Page 60 of Find Me in California

“Doesn’t make it untrue. You’d like June. She’s radical.” The crystal drops against her chest, and she gives him the joint, rolls onto herside. Hair flows over her breast. He tucks the wayward tresses behind her shoulder and glides a knuckle across her nipple, watching the bud tighten.

They’ve been awake several hours, staring at the ceiling as they pass her weed back and forth while discussing the most random facts. Until a few minutes ago, he didn’t know peaches were in the rose family or that a sunflower isn’t just one flower, but a thousand individual flowers. She hasn’t nudged him about his mom or grandmother since they left the pool, but he hasn’t stopped thinking of either despite his efforts to get his mind off them. He and Magnolia collapsed, exhausted, at four thirty this morning, only for him to wake at eight eager to bury himself in her again. She’s been willing and giving, and he can’t get enough of her. But it’s more than a physical relief he craves with her.

Warm fingers gently touch his rough jaw. “Where’d you go?” Magnolia brings his mind back to the room. An old Bogart movie is muted on the TV. Morning light spills across the bed, highlighting the fine hairs on her arms. They glisten like dew. Thoughts tumble over each other in his head to land solidly on his mouth.

“I was thinking about why I’m here, and ...” He pauses, swallows. “Why I can’t seem to leave,” he says with a tight chest, and he’s back there again, treading beneath the surface of his memory: the pitch-black sky and inky, cold water. The tang of rotten fish and cool metal of the boat. The infinite stretch of silence behind the steady lap of water. The outline of his mom’s body sinking into the abyss.

“When I was sent to live with my grandmother after my mom died,” he hears himself explaining, “she asked me what happened. Elizabeth knew the basics, that she’d drowned and I had been in the skiff with her. My neighbor must have told her, or the coast guard, I can’t remember. But she wanted details. Things like the last thing my mom said, why we were in the boat in the first place, how we managed to get so far from shore, where were the oars, how did she fall overboard, did I jump in and try to save her. On and on and on. I was alreadyreeling from my dad’s death. He was lost at sea during a storm. They never found him.”

“Matt,” he hears Magnolia whisper. He feels the warm press of her hand over his, and it breaks the levee.

“I was in shock,” he continues, unable to stop the words from flooding his mouth. “I couldn’t tell her. I didn’twantto tell her. Talking about it made it more real. It meant my mom was really gone. Elizabeth tried a few times to get me to talk, but I was stubborn. I really hated being there with her, and she wasn’t too thrilled having me, especially since I was tight-lipped about what happened. So she decided that since I wouldn’t talk to her about my mom, I wasn’t to talk to her at all. Unless spoken to, of course. Oh, and that it was my fault my mom died.”

“She didn’t.”

“She did.”

“And then she neglected you.”

“Pretty much.” He takes a long drag on the joint. “Her form of punishment, I guess. Kind of messed me up.” Though he was already well on his way after losing his parents within a month of each other.

“You’ve never talked to anyone about this, have you?” He shakes his head.

“Why me?”

“Because I don’t think you’re real.” He gently pokes her sternum to punctuate each word. Nobody cares how he feels. She can’t be real.

He wants her to be real.

Her delicate laugh sounds like a wind chime. “I’m real. You’re talking to me, aren’t you? And stop changing the subject. You always do that.”

“Right.” He clears his throat and flips his hand. “Ask away. What’s your question?”

“Not a question. Just an observation.”

“What’s that?”

“You haven’t grieved, not really. No wonder this trip is hard.”

“What’s the point of grieving if I can’t stop once I start?” He gives Magnolia a hit, takes one for himself. A tin of edibles sits open between them. An almost-empty half liter of Jack leans against her hip. He takes a swig of courage. “That saying about time healing all wounds is bullshit.” He rolls to his back and stares at the ceiling.

“Okay, let’s say I agree with that, and I think I do.” She leans forward to peer down at him. “Grief is for life, but it’s a process. Time won’t make it go away, but conversation could soften the edges.”

“What are you saying?” He turns his head to look at her, meeting her blue-gray eyes.

“Talk about it with your grandmother. Tell her what happened. What she did to you was wrong. I mean, you were what—ten? Talking might make interacting with her more bearable.”

A short laugh escapes him. “Yeah, right.” Elizabeth might have something she wants to share with him about his mom. It’s what finally motivated him to agree to help her move. But an iron vise tightens around his chest at the very thought of going into specifics with her about his mom’s death. To relive that night in real time? No thank you.

Magnolia rolls to her back and joins him in staring at the ceiling, which kind of gives off the same effect as if they’re talking on the phone. He can feel her, but he can’t see her, making his next admission come easier.

“You were right last night. I have made a conscious effort not to fall in love. I tend to push people away.”

“You aren’t pushing me away.”

No, he isn’t, not anymore, and he frowns at that.

“Are you afraid?”

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