Sunday, December 18th, 2016

A clear plastic drawstring bag containing Pete's belongings hung at the end of the hospital bed. There was a white t-shirt, charcoal gray pajama pants and a pair of tortoise shell glasses. Thanks to something I'd done, that was all he had in the world. It was a colorless bundle, except for a glint of cobalt blue that had settled in the corner of the bag. I crouched down to figure out what it was. Sea glass? I poked at it through the plastic to make sure it was real and the scent of smoke escaped the bag in a puff of air.

Then I was back on a beach, walking with Pete, pressing a piece of blue sea glass into his palm, hoping it would remind him of me once I had to leave him for the last time. I knew it would end before we'd even kissed the first time and before he knew the truth about me. Why did I let any of it happen, knowing it had to end? Because I never would have imagined it would have ended up like this.

I stood abruptly. Had Pete really kept that piece of sea glass all this time? Had it been in his pocket? I watched his chest rise and fall. His face was relaxed. Not like the night before. He was nothing like how I remembered him. That summer he'd been so kind and patient and fun and respectful and sweet and-

Stop, I told myself. What happened before was over. There were bigger issues to deal with than my feelings. 

One of Pete's bare feet had escaped the bedsheet. I glanced from the plastic bag to his foot. He had no shoes. There were several issues at hand, big and small. I had to squash what I was feeling, so I could start to tackle them, beginning with one of the small ones.

I lifted my foot onto the bed and lined it up next to his to compare.

I sent Eric a text: Can you buy him a pair of shoes? His foot is like two inches bigger than mine and I'm a size 8.5 in womens.  I'll pay you back.

After a minute, he replied: I'll relay this information to the cobbler.

Pete's eyelids were shiny and gray and there were dark purple crescents beneath his eyes, but otherwise he looked okay. He looked really okay, actually.

There was something black peeking out from the underside of his forearm and I snuck around the side of his bed and leaned over to get a better look. It was a tattoo; an anchor flanked with red and black stars. I smiled to myself because it reminded me of the Palmer Pirates logo and hoped it was unintentional on his part. Then my grin faltered and I backed away.

I didn't know this Pete. There was a story behind that tattoo, one that I didn't know. I definitely didn't know him well enough to watch him while he slept in a hospital bed, looking all vulnerable with oxygen cannulas taped under his nose. 

I had a handful of postcards and a letter and a few summer days, but what about all the days in between? I thought I could show up unannounced at his house after he hadn't written to me in a year. After he wrote a letter telling me he wasn't going to contact me anymore and that he was ready to move on with his life. What was I thinking? How could I have been so presumptuous? He clearly hated me already, so how was it going to go when he woke up and realized that I was responsible for his house burning to the ground? Because I was responsible somehow. The house had been there, and when I returned from visiting him, it was gone.

I needed to get out of that room. Just to breathe for a minute. Because, unlike Pete, I had no trouble breathing anymore. Before the ambulance arrived, my lungs had stopped burning and I was breathing normally. I pivoted on one foot and my boot squeaked on the polished hospital room floor. I cringed and glanced over my shoulder at him.

His eyes flickered open and closed again. A faint smile passed over his face and dread socked me in the gut. At least in that moment, he had no idea what had happened.  Maybe it hadn't registered yet, or he blacked out the night before and didn't remember, or he was currently heavily medicated. I tip-toed toward the door.

"Hi," he said in a near-whisper.

"Oh!" I spun around. "Hi. I was checking to see if you were awake."

"I'm awake." His eyes opened wider. "I think."

"How do you feel?" I asked.

"Like hell," he rasped. "Like I should be dead."

I stood on the opposite side of the room from the bed. Pete blinked hard a few times and squinted at me.

"Do you need your glasses?"

"What?"

"They're in this bag of your things." I pulled the glasses out, handed them to him and retreated to the chair on the other side of the room. "The stuff you were wearing last night."

"I was wearing these? Shoot. I thought I hid 'em."

"Why would you hide your glasses?"

"So you wouldn't see me looking like a square." He put them on and grimaced. They looked good on him. Dammit. "I don't have to wear them all the time," he explained. "Only when I need to-" he stopped himself and the corner of his mouth turned up in a sly smile.

"See?"

"Well, yeah."

Despite my best effort, I couldn't suppress the grin spreading across my face. Pete's presence somehow made me feel wildly fluttery and yet somehow grounded and calm at the same time. But as soon as the memory of the previous night hit me again it all went away.

"So, do you remember what happened last night?" I asked.

"Yeah, you took my life and burned it all down. Again."

"I am so, so sorry. I should've left you alone. I was trying to help, but I messed it all up. I'm so sorry. If I can figure out a way to fix it, to undo it, I will. I was thinking I should be able to go back to before the fire and make sure it doesn't happen."

"I was trying to make a joke."

He coughed and groaned.

"It's not funny. There's nothing left. I'm so sorry."

"You can stop being sorry.  It wasn't your fault."

"Something I did caused it though. Your house was fine when I first went to see you, but when I came back last night it was gone. It was my fault somehow."

"But you got me out of there. I wouldn't have made it out if you hadn't shown up. And you came back, even though I...well."

"Made it pretty clear that you hate me now," I said, staring down at my hands. My very interesting hands that had fingers and fingernails and tiny blood-red cracks around the knuckles from frequent hand washing. I blinked away tears. I had nothing to cry about, it was Pete who lost everything. "Which is totally fair."

"I don't hate you."

"Okay, then you very recently stopped hating me because I saved you from a fiery death."

"I never hated you," he said. He pressed his lips together and took a few deep breaths through his nose before he continued, "I had too much time to turn you into someone I thought I could, not hate, but, I don't know."

"Okay. Well, we don't have to talk anymore. You should be resting. I'm just here to let you know that it's, uh, December 2016. I didn't want you to freak out or find out on your own. Once you're cleared to get out of here, I'll take you back."

I got up to leave the room.

"Where are you going?"

"I was gonna wait out there. I don't want to bother you."

"Stay," Pete rasped. "Please?"

I sat down again and tucked my legs to my chest and pulled out my phone again to text Eric. 

Do you have extra clothes he can borrow?

"What are you doing?" Pete asked.

"I'm sending someone a message."

"With what?"

I sighed. "This is my phone." I held it up with both hands like a lady in a commercial holding a box of tampons or a bottle of powerful grease-obliterating dish soap.  "It's a tiny computer that can do just about everything."  I flinched at the sound of bitterness in my voice. I was still hurt, but I couldn't act like a condescending asshole. I set the phone down and asked, "So, that empty bottle on the floor in your room. Was that from last night?"

"Yeah. Seeing you was...well, this whole time I didn't know if you were dead or alive."

Then the fire happened the same night that I saw him. So it was definitely, without a doubt my fault. "Ah. And seeing me alive drove you to finish a bottle of-"

"Whiskey."

"Yikes. That's hardcore."

Pete closed his mouth and inhaled more oxygen through his nose. He looked out the window for a moment and then back at me. For a few minutes, I nervously glanced around the hospital room, occasionally allowing my gaze to land on Pete. A series of indecipherable expressions passed over his face as he watched me.

"What?" I eventually snapped.

"Nothing," he said innocently.

It bothered me that he was studying me so intently while wearing his glasses. Did he have glasses before but never wore them because he was embarrassed? Was he seeing what I actually looked like for the first time? Was he horrified? Should I care? I shrunk behind the collar of my coat and pulled the hood down to avoid his inspection.

"Come on, now. I haven't seen you in over two years," he protested.

"Nothing to see here. I'm the same," I said in a muffled voice. "You're the one who's different."

"You changed your hair. I like it," he offered.

But I wasn't having it. He couldn't undo his completely dickish behavior with one nice surface-level compliment about my hair. I stayed in my little hoodie shelter until Eric texted to let me know he was in the lobby with extra clothes. I jumped at the opportunity to get away. Eric brought my bag in, too, so I could change out of my smoky clothes. When I came back Pete was asleep again. I put Eric's clothes and the new shoes on the chair and left. It physically hurt to be in the same room as Pete, so I went to the waiting area and somehow dozed off.

When I woke up, there was a note resting on my chest that said, "Went for a walk outside." When I checked Pete's room, he was gone.

I left the hospital in a panic. Outside the sun reflected off of every surface that was covered in snow and ice and the effect was blinding. I called Eric to ask him to pick me up, in case we needed to drive around to find Pete. Then I shielded my eyes and quickly scanned the area from where I was standing. I spotted a dark-haired guy shuffling down the sidewalk in Eric's red Palmer Football sweatshirt and jeans and jogged toward him.

"What are you doing?" I asked when I caught up to Pete.

"Taking a look around." He paused and glanced back at the hospital. "I didn't make it very far. I tried to wake you up. You sleep like the dead no matter what decade you're in."

"You can't just go wandering around like that!"

"I can't just go wandering around? You're acting like you've released Godzilla in Tokyo. Oh, I'm sorry," he continued in mock seriousness, "Godzilla is an old movie with a big monster. It's in black and white and has fainting in it so you probably haven't seen it." He chuckled and coughed.

"I know what Godzilla is. I'm not worried about you wreaking havoc on modern-day Marquette, I'm worried because you just got released from the hospital and should have someone with you."

"I didn't actually get released. They asked me about my health insurance again, and I don't have that, so I left."

"You just left?! Are you feeling okay? Can you breathe?"

"Easy, easy. I'm fine. Well, I still feel pretty awful, but I can breathe, so I figure I'm all set here," he said, waving his hand at the hospital. "They probably can't track me down, anyway." He started to cough again, then clutched his side and grimaced in pain.

"What's wrong?" I took his elbow and led him to a nearby bench. "Should we go back?"

"No," he protested. "They said I have two broken ribs. There's nothing they can do for it, anyway, they have to heal on their own."

"They must have broken when we fell. I'm really sorry."

"Listen, I'm the one who needs to apologize," he said, "for how I acted last night." His voice was still hoarse and he spoke in almost a whisper. "The things I said about you being with Frank...well, that was something I told myself so I wouldn't miss you anymore. It got to be too much. So I tried to forget about all the times I was happy with you, and leave behind the other parts."

"What other parts?"

He hesitated, and watched the cars on the street with a blank expression. It had to be weird for him. Everything was so different. "Well, the way you looked at me when you found out I never graduated high school. When you said you couldn't stay with me, which I know I shouldn't have asked in the first place. That night after the drive-in, when you tried to leave without saying goodbye."

While it bothered me that he chose to only remember the worst of me, I understood, even if some of it was true and some imagined. I knew that having no feelings- or negative feelings- for someone seemed easier than holding onto love that had nowhere to go, that bottlenecked in your veins and created an unyielding pressure that slowly ate away at you.

"So you only remembered the times I acted like a jerk. I get it."

"You weren't being a jerk. You were only saying things I didn't want to hear. Things that made it clear that, you know, you weren't really...well, when you didn't come back the next summer, then I really knew."

"When I didn't...what?"

"When you didn't come back to find me the next summer."

"But, I-"

"Would it be possible for me to talk," he rasped, "and for you to listen and not say anything until I've said what I want to say? You blindsided me yesterday, but I've had a bit of time now to figure out how to explain."

"You okay, Ness?" Eric stopped his car in front of us on the street and called to me through the open window. Kaitlin and Emily were in the car with him. I gave a thumbs up to signal that I was fine, and he said, "We're ready to go. I'm gonna park up here until you're ready."

My heart started to race. We didn't have a lot of time.

"Okay, explain away," I said.

"The next summer I came back to Michigan. I got in my head that if you had made it back home alive, that when the pool opened again you might try to come back and find me. I asked Joan if she'd seen you, because I thought if you were looking for me, you might go to Joan when you didn't find me at home. I knew if you didn't come back that first summer, you probably never would."

"Next summer hasn't happened yet...for me."

"I know that now."

"And you told me not to come back."

"Yeah, well, you usually didn't do what I told you to do," he said with a short laugh and then he coughed for a few seconds before he continued, "But when I found out you didn't come back and I thought I'd never see you again, it was easier when I only remembered the bad parts. It was easier when I decided to believe you'd take out your anger at me with Frank. As soon as I saw you last night I knew I was telling myself lies about you so I could get by. And I needed you to leave so I could go back to believing them." He looked over at me and shook his head in disbelief. "And then you actually walked through fire for me. So, no more lies."

"Technically I walked through smoke."

He smiled as he squinted into the sun, then directed his gaze down to earth. "I'm all done talking now, if you want to say something."

"Are you ready to go back now?" 

The words stung my lips and made my heart twinge, but what else was there to say? He'd given me an explanation, not an apology. I only had to hear him out, and there was no need to offer forgiveness. I could barely stand to be near him, to even exist in the same world as him, if I couldn't be with him. If I couldn't bury my face in his chest and breathe him in or look in his eyes and see everything I'd felt for him reflected back at me. Having him right there was so much worse than being back at home, dreaming and wondering from a safe distance.

"I can't imagine there's anything to go back there for," he said.

"Your truck is probably okay. And when we're back there, I could travel back to before the fire happened and try to stop it somehow, I have to try to-"

I was waving my hands erratically as I spoke and Pete caught my forearm to stop me.

"Don't," he said.

"Don't?"

He shook his head slightly, but I could tell by his face that it was with certainty.

"You don't understand, I can do almost whatever you need to make things better for you. Just because it didn't work out the first time, doesn't mean I can't try again."

"Who knows? Maybe what's best for me might be for you to leave things as they are. Maybe it happened for a reason."

Out in the daylight he looked like Pete again. Not like he did in the dim light of the cabin or fluorescent hospital lighting. His eyes were bright and playful as they searched my face. He'd let his hair grow out a little and there were a few small streaks of ashes from the fire or premature gray hairs. I brushed my fingertips against a cluster of the grays to see if it would come out. He closed his eyes and leaned into my touch so slightly I might've imagined it. His eyes flickered open and gazed into mine and I inhaled sharply.

"Sorry, sorry," I apologized quickly, and tucked my hand behind my back.

"It's alright," he said softly. "I won't bite"

"I don't know if I want to chance it. Your teeth are sharper now."

Sadness passed over his face.

It was time. He had to go, or I would spontaneously combust. But if he went, I would never be the same. Our story would be over. The hole in my heart would never heal, only toughen and scar around the edges.

"What if you stayed?" I said without thinking.  The corner of his mouth turned up in a wry smile, and I added, "You could get a fresh start here, or you could come back to Palmer with us."

"That would be-"

"Ridiculous. Nevermind. Of course you can't stay."

"Interesting.  It would be interesting. A fresh start might be what I need." His eyes lit up with excitement and it was three months, or two years, or sixty years ago again.  "I think I'll go with you."

"Yeah, I don't know if it's a good idea."

"I wish I would have known before," he said, "that this was possible."

"Me too. But would you have come back with me?"

"Would you have asked me to?"

I chewed my lip and slipped back to that summer sunset, a proposition and my denial. That was different. I thought I'd have to give up my life for him. How stupid I'd been to actually consider it, even for a second.

"I'd like a fresh start with you, too," he said. "If that's alright."

"Oh."

Did he mean a fresh start where we forgot about that summer?  Or where we forgot about last night?  Or both, where we forgot about everything and we were starting over as strangers?  He took my hand and I wondered if this was a formal handshake, a sign of friendship, or an agreement. Then he folded the flap on my mitten back to reveal my fingertips, lifted my hand to his lips and kissed my fingers.

Oh.

"I mean, at this point you're a little old for me," I couldn't hide the grin sneaking across my face.

He cracked a smile and exaggerated a pained expression. He clutched my mittened hand to his chest and groaned, "You're tearing my heart out, Vanessa."

I covered my mouth with my other hand, to hide my ridiculously huge grin. I could taste the sweet grassiness of the wool through the scent of smoke.

"So you're coming with us then?"

"I think I am," he declared.

"Everything is so different.  It's probably going to be hard for you."

"Something different might be what I need."

"Okay, another thing is I'm not different.  When you knew me before, I might have been different than what you were used to, but now there's like billions of girls like me.  Like, literally the population of the earth has tripled since the fifties. And Kaitlin and her sister are in the car and they're both really pretty, and tall, and blonde, and if you-"

"I'm not here because of them."

"That's what I'm trying to say, I don't want you to think that because I brought you here that you owe me anything or that you have to be with me because I don't want to-" I glanced at Eric's car.  They were all watching us. Pete's gaze followed mine and as they realized we were staring back at them, Kaitlin and Emily quickly looked down at their laps and Eric out the other window.

"You don't want to, what?" he asked.

"Hold you back. And one more thing: if you decide you want to go back- anytime- just say the word."

"What word?"

"I mean, let me know and I'll take you."

"Alright."

"Okay, our ride's waiting."