December 22nd, 2016

Kinsky, California, USA

Pier

Cole waited on the bench outside his house. He had at that point rehearsed many times what he wanted to say, but none of the attempts came out sounding right. He could feel most of his body shaking as the hour that Maria was supposed to pick him up came closer and closer still, and his inner rehearsals became more quick and fragmented. Eventually her car rolled up to the curb, and his mind reset. He would have to do it with no plan.

As he came into the passenger side, Maria looked at him, a large pair of sunglasses on her face. There was a Taylor Swift song playing quietly on the radio, though Cole didn’t recognize which one. The car smelled nice.

“Sorry I’m a little bit late,” Maria commented. Cole didn’t notice that she was. “Just had to do some quick chores for mom.”

“No problem. Honestly, I’m surprised you can even still drive this thing.”

Maria laughed. “I guess you and Lukas didn’t scam me after all, huh? I still have some problems with it occasionally, but I think whatever was the major issue Russell was able to fix it.”

She put the car in drive and began to turn out of the neighborhood.

“So, you thought about what you want for lunch?”

Cole jolted to attention. He had been so busy rehearsing that the thought hadn’t crossed his mind.

“Oh, uh… no, not really. What’s around there?”

“Well, you know, the usuals. We could go to the cafe, but I dunno… we always go to the cafe with the others.”

“You wanna get pizza? There’s a Home Slice over there.”

“Oh, really? And they just do slices?”

“Yeah, it’s like two fifty per. Four if you’re getting a soda.”

Maria considered it. “That’s a pretty good deal. Funny, I’ve never been to a place that just sells slices. It’s always the whole thing.”

“They offer it if it’s a popular dine-in place, usually.”

Maria made a left turn. “So, are they close to the pier?”

Cole thought for a moment. “Yeah, pretty close. We can probably park by it then walk the rest of the way.”

The rest of the ride was mostly quiet, until Maria found the pizza parlor by the shore. There was a small, empty parking lot next to the place that Maria drove into.

“Looks like everybody’s over at the pier,” she said as she got out, taking off her sunglasses and moving her hair out of her face.

“Hope that means there’s no line inside.”

Sure enough, there wasn’t. The two took their pizzas and sat at an empty booth by the window.

“It’s good to finally get a break,” Maria sighed while looking out to the frosty street. “You have any plans for Christmas?”

“Oh, not really. Maybe breakfast with Marion, then I usually do something with Kat and Lukas later in the day. We have a sort of secret santa thing that Kat has been running for a few years.”

Maria smiled. “Not much of a secret santa if it’s just three people.”

“Oh, she does a good job of making it… complicated. It’s a long story.”

The girl turned back towards the window. “I wish I had close childhood friends like you guys. I mean, I’ve kept up with a few of the girls from my gymnastics team on Snapchat, but it just isn’t the same. You, Lukas, and Kat just feel so… close. Like siblings.”

Cole shrugged. “Well… you know. There’s ups and downs. Guess there’s ups and downs among siblings, too.”

“Do you mind if I ask you a sensitive question?”

The boy was a little concerned, but he accepted. “Sure.”

“How do you feel about Kat and Lukas being together now?”

His concern went away. “Relieved. You see two of your best friends hound after each other for years and not say anything, it begins to turn you a bit nutty.”

“You think they were always in love with each other?”

Cole thought about it, taking the time to finish off his pizza. “Lukas, yes – I think so. Kat I’m not so sure about. I’d like to think yes, but… I dunno. Women are pretty unpredictable for me.”

Maria took a bite of her pizza. “Maybe they’re just unpredictable because you don’t try thinking of things from their point of view.”

Cole stood up to throw away his plate. “If only I knew what their point of view was in the first place.”

…

After the two finished eating, they began their walk towards the pier. It was at this point Maria asked one more question.

“Forgive me if you don’t want to answer this, but… do you ever get jealous? Of Kat and Lukas?”

Cole shook his head. “No, not at all.”

“Sorry, that was a stupid question.”

“No, no, I get it. But I’ve never been interested in Kat that way, really. Like I said, she’s always been a sister to me. The responsible one. But I suppose that’s a good thing – if I did there’d be some sort of love triangle, then this would be a completely different type of story.”

Maria smiled at the thought, then turned back towards the coast. “Looks like we made it. Here’s hoping they don’t charge entry tickets.”

They didn’t – in fact, there was no entry at all. They simply walked onto the pier, and saw an array of booths and events not too unlike what was at the downtown square on Halloween. It was during this time of walking around the wooden deck that both teens felt their nervousness spike.

Maria tried to handle her anxieties by talking more often, occasionally interjecting or with a “Haha, look at that,” or a “What do you think of this?”, each moment punctuated with cusps of nervous laughter. Cole, on the other hand, had all but shut down. He nodded or shook his head when asked a question, and did his best to smile when she smiled. But he knew the time was coming up. He came back to his frenzied rehearsing.

At some point, the two stopped by the rail of the pier to watch the seas below. The seas were calm, albeit with the occasional gust of wind which scared away the seagulls and caused a soft tide to thud against the shore. Cole gripped the rail’s laminated plank fencing, while Maria closed her eyes and listened to the vague sounds of the crowd behind them.

“Cole,” Maria finally spoke up, just loudly enough to be heard over the noise of the pier. “I have something I want to tell you about.”

Cole’s heart thudded. His already sweat-balmed palms began to sweat some more. He nodded, with a certain jankiness that gave away his feelings. “I have something to tell you, too.”

Maria’s eyes widened. “Oh, you do?”

There was a certain hopefulness in Maria’s voice, as if she thought they might be thinking of the same thing. Cole knew that to not be true, and so his tone was much more solemn. He relented to his fear.

“You… you go first.”

Maria agreed, and she turned her head up to focus on the endless deep blue of the Pacific. 

“This year has been… unfathomably hard. It’s been the worst year of my life, and will probably forever be that way. Yet every time I felt like I was falling into the abyss, you were there to pick me back up. Every time I was sad, or angry, or upset, you were there to center me. Every time I needed someone to talk to, you were there. And… the more I thought about it, about you being there, about seeing you every day, I realized…”

Maria turned to face the boy. Her eyes gave off the shine of the winter sun with their gentle tear-scented lenses.

“…I think I’m in love with you.”

Cole froze up. In an instant a cold sweat washed over him, and his body went numb. It was as if a bullet had gone right through his heart, and now he was on his last few breaths. He didn’t know what to think. He couldn’t think.

“I… I, I… just…”

The boy struggled to get out any words, as he slowly took a few steps back. Maria’s countenance began to drop.

“Oh, God… I should’ve never said that, should I?”

“No, no, no. It’s not like that, I just… I need to… I’m sorry, Maria. I’m sorry.”

Before any more could be said, Cole rushed back out into the crowd. In a dizzying haze, he ran back and forth, running into others at the festival, trying his best to find his way around. Eventually he came to see the restroom sign, pointing him the rest of the way. 

He walked in and immediately rushed towards the sink, turning it open and splashing cold water on his face, trying his best to get himself to stop hyperventilating and calm down. As he looked up towards the mirror, however, he noticed something. 

It was the same reflection the river had given him in his dreams.