5. Neavh

The bar still smells the same: the brisk scent of pine boards mixed with the sticky-sweet tang of spilt beer. The same dartboard is hanging on the back wall, a few darts stuck way off from the bull's eye and a halo of scuff marks denting the wall. Even the dust-coated top shelf bottles perched on the liquor display framed with blue mini lights probably haven't been switched out since the last time I was here; River's Bend doesn't exactly draw a top shelf liquor kind of crowd.

"Feel weird to be back?" David asks from beside me in the entryway.

All I can do is nod. Everything about this day has been weird. I've been floating outside my body ever since I saw Clover's face this morning.

"It's order day," David says as he takes a few steps farther into the bar. "Connor should be in here somewhere. You can start by helping him unpack everything. It'll be a good way to get reacquainted with the place."

He calls out a hello, and a couple seconds later, a guy somewhere in his late twenties comes out from the back. He's wearing a paisley bandana to keep his curly blond hair out of his face.

"Hey, Scooter! My boss man!" he says as he adjusts the bandana's knot. "Didn't know you were coming in this early."

I'd forgotten most people in town refer to my cousin as Scooter. It's some dumb inside joke about his motorcycle that's stuck around for years.

"Just showing my cousin around," he says to Connor, "the one I told you all was coming to work for me."

David glances over his shoulder with a confused look on his face when he realizes I'm not beside him. I'm still hovering in the doorway. I force myself to stop being awkward and walk over to join the conversation.

"This is Neavh," David says.

I watch Connor fight to stop himself from doing a double-take when he sees the two of us side by side. The usual mix of confusion and curiosity plays out on his face.

Given that my whole side of the family is white and David's dad is Korean, people tend to have a wide range of reactions to finding out we're cousins—everything from refusing to believe us to lavishing me with praise for how ‘open-minded' my family must be about David's adoption before they've even asked if he's adopted.

He is not.

Thankfully, all Connor does is nod after a second and offer me his hand.

"Right on, right on. Nice to meet you, Neavh. I'm Connor."

"Connor worked here last summer," David says, "so he knows what's up if you run into any questions, although not much has changed in how we do things."

"Oh, true that," Connor says, turning to me. "You worked here a few years ago, right?"

I nod. "Yep. Sure did."

"Although she was only eighteen, so we had to kick her out after the kitchen closed at ten," David says with a laugh.

I also couldn't serve or buy alcohol since British Columbia's drinking age is nineteen, but that didn't stop me from sneaking out to drink with the rest of the staff after hours.

Everything felt new then. Everything was shiny. I was finally free of the shit show living at home had become. It was summer, I was young, and I was falling in love for the first time in my life. Every day felt like a diamond someone had dropped straight into my hands.

I've been all around the world since then, and still, nothing has ever felt as charmed as that summer.

Nothing has ever felt as charmed as her.

"I'll be working on the books out here," David says as he starts walking over to a table by the window.

I blink and realize Connor is halfway to the storage room already. He glances back at me, and I speed over to follow him.

We spend the next hour unpacking the latest food and drink deliveries. I still remember where almost everything goes. Given that I couldn't legally bartend or serve more than food, I spent most of my summer here doing things like organizing, dishwashing, and filling out order forms.

Even though I've had a few real bar jobs during my travels since then, I'll still be spending this summer picking up the menial tasks no one else wants to do. David had already finished all his seasonal hiring by the time I called him from Australia, so I'm lucky he's fit me onto the schedule at all, even if it means missing out on the best tips.

"Scooter said you're a big time backpacker. You were living in, uh, Austria, or something?"

I pause in the middle of sliding some jugs of olive oil onto a shelf and glance over at Connor where he's stacking up flats of Pepsi cans.

"Australia," I correct.

He grins and nods. "Sick. Always wanted to go there. I'm a bit of a drifter myself. Can't be tamed, you know?"

I press my lips together to keep from smirking. This guy would definitely fit in at a Gold Coast hostel.

"So what brought you back?" he asks.

"Oh, um, I ran into a little trouble with my visa."

Connor clucks his tongue in approval. "Sounds badass."

I rustle the pack of chip bags I've just loaded into my arms to hide the sound of my barely suppressed laughter.

"Uh, thank you."

After another few minutes of working, he tells me he's originally from Toronto and then asks if I'm from the island.

"I was born in Vancouver," I tell him. "Like, the city."

I never know how much people from out east need clarification on the distinction between Vancouver Island and the city of Vancouver, which, in an admittedly confusing turn of events, is not on Vancouver Island.

"But my dad is from Montreal, and we moved over there when I was eight," I add, "so I'm never really sure how to answer where I'm from."

Connor straightens up from squatting in front of a shelving unit and turns to face me. "Which one feels more like home?"

Maybe it's the jet lag, or the fact that I still don't know how the hell to process this morning's disaster with Clover, or just the overwhelming awareness of the past that seems to hang in this bar like a thick perfume, but I end up blurting out way more sincere of an answer than I mean to.

"I don't think I've ever felt at home," I tell him. "I think that's one of my problems."

He raises his eyebrows and blinks a couple times before nodding.

"Shit, Neavh. That's deep."

I'm pretty sure it's more pathetic than it is deep. I feel my face getting hot, and I mumble an excuse about needing some air before I head out of the storage room and straight for the bar's front door.

I've got to get my shit together.

I'm too broke to go anywhere else, at least for now. I've got to work for at least a couple months before I can figure out my next destination. That means I need to find some way not to fall apart every time something reminds me of the past.

The only other choice is to go crawling back to my parents, which isn't an option at all. I know they'd at least give me a place to sleep, even with the way things are between us, but I barely made it out of there with my sanity intact when I left home after high school. They don't even know I'm back in Canada, and the longer I can keep it that way, the better.

I know exactly how it'll all play out: they'll tell me I'm throwing my life away and that I need to come home and get back on track with my degree. We'll fight. They'll shut down and retreat into the suffocating silence of their grief until I say or do something reckless just to get them to remember they have one child who's still here, who's still alive.

Then we'll fight again, and everything will repeat. Everything will play out in the same cycle that keeps reconfirming what I've known all along: I can't replace my brother. I can't pull them out of the hole they fell into when he died.

I'm not enough for that.

The warm breeze of the early afternoon hits my face as soon as I've stepped outside. I squat down on the short set of steps in front of the bar and ball my fists in the sleeves of my hoodie, my eyes fixed to the highway.

A few tourists are wandering up the strips of trodden-down earth that serve as a sidewalk, phones at the ready as they snap photos of every building and tree. I don't even judge them for it. River's Bend looks fit for a postcard at this time of year, with everything all fresh and blooming.

"Hey. You all right?"

The door creaks as it swings shut behind David.

"Oh. Hey."

I twist to look back at him before resuming my contemplative observation of the town.

"You didn't answer my question."

David pops a squat beside me, both of us perching on the steps like oversized birds.

"I'm all right," I say. "Just jetlagged, I think. Needed a little air."

He stays quiet, silently calling me on bullshit the way only an older relative can. I hold out for a minute before I crack.

"Okay, fine. It is pretty weird to be back here. I'm sorry. I really, really appreciate the job. I'm not gonna be running out mid-shift all the time. I just…"

He nudges my shoulder with his. "I'm not mad. I'm checking on you, kid."

I wish I didn't feel like a kid. I've travelled to almost thirty countries all by myself. At twenty-two years old, I've seen more of the world than most people do in their entire lives, but I'm still back crashing in my cousin's spare room with nothing but a few hundred bucks in my bank account and nowhere else to go.

"I saw her."

The words burst out of me before I can think to hold them back. I feel David tense up beside me.

"Who?" he asks, even though his body language tells me he already knows the answer.

There's only one her I could be talking about.

"Clover."

Her name hangs in the air like smoke. David drags a hand down his face before sighing.

"Shit. I'm sorry. I didn't think you'd bump into each other so soon. Wait." He twists to face me, a confused look on his face. "When did you see her?"

Guilt twists in my stomach as I remember our agreement that I'd stay off the highway.

"Soooo I got a little carried away with my test drive while you were asleep this morning."

He groans and glares at me. "Neavh. Come on. Seriously?"

"I didn't mean to," I protest. "I was just getting the hang of driving it. I didn't even realize how far I was driving, and then…and then suddenly I was passing Riverview, and I pulled into the parking lot to turn around, and she…she was there."

David's glare doesn't drop. "You really expect me to buy that?"

I start glaring right back. "Do you think I wanted to run into her while driving a Spongebob golf cart?"

We stare each other down for half a second and then burst out laughing at the exact same time.

"Okay, okay, fair enough," David wheezes.

He shifts into a more comfortable position. I do the same, and we sit side by side facing the road.

"I feel like an idiot," I tell him. "Like, I really convinced myself it wouldn't be a big deal. You'd think it wouldn't be a big deal. The whole thing lasted, what, two months? But I saw her today, and…"

David shrugs, his voice turning serious. "Two months can seem like a long time out here, especially in the summer. Summer in River's Bend feels like…like the whole world turns to gold. It's easy to get lost in that."

I nod, my gaze going unfocused. "Yeah. That's what it felt like."

Maybe I did get lost in her. Maybe she got lost in me too. Maybe all we did was flounder our way through feelings that were too big for us to hold, but in the moments I'd brush her hair out of her face or trace my fingertips across her lips, it felt like I was more found than I'd ever been in my life.

I haven't felt anything even close to that since.

A pick-up truck rumbles by on the highway, the bed loaded up with a few kayaks. The jostling sound of the boats knocking together pulls me out of my thoughts.

"Neavh," David says once the sound of the motor has faded, "you never really told me what happened with her."

I glance at him and then back at the spray of water droplets the truck's tires have splattered against the road.

"What do you mean?" I say. "You know I just…left. I was supposed to stay, and I left. I was a coward. There's not much more to say."

He lets out a long breath. I can feel his eyes on me, but I don't turn to face him.

"I know there's more to it than that," he says. "Look, you don't have to give me the details if you don't want to, but considering you're spending the summer here and things don't exactly seem to be off to an amazing start, maybe it would help to just get it all out to someone."

I pull my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around my legs while I consider the invitation. Part of me feels like I'll dissolve into a million pieces if I try to put everything into words, but the rest of me feels like I'm guaranteed to explode if I don't.

Everything just feels so fucking heavy, like thick walls closing in on me from every side.

"Or I could pay Connor to sit out here and listen to you," David adds. "Your choice."

I huff a laugh, and the slight break in the tension convinces me to at least give this a shot.

"It was perfect," I begin, the words tumbling out in a rush. "It's like you said. Every day was gold. She was gold. I'd never met anyone like her. After...after Charles died, all my friends back home just felt like they were for convenience. I wasn't used to people seeing me, but Clover… She didn't take my shit. I think that's what made her stand out to me in the first place. She just looks at you, and she…she sees you."

I'd messed around with girls before that summer. I thought I was bi at the time, and it was a couple more years before I realized I was a lesbian. Still, Clover was the first girl to make me realize that sometimes, you see people coming. They grow like a single stalk in the center of a garden, pushing up through the soil inch by inch, day by day, with careful, measured progress you can either urge on or root out on a whim.

Other people hit like a super bloom.

One day, you're bare, empty earth just waking up from a sleep so long the sun still feels like a distant dream, and the next, you're a riot of colour and honey and so many swirling purple petals you can barely see the sky.

She's the one who taught me that term: super bloom. She said it only happens every few years, when the rain and the soil and the sun all conspire to make magic together.

She hit like a super bloom.

One day, I was empty, and the next, there was clover growing everywhere I looked.

"I could tell it was something special," David says.

I startle at the sound of his voice. For a moment, I forgot he was here.

"And I would know," he continues. "The amount of summer flings I see go down while running the only bar in a tourist town is insane, but you two… It's okay for it to have been a big deal, you know. You don't have to try to convince yourself it wasn't."

I press my lips together and stay quiet.

I don't know how I'm supposed to get through a summer here if I don't manage to convince myself of that.

"I think that was part of the problem," I tell him after a moment. "It was special, and…and I didn't know how to handle it. It had only been a few years since Charles died. I don't know to explain just how fucking shitty things got at home after that, and everyone tries to tell me it's not my fault, but…but I know if it had been me who died, not him, he would have been able to handle it better."

My big brother could handle anything. Sure, he was a total class clown and had a habit of living on the edge, but when it came down to it, he could always hold everything together.

All I've seemed to manage since he died is tearing things apart.

"Did you know no one on my dad's side of the family has ever gotten a university degree?" I ask. "My parents wanted that for us so bad, and Charles was going to give it to them. It's not even what he wanted, but he would have done it for them. He would have come through, and I just...I couldn't even pass some of my high school classes, not after he died."

"That's perfectly understandable," David says in a gentle voice.

I shake my head, still staring out across the parking lot. "All they wanted was for me to step up and make something of myself after they lost him, but I couldn't do it, and they...they just faded. They were like zombies walking through life, and nothing I did was enough to wake them up. That summer with Clover, I just couldn't stop thinking about it. We started making all these plans for the future, and I couldn't stop asking myself how I was going to be what she needed when I couldn't even be what my own parents needed after their son died."

David sucks in a sharp breath.

"Neavh…"

He trails off, searching for something to say, but I don't give him the chance. I don't want to hear him try to make me feel better when he doesn't even know what I did.

"I was already planning on travelling after working here that summer," I remind him. "You know, doing the whole gap year thing, but Clover and I decided maybe I could stick around and get a job in Victoria to save up some more, and then we could travel together after she finished her first year at school."

I wince at the memories of all our late-night conversations huddled around a bonfire or walking hand in hand through the dark woods where even the stars couldn't see us.

"We had all these places in South America picked out. She'd go on and on about all the animal rescues she wanted to visit, all the nature hikes we'd do. It was the cutest thing, and I just…I just knew I'd mess it up. I know it sounds stupid. It was stupid, but I got so in my head about it all. I was so convinced she'd be better off without me."

And I was right.

I pause and shake my head. I thought I'd gotten better at fighting off the voices that tell me all I do is mess things up, but being back in River's Bend has them clawing their way out of the box I'd shoved them inside.

"I know I handled it in the worst way possible," I say. "There's no excuse, but when I look back now, I realize I was still so messed up about Charles. I tried to hide it from everyone, but I just…I couldn't deal with it."

My voice cracks, and I have to stop. David presses his shoulder to mine, which just makes me feel like I'm one step closer to crying.

"It's okay, Neavh."

I shake my head again.

"It's not, though. I just left. I fucking ghosted her. I tried so hard to think of what to say, and then I just went with nothing. I got on a plane without even saying goodbye."

He's silent for a few seconds, and I brace for him to start yelling at me or just get up and leave. I'd deserve it. I never told him this part. All I said at the time was that things between me and Clover hadn't worked out and that I'd booked a last-minute ticket to Europe.

"Wait," he says, his voice too measured for me to gauge his reaction. "You said…nothing?"

Guilt churns in my stomach. I hug my knees even tighter and nod without looking at him.

"I'm not judging," he says. "I just—"

"You should," I interrupt. "I know you must have assumed I at least told her something, but that's the truth."

He stays quiet for so long my skin starts to crawl. I risk glancing at him and see he's staring out across the parking lot with his eyes unfocused. When he finally does speak, his voice is hazy, like he's been caught up in the past right alongside me.

"She came to the bar the day after you left. She said you'd had a fight."

I nod again and have to clear my throat before I can answer.

"Yeah. She…she knew something was wrong, but I couldn't…I couldn't…"

My eyes burn, and I start fidgeting with the sleeves of my hoodie, putting all my concentration into toying with a loose thread.

"She didn't know you'd left," David says slowly, like it's all coming together for him now, "but I thought she just didn't know you'd left right then. I knew you'd bought your ticket a few days before, and I assumed…"

"That I wasn't a complete asshole?"

I let out a sharp bark of laughter.

If I don't laugh, I'm going to sob.

David doesn't join in. Instead, he shifts to face me and waits until I have no choice but to lift my eyes to meet his stare.

"Neavh," he says, each syllable enunciated like he wants to make sure what he says next is engraved in my brain, "you were a kid. You were a kid who'd already had to handle way more than any eighteen year-old should. None of what happened to you was your fault."

Something deep in my chest loosens at his words, like a vice easing off the pressure, but I still look away and shake my head.

"That doesn't make what I did okay."

"No," he agrees, "but it does matter."

"It definitely doesn't matter to her," I blurt.

I feel the weight of David's gaze on me.

"How do you know that?" he asks.

I let out a heavy exhale. There's no turning back now. He knows this much. He might as well know the rest.

"Because I reached out to her." I pause for a second before I force myself to finish. "After her mom died."

I didn't even know she was sick. According to David, no one saw it coming. Mary Rivers was diagnosed with cancer just a couple years after my summer here, and she was gone a few months after that. David thought he'd have longer to decide if he should tell me, but by the time she passed, everything was happening so fast.

"When you told me it happened, I couldn't sleep for a week," I say. "I didn't know if it would be better or worse if I got in touch with Clover. It had been over two years by then, but I thought about how I felt when Charles died, how maybe it all would have been different if I'd just had someone who could understand, and I…I decided to try. I sent her a message. I told her how much she meant to me, how much she still meant to me, how I'd understand if she didn't want to speak again, but if she ever needed someone to talk to who just gets it, I'd always be there."

I must have typed and re-typed that email at least fifty times before I came up with a version I didn't delete.

I should have deleted that one too.

We sit there in silence for a few moments before David asks, "Did she answer?"

I nod. My stomach feels like it's filled with ice now, and when I speak, my voice has gone cold and monotone.

"She told me she wasn't interested." I rest my chin on my knees and add, "Understandably."

Out of the corner of my eye, I see David open and close his mouth, searching for something to say, and I don't blame him for coming up empty.

"She also told me it was never anything more than hooking up to her," I add, "that I was a random summer fling who just happened to be around."

The ice spreads through my bloodstream until every part of me feels numb.

"Neavh, you know that's not true."

I shrug. "Maybe."

I can tell David is trying to get me to look at him again, but this time, I don't give in.

"If you'd seen her that day you left, you'd know," he urges. "She just said that because she was hurt and grieving."

I've thought this all through a thousand times before, and I always come to the same conclusion.

"I get that," I say, "but doesn't it kind of make sense? I was just another tourist here for the summer. She could have had her pick of dozens of college kids coming out here to find themselves or whatever the hell I thought I was doing. It's not exactly original to be a lost eighteen year-old who's got no idea what they want out of life, but she… There's no one like her, David."

This time, David doesn't wait for me to face him. He gets to his feet and stands towering over me at the bottom of the steps, one hand gripping the railing tight.

"Listen to me. There's no one like you, either."

I meet his gaze, and there's only one word to describe the look I see there.

Love.

It doesn't matter how long we go without seeing each other or even speaking; David and I will always have love for each other. Even though we rarely saw each other outside of family holidays, he always felt like another big brother to me.

At this moment, I could really fucking use a big brother.

"You're not just some wash-up, okay?" he says. "You've seen the fucking world, Neavh. You're a…a bright young woman who's spent four years surviving completely on your own all over the globe. Do you know how many people say they want to do something like that and then never do because they're too scared? And yet you did it. That's badass. Don't talk about yourself like that doesn't mean anything."

I press my lips together to keep from laughing at the phrase ‘bright young woman' while the rest of his words fall over me like sunshine, melting the ice inside me away, at least for a moment.

"Thank you," I murmur as I reach up to swipe at my eyes.

The corners of his mouth lift for a second before he sits back down.

"Always here for you, cuz."

It's my turn to bump his shoulder with mine.

"You're the best. You know that?" I tell him.

"Oh, I know." He pretends to dust himself off like he's an action hero returning from battle. "Should I go put one of my ‘I'm the best' t-shirts on for you? I have three."

"Ugh," I groan. "Since when did you start making dad jokes?"

He reaches his arms up in the air and twists to stretch his back. "I'm getting old, cousin. Times are changing."

I let out what feels like my first real laugh since I arrived yesterday.

"Yeah, right. You're gonna be a bachelor unsuccessfully flirting with Trish Rivers for the rest of your life."

I congratulate myself on getting a dig at him and Trish in. His whole ‘will they, won't they' situation with Clover's sister was the talk of River's Bend for years before I even arrived. As his cousin, the whole town was quick to get me in on the mission.

Instead of telling me off, his face shifts into a smug grin, and a jolt of shock shoots through me.

There's no way he got with Trish and didn't tell me.

"Oh," he drawls, pausing to scratch the back of his neck to emphasize just how much he knows I'm hanging on his every word, "now that we aren't avoiding the subject of the Rivers family anymore, you should probably know that Trish has a girlfriend."

My brain short-circuits.

Clover's oldest sister, Emily, had already been out as a lesbian for years when I met her, and Clover has been out as bi since high school, but Trish Rivers was always the resolutely straight one of the three.

"Girlfriend?" I squawk.

David bursts out laughing at my reaction, which is fair enough considering I sound like a strangled chicken.

"I'm happy for her," he says, still grinning. "We realized it was never going to work out between us, and Kennedy seems perfect for her. Oh, and Emily has a girlfriend too. Actually, Trish's girlfriend is Emily's girlfriend's best friend, which they've told me is a common level of social entanglement for lesbians. Is that true?"

I'm still too busy processing the revelation about Trish to keep up with what he's saying.

"Trish Rivers has a girlfriend?" I ask, my tone dazed, like I've just been hit over the back of the head.

David chuckles and gets to his feet. "Yup. Like I said, Neavh, times are changing. Who knows? Maybe this summer will turn out completely different than you thought."

He offers me a hand. I reach out and let him help me up.

"Maybe," I say as he leads the way back into the bar.

The image of Clover telling me to get the hell away from her in the parking lot this morning is burnt too deep into my memory to have any hope of that, but still, I wish I could believe he's right.