Page 6 of Just Try, Again and Again

“Thanks for the ride, man!” Bryce says to his friend, Cameron, as he holds onto me, making sure I don’t fall on the ground. Cameron gives us both a wave and drives off.

Bryce’s hands are both on my hips now and his eyes are staring into mine. For a second, I thought he was going to kiss me, but instead of opening his mouth and tilting his head so his lips can meet mine, he is parting them to speak. “Are you okay? I’m sorry my friends pressured you into smoking pot.”

“It’s fine. Are you okay, though? Because you’re worse off than me. You couldn’t even walk in a straight line by the end.”

“I’m okay, Haruki.” He smiles, showing me his perfectly aligned, perfectly white teeth.

When Bryce doesn’t say anything else, I start looking for my key in my bag, shuffling things around until I feel the outline of the shrimp-shaped keychain attached to it. I take the key out and lift it up, showing him that I will be going in soon.Unless you say something, Bryce Randall Simmons. “Thanks for letting mecome to your senior farewell party. And thanks for today. How are you going to get home? You can’t drive like this.”

He pauses before answering. “I’ll walk,” he says casually. “I don’t live that far from here.”

I feel my heart slowly sinking, but choose to save my dignity instead. “Ok, bye-bye then,” I say, waving him my hand with my keys dangling from my finger.

Bryce says goodbye and turns his back to me, walking in the opposite direction from where Cameron’s car was going.Guess this is it.

Just as I am about to turn the doorknob, I hear him calling me. “Haruki, hey, wait up!” I turn around to find him jogging toward the bed and breakfast, the collar of his shirt flying against the wind. “Do you mind if I crash here tonight? It seems like I’m too drunk to walk, after all.”

Biting my bottom lip, I try to hide my smile from him. I give him a nod and open the door, letting him go in first. We walk silently to my room. It’s two in the morning and I don’t want to wake anybody up. There are only four rooms here and one of them belongs to the owner. I can’t afford to get kicked out of this place. As dodgy as this is, it’s the only accommodation available in Elsham Cove that is not a hotel, a villa, or a beachside resort. Bryce was right. The more time I spend here, the more I realize that this town’s clientele isn’t exactly eighteen-year-olds who are running away from their problems. It’s families and couples looking for weekend getaways.

“I’m in the shrimp room,” I whisper, pointing at the door with an animal symbol matching my keychain. When he smiles, I playfully roll my eyes.

“What?” he asks defensively. “It’s cute.” He shoves his hands inside the pockets of his shorts and follows me inside, closing the door behind him.

I walk directly to the desk that’s in the corner of the room to put my camera down. I’ve been lugging that thing around the whole day and my neck hurts. From behind me, I can hear Bryce chuckling.

“I thought you said this wasn’t a date?” he asks.

“Sorry?”

“When I texted you. You said it wasn’t a date.” My eyebrows scrunch together.Just how high and drunk is he?Bryce’s index finger points to the pile of clothes on the floor and the ironing board next to it, then the biggest grin forms on his face. “People don’t usually pick apart their luggage and iron their dress if they’re not going on a date.”

“How do you know I don’t iron my clothes every day?”I don’t.

“You booked a spontaneous plane trip with no return ticket to a local tourist destination,” he says, one of his eyebrows cocked upward. “Your hair is half-green, half-black. You’re a backpacker. I met you in the middle of the night, wandering alone on a beach because you wanted to capture the sunrise with your camera. Something tells me you’re not the type of girl who irons dresses on a daily basis.”

When I don’t answer, Bryce continues to speak, the grin on his face turning smug. “Haruki, did you get ready this morning with the intention of looking pretty for me?”

My cheeks are burning. I mumble inaudible sounds, trying and failing to play it cool. I can feel the sweat dripping from my forehead and my hair sticking to my temples. How can I answer this question without admitting that I might have a tiny crush on him?

“I’m flattered,” he says as he makes his way to sit on the floor next to the messy pile of clothes. “And for the record, I already thought you were pretty when we met on the beach. You know? When you were wearing the Elsham Cove T-shirt andsweatpants without any makeup on.” I’m about to say something when Bryce interrupts me. “I put on these boat shoes for you. I’m usually a sneakers type of guy, but I really wanted to impress you today.”

“I think you impress girls just fine the way you are, Bryce,” I tell him. “Or did you not see the girls at the party shooting death glares at me the whole time we were there? I didn’t take you for a jock.”

I kneel on the floor and put the clothes back in my backpack one by one. Bryce starts helping me, handing me the things that are nearer to him than me. “I’m not,” he says as he hands me my linen shorts. “I play a bit of tennis and football, but that’s it. I’m not crazy about it. Not great at it, either. The guys that were talking to me at the party are people that I’ve known all my life. My dad made me sign up for a bunch of different sports when I was younger to keep me busy, so I know them all by default. It’s a small town.” He shrugs. “There’s not a lot to do here.”

“Do they know about your nighttime hobby?”

“Nobody knows except for you, Haruki.”

“I had a good reason to be on that beach, but why were you there, Bryce?” I hesitate before asking my next question. “Why were you crying?”

Bryce’s lips thin and his gaze narrows. He must have thought I didn’t hear the sob. With nobody else awake and barely any cars driving through, the sound of him crying was clear as day. The truth is, I wasn’t trying to run away from him because I was afraid of him. I was trying to run away from him because I knew he needed that moment. Whatever he was flushing out of his system, it needed to be expelled from his body. And judging by how he interacted with the people at the bonfire tonight, Bryce is not the type of person to talk to his friends about whatever is bothering him.

“You didn’t tell me you saw that.” His voice is so soft that I struggle to understand what he’s saying.

“Are you okay?” I ask. It shouldn’t matter to me. He’s just some town local. I probably will never see him again after today, but he deserves this from me.

He rubs his face with his hand and his gaze softens. “Yeah, it’s nothing. My dad told me the other night that he’s engaged to some woman he met a few months ago. She and her daughter will be moving in with us soon, which is funny, since my dad doesn’t even spend that much time at home. Essentially, they will be moving in with me. So, I guess that was his heads up.” Bryce pauses to take a long breath, his eyes turning glassy. “It’s dumb, but in moments like these, I just miss my mom. She died when I was really young. I don’t even remember her, so I don’t even know who I’m missing.”

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