I wanted to be buried in salt and sandcastles, wanted to die on the shoreline tangled in seaweed and fishing net like a siren pulled from Atlantis. When I was little I nearly drowned in the Pacific Ocean, swimming further and further down into the depths, sure I would find my sisters down at the bottom. There’s a mystery about the ocean, something magical and uncharted. I wanted that for myself, wanted something bigger and better than what my parents could offer. I needed something unreal.

When the sun kissed that ocean line, a searing red dot that consumed the clouds, I always wandered into the cemetery at the top of the hill where the wind hissed at you until you left. I could see every footprint left in the sand, see over every dune adorn with dry, crackling grass. I let it fill me up, let the salt tickle my throat, but the pit of my stomach was always echoing at the end of the night.

Some of the stones had been made illegible or moss-covered, salt had crystallized in the cracks and decay or lined the engravings. The newest stone I could read was from 1998. I wanted to put this place to good use again. I even had a place picked out with a perfect view of the ocean.

I didn’t expect to see him standing there, eyes squinting in the light of the sun; staring directly into it. Challenging it. The hissing wind grabbed him by his loose collar, threatened to throw him over the fence and drop him from the height of the cliff and into the sharp rocks waiting below. He didn’t move, hardly even shifted. Just kept staring into the burning sunlight.

“You’re in my spot,” I said to him, wind carrying my voice someplace far away, but he turned his head, eyes squinting back at me with a brow raised. He only gave me that perplexed look, waiting.

“I’m going to be buried there, that’s my spot.”

Both brows were raised now, the corner of his smile flicking upwards, locking a laugh away somewhere in the back of his throat. “Want some help digging then?”

I frowned at him, my hair knotting around my face, catching in my mouth. I felt like a toad sitting on a log. I must’ve looked like one, too. He’d only said a few words to me and I already thought he was annoyingly infuriating.

“No one ever comes around here,” I finally said, grabbing my tangly hair and holding it out of my face, struggling to find the embrace of the wind.

He looked back at the horizon, the sun now burrowed below the water. “I come here all the time.”

“I never see you around.”

“That’s because the sun is usually down.”

“It’s down now.”

He looked at me again, lips like a smear across his face. People didn’t usually find me so humorous. Not like this, anyway. “I suppose you have a point.”

We were quiet again, but I was sure he would break out into laughter until his face suddenly became very serious. “What you said earlier… you aren’t like… suicidal or anything are you?”

“No,” I answered flatly, “that’s just my spot. I dunno when I’m gonna die but it’s gotta happen eventually and that’s the place I wanna be.”

“Well that’s good. I would’ve talked to you about it, though… If you were, I mean.”

“Thanks for the offer.”

He put a hand out, eyes open and friendly now that the light had dimmed. “I’m Aron.”

I expected a handshake, but he put his other hand over mine and held it like a baby bird. “Esme.”

“Your hands are so cold.”

“And yours are warm.”

Aron grinned at me, but his eyes saw past my head. “I need a drink, let me buy you one.”

He didn’t give me time to answer, just tugged me by my hand down the hill and to the open gates of the cemetery. He was gentle, even with a mechanical grip, and he kept his gaze straight ahead. Couldn’t keep eye contact for longer than a moment.

The streetlights were starting to flick on by the time we reached the parking lot, even as leftover oranges and reds lined the ocean horizon. Aron stopped, turned to face me with a hand in his hair and the other shoved deep in his pocket. “I was just gonna walk to the tiki hut a few blocks down. Did you wanna lock your car up?”

“I walked here,” I answered, eyes on his shifting feet.

“Oh, cool.” We made our way towards the beach, me swinging my arms back and forth like a rocking chair at my sides. Aron kept his head up, looking over the streetlights and walking with a bounce. Like he were ready to make a dead sprint to the beach and leave me alone in the dark, but he couldn’t keep his eyes focused. He stood right next to me, but I was sure this was a long-distance phonecall.

Finally, he glanced my way for a moment. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“Ya know,” he lost his voice, brows pulling the corners of his lips like a marionette smile.

The waves crashing against the sharp rocks beneath the cliff were howling, like a muffled bark from a dog in the neighborhood. The ocean horizon was black now, and I couldn’t tell where the sky ended and the water began. “Don’t worry about it. I would’ve been all alone, otherwise.”

“Me, too.”

There was an emptiness in the pit of my stomach where the echoing always was. I almost wanted to take his hand and hold it. Like a baby bird.

“Do you know someone?” I asked, looking straight ahead like he was before.

He turned his attention to me, though I acted like I didn’t notice even as my ears grew hot.

“Know someone?”

“In the cemetery, I mean.”

“My little sister.”

There were needles in my belly now. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Yeah, but…” They didn’t invent words for this.

Aron sighed, hands in his pockets and adam’s apple a pointing compass with his eyes in the black sheet overhead. “I talk to her all the time. I think she told me about you, actually.”

I wanted to ask him what she said, but the needles pulled the words down to the bottom of the echoey cave in my stomach. I bet he thought I was the annoying one now.

“She said there was a girl who came to see her all the time. I thought she was talking about one of the other children buried there, but she insisted otherwise. I always assumed she was being the stubborn one, but I guess I have my own problems,” he chuckled, nostalgia drunk.

More than anything, I wanted to ask how it happened, but etiquette locked my lips tight. I found something awkward and insignificant to ask instead. “Do you live alone?”

He nodded. “Yup. Well… kind of. It’s just a place to put my junk.”

“Where’s your parents?”

“Don’t know Dad. Mom’s in a hospital. Well, it’s not really a hospital but...”

“God, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, it’s fine.” I hated that gentle tone, the way his voice sounded like birdsong over still water and clean air. “I visit her during the day, but today she told me to leave and go see Emma early.”

I finally forced my voice out. “Why do you go visit so late?”

“I hate the thought of her being all alone in the dark. She’s terrified of the dark.”

“I take it you’re going back then?”

His eyes were glittering with the colorful lantern light that hung in lines overhead, taking the place of stars where the cities beyond the coast had shielded their reach. He almost looked like a little boy, swerving between bodies and turning his head to make sure I was still following close behind on the way to the tiki bar. Like we were old friends and he was afraid he would turn around and us meeting again was all just a dream.

“Yeah, I have to. She’s my baby sister.”

We finally made it to the bar, Aron leaning into the counter as he ordered drinks. “Bud Light for me and uh… you want something special?” he turned to me, yelling over the others nearby on the beach and the music that played over the loudspeakers.

“Something with Malibu,” I replied.

He shot me a crooked smile. “You mean Maliblu? The coconut stuff?”

“Same thing.”

“Not really,” he chuckled. “Malibu is a place, you know.” He turned his attention back at the bartender, “I guess she’ll have a Blue Motorcycle.”

The bartender nodded, pulling a Bud Light out of the fridge for Aron before she went off to mix my drink. “What’s a Blue Motorcycle?” I asked.

“It has some Sprite mixed in with that Maliblu stuff you like. Hope it’s alright, since you weren’t specific about what you wanted.”

“I’m always willing to try something new.”

“So,” he started, taking a gulp of his Bud Light, “what’s so special about that spot at the cemetery anyways? You seem pretty territorial about it.”

“I like the view. And it’s close to the ocean. If I could, I would just have them toss my body out to the fishes. When I was little I thought I was a mermaid and I almost drown.” The bartender handed me my Blue Motorcycle. It was definitely blue.

Aron watched me, waited for me to take a drink before he replied. “It is a nice view. Glad my sister gets to share it with you, then.” He took another gulp of his beer. “I know we just got here, but is it cool if we take these to go? I need to go back, it was already dark when we left.”

“That’s fine, let’s go.”

He left some cash on the counter before we made our way back up the hill and towards the cemetery. There were so many things on my mind, so many things I wanted to ask but knew it would be an unmanageable can of worms. Slimy and wretched.

I suddenly noticed the way his hair was styled up handsomely, a deep brown color, with thick eyebrows arched over his round eyes. His collarbone that sat beneath the thin fabric of his wide-necked t-shirt and the way the sleeves hugged his arms. He had the perfect medium build, not slender by any means but not a laundry bag full of meat, either. How could I only now have noticed how attractive my company had been? How strange that he could seem so annoying at first, and now I felt an invisible force pulling me along with him down the streets sea-side.

The wind was gentler now, but I still pulled my fingers through my hair, pulling the knots loose, eyes still watching Aron as he took drinks between conversation.

“I wish I could walk you home, I don’t like the thought of you walking around town alone at night. I mean, I could but…”

“But Emma wouldn’t be very happy, I get it. It’s not a big deal, anyways. I’m a big girl.” My smiles were faint, awkward. I was suddenly hyper aware of my teeth, my nose, my eyes. My shoulders were probably up to my ears. “When do you go home?”

“Sometimes I don’t… really.”

I stared him down, waiting for an answer.

“I sleep in the cemetery with Emma. In the morning I go see Mom. In the afternoon I call my sisters who’re staying overseas. I’m pretty busy most of the time, so I don’t really have a spare moment to go home or anything.” I suddenly noticed he switched sides with me on the sidewalk so he was near the road and I was on the inside. Like he was afraid someone was planning to run us down.

We were almost at the gates. The walk back seemed to go by so quickly.

“I feel like we’ve only been talking about me. What were you doing all alone in the cemetery? Do you know someone?” Aron asked, fiddling with the now empty beer bottle in his hands.

“No, I just like the view and the smell of the salt water from the top of the cliff. I like the solitude and the fact that my parents aren’t there. Yeah, I just like the solitude.”

“I’m sorry I interrupted your solitude then,” he replied softly, taking my empty cup from me without my asking him to. I felt kind of burdensome, but there was a garbage can up by the gate.

“Don’t be,” I replied, matching his soft tone, “it’s actually kinda nice to have someone to talk to that doesn’t scream at me or whatever. I feel bad for being so rude to you earlier.”

“It was cute,” he chuckled, already thinking it over like a fond memory.

I laughed awkwardly, pulling my hair over my shoulder as we turned through the gates and he tossed our empty glasses into the trash. We trudged our way up the hill and back to his sister’s grave, moonlight shining between the clouds overhead and illuminating the stones in the cemetery.

“Your parents are hard on you?” he finally asked, both of us putting all our weight into every step, fighting with the earth.

Sighing, I tried to find the words. Tried to find the best way to explain it without telling too much. I learned a long time ago that a lot of people don’t actually want to hear about what goes on at home. Makes them feel awkward to know the truth, I guess. “They want me to be better.”

“That’s unfair.” He said it so matter-of-factly, like he understood everything between the lines. It was the first time someone had responded in such a way. Not so much the words but the tone of voice. He actually cared, and he actually wanted to know. He wanted to help.

“It’s what I live with,” I replied, suddenly wishing I had something better to say. I suddenly realized he’d put his hand near the small of my back, not touching, though. Just enough so he could catch me in case I lost my footing. Protective. “I guess I’m used to it by now.”

We made it to the top of the hill, legs weak from the steep climb, and he let them buckle next to Emma’s stone. “Sorry I’m late.”

I watched him lean into the stone, dropping his head onto the top of it to stare up at the black sky, finding the place where his head fit perfectly. Comfortably. His own stone pillow. I wanted to put my arms around him, find a blanket to keep warm with. I saw the moths and the nasty bugs flying into the light over the cemetery shed nearby and wished I could douse them all in flames. I heard stories about how bugs crawled into your ears at night, and Aron was too kind for that kind of pain and violation.

“Is it okay if I sit next to you?” I asked, suddenly feeling small. Like a child.

He opened his eyes, turning his head on the hard stone to look at me. “Sure,” his voice was like a mother cooing a baby to sleep. This almost felt like intimacy.

I hesitated at first, strategizing the perfect trajectory and position in which to share this headstone with him. Before I even knelt down to my place, I’d already quietly regretted asking. I felt so intrusive, but I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t even have any intentions of going home, now.

The bare skin of our arms brushed against each other; the space by the stone was smaller than I realized before. I was glad for being a lightweight and that a buzzing in my veins kept me from feeling too shameful of the proximity. Aron was so warm, like there was a fire sitting in his stomach. Like a wood stove. Like home.

“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” he finally said, head now down towards the dirt.

I barely thought about it. “I want to stay. I mean… I’d rather be out here than at home. That place isn’t home, anyways.”

“I don’t have a jacket or a blanket to give you.”

“You’re warm enough.”

It came out without warning, like vomit.

It was quiet all but the waves in the distance. Before I wasn’t sure, but now it seemed so natural that Aron could fall asleep out here. This is why people paid so much money for those ambient CDs.

“So,” he began, “you thought you were a mermaid?”

I chuckled. “Yeah, I did. I think I just wanted it to be true more than anything.”

“You sound like a lonely little girl.”

“Is it so obvious?”

“You said you almost drown. Mermaids are good swimmers, so I take it you were trying to go somewhere else. Trying to go home?”

I felt and suddenly found myself crumbling into the weight of my own body. “Yeah,” I finally managed to get out, my voice threatening to crack and crumble.

Thanks for coming to meet Emma early today. I wanted to say it, but one touch and my voice would shatter like glass, and I didn’t want to be left picking up the pieces in front of him when we’d only just met. I hadn’t felt this kind of social vertigo in a long time. I’d learned how to deal with frost and the bitterness of a lemon-mouthed stranger, but Aron was different entirely.

My heavy head fell into his shoulder, but I wouldn’t know it until morning. For once, I didn’t feel like I had to sleep with my eyes open, even sitting here completely unprotected. This was the closest I’d ever felt to home.

 

《┄ ✝ ┄》

 

He smelled like warm spices and caramel, like northern Autumn evenings and a glass of hot apple cider. When he pulled his cellphone from his jacket pocket, receipts and wrappers would come spilling out onto the ground. Even when he was surrounded in his own mess, even through the dark shadows under his eyes, he smiled like a little boy on picture day. Aron was a mobile home and I was a fish out of water.

I started wearing my sweatshirts when I left for the sea-side; it was always so cold after sun-down. He would talk and I naturally leaned into his breath and the sound of the crackling fire that burned in his belly. “You always look at me like murky water,” he said to me once with that same smear-smile on his face. I suppose I did, because I never felt satisfied with the information from the day before. I always wanted to turn another page.

“What are your sisters doing overseas?” I finally asked one day with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders as we made our way back up the hill. Aron had our drinks in his hand, his clothes hanging loosely off his body and catching in the wind.

“Getting doctorates and making connections. To be honest, I think they just couldn’t take it.” He looked into the cold orange sky, like he were hoping to see them somewhere in the distance. Waiting on them to call out to him.

The needles were in my belly again. “Because of Emma?”

“Emma… and Mom. They didn’t want to get stuck supporting her, I guess. And everything reminded them of Emma’s death, so they just left overseas together one day. Didn’t give anyone any warning or anything. Just left.” Every word was like a heavy weight, dense and exhausting.

I didn’t mean to say it out loud, but it came out above a whisper all the same. “How could they do that to you?”

“They need to breathe, too. They’re happy, and that’s all I care about.”

“But you’re alone now,” I replied with a voice like a hollow shell.

He held the drinks up, the corner of his mouth pinned into his cheek. “Not really.”

We fought with the earth again, making our way to the top to see Emma as we’d done every time since we first met. Aron waited for me each step of the way, never more than a foot ahead. At the top of the hill, our fold-up chairs lay open, expecting our arrival. Aron put our drinks in the holders and waited for me to sit before he did.

“You should’ve wore a jacket,” I said to him between sips of my Blue Motorcycle. I’d really grown fond of the flavor.

He smiled at me, glancing down at his thin white t-shirt. “Yeah, but I’ll be alright.”

“It’s getting colder out. You’ll get sick.”

“I’ll remember tomorrow.”

“You said that yesterday.”

“I promise, I’ll remember tomorrow.”

I watched him press the beer bottle to his lips, eyes on the horizon over the fence at the edge of the hill. He was quieter today, someplace faraway. Even the howling of the crashing waves below couldn’t pull him from his trance. Even my eyes, staring at him like the pages in a book, couldn’t grab his attention.

Finally, eyes still on the water, he said to me, “I wonder how far out you could go just swimming.”

“What do you mean?”

“Before you get tired, I mean. I wonder how far you could swim into the ocean before you drown.” He said it so casually, but the needles were in my chest now.

“You aren’t planning on trying to find out, are you?”

He turned to me, smiling like usual. “No, just wondering. I’m not going anywhere, don’t worry.”

I looked into my lap, pulling the blanket tighter around me. “Well… get pulled under by the current and you’ll be lucky to ever see the sun again,” I replied, lungs heavy like all those years ago.

Aron leaned forward, empty bottle hanging from his hands. “You’re safe now.”

“I’ve never been safe.”

He stood, taking the empty glass from my hands and making his way to the garbage by the shed. The clink-clanking noise they made when they hit the bottom of the metal barrel shot a searing pain through my stomach. As if the glass had sliced right through me. When I looked up, he was standing in front of me, quiet. With broken eyes. Without a word, he held his hand out for me, took it as if it were a baby bird like he always did.

“Your hands are so cold.”

“You always say that.”

“Because they’re always so cold.”

It was quiet again, and I was very aware that my hand was still in his. “How many times have we hung out like this now?” he asked, never looking away from me.

I looked away, thinking. “I think it’s been five days.”

The lights flicked on and the moths and night-beetles came crawling out of the bushes. I could see the goosebumps lining Aron’s arms, could see the hairs begin to stick up and beg for warmth. “You really should’ve wore a jacket.”

“I know, do you mind sharing your blanket?”

“No,” I answered, standing beside him and leading the two of us to Emma’s stone. I sat and held my arms open, waiting for him to sit next to me in the warmth of my grandmother’s old fleece blanket. He sat and pulled the corner of the blanket from my fingers, wrapping it tightly around himself and leaning into my body heat, shivering. He looked like a little boy again.

“My dad called me trash again today,” I said. I didn’t even try to ease into it, nor sugar-coat it. It had been festering in my body for hours, and my body finally ejected it like rotten phlegm.

He looked at me, but I wasn’t sure what he was trying to see. “You don’t believe him, do you?”

I opened my mouth, but there was nothing but blank space and a racing heart at first. No one had ever asked me that before. “I don’t… know.”

“Well don’t, because you’re not.”

And just like before, I was sure I was drowning again. My vision was this horrible, blurry thing and my lungs were heavy and strained. When my voice began to shatter, I felt warm arms wrap around me and a muffled pounding to my ear. I fell into the rhythm and listened as my own heartbeat began to beat in tempo with his.

We didn’t say anything else, just listened to the ocean in the far distance and the humming of the fluorescent lights on the shed. I never knew how much a heartbeat could soothe a withering, water-logged soul. It was cold outside and I was nowhere near a bed, but this was the only place I ever felt safe.