“Do you need help with that?”

He spit a piece of metal out of his mouth. It landed on the ground next to several more.

“Nope.”

“When were you supposed to get them off?”

“Six months ago. I kinda forgot about it until yesterday.”

That’s when I realized what woke me up, during the dream. A boy with braces hadn’t kissed me since high school.

Chapter 18 – T.J.

I was standing in front of Bones’ shack when Anna found me. Sweat ran down her face.

“I chased a chicken all over the island, but it ran too fast. I will catch it if it’s the last thing I do.” She leaned over and put her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. She looked up at me. “What are you doing?”

“I want to tear down this shack, then bring the wood back to the beach to build us a house.”

“Do you have any idea how to build a house?”

“No, but I’ve got plenty of time to figure it out. If I’m careful, I can re-use all the wood and nails. I can make an awning with the tarp so the fire won’t go out.” I examined the hinges on the door, wondering if they were salvageable. “I need something to do, Anna.”

“I think it’s a great idea,” she said.

It took us three days to knock down the shack and carry the pieces back to the beach. I pulled all the old nails out and put them in the toolbox with the others.

“I don’t want to be too near the woods,” Anna said. “Because of the rats.”

“Ok.” I couldn’t build on the beach, though, because the sand was too unstable. We chose a spot between the two, where the sand ended and the dirt began. We dug a foundation, which sucked because we didn’t have a shovel. I used the claw end of the hammer to pull chunks of dirt out of the ground, and Anna followed along behind me, scooping it up in one of our plastic containers.

I used the rusty saw to cut the wood into the right size. Anna held the boards while I pounded in the nails.

“I’m glad you decided to do this,” she said.

“It’s going to take me a while to finish it.”

“That’s okay.”

She walked to the toolbox to get me some more nails. After she handed them to me she said, “Let me know if you need more help.”

She stretched out on the blanket nearby and closed her eyes. I watched her for a minute, my eyes moving from her legs to her stomach to her boobs, wondering if her skin felt as soft as it looked. I thought about the other day, when she kissed my neck under the coconut tree. I remembered how good it felt. Suddenly, she opened her eyes and turned her head toward me. I looked away quickly. I’d lost track of how many times she’d caught me staring at her. She never said anything about it, or told me to knock it off, which was just one more reason why I liked her so much.

***

It would have been my senior year, and Anna hated that I missed so much school.

“You’re probably going to have to get a GED. I wouldn’t blame you at all if that’s what you wanted to do, instead of going back and finishing high school.”

“What’s a GED?”

“A general education diploma. Sometimes when kids drop out of school, they choose that option instead of going back. But don’t worry, I’ll help you.”

“Okay.” I didn’t give two shits about my high school diploma right then, but it seemed important to her.

The next day, when we were working on the house, Anna said, “Are you ever going to shave?” She felt my beard with the back of her hand. “Isn’t that hot?”

I hoped there was enough hair to hide my red face. “I’ve never shaved before. What little I had fell out when I started chemo. When we left Chicago everything was just starting to grow back.”

“Well it’s all there now.”

“I know. But we don’t have a mirror, and I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Why didn’t you say something? You know I would help you.”

“Uh, because it’s embarrassing?”

“Let’s go,” she said. She grabbed my hand and pulled me back to the lean-to. She opened her suitcase and took out a razor and the shaving cream she used on her legs, and we went down to the water.

We sat cross-legged facing each other. She squirted shaving cream into her hand and dabbed it on my face, then spread it around. She put her hand behind my head, pulling me toward her until I was at the right angle, and then shaved the left side of my face with slow, careful strokes.

“Just so you know,” she said. “I’ve never shaved a man before. I’ll try not to cut you, but I can’t promise.”

“You’ll do a better job than I would.”

Only a few inches separated our faces, and I looked into her eyes. Sometimes they were gray, and sometimes blue. Today was a blue day. I never realized how long her eyelashes were. “Do people notice your eyes?” I blurted.

She leaned over and swished the razor around in the water. “Sometimes.”

“They’re amazing. They look even bluer because you’re so tan.”

She smiled. “Thanks.”

She scooped up water in her hand and ran it over my cheeks, rinsing the shaving cream away.

“What’s that look for?” she asked.

“What look?”

“You’ve got something on your mind.” She pointed at my head. “I can practically see the wheels turning up there.”

“When you said you’d never shaved a man before. Do you think of me as a man?”

She paused before she answered. “I don’t think of you as a boy.”

Good, because I’m not.

She squirted more shaving cream into her palm and shaved the rest of my face. When she finished, she held my chin and turned my face side to side, running the back of her hand along my skin.

“Okay,” she said. “You’re all done.”

“Thanks. I feel cooler already.”

“You’re welcome. Let me know when you want me to do it again.”

***

Anna and I lay in bed one night, talking in the dark.

“I miss my family,” she said. “I have this daydream I play out in my mind all the time. I imagine that a plane has landed in the lagoon and you and I are right on the beach when it does. We swim out to it and the pilot can’t believe it’s us. We fly away and as soon as we find a phone, we call our families. Can you imagine what that would be like for them? Being told someone has died and having their funeral, and then they call you on the phone?”

“No, I can’t imagine what that’s like.” I turned onto my stomach and adjusted the seat cushion under my head. “I bet you wish you never took this job.”

“I took the job because it was a great opportunity to go someplace I’d never been. No one could have predicted this would happen.”

I scratched a mosquito bite on my leg. “Did you live with that guy? You said you slept next to him.”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t think he’d want you to be away for so long.”

“He didn’t.”

“But you did?”

She didn’t say anything for a minute. “I feel weird talking about it with you.”

“Why, because you think I’m too young to possibly understand?”

“No, because you’re a guy. I don’t know if you can relate.”

“Oh, sorry.” I shouldn’t have said that. Anna was really good about not treating me like a kid.

“His name is John. I wanted to get married, but he wasn’t ready, and I was tired of waiting. I thought it would be good for me to get away for awhile. Make some decisions.”

“How long have you been together?”

“Eight years.” She sounded embarrassed.

“So he doesn’t ever want to get married?”

“Well. I think he just doesn’t want to marry me.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t want to talk about him anymore. What about you? Do you have someone back in Chicago?”

“Not anymore. I used to go out with this girl named Emma. I met her at the hospital.”