Wicked Games

“Yeah, you guessed it. Now I’m going to have to kill you.”

“Can I plead for my life?”

“Sure. But it’s not going to help. Protocol and all that,” she said.

He straightened his shoulders. “Okay, I’m ready. Take your best shot.”

Jules mimed cocking the bolt on a sniper rifle. She aimed at Carter’s heart. She made two short, sharp whistling sounds. “Twhoo-twhoo.” Then by way of explanation, she said, “We use silencers.”

Carter put his hands to his heart and made his best I’m-dying face, reeling backward like he’d just been shot. He fell into one of the ornate wrought-iron deck chairs that circled the table.

His phone buzzed again. Not the short double buzz of a text, but the sustained vibration of an incoming call. He’d known this would come eventually, but that didn’t make him any less annoyed.

“Sorry, hold on,” he said.

He pulled out his phone and stabbed at the button along its side, holding it down until the phone was off. Then he couldn’t help but let out a small exhale of frustration. He cocked back and mock-threw the phone out toward the beach before shoving it back into his pocket.

“What was that?” said Jules.

“Lilah.” Though he tried to sound cool about it, Carter could hear the annoyance infiltrating his voice. For a second, he imagined her, stewing in her room at home, trying and trying to call him. Something inside of him—some buzzing feeling—collapsed in on itself. The difference between the drama with Lilah and this nice, light flirtation with Jules was too much for him. He couldn’t do it anymore, he realized. He was too exhausted by the vigilance it took to hide the cracks in his supposed perfect, loving relationship while so much of it was crumbling around him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, taking his phone out again. “It’s just … she’s going to keep calling.” He rubbed his eyes. “It’s frustrating,” he said. “It’s exhausting.”

Jules wasn’t stupid. She could see the change taking place inside Carter—the sad expression wresting control of his face, the way he ran his fingers through his flop of sandy hair, holding them there at the top of his head like he was trying to stop his brain from exploding.

“There’s no need to be sorry,” she said, taking a seat in the chair next to his.

She gazed at him, attentive but calm, and let his mood float in the silence between them.

“You want to talk about it?” she said.

Carter took a deep breath, and though he’d never dared to put his fears into words before, he let it all pour out. Everything. How he wasn’t sure anymore if his relationship with Lilah was going to work, and all the ways this terrified him. Who was he without Lilah? He didn’t know. He was afraid of what life without her would look like, but he didn’t know how to be with her anymore. It was horrible. He could barely remember what had made their relationship so beautiful before, and the little glimpses he did catch filled him with sadness because he couldn’t find a way to get that beauty back.

“I’ve tried so hard, for so long now,” he said, “but things just keep getting worse between us. No matter how hard I work to keep her together, she continues to fall apart. And now she doesn’t even trust me. I mean, look at what happened tonight. It’s like she’s punishing me for caring about her. And the worst part is that just thinking these things feels like a betrayal.”

“But sometimes, no matter how hard you try, things just don’t work out,” Jules said. “You’re not always in control of everything, no matter how much you want to be. Something I learned from doing the I Ching with my mother. Chance sneaks in and changes everything, no matter how prepared you thought you were.”

“I know that. I’ve even tried to tell Lilah something like that. She’s so anxious, though. She needs me so much.” He furrowed his eyebrows. “And she holds on so tightly that she doesn’t realize she’s … killing us.”

Jules felt for him. She understood his fear. Walking away from love was hard—even if the love was bad.

“I don’t want to hurt her,” he said.

She was impressed, actually, that he was working so hard to understand and grapple with his emotions. It proved the suspicion that she’d always held about him. He had an unusual amount of integrity. He was a nice guy, a kind guy, mature beyond his years. The kind of guy she’d always secretly wanted to date, if only the gulf between guys like him and the new-agey, beachy stoner culture her mother had raised her in hadn’t seemed so huge. Any other guy in school would have thrown Lilah overboard a long time ago, without even thinking about how she’d feel. Either that or he’d have been oblivious to his girlfriend’s hopes and dreams, too busy partying and posturing for his friends to realize how much trouble his relationship was in.

That’s what Todd, her ex-boyfriend, had been like, so busy playing beach volleyball and smoking pot with his buddies that he hadn’t even noticed when Jules began to wonder if maybe there was more to life than bumming around the beach and listening to The String Cheese Incident all day. They’d dated for two years, and even though she’d known she had to do it, she’d put off breaking up with him for months.

After four years together, it must be that much harder. She wished there was something she could do to ease Carter toward the realization that, no matter how protective of Lilah’s feelings he might be, eventually, he was going to have to admit to his own feelings and take care of himself. She knew better than to push him, though. He’d figure it out in his own time.

“So if you can’t control the future,” she said, “and you can’t change the past, I wonder if maybe sometimes the best thing to do in the present is to throw your hands up and say, You know what, my fate’s going to take me wherever it takes me and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“You have to have some sort of plan, though,” he said.

“Yeah, of course. But like you just said, if you try to control everything all the time, then you end up totally paralyzed.”

He hunched forward in his seat, listening, intrigued.

“I mean, look at it this way. We’re at a party. There’s a reason we came to this party, right? We want to have a couple drinks. We want to have some fun. Talk to some people. Maybe dance a little. Flirt a little. There’s nothing wrong with having a little bit of fun.”

“Okay,” he said. “Sure. Fun is good.”

“And if Lilah is going to assume that you’re here for some sort of nefarious purpose, there’s nothing you can do about it. Just like I can’t do anything about what Todd, my ex, might think. So best to let it go, no? You can only be you. No matter how much you might want to be the person they think you should be, you can’t change who you are. It’s up to them to accept you. Meanwhile, you just do what you do and let it work itself out. Or that’s what I’m trying to do, anyway.”

“You’re right,” he said. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Gazing out at the beach, he seemed to be taking this question seriously. She watched as he considered the possibilities. When he looked at her again, there was a hint of mischief in his eyes.

Which made it impossible for her to resist. “What do you say to a walk on the beach?” she said.

5 (#ulink_ee097502-b9c5-5185-824c-b1bed46e2005)

Carter and Jules picked through the beach grass, along the path, over the dunes, and down toward Jeff’s family’s private beach. They walked single file at first. Then when they exited the narrow path, they allowed themselves to walk side by side—conscious of the boundaries of each other’s personal space, careful not to get too close, not to touch each other, even incidentally.

They carried their shoes in their hands, dangling them, swinging them beside themselves, and the sand felt cool and soothing beneath their feet. They made their way to the upper edge of the tide’s reach and let the water wash past them.

A poignant silence floated between them: the sense that they were together, feeling the same breeze, hearing the same rustling of the grass in the dunes, watching the same waves breaking in front of them, the same foamy water licking at their toes.

Carter nabbed a stick and flicked it into the water.

Jules poked at a bubbling hole in the wet sand where a crab was digging below the surface.

They gazed out at the sea. The lights of Miami glowed red to the north. The dark outlines of the keys loomed in the distance to the south.

They were both separately, silently thinking the same thoughts. That it was nice being out here under the stars. Peaceful. There was no one else on earth but them. Like all their problems were far, far away.

“You cold?” Carter asked.

Jules shook her head. She smiled.

“You gonna go in?” Jules said.

“Are you?”

She made a face. “I will if you do.”

“I don’t have my trunks,” he said.

She laughed—one sharp haw—and then she said, “Silly boy. There’s no one here. You don’t need trunks.”