I catch Zach staring at me as we head down to the river, his mouth opening like he wants to ask if I’m okay again before he shuts it and grinds his teeth instead. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I haven’t slept well in days, that the panic I felt when Monroe said he was leaving settled somewhere in my chest and refuses to leave no matter how hard I work to push it away.
I’m being crazy, though. I’m freaking out over nothing. I’m being needy, and I don’t know how to stop.
All I want is to be able to stop.
“Speaking of May flowers...” I put some extra bounce in my step and pull my sunglasses off my head and onto my face so my smile will be more convincing. “Is Paige excited for her next show?”
Zach chuckles. “Well, she’s Paige, so it’s hard to tell if she feels any emotions at all, but I’m pretty sure she’s grateful you talked Monroe into giving her a regular monthly gig. Although playing a night with a ‘May Flowers’ theme sounds a little too cheerful to be her style.”
“She’s really not as scary as you think,” I tease.
He gives me a look.
“Ben, okay, so she is a little scary, but she can be really sweet too. She’s going to be part of the Taverne Toulouse family now!”
“Yeah, we all need that one moody cousin who only wears black.” He squeezes my hand and turns serious. “It was really sweet of you to do that for her.”
I kick a few pebbles along the sidewalk.
“She seems kind of lonely,” I murmur before I can stop myself. “Nobody should have to be lonely.”
Zach’s grip on my hand gets even tighter. “DeeDee—”
“Oh, we’re here!”
The Old Port comes into view just in time to save me from the conversation. I pick up the pace as we step onto the boardwalk running along the river, dragging Zach with me. The crowd is thicker here, and even though it’s only May, all the summer activities are already in full money-making swing. There are food trucks selling things like crepes and ice cream, and lots of artists with displays of jewellery and paintings set up under covered stands. Kids run around between the adults strolling next to the water, ice cream cones melting in their hands. The shadow of Montreal’s giant Ferris wheel falls over the boardwalk, the pods slowly circling to give people a view of the city and the Fleuve Saint-Laurent.
A loud scream rings out over all the noise of the crowd, and my head jerks to face the sound. There’s a zip line set up farther down the path, the cable running high over everyone’s heads all the way out to the far end of a pier jutting into the water. It’s not very long, and the girl flying down it is only in the air for a few seconds, but she screams the whole way to the bottom.
I watch her like somebody staring at a car crash, frozen in place as I wait for something horrible to happen. I feel my knees lock up, and my heart starts pounding in my ears.
“Yo, let’s do it!”
Zach’s voice makes me jump. He flashes me an excited smile and starts tugging us over to the stand selling tickets, not realizing I’m still rooted to the spot. My hand slips out of his grasp after his second step, and he turns his head to glance at me.
“You coming? My treat. It looks fun.”
I blink behind my sunglasses. Somebody else shoots down the line, screaming at the top of their lungs, and I feel my legs start to shake.
“DeeDee?” Zach’s back by my side in an instant. “What’s wrong?”
“I, um, I just don’t really like zip lines.”
He squares himself off so he’s blocking the line from my view and cups my face with his hands. After a moment, he slowly lifts my sunglasses back up onto my head. I stare at the top button of his shirt.
“DeeDee.” He strokes my cheeks with his thumbs. “This isn’t about the zip line, is it?”
I take a deep breath and let it out. “Sort of. It’s true that I really don’t like them.”
He squints at me. “Didn’t you tell me you went sky diving once?”
I let out a shaky laugh. “I did. It’s not being up high that scares me. I kind of like heights. In high school, I was one of the bad kids who climbed up the water tower all the time. I was always freaking everybody out by dangling off the edge. I like the rush, but I...”
I’m babbling. I trail off, and Zach runs his hands down my arms.
“You what?” he asks, like it’s just me and him, like there’s nothing and no one else around us.
No matter where we are, that’s how I feel whenever he stares at me this way, the same way he did when I was drunk and fell asleep in an Uber beside him, the same way I sometimes catch him watching me at the bar: like I’m the most precious thing he’s ever seen. I don’t know how that expression can make me feel so full and so hollow all at once.
My stupid zip line freak out isn’t a fun thing to talk about, but it’s better than telling him my chest gets so tight I can’t breathe whenever I think about my feelings for him, so I continue.
“It’s kind of like roller coasters,” I explain. “I love going on roller coasters, as long as there’s someone sitting beside me. When I was in high school, I went to a theme park with some friends, and I ended up on my own for one of the rides. They strapped me in, and the ride started moving, and I...”
I force myself to breathe. I can still feel the panic from that day rising up in me like an angry monster trying to tear its way out of my body.
“Hey. Hey, hey, hey. Let’s sit down, okay?”
There’s a bench a few feet away, facing a little bay between two piers where you can rent pedal boats. I let Zach lead me over to the bench and sit down beside him, his thigh pressed against mine. I can’t stop myself from playing with my ring, sliding it around my finger as I force myself to breathe.
“Do you want to tell me what happened?” he asks.
I try to laugh, but it sounds more like I have something stuck in my throat. “I don’t even remember. I know I was yelling at them to let me off, and everything after that is a blank. When I got off, I was crying and shaking so hard I fell over when I tried to stand. Then I puked. It’s stupid, but I just couldn’t be alone like that. I couldn’t be strapped in with no way to get close to anyone else.”
He lays a hand on my leg. “It’s not stupid.”
“It is kind of stupid, and it is certainement crazy.” I watch two pedal boats collide with each other as the drivers figure out how to steer. “I know it’s crazy. I...saw someone for a while, when I first came to Montreal—a psychologist. I was so messed up about Clém, and about everybody else who has left my life...my dad, my sister...It was too much. Monroe didn’t even know the full story, but she talked me into going. I don’t even know if it helped. I just felt so embarrassed.”
“You never have to be embarrassed about that.”
I turn my head to face him, my eyebrows shooting up at the force in his voice. He almost sounds angry. He clears his throat and goes back to patting my leg.
“Sorry. I just hate hearing you say that. You’re not crazy.”
I can’t help it; I laugh—a harsh, bitter laugh that tastes all wrong in my mouth.
“Tabarnak, Zach, I felt like my whole fucking world was falling apart just because Monroe said you’re changing jobs—”