Page 92 of Lost and Found

A little stupid, maybe. Like maybe I spilled my guts too much or came on too strong.

No, this is fucking ridiculous. I know I didn’t hallucinate how that night felt. I get that girl relationships tend to be a little more complicated, but I can’t understand why Merritt having a crush on my dumb ass in high school would make something between Bea and me wrong, presently. I’d like Bea to help me understand, if that’s even the case.

“All right. No offense,” Micah says with a beleaguered sigh. “But Ellis is already a sad sack, and shit between him and Wren feels weird to be around. And I’ve only got one more night at home before I have to go back, whereIwill probably end up being the sad sack myself. I’m gonna go to Sage’s. Call me if you or anyone around here stumble upon some cheer.”

“Shit. Sorry, Micah.”

He tugs me into a half hug, and we thump one another on the back. “Just call me if you want to go out or something, man. It might be time to take the hint.” Another hard thump. “It’s your birthday, for fuck’s sake.”

“Yeah, I got it. Stay safe, okay?”

“Will do. See ya.”

Micah shuffles off, and I plop into a bench on the perimeter of the park, watching the waves and trying not to feel bad that I wasn’t the company my brother needed. I’ll make it up to him next time.

I don’t know why I can’t let go of one damned night, or this one girl from this one small town. I know how to figure out what people want from me and how to give it to them, so I know I could go on and have plenty of fun with someone else if I tried. But spending time with Bea that night, with all her attention trained on me and mine on her . . . that had been a different sort of fun. It felt like confirming something that had been there all along. It’s how I imagine being with a best friend you also want to fuck would feel, and even if Bea didn’t want sex, I would still want that friendship.

Fuck, I have to push off from the bench and start walking around again.

I want to hang out with Bea some more and come up with stupid questions to ask her. A billionwould you rathers and her theories on alien abductions. Play board games I typically hate. Find out her favorite movies and books and do an exchange. Is she a cat person or a dog person, or is she like me in that she thinks people can be both? Does she like white lights or multicolored at Christmas?

Why am I doing this? I’m holding on too tight again. Getting way too ahead of myself.

I yank open the door in front of me unseeingly and let my eyesight adjust to the change in brightness inside. I’ve wandered into O’Doyle’s on autopilot, it seems.

My eyes catch on the canoe suspended from the ceiling—the wishing canoe Bea told me about. It suddenly feels like the most logical thing in the world to channel all of this into a wish and leave it up to something else. Something that is not me. The universe or fate or whatever.

Yeah. That’s exactly what I’ll do. I’m going to make a wish that, somehow, Bea and I end up together. I don’t know how it’ll look, and I don’t need to. Maybe all we can ever be is friends. Maybe more.

Hopefully more.

How specific does one need to make a wish? Can I throw in hoping that she gets whatever she hopes for? Can I wish for Merritt to get better, too? I guess I’ll try for all of it, and I’ll be quick about it while the area around the register is unmanned.

I start digging in my pockets and have the depressing realization that I don’t have my wallet. I’d been too stuck on having my phone, I guess. Dammit.

I do have one thing of value on me, though. The chain I always wear that once belonged to my mom. I unclasp it and let it pool in the center of my palm.

A small, hysterical laugh flies out of me. I am a twenty-four-year-old man making a birthday wish for a girl.

Fuck it. Maybe it being my birthday and this chain being my mom’s will give the wish some extra magic.

I clasp it in my fist and try to sharpen the image in my mind, but it never quite gets there. I wish for too many things and toss the little rope of gold up into the canoe.

When I make my way back out of the store, my phone starts to ring.

CHAPTER 36

Now

Bea

Life does not suddenly, miraculously get easier. Our jobs don’t fade away, and I don’t become the world’s best, most energetic, and unaffected pregnant woman overnight. But our days and nights are filled up with so much good that it’s hard to feel too bogged down. We’ve still got the weight of our heavy things and grief has days where it goes lopsided on me, but it’s worth it.

It took about a day for us to get out of the house to look inside the canoe at O’Doyle’s, where I found a whole assortment of things while Silas grumbled below me, clutching onto the ladder with a white-knuckled grip. I found coins, paper airplanes, pencils and pens, folded-up paper birds, a baseball, brochures, flyers, a deflated balloon, and a dusty old ball cap. And, of course, a gold chain. I looked over each thing and tried to imagine what story might be behind it or what small moment brought it there. After safely descending the ladder, I passed Silas his chain with a lump in my throat and smile on my face, and said,“I know how to do the last thing on the list. I know what to put Merritt’s name on.”

It took almost no convincing when I asked Martha if we could paint Merritt’s name onto the canoe itself. A permanent fixture in our town for locals and tourists to see. I like to think that ifit’s possible, her energy is still here looking out over everyone, granting wishes where she can.

The first time Silas and I hear our baby’s heartbeat, I get what he meant about classical music. That sound . . . It’s music without words, and my mind sprints through a million imagined stories and just as many memories all at once. Silas holds our clasped hands to his lips and laughs wetly like he’s doing the same.