Only One

The inside is just like I remember it, but smaller. It’s painted in yellows, blues, greens, and peachy colors. And the furniture is just as bright. I walk through and push open the sliding glass door. I step onto the deck and the ocean wind wraps around me, covering me in wet, cool, refreshing air.

I lift my face to the breeze and close my eyes, inhaling deeply. For a second, life is perfect. Then she steps outside with me, and it’s not.

I walk down the steps that lead to the ocean and let my feet sink into the sand. I hear the sliding glass doors close behind me with a slight bang. She’s gone back inside. Good. I walk down to the shore until the sand starts to suck at my feet.

This place used to be magical. But now it’s just that place that belongs to my mother.

The saltwater laps at my shins, tugging me in with its greedy grasp. Maybe if I just try to focus on the ocean, I can make this work. This trip doesn’t have to be about her. It can be a little about me, too, can’t it?

I turn and look back at the house. The light in the living room goes off. What? I start back in that direction and open the sliding glass door. My mom’s bedroom door is closed. She just went to bed?

“Good night, Patty,” I whisper, throwing up my hands.

I take a quick shower and go to my old room. The sheets are folded up on the bed, so I put them on it and then slide between them in a T-shirt and my underwear. I can’t believe she went to bed without a word to me. Then I remind myself that I’m not supposed to care.

###

I wake up the next morning and stumble into the hallway. I can smell coffee brewing and I walk toward it. If there’s one thing I get from my mother, it’s the love of the coffee bean. I’ll take it iced, brewed, instant, or any other way you want to present it, as long as I can have some. As though on auto pilot, I walk toward the kitchen.

I hear shuffling and see that the fridge is open and someone is rummaging around in it. She’s wearing jeans? At the beach?

But then the person stands up, and it’s not my mother at all. He’s blond and tall and he’s…not my mother. His eyes go wide for a second and he freezes. Then they start to take a lazy slide down my body. My seriously under-dressed body.

I cross my arms in front of my chest, since I’m not wearing a bra. “Who are you?” I ask. I step behind the counter, trying to put something between me and him as I tug on the hem of my T-shirt.

His brows shoot up. He has the end of a cheese stick hanging out from between his lips. He bites down hard and chews for a second with one eye closed. Then he grins. “How quickly she forgets,” he says. He hitches a hip against the counter and looks at me. There’s a quirky grin on his lips and I find myself wanting to smile along with him. Well, I would if I wasn’t wearing just my undies.

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

It hits me like a ton of bricks when I realize who he is. “Nick?” I gasp out.

He grins and I know I got it right. How I missed it to begin with, I’ll never know.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

He points toward the door. “I came to mow the grass, and your mom was on her way out the door for chemo, and she said to help myself to some food. So I did.” He smiles again.

“She’s gone?”

He nods, a curious expression on his face. “To the hospital. A friend picked her up.”

“Oh.” I play with a loose thread on the sleeve of my shirt, because I don’t know what to say to him.

“She’s not well, huh?” he asks. His gaze is curious, though. Not sympathetic.

“Guess not,” I say.

He holds out his half-eaten cheese stick. “Want some cheese?”

“Ew. No thank you.”

His eyes narrow. “I seem to remember that once upon a time we swapped more spit than there is on this cheese.” He laughs as heat creeps up my cheeks. “Are you aware that you’re in your undies?” he asks.

“I was kind of hoping you weren’t aware of it, actually. I didn’t know anyone was here.”

He points to his face. “And you have pillow marks on your face.”

I scrub a hand down my cheek. I probably have dark rings of old mascara under my eyes, too.

His voice softens. “And you’re hot as hell looking like that,” he says quietly.

My heart trips. “God,” I breathe.

He grins. “Got to get to work,” he says. He shakes his cheese at me. “I’ll be seeing you around.”

“Okay,” I say quietly with a wave.

He laughs as he slams out the door. I hear some rattling and then the mower starts up. I sink onto a barstool. Crap. That wasn’t how I’d hoped that would go. Seeing Nick again, I’d hoped to be pretty. And put-together. And better than the last time he saw me. But I was none of those things.

I was just me. And just me isn’t enough to keep anyone around.

I pour some coffee and take it to my room. My reflection mocks me from the dresser mirror. Indeed, I do have dark shadows of mascara under my eyes, and my hair looks like rats have crawled into it and taken up residence. God, why does it have to happen like this? Why couldn’t I have known he was here so I could be prepared? And why is he mowing our grass? And why didn’t my mother tell me she was going for chemo?

I wash my face and brush my teeth, and then put on a bathing suit. I’m at the beach, and I fully intend to take advantage of it. I have no idea when my mother will be back. I take a bottle of water, a shirt, and a towel and settle on the beach so I can begin to get my summer tan on. It’s windy on the beach, so I lather myself in sunscreen. The sun can be deceptive even when it doesn’t feel as hot. I lie back and close my eyes. The warmth of the sun seeps into my skin, and I feel all loose and languid in no time.