“Are you guys heading down to the beach party?” Lisa asked me as Maisie and I prepared to leave work.
It was the last Saturday of August, and there was going to be a big end-of-summer party at the beach, one last blowout before school started up again after Labor Day.
“You bet,” said Maisie. “It’s going to be super fun!”
“Why don’t you come with us?” I asked Lisa. “It’ll be packed. Jay and Diana are already there. You could bring Ken.”
“You’re sweet,” she said, “but it’s his last shift, so we’re going to go hang out together somewhere.” She flashed me a genuine smile, and I felt a pang of sadness that things had ended up this way.
“You never know,” she said, “maybe we’ll show up later on.” I doubted it. Ken obviously thought he was way too cool to hang out with us.
“I don’t understand what Lisa sees in Ken anyway,” Maisie told me as we crossed the road and headed through the sand dunes toward the far end of the beach. “He’s such a jerk!”
“Yeah, no kidding.”
“She and Kierce were weird too, I never understood them being together. Maybe she just likes to test out different kinds of guys.”
“Who knows?” I said. I’d given up trying to understand what Lisa was looking for.
“So you’re still not talking to him?” Maisie asked.
“Kierce? It’s more like he’s not talking to me.”
“All because of the Lisa thing? That’s so stupid. There must be something more to it than that.”
“Like what?”
“Who knows, but it’s obviously not your fault that Lisa was screwing around with Ken. I don’t know why he’s punishing you.”
I wondered if she was right. If something else was bothering Kierce, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it would be.
“Hey,” said Maisie, “do you want to go up into the sand dunes and have a drink before we head down to the party?”
We scrambled up into the dunes and set ourselves up in a hollow surrounded by sea grass. From where we sat, we could see down the beach toward the already growing bonfire. Thick clusters of clouds drifted lazily across the moon, and the tide kept up a steady rushing pulse. Sitting there with the sea air wafting up into my nose, I wondered how I would ever leave this place. For a few moments, it was hard to imagine anywhere more perfect on Earth.
Maisie had arranged for her cousin to buy some booze for us, and I was pretty happy when she opened up her backpack and pulled out a big bottle of Raspberry Comet Cooler. She cracked it and took a swig, then passed it to me.
“Sorry, I’m sure you’d rather have beer.”
“I don’t mind. This is fine. I actually prefer this stuff.”
We passed it back and forth between us for a while, not saying much. Off in the distance, the bonfire had grown. We were well hidden in our perch, but we could see people making their way along the beach toward the fire, unaware that we were only a few feet away from them. The light from the bonfire flickered at us through the darkness. The wind picked up, and it started to get colder.
After a while, I asked her, “Do you think we should go down to the party?”
“Let’s just stay a few minutes longer.” She lay down on the sand and I followed, lying down next to her, watching as the sky filled up with clouds. Maisie wiggled closer to me. “I’m chilly!” she said. Before I knew it, she’d rolled sideways and we were kissing. She tasted sweet, like the liquor, and for a few minutes, we rolled around, tangled and laughing and grabbing at each other. Then I pulled back.
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know, Maisie. I don’t think this is a good idea.”
She sat up, propping herself on her elbows. “It’s Lisa, isn’t it?”
“No.”
“Hey, it’s okay! I’m not going to be offended. I think it’s kind of sweet if you like someone so much that you don’t want to fool around with anyone else. It’s like, loyal, or something.”
“That’s not it.”
She just looked at me, and there was something about her face—kind and sweet and trustworthy—that made me feel safe.
“I think I might be gay,” I blurted out.
“Really? Wow!”
I nodded, and maybe it was because I was kind of drunk, or maybe it was because everything with Kierce and Lisa and my dad caught up with me, or maybe it was because I’d never said the words aloud to anyone before, but I started to cry. Maisie leaned over and gave me a big hug.
“Oh my god. Hey, don’t cry. It’s okay!”
“I guess I’ve always known,” I told her, wiping my face with the back of my hand. “Or at least since I was twelve or thirteen. But I managed to convince myself it wasn’t true. Couldn’t be true. It’s hard to explain.”
“It’s okay, you don’t have to explain.”
It felt so good to talk to somebody about it, to say all the things that had been bottled up in my brain for years. Maisie understood what it was like to grow up in Deep Cove, how difficult it was for someone to be different.
Something else crossed my mind. “Maisie…”
“Hey, don’t even say it. I’m not going to say a word to anyone. Not even to the girls.” She laughed. “Especially the girls.” She looked me in the eye. “I promise you. I promise. I know how that would go over around here. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
I knew that I could trust her, and I also felt kind of bad that I’d misjudged her. That I’d listened to Lisa badmouth her.
“Let’s head to the party,” I said.
“Are you sure? If you’d rather just go somewhere and talk, I would totally do that.”
“Thanks, but I think we should go. I feel really good; I feel like we should go somewhere and celebrate.”
“First time I’ve ever celebrated being turned down by a guy!” She stood and grabbed my hands to pull me up. We brushed the sand off our backs and headed down through the dunes to the beach.
The party was in full swing when we got there. A couple of people had brought guitars, and a sing-along was happening by the fire, a massive flaming pile of driftwood. Even from several feet away, it held back some of the chill in the air.
I saw Jay and walked over to him.
“I was wondering if you were going to make it,” he said.
“Yeah, Maisie and I were up in the dunes, having a drink,” I told him. He raised an eyebrow. “Nothing happened,” I said, laughing. “Seriously, she and I are just friends.”
I glanced across the fire and saw Lisa walking toward us.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “I thought you had plans with Ken.”
“Yeah, well, he had different plans. Whatever.”
“Did you guys split up?”
“I guess you could say that. Serves me right. I don’t know what I expected to happen. Anyway, life goes on, right?”
It was actually kind of great to just relax with everyone, Lisa included. My talk with Maisie had taken some weight off my shoulders, and even though I hadn’t spent much time with Lisa lately, having her there seemed like the right way to end the summer. The only thing missing was Kierce. I tried to put him out of my head.
Then he showed up, staggering into the middle of the party with Ferris and some of their buddies. He was drinking straight from a bottle of Captain Morgan and laughing loudly. People stopped and looked over at him. He was obviously really messed up. He pushed through the crowd and walked over to where we were standing.
“Oh, will you look who it is? My excellent friends!” he said. “I might as well tell you all the big news. I’m moving to Ontario. Good riddance, right?”
“Whoa, what do you mean?” asked Jay.
“That’s what the big trip to see my grandparents was all about,” he said. “My mom is leaving the old man, so we’re getting the fuck out of Dodge.”
He looked at Lisa as if he had only just noticed her. “Oh hey, Lisa! Where’s your new boyfriend, you whore?”
“Fuck you, Kierce,” she said.
“Why don’t you go sleep it off, Kierce?” I asked him.
He laughed. “Are you kidding me? Are you going to defend her?” He looked at her. “If you’re planning on doing him next, you should know that it’s a lost cause. My man here is a total faggot.”
And that was it. I lunged at him, screaming and punching wildly. He was taken by surprise, and we both fell backward. We rolled around on the ground, throwing punches and jockeying for space. I vaguely heard the girls screaming at us to stop, and then I felt someone—maybe Jay—reach in and try to pull me out. I threw him back, and after a few failed attempts to break us up, everybody just stood back and let us have at it.
I’d never been in a fight before, but I didn’t care, I was beyond thinking. Everything moved in slow motion, and it was almost as if I wasn’t even in the middle of it, but watching from the sidelines. Kierce managed to get to his feet, and when I stood up, he connected with my face and I was knocked backward. From the ground, I jumped for his legs, and he lost his footing. Somehow I managed to get on top of him, my knees pressing on his chest, my arms holding him down at the elbows. He squirmed to move, and when he shifted sideways, I hauled back and punched him in the side of the head.
Somehow, I was dragged away, kicking out at the air, my arms held behind my back. For a few minutes I struggled, and when it was clear that I’d calmed down and the fight was over, I was let go. I dropped to my knees, my chest heaving. I put my hand up to my face and realized that it was wet. I could taste blood, mixed with salt. I could tell that tears were running down my cheeks, but I wasn’t really crying.
My ribs were burning, and I puked, retching and spitting into the sand. Someone bent down beside me and put a hand on my back, and I was aware for the first time of people standing around looking at me.
“Are you okay?” Maisie asked quietly.
“Leave me alone,” I managed to sputter, standing up and starting to walk down the beach.
I didn’t make it far before Lisa was beside me. “Come on,” she said, lifting my arm over her neck and helping me as I hobbled along. I looked sideways at her, and was struck by how she no longer looked like someone who’d dropped into Deep Cove from another world; she just looked like any other girl at our school. She looked like the rest of us.
I let her help me along for a few feet. Then I pulled away. “This is your fault!” I said. “Why did you come here? Do you even care what you did? Go back where you came from!”
She let go of me and stepped back.
“Jesus, Danny, will you please just shut the fuck up!” she said.
I stopped in my tracks, not knowing what to say.
“Listen to yourself!” she went on. “Do you really think this is my fault? You think this happened because I screwed around on Kierce? Okay, fine, so I’m a bitch and Kierce is mad at me, gotcha. It wasn’t very nice of me. But what the hell do you think that has to do with you?” She walked over to me and put her hand on my shoulder. “Instead of feeling sorry for yourself and blaming people for shit, why don’t you try showing yourself some respect, so you can move the fuck on with your life?”
I stared at her, stunned.
“I’m sorry,” I managed to stammer.
“See, that’s what I’m talking about. Nobody needs to be sorry for anything.”
She turned and walked away along the beach toward the parking lot. I stood watching her as she moved away down the beach. Then Maisie ran up and grabbed me by the shoulder.
“Diana has her car. She and Jay are going to come and get you. Stay here, we’ll be right back.”
She went running back along the beach, and I dropped down and sat on the ground. After a few minutes, Jay was kneeling down next to me.
“You okay, buddy? Come on, you can crash at my house tonight.”
I nodded. He helped me up, and they walked with me to Diana’s car. As Diana pulled out of the parking lot, the sky opened up and it began to pour.