Page 57 of Swept Away

Her eyes are fixed on my face.

“But…”

“But?” she says, her voice barely a whisper.

“One of the things I worry about is that I’ll…mess them up. I tend to mess stuff up.”

Lexi frowns, lifting her head from my lap and straightening to sit against the sink.

“What does that even mean?” she asks.

“Like…I’m kind of stupid.” I cringe, closing my eyes, tipping my head back to the wall again. “I never live up to people’s expectations. It’s OK, I’m used to it. But I wouldn’t want my kids to be disappointed in me.”

Lexi doesn’t speak for so long that I open my eyes to check she’s not fallen unconscious or something.

“Did you mean all that?” she says, disbelieving.

I stare at her. “That’s what…yeah. Yeah, I mean it. I’m not looking for you to make me feel better about it or anything, I just…”

“Zeke. You are not stupid. Oh myGod. Did you see the contraption you built to collect us water? You thought of that in half a second. You’ve been so brilliant and inventive surviving out here with me—you’re the ideas person. You’re the one who figures everything out.”

I close my eyes again. It feels so, so good to hear her say that. Just like when she called me clever at The Anchor. And I want to believe it so badly. But I’m not the ideas person. As a kid, I was the tagalong, doing whatever Jeremy and Lyra told me to—whatever it would take to fit in. Until it became clear that I never would, and then I just tried not to mind.

“I’m really not, but it’s cool. I’ve made peace with who I am,” I say. “Velvet trousers, remember? I don’t mind being a bit different.”

I can feel the embarrassed thumping of my heart in the flesh of my wound.

“We don’t need to talk about all this,” I say, forcing myself to open my eyes and look at her.

She’s bracing herself against a wave of nausea that I can almost see moving through her. She shakes her head, frustrated, taking another moment to collect herself.

“Everything you’ve told me about your life,” she says, “it doesn’t sound like you let people down. It sounds like you’ve not found people who make you feel like you’re enough.”

“Nah, I…” I trail off.

Because she’s named it exactly. That quiet sadness in the back of my mind. The certainty that there’s no way to make myself into the right shape to fit in. I don’t remember ever feeling any other way—except lately. With Lexi. As terrifying as life is out here, I’m not straining to live up to something or acting out before I have the chance to disappoint. I don’t get that nagging sense that I’m just not quiteright.

She makes me feel at ease.

“That was…deep,” I say, tipping her a look. Trying not to let her see how much she’s shaken me.

“I know,” she says, raising her hands to run her fingers through her hair, beginning to work on some of the tangles. “It’s the wisdom of age.”

“Lexi…”

“Mm?”

“You’re not that old.”

“I feel ancient,” she says, dragging the word out. “Especially right now. I feel like they took eighteen-year-old me and put her through one of those old-fashioned coffee-grinder things.”

“What was eighteen-year-old you like?”

“Sharp. No bullshit. A woman who got things done.”

“Sounds like thirty-one-year-old Lexi.”

“No, no. Thirty-one-year-old Lexi is jaded and insecure and tired.” Her eyelids are drooping.

---