Convincing You I'm Me

Chapter 44: Five Days

I S L A

I squirm in my seat excitedly throughout the entire car journey. Jason keeps glancing at me with an amused laughter as he soars us down a dirt road at the edge of California.

He knows I know where he's taking me, my attempt at trying to act surprised just doesn't go in sync with my giddy, uncontrollable body. I turn the volume of the radio up, singing along to a song that matches my electric smile.

I see the pier in the distance, it's a long stretch of platform that reaches out down the ocean, I hoist myself upwards in my seat, squinting my eyes until I see the waves hitting the shallow rocks beneath it. 

To anyone else in the world, somewhere amazing would probably consist of a restaurant. But Jason knows me, he knows me better than I know myself. Even after twenty years, he still remembers my favorite place in the world. 

A pier.

I love watching the ocean, I love the nerve-wracking possibility of trying to catch a glimpse of a whale. After all, it was on my list. There was this one time at sea world. . . but that was just completely irrelevant.

"Jesus," Jason laughs under his breath. "Anyone would think I'm taking you to a free-bar concert."

I grin, shaking in my seat. "Better."

+ + +

After stopping at a small food stall to get a couple of corn dogs and some delicious mugs of hot chocolate we both wander across the empty docks towards the windy pier. I wrap my loose jacket tighter around my body as my scarf sways in the breeze. I love this time of year; feeling my hair blow with freshness and clarity, feeling my bones sting with a cool, mild tremor. It's one of the best feelings in the world, after a couple of others. 

"How was your Christmas?" Jason asks suddenly.

He asks me that just as I take a bite out of my corn dog, so I try and think of a reply while I swing it around my mouth. I swallow it fearfully, not daring to meet his eyes. "Different."

"Are you still in contact with...?"

I shake my head, silencing him. "I haven't spoken to them since I graduated. I want to, I mean, they still believe they're my parents and they always will, but it's just. . ."

"Different."

I meet his eyes with a small, sad smile. "Yeah. And difficult. I feel guilty that I couldn't be the daughter they created. That I couldn't love them the way they loved me. They were amazing parents, they were the kind of parents in ways I sometimes wished I had in my other life. Whoever was supposed to be their daughter would have been incredibly lucky."

I feel the tears coming, but I fight them. My voice begins to choke and Jason senses that, so he changes the subject.

"I remember the first time we came to the pier. We sat right over there," he points down the long platform to the very end of the pier. "And played cards with a bottle of rum between us until the sun went down."

"I remember that," I smirk. "I had to teach you the rules."

"Snap is a very hard game, okay? Especially with rum."