Within/Without

chapter thirty-six.

Simon

"Simon?"

My consciousness slowly returns to me; I squint against the sunlight.

"Simon? Hey, handsome. Wake up."

I smile, recognizing Val's voice, recognizing her gentle touch as she pats my cheek. I open my eyes, and here, she looks like an angel, silhouetted by the warm sun seeping through the windows, eyes warm, welcoming.

I wipe the crud from my eyes, sitting up. "Is it morning already?" I ask. "It feels like I just fell asleep."

"It's almost eleven AM, Simon," Val tells me, and chuckles when she sees the stunned look on my face. "But you were so tired, so I thought I'd let you sleep."

I blink, listening once more to the calm rush of the ocean waves as they kiss the shoreline. The air smells like salt and sea and sand, and I am a little in love with all of it.

"I don't wanna sleep anymore," I say, and she has a second to look at me, brows furrowed, before I reach for her, swinging her onto the bed with me. A laugh escapes her as she lands among the sheets, her hair splaying out underneath her head. I roll over, facing her, my forehead touching hers. "So what do you think? Breakfast, or the beach first?"

"Mm," Val says, thinking for a moment. Then, she grins. "Both."

I change into a T-shirt and the only pair of swim shorts I own, which had taken a fair amount of searching to uncover from my closet considering all the winter clothes they were buried under. Val finds the nearest brunch place to the hotel—as those are the only kinds of places still selling breakfast items when it's nearly afternoon—and we take a brief walk there. Shorts, flip-flops, the sun beating down on the pavement. It feels like a dream, like someone else's life. Surely not mine.

We get breakfast sandwiches and orange juice and fruit and waffles, take it all to-go. I have to hold Val back from the waffles as we're heading back to the hotel. And there, nestled in the white sand, a few feet from the water, we make ourselves a picnic.

It isn't perfect, as our picnic blanket is an old beach towel Val dug out from her basement and we're eating everything out of styrofoam boxes, but it's our own, at least. We somehow managed to find a quiet nook of the beach, where we're the only people for at least twenty feet. I lay back against the towel, knocking my shades down my nose and shutting my eyes.

It would be perfect. All of it—it would be perfect, if only I didn't know the true reason we were here.

It's a constant thought in the back of my head, ceaseless and loud. Have I made a mistake?

Seagulls squawk overhead, the faint melody of children yelling gleefully carrying on the wind. I open one eye, squinting up at Val. She has one hand lifted to her brow, keeping the sun out of her eyes as she gazes out at the sea. The wind plays at her swim cover-up, tossing it this way and that, revealing a tantalizing line of skin up her thighs. I close my eyes again, resting my hands underneath my head.

"Stop staring," Val says then, and I jump a little.

"Who's staring? I wasn't staring."

I glance up in time to see her turn to face me, rolling her eyes grandly. "Hate to break it to you, but you're not subtle at all," she says, shoving me playfully. A look crosses her face then: thoughtful, calculating, hesitant. She asks: "Do you want to swim?"

I remember all the summers we wasted by the pool, all dripping sunscreen and chlorine and popsicles melting over fingers. I remember the other girls, tearing off tank tops and shorts and jumping into the pool in their newest bikinis. And I remembered Val, sitting idly by herself at the water's edge.