Chapter Fourteen

THE FISHTRAP IS BUSY. THEdinner rush started at six and hasn't let up. The restaurant hums with conversation, the clink of silverware and rattling glasses. It smells of the ocean: fresh fish, mussels, cooked seafood. Danny is behind the bar, leaning against the shelves of liquor. He stares at his phone. A text chat is open, and Ellie's number is at the top. He's done this before. When Ellie was gone, he read their old text messages over and over. Stared at her number, even called it to listen to her voice.

Out of the corner of his eye, a regular in a members-only jacket raises his glass and taps it, motioning for a refill. Danny ignores him. His thumbs hover over the keyboard. He knows Ellie is back. He has seen her on the news and driven the streets of her neighborhood, but he'd been too much of a coward to call her. Until now, until he saw her dad at Ray's, the grocery store, this morning. They'd hugged and made small talk. Then Jim had mentioned Danny should come around. See Kat. Ellie. She has the same phone number, Jimmy had casually slipped in.

All day Danny has been figuring out what to say. How to say it. Fuck it, he decides, and taps out: HI. I'M THINKING ABOUT YOU. He immediately feels like an asshole. I'm thinking about you. It sounds weak. Cliché. With none of the intimacy they once shared. He wipes down the bar and fills a few drinks. His phone lights up with a call. The name Ellie flashing on the screen. His heart pounds. Jesus, he's nervous.

"I'm taking a break," he yells at the barback, pushing through the kitchen doors and out the back. He's in the alley and out of breath when he answers. "Hello? Ellie?" He's frantic, afraid he's missed her again.

He'd gone to the motel that night. Driven all the way to Astoria and sat in the car berating himself, calling himself a pussy because he couldn't stay away. The whole party was all because Ellie wanted a new phone. It had been a dumb idea. He'd called her a stupid girl in the car, whispering it to himself. He was tired of her. How she didn't take life as seriously as he did. It was the first time he ever thought of Ellie as bad. As a bad person to have around. Then he hated himself after she disappeared, as if he'd manifested it. For two years and two weeks, Danny has lived on a highway of regret.

"Ellie, are you there?" Goosebumps break out over Danny's arms. The dumpster he stands next to stinks of fish guts.

"I'm here."

He slumps against the wall of the methadone clinic next door. "It's really you," he sighs, feeling the air rush back into his lungs. It's the first time in two years that he is completely at peace.

"That's what everyone keeps saying." A small, self-deprecating laugh. Her voice is husky, lower than he remembers, but it's Ellie.

"I can't believe I'm hearing your voice right now." Danny wishes he was a smoker. He'd like to light up. Do something with his hands. Time stretches between them. The only sound is Ellie's breathing.

"I was about to go to sleep," she blurts.

"Oh." He cannot keep the disappointment out of his voice. The dull pang from echoing in his chest. "I'll let you go, then."

"No, I mean, it's okay. I wanted to talk to you."

His face heats up, her words mingling with his marrow. "I want to talk to you, too."

"Do you want… are you busy? I mean, do you want to come over?"

"You sure?" He is already heading back to the bar to grab the keys to his shitty car.

"Yeah," she says, and he has to work to hear her over the hustle of the restaurant. "Park down the street," she tells him. "Don't let anybody see you. There's a bunch of press. You remember the way?"

Through Mrs. Johnson's yard, over her fence, and up the tree into Ellie's window. He used to sneak in all the time. They'd have sex in her bed. They couldn't get enough of each other. "I won't let anyone see me," he promises. "I'm on my way."

Ellie's bedroom window is cracked open, and Danny jimmies it the rest of the way. He climbs over the sill and shuts it behind him, cutting off the gusts of wind. No lights are on in her room. But he can tell by the outline of the furniture that everything is in the same place. He finds Ellie in the center of the carpet. Clothes hang loosely from her frame, like she's a twisted wire wrapped in fabric. In her hand is a phone and on the screen there is a picture of a girl. One he does not recognize. She has dark hair, a stack of friendship bracelets loops her wrist, and her mouth is puckered, a typical selfie pose. Ellie places the phone down and clicks on the bedside lamp.

They stare at each other. She looks… not good. And he wonders if she is thinking the same about him. Sometimes he's surprised when he sees himself in the mirror. It all shows on his face, a lifetime of grief doled out in the span of a couple years.

"Danny," Ellie says, and their relationship, the entirety of the past, comes back to him, curling around him like a wave and sweeping him away.

Before they dated, Danny had seen Ellie around the halls at school. Coldwell was a small town, the high school even smaller. Everyone knew she slept with Will Gunner freshman year, and everyone knew she lied sometimes. Especially the whopper about her family being wealthy and only living in Coldwell until their mansion was done being built in Seattle. They didn't have a class together until chemistry, junior year. They'd sat next to each other. She was wearing a plastic choker around her neck and smiled mischievously at him, dropping a note on his desk during the lecture. It was a doodle of their chemistry teacher with a dick for a head. Danny had coughed into his fist to avoid laughing.

After school, Ellie approached him at his locker and laid a hand on his chest. Bonfire on the beach, she said. You should come.

Danny thought of all the reasons he shouldn't go to the beach. Knew what happened there at night. What kind of kids hung out there—druggies and flunkies. But he'd grown up working evenings and weekends at his family's restaurant. He'd missed most of his childhood. Ellie was fun. Danny wanted to have fun, wanted to be a kid. She'd been frustrating and fascinating and fucking mercurial in her moods. And when she'd kissed him at the bonfire, he'd been a goner. He'd insisted on walking her home, and she'd told him to fuck off.

I don't need you to walk me home, she'd said, slurring her words, drunk off her ass and pushing at his chest. After that night, they were going out. They called each other. Texted each other. Then he was in love with her. And all of it, all of it was blown away as easily as smoke.

Now Danny opens his hands. "I feel like I should have brought you something." He smiles, but it is grim.

"It's okay."

"I don't think any reporters saw me." His arms twitch at his sides, and he reaches for her. "Ellie," he says.

She ducks away and backs into a corner, a shadow crossing her face. "I don't like… I don't like to be touched." She huddles into herself.

A rubber band tightens around Danny's stomach. "All right." He shifts on his feet, tucks his hands into his pockets, thumbs out. "You okay with me standing here? Or do you want me to back up a little?"

Her chin trembles. And Danny kind of hates himself. "You can stay there," she rasps out. "Just don't reach for me again."

"I won't."

The tension in Ellie's body eases. Danny keeps his distance.

"This is my fault. If I'd come to the motel party…" He straightens, as if facing a firing squad. He wants Ellie to rail at him. To blame him. But she doesn't. She stays silent. So he does, too. Finally, he gathers himself. "Is there anything I can do? Anything that will help you?"

Danny is aware he's always had a bit of a hero complex. What man doesn't? he thinks. Maybe that's what drew him to Ellie in the first place. The idea that she needed to be saved. Then, when she called him out on it—I don't need you to walk me home—he'd felt stripped, completely naked.

"I don't want to talk about anything," Ellie says now.

"Okay."

She throws him a relieved smile, and Danny wants to fucking die. To flay himself. He wants to tell her to ask for more. Money. Blood. His life. "Can I sit?"

"Sure."

He sits right where he is, keeping his eyes on Ellie the whole time. There are three feet between them. Enough distance to whisper but not to touch. If this was two years ago, they might have tucked themselves into Ellie's twin-size bed. She might have thrown her arms around his neck.

"What other rules do you have?" he asks as Ellie sinks to the floor. He notes she is careful to keep space on both sides of her. Notes that her eyes flutter to the windows and doors, to the exits.

She swallows. "Just the things about touching and talking. And no asking me questions like, how are you feeling? Are you all right?"

"Got it," he says in an even, calm voice. He lets his body relax. "So, what do you want to talk about?"

She draws her legs up and rests her chin on her knees. She looks at her feet. "Sam came over a couple days ago. She brought Valerie and the baby."

"Yeah?" Danny shifts and leans back, catching his weight with his hands.

"Sam called the reporters outside assholes," she says, a smile in her voice.

Danny chuckles. "That sounds about right. What else happened?"

Ellie's record player sits in a spot where the light doesn't reach. She glances at it. "Do you want to listen to some music?" she asks, ignoring his question. Once upon a time, she'd told him she saw her future in the spinning vinyl and in between the lines of lyrics.

"As long as it's not David Bowie."

"Still not a fan?" Does she remember that Danny secretly loved hair bands? How they had fought, which was really thinly disguised flirting, over music?

"I maintain his music does not have a single redeeming feature."

"We agree to disagree." Another smile and Danny's chest is light. His world turning lazy and slow. Perfect. "No Bowie, then. You pick."

Danny moves to the record player. He rifles through the albums and chooses Johnny Cash. He puts the record on. The vinyl spins, and Johnny's deep, melodic voice starts up. He sings about a man coming around and living like a bird on a wire. Danny leans his head against the wall and closes his eyes. The song changes. "You are my sunshine," Johnny sings. The music abruptly stops and Danny opens his eyes. Ellie is crouched by the record player, the vinyl gripped so hard in her hands it's warped near to cracking. "I don't like this song," she states, and it startles him, the way she says it.

He's not sure what to say, if he can ask why, so he answers with a simple, "Okay."

"Choose something else." She replaces the record back in the sleeve with a tremble.

Danny waits a beat for Ellie to settle back against the wall. Then he sorts through the records again. "Dylan okay?"

She nods once. He puts on Dylan's greatest hits. And Ellie's eyes flutter shut. He closes his eyes too and wonders about the Johnny Cash song, "You Are My Sunshine." She never hated it before. Then he thinks, and it's deeply disturbing, that he might not know Ellie anymore. For two years, it is as if she's been frozen in time, trapped in amber, forever seventeen. But that is not the truth. The truth is something happened to Ellie.

The air shifts around him, and he opens his eyes. Ellie is standing next to him. He waits. Doesn't move. Holds his breath. She melts down and sits beside him. Their legs both outstretched, not touching, but still.

"I'm sorry I freaked out. I'm also sorry if I smell," she says so quietly, so softly, the sound is just a smudge in the dark, a tear to be wiped away. "I threw up earlier."

"It's fine," he says. The smell reminds Danny that she is here. She is alive. Whatever happened to her during the two years she was gone doesn't matter, he tells himself. She is still the person he fell in love with. The only person, the only girl in the world, capable of destroying him.