How hard would he fight back, and how long would it take for him to die?
Zip.
Quinn was fucking with my pack.
“What’s this thing you got in here, Billy?”
Fuck.
The lenses.
I whirled back to see what he’d done, but it was too late. Quinn held my wadded-up sock in his damp white hand while he awkwardly pried into the opening, trying to steady the flashlight he pinned under his armpit.
I grabbed for his hands. “Leave that alone!”
Quinn turned away. “Looky here!”
And speaking to no one in particular, like he was making a judgment call for this lightless and fucked-up universe, Quinn said, “We agreed no more games, Billy. I ain’t hiding nothing from you.”
“You’re a fucking liar, Quinn.”
I slashed at him with the knife.
Quinn ducked away from the blade.
As my arm swiped past him, Quinn closed in and grabbed my wrist.
The fucker bit my arm, and I heard the chink of the broken lens when it hit the ground in front of Quinn’s feet.
The next thing I knew, the entire cavern lit up with a fierce blue light.
Quinn had somehow flipped the smaller lens down on the glasses.
He spun around and around, waving the glasses out through the dark, where we could both clearly see them.
Part Four
THE PASSENGER
twenty
Welcome to another not-world, Jack.
I hear Quinn screaming, but that is all. I can’t see him, can’t see anything here.
Open your eyes.
Open your eyes, Jack.
Just screams.
And dark.
I fall.
* * *
The water is cold and salty. It stings my eyes and I am held under by white pillows of foam. I hit the bottom, feel my fingers digging into the familiar grit of sand, coil my legs, and push up toward the light.
When my head breaks the surface, I have one thought: blue.
The sky is blue.
This is it.
* * *
My surfboard’s leash had come unfastened.
Conner picked on me about it. It happened all the time. I needed to get a new leash.
I kicked, took in a deep breath of misty air, and looked back at the face of the wave rising behind me. Conner was at the top, paddling just at the lipped edge of the swell’s peak. He got it. I watched him.
Conner was beautiful and perfect.
There is just this moment when your surfboard bites into the wave.
Conner pulled his arms in and pressed his shoulders up, arching his back like a seal sunning itself, like some carved decorative god on the bow of a warship, and flip! his feet snapped right into place beneath his hips as he pressed the board on a clean and brilliant carve, down and up and down again on the curling hand of the Pacific Ocean.
The Cayucos Pier was our favorite place to surf.
The break here wasn’t that good, but no place needed to be better than this when Conner and I came surfing together.
This was the most beautiful and perfect thing I have ever seen.
This is it.
I want this to be it forever.
I heard my friend whoop and howl as the wall of whitewash came toppling over me and pressed me down again.
I flattened out and kicked toward the shore, stumbling in the shallows to retrieve my board, which had come to rest on a tangle of rust-colored kelp in the shadow of the pier.
Conner watched me.
I imagined his playful irritation at Jack for always fucking up and losing his board. He came out of the water two hundred feet down the beach from me and headed up to the warmth of the sand where we’d left our things.
It was always like this.
It all seemed perfect.
Our clothes and backpacks rested atop the same towels we always used: Conner’s was an old flag he’d stolen right off the pole from a Holiday Inn motel in Las Vegas, and mine was a giant terry cloth Twister game.
This is it.
My clothes.
Conner’s clothes.
Everything was right.
Perfect.
I had no idea how we’d gotten to Cayucos, and I didn’t care.
I was not going to say anything to fuck things up again. I was not going to check my cell phone, or ask Conner what happened after I shattered the lens.
Clack clack, clack clack.
Above us on the beach, two boys were playing with lacrosse sticks, just fucking around, testing each other.
Clack clack, clack clack.
I glanced at them, thought I knew them, but I didn’t want to see. I looked away.
I didn’t care about anything except being here with Conner.
This is it.
Conner was lying on his back, shivering. His hands and feet looked so pale, like pink marble, where they emerged from his black and sand-peppered wetsuit. This was surfing in California.
I dropped my board and sat down next to him.
“I am so happy to be here,” I said.
Clack clack, clack clack.
Conner sniffled. He kept his eyes closed.
“Dude. One of these days you are going to fucking die out there losing your board.”
“Shit.”
Conner wiped his nose with the back of his hand then reached down and adjusted his balls.
“Did you see that last one I caught?”
He looked perfect. This had to be it.
“Sweet ride, Con.”
“Shit yeah.”
I was not going to say anything to fuck things up. Being here was too good.
Conner opened his eyes and propped himself up on his elbows. He was happy. I could see that. There was nothing better than this.
He looked down along the length of the beach. I could tell Conner was thinking about going back in the water.
Clack clack, clack clack.
And Conner leaned against me with his shoulder.
“Dude. Numbnuts. Right hand red.”
“Huh?”
Conner grabbed my wrist. “You’re bleeding.”
I hadn’t felt it at all. Where my hand pressed down into my towel, there was a pool of blood seeping out between my fingers.
Conner turned my hand over in his grasp. Always careful of me, always Conner.
“Shit. You must have got skegged or something.”
I felt sick, drained.
Clack clack, clack clack.
Drip.
Drip.
“You need to get stitches, dude. It’s fucking bad.”
Conner tucked his legs in and pushed himself up to his knees.
I did not want to leave.
Clack clack, clack clack.
My blood was all over Conner’s hands. Of course I knew what it was, but I didn’t want to say it.
Drip.
Conner was scared. “Jack. Lay down. You’re bleeding bad.”
I was being emptied out onto a goddamned Twister game towel.
This had to be it.
I said, “Con, this is home, right?”
Conner twisted the edge of my towel tightly across my palm.
“Dude. Just hold that shut. I’m going to put the shit in your truck, then I’ll drive you.”
He started to gather up the boards and our packs.
Zip.
Conner opened my backpack, looking for the keys to my truck.
Clack clack, clack clack.
“Why can’t we stay here?”
“Dude. You are fucked up.”
I turned my head to look back at Conner. I wanted to cry, to scream. I wanted to grab on to him and beg him to stay there and make this real.
I did not want to look at the kids playing lacrosse on the beach behind us.
Conner said, “What the fuck? What the fuck?”
He pulled the glasses from my pack.
Time to go, Jack.