Page 34 of Written in the Oceans

He chuckles.

“And you’ve read it?” I ask, not even bothering to hide the accusatory tone in my voice.

“Me?” He shakes his head vigorously. “No.”

“And why that doesn’t surprise me.” I poke my finger into his shoulder.

“But…” He trails off, peeking at the spot where the tip of my finger pressed into his hard muscle. “So my mom is obsessed with it. She made my brothers and me watch the movie remake, the one with Mandy Moore, at least every full moon since we refuse to read it. She says she settles for that since she can’t get her boys to read the best romance story of her time.”

I laugh. “She has good taste.”

“She even bought the soundtrack and stuffed it in my suitcase when I moved down here to go to college.”

I giggle through a wide smile. “I can just picture you dancing along to Mandy Moore’s velvety voice while it plays obnoxiously loud over your sound system.”

“My best dance moves are saved for my living room and a hairbrush microphone.”

I laugh. Not the shy kind but the kind where my head tilts back and my hand instinctively covers my mouth.

“Where did you go to school?” I ask when my laugh dies.

“UCLA.”

My eyes boggle. “UCLA? Like the one I’m going to?”

“I’m pretty sure there’s just the one.” He winks.

My brows furrow through my surprised expression. “Oh, I never realized you went there.”

“I didn’t graduate though,” he explains. “My acting career started picking up the following year, so I quit when I couldn’t juggle school and work.”

I hum, acknowledging his words. When he doesn’t elaborate further, settling for silence instead, my curiosity nags at me. “Do you wonder how your life would have turned out if you stayed and finished?”

He nods. “I do. Especially nowadays when I’m feeling more overwhelmed. All the what-ifs kind of fill my time.”

“Those what-ifs can be debilitating. Uncertainty is a scary thing.”

“Yeah,” he huffs.

“I’m actually graduating in a couple of months, and my biggest what-if is… What if when I’m out in the real world, I’m lost? Right now, everything is sort of decided for me. I go to school, to work, to home. But… without school, I–I don’t think I’ll know…” My breath catches at the last word, my throat choking on a knotted ball of fear. “What if everything around me passes by while I stay stagnant? And I don’t go anywhere.”

“Kind of like everyone around you is living their lives, but you’re just at a standstill.”

I nod.

“Yeah,” he whispers, his lips catching between his teeth as his jaw squares. I don’t really know what it means, his uncertain yet affirmative response. All I know is that he seems to understand. Not in a grim, brokenhearted way, but in a way that simply saysEverything you feel, I feel it too.

He looks ahead, eyes serious, and huffs out a sigh before looking back at me.

“I don’t usually keep people close to me,” he says, biting his lip. “They usually don’t understand my life, and everyone involved seems to get hurt. Especially me. People seem to really easily walk away when things get to be too much, and I’ve learned to not get so involved if I can help it.” He swallows, his jaw muscle ticking as his brows furrow deeper. “So I let them… pass through, live whatever life they need to without me. And I’ve learned to never really be a part of anything. Celebrations, birthdays, weddings. They all sort of happen around me without me being a part of it.”

He pauses, lowering his gaze as his eyes scan over the space between us. “I’ve gotten really good at pushing people away. It feels easier that way.”

As he talks, I watch him, trying to remain indifferent. The way he explains his life sounds so isolating. But even as he describes what his life is like, separated from everyone around him, placing them at arm’s reach but never close enough to hold dear, it doesn’t feel like that with me and him. I don’t feel like someone that’s going to simply pass through and move on. Even now, sipping milkshakes and being surrounded by smooth blues and jazz, I can’t believe that I’ve seen this much of him already. In this space in his car, in places that he claims are his hidden gems, or even how he prefers his fries dipped in milkshakes. Those are intimate details, ones that I shouldn’t know, but for some reason, he’s shared with me.

“Sounds kind of lonely,” I finally say.

His expression lightens, a sad smile lifting his lips. “It’s complicated. Let’s just leave it at that.”

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