“You’re a better man than I deserve,” Tami said.
“You’re only now figuring that out?” I asked with a nervous laugh.
I heard her take a deep breath. Was she crying?
“You okay?” I asked.
“I guess I’m just realizing what a truly terrible decision I made last summer. When you talk like this, it makes me think I’m the one who needs to grow up. I hope you realize that it was never you not being enough. You’ve always been enough if I’d been honest with myself. I see now I was so unfair to you. I just hope there’s a time we can actually have a ‘someday,’” she said.
“Something I’m starting to see is the long game. If what Mom and Coach Haskins said is true, then we should focus on having fun in high school. If that means you go out and find a boyfriend, so be it. All I can say is if we’re meant to be, it’s not going to happen anytime soon. I look at what you did to me over the summer as a favor. We would never have survived what I’ve gone through the last few months. I’m glad not to have a serious girlfriend right now. I’m still trying to get used to what it means to be famous.”
“What do you mean?”
“A good example happened today. I slept with a girl who has to be six or seven years older than me.”
“Slut.”
“Yeah, that too. The point is most teen boys would never have a twenty-something girl offer to have sex with them.”
“You’re right. We would never have survived all that.”
I laughed.
“Why did I just tell you that? What were we talking about?” I asked.
“Alan,” Tami said and sighed. “I really am trying to not tell you what to do. I need to trust you to make your own decisions.”
“Then do, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear your opinion.”
“Point taken. Look, Alan has changed, and not for the better. The night Brandon drugged us, Alan was all over me. At the time, it felt wrong. Later, I actually thought he might have raped me. Like you, I’ve had my doubts about his friendship. I think we’re both hanging on to the ten-year-old Alan and ignoring who he is now. I don’t plan to not hang out with him now and again, but I also don’t plan to make a point of it.”
“What about the talk I had with everyone at Monical’s? Do I still include him?” I asked.
“I think you care enough to help him achieve his dreams. But I don’t suggest you have to bend over backward to help him get there. Point him in the right direction and set him free.”
“I can do that.”
“Also, he needs to learn shit has consequences. Stop covering for him. He needs to learn to stand on his own.”
“What if he gets his ass kicked?” I asked.
“How long has he had that coming?”
“Wow.”
“Well, don’t let them kill him.”
“Got it.”
“Go have fun. Tell Brook that she needs to take some pictures with your face in them.”
I could only imagine.
◊◊◊ Sunday March 27
“David Allen Dawson!” Mom barked.
Ava jerked her hand back. I’d told Mom I would show Ava my butt.
I’d gotten up early and swam to shore for a run on the beach. When I came back, I noticed Ava checking me out, and no one else was around. I told her I worried I might be getting too much sun and pulled my shorts down on my left buttock so she could see my tan line. I’d asked her if my skin felt hot. That was when Mom showed up.
I decided not to try to explain, based on the look Dad gave me when he came up the stairs. Instead, I walked down to my stateroom and took a long shower. When I came back up, everyone was gone except Brook, who sat at the table, eating an omelet.
“You have to stop teasing my mom,” Brook said.
I simply shrugged and grabbed a glass of orange juice. Sophie brought me a bacon and Swiss omelet. While we ate, Captain Eric sailed us to the dive site. All our gear was laid out and ready for us. I’d brought my surfing wetsuit jacket. The water was eighty degrees, but as you dove deeper, it got colder.
We were diving at Cow and Calf Rocks. With a maximum depth of thirty-five feet, we didn’t have to worry about it being a hard dive, but it was deep enough to cut our teeth on. The attraction of the spot was that there were tunnels and some large caves.
Captain Eric put out a dive flag to indicate we would be in the water. There were a few other boats around because this was one of the prime diving spots around St. Thomas. Brook and I jumped in, made sure everything worked correctly, and then headed down. The first tunnel we found was more of an arch. Being claustrophobic, I’d not really been thrilled about diving tunnels, but Brook seemed excited.
All the fish and colors made up for any discomfort I had. Then Brook spotted another tunnel and shot into it. We’d been taught not to leave your dive-buddy, so I gamely entered the mouth of the tunnel. This one was a little different, though, much narrower and darker. You could barely make out a light at the other end. This passageway reminded me too much of a death trap, and I tried to grab Brook’s fin to stop her, but just missed.
Another problem there was a current flowing through the tunnel that seemed intent on pushing me against the walls. Unlike the rocks on the surface that were smooth, these were rough. I ended up using my hands to keep myself off the ever-closing walls, and I noticed my hands were bleeding. Great! My next big role would be as shark food.
I watched Brook shoot out into the light. The tunnel had narrowed down to the point where I became stuck. I mean, seriously, I was stuck! Ever have your vacuum cleaner suck up a sock? The engine whines and seems to lodge the sock in the tube. In essence, I was the sock that the current suddenly pushed against. Brook saw my dilemma, and her solution was to pull on my arm. That didn’t help, it just hurt.
I calmed my mind and remembered what we’d been taught. If you were in a tight place and got stuck, the first thing you tried was to take off your tank. I pushed back just enough to get room to unlatch my harness, wiggle it over my head, and hand it to Brook. Next, I took off my weighted dive belt. That gave me enough clearance to worm through to freedom.
Brook asked with hand signals if I wanted to head up, but I figured this was just part of the fun, so I put everything back on. We found a group of sea turtles and followed them to another rock grouping that was alive with fish. It made me appreciate the allure of a salt-water aquarium. Out of nowhere, what seemed like a wall of baitfish surrounded us. There had to be thousands of them. It took my breath away as they darted around us; then suddenly, like a cloud front, they passed. I decided right there we had to get an underwater video camera.
We started to get low on air, so we returned to the boat. Captain Eric let us borrow his camera that also took video under water. We dove three more times. We had fun exploring some old wrecks from World War II. Brook respected my fear of tight places and didn’t make me go inside the boats. Soon it was time to go meet our families for lunch.
◊◊◊
“What’s with the glasses?” Ava asked me.
“My security people gave them to me. It’s a bodycam,” I explained, then took them off and showed her the concealed camera.
“Didn’t they have something more attractive?”
“They gave me several different items, but this was the easiest to grab. I’ll show you my other options when we get back to the boat.”
The girls had picked a place on the beach to eat at. Dad and Ian had suggested the country club, which I thought sounded good, but we got outvoted. Later, however, I was glad because I had a grouper jerk sandwich that was out of this world. The grouper held up well to the jerk seasoning.
Cassidy was the wimp of the group and had a hamburger. I did get her to try a bite of my sandwich. That turned out to be a mistake because she wouldn’t give it back. I didn’t feel up to fighting her for it. That, and I didn’t want to be seen in public, getting my ass kicked by a little girl. The burger wasn’t bad, either.