Washed Up (Bayside Heroes)

That smile drips off like wet paint when he sees me approaching.

He swallows and stands, and right before I make it to him, I pull the hockey goalie helmet from behind my back and tug it on over my head.

The wire mask is a bit difficult to see through, but I don’t miss David’s arched brow or flat lips at the sight of it.

“What the hell is that?” he asks.

“Brought it just in case you decide to sock me in the eye again.”

He blinks, but then the corner of his mouth tilts up in the smallest smile. He grabs the back of his neck, looking off toward the river before he turns back to me with a grimace. “Yeah… I guess I should apologize for that.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” I argue. “I deserved it.”

“You did.”

“Go ahead, give me another one if you want,” I say, tapping the wire mask over my cheek.

He rolls his eyes, snatching the helmet and ripping it off my head. “Sit down, you asshole.”

I rub the part of my nose the mask bumped up against in his removal of it, but do as he says, taking a seat on the bench before he sits down next to me. He hands me the helmet and I tuck it under the wood, then we both watch the kids play in the water, feeling the setting sun warming our skin.

“Thanks for meeting me,” I start.

“We must still have some sort of telepathic thing going on, because I was planning on calling you after work today.”

I blanch. “You were?”

David sighs, shifting in his seat. “I’ve been meaning to for a week now, but pride has stopped me.”

“Why were you going to call?”

“Same reason you texted.”

“You wanted to meet up?”

He nods, and then with a sigh, he finally looks at me. “I wanted to apologize.”

“You?” I shake my head. “What do you have to be sorry for?”

“The way I reacted, the things I said.” He nods down at the hockey helmet. “The fact that I assaulted you.”

“Again — it was deserved. And any other normal human being would have reacted in the same way, myself included.”

David shrugs. “It wasn’t my proudest moment.” His gaze drifts to the fountains again, and he frowns. “It just really caught me off guard.”

I nod.

“I’m the one who’s sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry for lying to you, for keeping something from you that was just as much your business as it was mine, and for thinking I had a handle on a situation that clearly I did not.” I swallow. “I’m your best friend. You should never have to know how it feels for me to betray you, and yet you do.”

He grits his teeth, blowing out a breath through his nose that’s long and heavy. For a while, he just stares at the water shooting up toward the sky.

“How long has it been going on?”

I sigh. “Define it.”

“Just… tell me everything.” He grimaces. “Not everything, but you know what I mean. If I’m going to try to wrap my head around this, I need to know what it is.”

I cross my ankle over my knee, thinking about where to start. “I don’t know. I guess it started with the accident.”

“When you were there for her surgery,” he murmurs, putting the pieces together. “I forget that she reconnected with you before I did.”

“Briefly,” I say. “I didn’t see her again until you invited me over. And when you did… I don’t know. I just saw how sad she was, how badly she was hurting, and I think at first I just wanted to do the same thing you did — fix up the house, try to cheer her up.”

I shake my head at the lie, because I knew from that first encounter that I wanted her.

“But it was more than that,” I confess. “God, this is so hard to admit to you, man. But… I think I knew even before you invited me over to help with the hot water heater that I wanted to see her again. I was trying to think of a way to make it happen.”

He wrinkles his nose. “Gross.”

I chuckle. “I just feel a connection to her.”

“So, you wanted to cheer her up,” David says, getting me back on track with the story.

“I did. I made this deal with her, that we’d be each other’s accountability partners. I would make sure she got out and lived a little more, did things she never thought she could do when she was married to your dad, and she’d do the same for me.” I shrug. “Make sure I don’t live and die in that hospital.”

“So, you guys have been hanging out this whole time,” he says. “Even when I wasn’t there.”

I nod.

David cracks his neck. “Keep going.”

I go into as much detail as I think he wants to know, telling him how we made the list, how we’ve been checking items off here and there — the wall climb, meditating, the hockey game, the stadium event, even helping her with her date.