playing on a tablet.