Chapter Text
“Get in, I’m driving,” Chris said lightly as he leaned one arm on the roof of his older brother’s 75 Chevy Nova. Fingering the keys in his pocket, he tried not to give away how nervous he was.
He’d had a crush, for longer than he was willing to admit, on the vivacious brunette who hovered near the curb. A captain on the football team, Chris could have had any girl in school, but that wasn’t his style. He’d spent the last three years mostly on his own, and now Chris found that he only had eyes for the one person who was clearly out of his league.
Mariska was a freshman, but no one outside of school would ever guess it. She carried herself with the kind of presence of someone well beyond her years. Chris could see it even then; she was something special. She was going places.
One might ask why she, a girl, was standing there, in front of a boy, whom she’d maybe spoken to twice in passing before that day. Well, it happened like this. In third period calculus they’d had a pop quiz. As to what Chris, a senior, was doing in an advanced freshman class? Let’s just say that’s what happens when you beat to your own drum and focus a little too hard on extracurriculars for most of your high school career. Anyway, after they’d handed in their quizzes the teacher had them go up to the board in pairs to make an example out of the students who hadn’t bothered to do their homework. Chris and Mariska, of course, were one of the first few chosen to challenge each other, and as they both faced the board with chalk in hand, he knew right away that she didn’t know the answer to the problem they’d been given. Chris had seen her get it wrong on her quiz. As she twisted the ribbon in her hair, he stalled, pretending he didn’t know how to solve the problem either. Someone had called out from the front row, making fun of them for not knowing one of the easier answers. Eventually Chris started to jot some nonsense down, but the little jerk kept going. Soon this pea-brain made a joke about her mom, and Chris snapped.
The chalk was left in a pile of dust on the floor, the creep who couldn’t tell a joke to save his life ended up in the nurse's office with a black eye, and Chris got detention for the next two weeks. He’d waited for her in the parking lot until after she’d finished with swim practice. She came out freshly showered, looking pristine as always, and she carried two books in one hand and a small brown purse over her opposite shoulder. Chris watched her walk toward him, not being shy as he took it all in.
“Come on, let’s go.” He opened the door for her and stepped back as she settled herself into the passenger seat with an earth shattering smile on her face. There was no question in either of their minds as to whether they would go somewhere together - it was like an eventual arrow that had always been pointing them in this direction, perhaps since another lifetime all together.
As he started up the hand-me-down car, she watched the little hula dancer bob to-and-fro on the dash. It was cute. He was cute, Mariska thought.
“Where are we headed?” she asked.
“I can take you home…” He peeked at her sideways under a tuft of his bushy hair.
“Or…” Mariska trailed off, watching the road, her books balanced perfectly on her knees.
In a few minutes Chris was parking the car across the street from the beach. He hopped out and almost fell over himself trying to get to Mariska’s door before she could open it.
“M'lady…” He bowed exaggeratedly, laughing at himself in a carefree way.
“Oh stop it.” Mariska swatted his arm and noted how muscular Chris was under his t-shirt. She also detected that they had a very similar sense of humor.
Mariska smiled to herself as she followed him to a playground on the small hill overlooking the beach. Chris headed right to the long row of silver swings. The park was mostly unoccupied this late in the day. Only a few couples sat on blankets spread on the grass farther down the hill. When he got to his destination, Chris grabbed the chains of one of the swings and turned to offer it to Mariska. She looked at him like she was asking a question, and he didn’t offer an answer. Mariska wasn’t about to say it out loud but she loved this quality of his; she never knew what she was going to get with him.
Looping her crossbody bag over her head, she turned and sat down quickly, holding her sandalled feet up off the ground. Mariska leaned back. It was easy to trust him.
Soon they were both swinging side-by-side, zooming high into the still-warm evening air with their hair floating around their faces weightlessly when they swooped back toward meridian. Mariska held on and leaned back, letting her head drop behind her. She watched the palm trees bobbing in and out of her sightline, and felt like a bird, or a fish, buoyed along on a soft, steady current. They looked over at each other and laughed. Everything felt easy for a moment. Mariska wanted to stay inside this moment for whatever was longer than an eternity.
After a while they held their legs out in front of themselves and let their swings slowly come to a stop. They touched their feet to the ground almost in unison.
Chris looked over at Mariska, and she could feel his eyes on her.
“Hey you know what you did earlier…” She was quieter than she usually was. Chris knew because, well, he just knew. “Thank you.”
He nodded. “Of course. No one should talk about anyone’s mom that way, especially…” Chris was unsure how to say what he meant, but he thought maybe she knew.
There was a long silence, and as Mariska leaned forward, the chains of her swing creaking faintly, she turned toward Chris and he saw tears in her eyes, not enough that they threatened to spill out. It looked like she had plenty of practice holding this type of tears at bay, but they were there nonetheless. The coral clouds cast an otherworldly glow over her face and hair - like they were in their own little tangerine bubble. The sun would slip below the horizon line shortly, and Chris felt bittersweet. He didn’t want to leave her like this.
“If you want to talk about her, I’m always here,” he said.
Mariska’s lips parted slightly, but she didn’t say anything. What could she possibly say that would convey how much she longed to talk about her mom? How she missed her constantly; how reminders were all around her every single day. How alone she felt in the space her mom left that couldn’t be filled, not really, not ever. And here was such an unexpected source offering her a way out of her lonely thoughts. Or maybe not out of, but through them?
She reached out her hand to him, and he only hesitated a moment before taking it in his, as their feet still dangled tentatively off their respective swings, and they became a single silhouette against the sky.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “That means a lot.”
Chris didn’t know what to say, but he resolved to just be there for her.