rock (17 page)

moreaki boulders

I opt to stay in Wellington after all, accepting a position at Vic. Part of the way through the second year of my undergraduate studies, Jace performs as pianist in a ballet accompaniment. Dad and Lila fly to the opening show, and though I’m not invited, I take the hatchback over on the ferry and drive down to Dunedin.

I don’t announce my presence.

All the affordable tickets are sold out, so I fork out a chunk of my savings for a seat far too close to where Jace is playing.

I slip on sunglasses and sink into my seat until the lights dim and the ballet begins. I focus on the music and Jace with his back to me, his fingers dancing over the keys and mesmerizing me. Dressed in a suit with tails, he takes me back to Newtown High and the dance we shared. Only now Jace fills his suit better, and he’s grown into a man.

What wouldn’t I give to dance with
this
man?

First, though, we’d need to be on speaking terms. At least, more than the generic fluff.
Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Is Mum around? Tell Dad happy birthday. Happy New Year. Happy twentieth, Jace.

Happy nineteenth, Cooper.

No, there’ll be no dancing anytime soon.

Still, this is his biggest recital. I wouldn’t miss it for all the money in the world.

During intermission, his face splits into a grin when he spots his parents. Behind my shades, I follow his gaze. Lila, Dad, and a young woman in a sleek navy dress with raven hair to match. She smiles a seductive smile back at Jace, as though she’s promising to do secretive things to him when the curtain closes.

In my mind, I hear Jace over Skype telling Lila and Dad about her.
Natalie’s a singer, her voice is . . . impossible.
She’s beautiful, I hope for you to meet her.

She’s my opposite in every way: female, petite, dark features, and a talent for music I will never have.

My spirits sink, but I’m well-accustomed to being hurt by Jace’s boyfriends and girlfriends.

The lights dim and the ballet begins again. The music soothes the remnants of my old heartaches. The only thing I can do is smile and clap bloody hard for how beautifully Jace played.

I slink out of the audience before anyone spots me.

At the crack of dawn the next morning, I begin the drive back home, stopping at the Moeraki Boulders. The seaweed-tasting air has a cool bite as it whips sand against the beach’s boulders. A few tourists take pictures of the fifty-six-million-year-old rocks, but I head over to lean against a smaller boulder.

The cool rock hums over my skin like it’s sharing its memories.

I’ve borne witness to pain. I’ve seen canoes tip and people drown. I’ve collected the tears of a thousand men who have leaned against me and cried like you do. I’ve borne witness to joy—celebrations and laughter that echoed off me and settled onto my boulder brothers. Laughs that still vibrate under the surface.

I’ve existed since before myth and legend, long enough to become one. Did you know the Maori believed us to be remains of their eel baskets and sweet potatoes that washed ashore during the wreck of a large sailing canoe?

I’m a rock. The closest thing to eternal.

An anthology of stories that never end.

I smile and trace my name over its surface. Then his.

The tide sweeps in around us as if to soak up my story and run away. I envision it out there being tossed up onto the rocky surface.

Has our story ended? If so, will it sink to the bottom of the ocean, near the aquamarines that mermaids treasure? Or will heavy breezes whip it through the sky, carrying it over every surface because it’s not finished yet?

An eerie shiver follows me as I make my way back to the hatchback and continue my way to Wellington.

In a rural, coastal stretch between Christchurch and Picton, the hatchback splutters and dies. I view this annoying incident as my answer—confirmation my story has sunk.

I call roadside help, and they tow the dead car to Kaikoura, a small town.

Long story short, she’s not worth starting again.

I say my goodbyes and start trekking down the main road, thumb out, looking for a ride. Five cars pass before one slows down and flashes its lights at me. I jog over pebbles—pick a small one up—and slide into the silver car.

The driver is wearing board shorts and a Flight of the Conchords T-shirt. His crooked smile reveals a slight gap between his front teeth. Five or so years older than me, I’d guess.

His brown eyes are warm but slightly nervous.

I shake his hand. “Cooper. My car died, and I’d love to get up toward Picton.”

He grins. “Zach. And it just so happens I’m taking the ferry there to Wellington.”

emerald

Christmas, and Zach and I have been dating for months now. I want to surprise Annie with a beautiful kauri rocking chair I found at a warehouse out in Petone. It cost a fortune, but since Annie was moving into a single apartment and had just landed a job as a school counselor, I really wanted to get her something special.

Zach drives me and the chair, strapped into the trunk, to Annie’s new apartment on Christmas morning. He yawns and shakes his head. “Why so early?”

“Because she woke me at six on my birthday. It’s time for payback.”

Zach mumbles something about getting me back for getting
him
up so early, and I promise I’ll make it up to him later. He perks up and grins.

I laugh, leaning over to kiss his stubbly cheek. “Merry Christmas, Zach.”

As soon as we arrive at Annie’s, Zach parks the car, races around to my side and pulls me out. He nips my lips and kisses me against the car door. “You taste like peppermint,” he says as I pull a half-eaten candy cane out of my pocket.

He laughs and pilfers it. The beast.

We carry the chair up the steep incline to the small, one-bedroom house overlooking the bush and a wedge of ocean. I leave the chair at the front door with Zach and sneak off around the house to Annie’s bedroom.

Her window is partially open, and I’m about to cry out Merry Christmas and swing inside when I hear a guy laugh and say, “Here. This is for you. Merry Christmas.”

I freeze. I recognize his voice.

“You didn’t have to,” Annie says. A long beat, then—

“Do you like them?”

“I love them. I love
you
—”

We gasp at the same time. Footsteps stomp across the floorboards and the curtains are flung open. I am face to face with Ernie.

His face pales but he keeps his head high. Annie pushes open the window and glares at me. A long pair of emerald earrings glimmer in the morning light, making her eyes brighter.

“I came to surprise you,” I say slowly. “Turns out you beat me to it again, Annie. What’s going on?”

My attention narrows to Ernie and the thin pair of boxers he’s wearing.

“I’m in love with her. I’m in love with Annie.”

Annie blushes and smiles coyly at their feet before leaning over and kissing his cheek just the way I did with Zach.

Ernie brushes her hair over her shoulders. “Maybe it’s time to tell your brother?”

She laughs and gestures to me. “Come to the front, we’ll let you in.”

Ernie has changed into a pair of jeans and a tank top when he and Annie open the door and let me, Zach, and the chair inside the dining room.

Annie coos over the chair until I start tapping my foot. Zach comes up behind me, wraps his arms around my waist and tells me to take a breath. Love is a wonderful feeling.

I relax against him, but I wonder if Zach is growing impatient with my excuses not to say
I love you
.

I block out the worry and concentrate instead on Ernie, who is nervously preparing some tea.

“How long?” I ask.

Annie answers, “A year.”

A whole year? My closest friend and my sister?

“Longer, Annie,” Ernie says. “And you know it.”

She rocks in her new chair. “It grew slowly, I don’t know how long it’s been going on but it’s a year since we—”

“I don’t need to know all the details.”

Ernie laughs. “Fine. I’ve been smitten with your sister from the first time I saw her.”

Smitten? The word sounds foreign coming from Ernie’s mouth. “You didn’t say anything.”

“Dude. She’s your sister. Be weird if I told you how much she turns me on and that every day I wank—”

And
there
’s the Ernie I know. “I pray to God you don’t finish that sentence.”

Annie stifles a giggle.

“I get it. You didn’t tell me you had a crush on her.” I shake my head at Annie. “How on earth did you fall for this guy?”

I love Ernie, I do, but there’s a degree of stupid that people shouldn’t overlook.

Annie stops rocking. “Actions speak louder than words. Ernie shows me every day how much he cares. It started when he danced with you at Newtown High.”

“You fell for him all the way back then? I thought you liked Darren?”

“I did like Darren back then.”

“Good things take time,” Ernie says, handing me a cup of tea. “I’m a good thing.”

Annie grins. “Took me a while to figure it out.”

“I hated when you hooked up with Darren,” Ernie says, twisting a chair from the table and straddling it. “Bert and Cooper joined in my grief that day in the form of debauchery. Never been so drunk in my life.”

How did I not recognize Ernie was suffering as much as I was that fateful day? I pull out a chair and slump onto it. “I’m sorry, Ernie. I didn’t know.”

“You had your own problems. We all did.”

Zach stands behind me, rubbing my shoulders. I tilt my head back and smile at him. He leans down and kisses me. For a second, it’s almost enough and I’m close to something like love for him. Maybe if I wait long enough, it will grow on me like it did with my sister and Ernie.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” I ask, lifting my tea and taking a sip. The liquid is warm but hasn’t been boiled.

He makes her tea the way she likes it.

“Because—”

“Because I was afraid you would turn her away from me,” Ernie says. “I say stupid things sometimes, and you know all the shit I’ve done. How could you take me seriously? How could you see past those parts to the real ones? I love Annie, and I’m scared one day she’ll see how much more amazing she is than me. As selfish as it might’ve been, I didn’t want you to give her a head start.”

I take another sip of tea.

I stand and lean down to hug Annie. I breathe in the soapy scent of her hair, and I flinch at her cold earring against my cheek.

Emeralds. Ernie’s birthstone. Ernie walks into view and I hold his nervous stare. “They say so long as the friendship is true, emeralds will stay in one piece. I hope yours never break, Annie.”

She nods, chin banging against my shoulder. “They won’t. I won’t let them.”

serpentinite

I bring Zach home to Mum’s for my twentieth. This is the first time they’ve met, and Zach is taking it all in stride. Why have I waited so long to show him off?

He leans back in his chair, the brown of his T-shirt complementary against the dark wood. He fits at this table, fits in conversation with Mum and Paul, jokes casually with Ernie, and listens carefully to Annie. He
fits
here, and he should fit with me too.

I grab his hand under the table and rub my thumb in circles at his wrist.

Paul refills Mum’s teacup. Their gazes catch, and with the orange sun streaming through the skylight, the scene glistens and shines like well-polished crystal.

“Zach,” Mum says, smiling widely as she focuses on him, “you’re a social worker?”

Zach squeezes me and gently pries his fingers free. He rests his arms on the table as he nods. Half of him is in a square of light that makes his arm hair glisten gold. “Yes, I basically take care of kids in bad situations.”

“That sounds like a tough job.”

I’ve seen Zach so emotionally drained from a day’s work that he doesn’t have enough energy to do anything but sleep. He’s strong, though. Persevering through the hard shit and the threats he gets on a weekly basis.
For the kids
, he says.

Zach takes a sip of tea. “It’s tough, and sometimes it feels useless. I like that we run family conferences and care and protection meetings, but sometimes it’s not enough. Then we have to move the kids.”

“Difficult. Do you keep in contact with the kids you help once they’re placed in care?”

“For a while, to make sure everything is running smoothly. But eventually I move on. Though I make sure the kids always know they can call me.”

Zach’s arms have broken out in goosebumps, reminding me of last week when Zach brought up one of his toughest cases. His first. We were in my flat, alone, thanks to my flatmates skipping off to the Waiarapa for the weekend. After making us dinner, I found him leaning forward on the couch, elbows on his knees as he scrubbed his face.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” He stares at his phone on the coffee table. “Just got a message from someone I helped out a couple of years ago.”

“A kid? Are they okay?”

He shrugs. “I have no idea. It didn’t say much. Might have been sent accidentally.”

“Do you have to call and check?”

“No, he’s nineteen. He’ll make his own way in the world.”

I set the dinner on the coffee table. “You helped him when he was seventeen? I thought—”

“Yes, no, I helped his younger brother. Hamish took his brother away from their abusive parents to protect him, but things got bad when their parents discovered them.”

“Shit. I’m sorry.”

Zach’s laugh startles me back to my birthday breakfast, and I blink at the untouched pancakes on my plate.

“I love to surf,” Zach says. “It’s a great way of purging tension.” He kisses my cheek. “I’m going to teach this one a few tricks this summer.”

Annie leans over to Ernie. “You should get lessons too.”

The doorbell rings.

After a few moments, Mum comes back. “Cooper, a visitor for you.”

I push back my chair and wander toward the front door. Standing at the threshold, morning light framed behind him, is Jace. He has his hands shoved into his pockets, and he’s turned away from the house, staring out at the wild garden as he waits.

I breathe in a nectar-scented breeze. “Jace?” I say quietly.

He turns slowly. His gaze is guarded but as he takes me in, a slow grin warms his face. His eyes glitter brightly—the first I’ve seen since forever ago.

“Cooper,” he says softly.

“What are you doing here?” The wooden floorboards cool the soles of my feet, helping to ground me.

He stammers and has to take a deep breath. He tries again. “Happy birthday, Jace. Happy birthday, Cooper. Merry Christmas—when did that happen? After our one-minute call on my birthday, I couldn’t stop thinking about how we used to talk for hours. I want—I wish—”

Footsteps bang down the hall, followed by voices—my sister and Zach. She’s telling him about some embarrassing photos of me that he’ll love.

“Oh, wait. Jace?” Annie’s steps approach faster, and Zach is nearing too. “Hey, I didn’t know you were coming home.” Wellington, she means.

“Just for the weekend,” Jace says, glancing curiously at the other man coming up behind me. “I had something I wanted to do.” His gaze lands on mine, and he pulls something from his pocket.

I take it and smile. A gift. It’s small, hard and heavy.

Jace smiles too. “Happy—”

Zach wraps his arm around my neck, sliding close to me, and extends his other hand. “You’re the brother, right?”

I wince.

It’s subtle but Jace reels back. His now-stiff smile solidifies on his face, as if it’s taking everything in his power to keep it there.

“Yes, his brother.” Reluctantly, he takes the offered hand.

Jace swallows and looks away. “Well, I wanted to wish you a happy birthday. Dad wants to know what you want for your birthday dinner.” He shrugs, already moving across the veranda. “Call him. I gotta go. My girlfriend is waiting in the car.”

He gives us a short wave. “Later.”

* * *

Except Jace is not at Dad’s later. He’s gone, his room void of anything to prove he was even here.

Lila seems saddened by his abrupt departure.

“Maybe he and his girlfriend wanted alone time?”

She frowns. “What girlfriend?”

* * *

Zach and I go back to his place for the night. Still stuffed from dinner, we lounge on his comfy grey couch. A documentary about milk production plays on the television, but we’re not paying much attention. We lie lengthwise on his couch, cuddling and nibbling little kisses on each other’s neck.

His phone buzzes against my crotch, and I laugh.

“Sorry.” He sits up and pulls out his phone, then pauses when he sees the sender. He frowns, and after a second, lies the phone down.

“Who is it?”

He swallows. “Hamish.”

“The big brother you helped?”

He nods, but instead of curling up next to me again, he sits upright.

“Who is Hamish?”

“You just said—”

“No, I mean, who is he to you?”

“Just . . . someone.”

Emotions flicker over his face, and I get it. “Someone special though, right?”

A long moment. “Yeah. But that was in the past.”

I brush my shoulder against his. “It’s okay, Zach. I have a past as well.”

He glances at me. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Yeah. I get it. Neither can I.” He twists and kisses me.

I brush his hair back and rub my nose against his.

“You’re beautiful,” he says simply. “You have no idea how happy I am I pulled over that day.”

“Me too.”