Page 2 of All That We Are Together
Axel
I glided down the wall of the wave beneath the faint light of dawn, then dropped into the water, closing my eyes while I sank and the sounds of the outer world turned distant. I rose upward when the lack of air got to be too much for me. I struggled to hold on to my surfboard and took a deep breath. Once, twice, over and over, and no matter how many times I inhaled, nothing filled me up inside. I stayed there, floating in the solitude of my sea, contemplating the traces of foam and speckled light shining between the waves while I asked myself when I’d ever be able to breathe again.
3
Leah
I’d been working nonstop all week. Sometimes I got scared when I realized what I was doing was only work; it was a need, or a mix of work and need. Painting was the motor of my life, the reason I’d been able to stay standing, strong, full of material that begged to be dredged up and expressed. I remembered the day Axel asked me how I did it, and I answered that I didn’t know; I just did it. If he’d asked me that before…I wouldn’t have given him the same answer. I’d have confessed that it was my escape valve. That what I didn’t know how to express in words, I expressed in colors, forms, and textures. That this was mine, all mine, and mine alone, in a way nothing else in the world was.
If it hadn’t been my birthday, I would have stayed in my little attic until the wee hours of the morning, the way I often did on weekends, but my friends from school were determined to throw me a party, and I couldn’t refuse. I got dressed and remembered Blair calling a few hours earlier to congratulate me and let me know that her and Kevin’s baby was going to be a boy. It was the best gift I could have gotten that day.
I went up to the mirror and braided my hair. It was so long now that I almost always kept it tied back. I’d been thinking over and over about cutting it, but the way it hung down reminded me of the days when I used to walk barefoot and I lived in a house far away from the rest of the world, not worrying about whether or not I needed to take care of it. In that way, too, I had changed. I dressed more discreetly. I tried to control myself when I felt some impulse taking hold, because I’d learned such stimuli didn’t always take you down the right road. I was working on being more balanced, thinking before leaping, and I took time to think about consequences.
The phone rang again. My heart skipped a beat the way it always did when I saw that name on the screen. Georgia Nguyen. Axel’s mother. I took a deep breath before picking up.
“Happy birthday, honey!” she exclaimed. “Twenty-three years old. I can’t believe how fast time passes, it seems like just yesterday that I was holding you in my arms and walking you around the yard to try and get you to stop crying.”
I sat on the edge of the bed and smiled.
“Thanks for calling. How are you?”
“We’re at the gate at the airport, waiting to catch a flight.” She started laughing like a girl. Apparently her husband was tickling her to try and get the phone away from her. “Don’t be a pain, Daniel; I’ll pass her to you now! So what I was saying, honey, is that we’re in San Francisco, and in an hour our flight leaves for Punta Cana.”
“That’s some trip. I’m jealous!”
“I’ll call you in a few days so we can talk longer without interruptions.”
“No worries. Put Daniel on.”
“Happy birthday, Leah!” he shouted. “You going out with friends to celebrate? If so, enjoy.”
“Thanks, Daniel. I’ll try.”
I hung up and went on looking at the screen with nostalgia for a few seconds, thinking of all the congratulations I’d received that day…and all the ones I hadn’t.
It was dumb. One of those things that catches you off guard now and then because your memories of people are so closely linked to details that seem like nothing and then turn out to be everything. Axel had always been such an important presence on my birthday, the one person I really wanted to see and celebrate that day with, the one who brought me gifts I liked and who showed up in my wishes as I was blowing out the candles when I was still just a little girl.
It felt like an eternity ago.
I looked back at my phone. I don’t know what I was waiting for, but it didn’t ring.
I took a deep breath, got up, and walked to the long mirror still leaning against the wall in the very same place Oliver had put it three years before, when I bought it on impulse at a shop close to my dorm.
Distracted, I toyed with the end of my braid as I stared at my reflection. “You’ll be all right,” I repeated to myself, more out of habit than anything else. “You will.”
Night had fallen by the time I was on my way to the restaurant where I was supposed to meet everyone. I’d only taken a couple of steps when he reappeared.
“What are you doing here?” I laughed.
“I wanted to go with you.” Landon handed me the rose he was holding, then gave me a slow kiss.
I looked at the flower when he pulled away, and touched the scarlet petals. I brought it to my nose to sniff while we walked.
“Tell me about your day. Did you get a lot done?”
“Yeah, I’m about to finish a painting…” I gulped as I recalled that stretch of sea that was so mine, so ours, and I shook my head. “I don’t want to bore you with it. Tell me about you.”
Landon described his week, how hard he was working on the capstone project for his business degree, how bad he’d wanted to see me those past three days when we hadn’t managed to find an opening, how good I looked that night…