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It's a bad day outside to go to the beach. Dark clouds are covering the surface of the sky, threatening to rain at any moment, and the air has more than a chill bite to it. Ryan is wrapped in three layers in his truck with the crappy heating, trying and failing to ignore the way Naim seems to be shaking uncontrollably in the seat next to him. He's holding on to his dad's urn like a vice, gripping it tightly between clenched fingers that burn red from how hard he has been holding on.
His dad died two weeks ago. It hadn't been a terrible accident, no matter what Arlene claimed to the church, a quiet omission that her husband's heart had just failed in the middle of the night. Ryan knew it was a lie when he had to deal with Naim after it happened and got a phone call in the middle of the afternoon, even though they never called because it was too dangerous and stupid.
But it was Naim, so he picked up and heard the other boy sobbing, saying his dad was dead. Ryan couldn't make much out of that first phone call, but it was easy to piece together afterward. Naim found his dad dead in the bathroom, on an overdose, with a purposeful note left and everything. Naim called the ambulance, but it was long gone before Naim had even found him, hours before he ever would've gotten home. It was planned, calculated, so no one would be able to stop him.
Arlene can say it was heart failure to the church all she wants, but Ryan is starting to think that even they don't believe her. Naim's dad was a lot like him, meaning he was sullen and quiet most of the time. But while Naim had a harsh edge about him, his dad did not; he was kind and soft-spoken, committed to the gospel even if it hurt him. Naim wasn't cruel, but he had a bite that his dad just didn't have. Everyone knew his dad was depressed, but they didn't call it that; they whispered about him, blamed him for his bad days, saying maybe if he had just prayed more, this wouldn't have happened to him.
Ryan hates them all.
Naim had been quiet all week; he didn't smile; he held himself like he was pushing broken pieces of a vase back together. Ryan hated that he couldn't do anything about it, but he could do this: he could drive Naim to the coast, to the ocean that he had never seen before, with his dad's ashes in his lap, and spread them in the ocean just how he had asked for in his note, just how his mom didn't want to.
Tom was a thoughtful man; Ryan had known him all his life, and he was one of the most caring people in town, one of the only people who wasn't overtly religious and in your face about it, but that meant little to nothing in a town like Bandee. Naim said he was a dreamer. Tom used to tell Naim stories of the ocean, of the sand between your toes and the water lapping at your ankles, of the salt in the air and the yells of birds in the sky.
He had never seen the ocean before, but Tom used to live on the coast before Bandee, and in the note that Naim had let Ryan read because he couldn't repeat it, he had begged to go back to the ocean.
If I have to die in Bandee, at least let me go home afterwards.
Ryan doesn't know what it's like to lose a dad, but he knows if his dad keeled over tomorrow,w he wouldn't be this sad. He'd toss his ashes to the pig and go to school the next morning with a smile on his face. He understands why Nail loves his dad; he just doesn't know how to help him, doesn't know how to comfort someone who lost the only person in the world who had supported him since the first day he existed, who's gone.
He hopes the road trip is enough; it's not really a road trip, an almost six-hour drive out of Bandee to the ocean where his dad used to live, where all his old friends probably didn't even know he was dead because no one in Bandee had known them.
"It'll be fun," Ryan had said, hoping to lighten the mood, a week ago, when Naim hadn't even had to ask if Ryan would take him, because of course he would. "Your dad would want us to have fun."
They had been lying in bed together during the middle of the day like a real couple would because his mom was always working nowadays, picking up so many shifts. Ryan was sure she spent more time at the Hospital than at home, but neither of them was complaining. Not when it meant the only other alive person who loved Naim for everything he was could be with him, in his bed holding him while he pretended he wasn't crying, making him food when Naim couldn't get out of bed to do it himself, doing the laundry and tidying up as real couples do.
"Yeah," Naim had agreed quietly, his head tucked into Ryan's neck, and he could feel his hot breath against his skin. "It'll be fun."
This was definitely not fun. Even when they got there, directly to the parking lot by the beach, the town that his dad used to live in cresting over the hill, Naim stayed still in his seat. The urn shook a little with the force of his nervous shakes, and Ryan couldn't help but angle his whole body toward him like a sunflower looking toward the sun, and place his hands over Naim's.
"You don't have to do this, you know that, right?"
"It's what he wants," Naim said softly without conviction. Ryan wanted to scream. He wasn't mad at Tom. He knows why he did it, how this town will bend you until you just snap, but he hates him some moments, for leaving Naim like this, for leaving Naim with permanently red-rimmed eyes and puffy cheeks and deep frown lines.
But he also knows Tom. Because he had felt like Tom too; he would've done what Tom had done a long time ago if it wasn't for Naim.
Naim was enough reason for him to stick around, so why couldn't he be enough for Tom?
Ryan knows that's wrong, that it's fucked up to think that way, but he can't help the anger that pools in his gut sometimes, followed by guilt and shame. It's not Tom's fault; it's no one's fault but Bandee's.
Ryan also knows that if he doesn't leave this truck first neither of them are leaving, knows that Naim's fear of what is next to come will keep him stuck to the leather seats of Ryan's truck forever.
Ryan shucks the door of his truck open.
The wind off the ocean is the first thing that hits Ryan when the door creaks open, and it’s nothing like the wind in Bandee. Bandee wind is dry and cruel, hot and dusty, the kind of wind that gets into the cracks of windows and makes the whole house groan. This wind is wet and heavy and smells like moss and the fresh smell of damp earth on the rare rainy days in Bandee. Ryan has to stop himself from taking a deep breath because it feels wrong to enjoy it when Naim is still sitting in the passenger seat with his hands locked around his father.
Ryan stands there for a second, the gravel of the parking lot crunching under his boots, and he watches Naim through the the open door. The sky is still threatening, those dark clouds hanging low over the water, making the ocean look gray and angry, but Ryan doesn’t care. He would stand here in a hurricane if it meant Naim didn’t have to do this alone.
He had been there for Naim since they were five years old, and his parents had moved back to Bandee, and Naim had given Ryan his favorite crayon because his pack was missing it, and every kid needed an olive green crayon.
He walks around to the passenger side and opens the door. The hinge screams, he keeps meaning to oil that, keeps forgetting, too busy spending time with Naim instead of worrying about anything else, and Naim flinches like the sound hurt him.
“Hey,” Ryan says, keeping his voice low. “We’re here.”
Naim nods, but he doesn’t move. His knuckles are white around the urn, and Ryan can see the way his shoulders are shaking, the same way he had been since the funeral, and Ryan wants to fix it. He wants to fix it so badly it makes his heart feel like it's cracking in his chest. He wants to rewind time two weeks and break down that bathroom door before Tom could even think about it. He wants to go back and tell Tom and Arlene to never move to Bandee, so Naim would be safe and happy forever, even if he wasn't either Ryan. He wants to do anything except stand here helpless while the boy he loves falls apart in a parking lot.
But he can’t do any of that, he can't go back in time, he can't change the past or the way his parents brains were wired, the choices they made. So he holds out his hand.
“Come on,” Ryan says. “Let’s go see your dad’s ocean.”
Naim looks up at him, and his eyes are red-rimmed and swollen, that now permanent sadness Ryan has gotten used to seeing but will never get used to feeling. He looks so young right now, younger than seventeen, younger than the tough exterior he wears like armor in Bandee, and Ryan’s heart cracks open a little wider.
Naim looks how he did when they were seven and Naim saw a dead badger in the brush on their way to the mill. Naim hated dead things, hated all the blood and guts, hated seeing things hurt. When Ryan fell off his bike and scrapped his entire arm on the pavement when they were twelve Ryan spent more time worrying about Naim seeing the gore than he did about himself.
Naim takes his hand—just for a second, just to get out of the truck—and then drops it like it burns. Ryan pretends that doesn’t sting. He knows Naim isn’t ashamed of him; he knows it’s the town, the church, Arlene’s voice in his head telling him that what they have is wrong, that holding hands with a boy is a sin worse than anything else. But knowing doesn’t make it hurt less when Naim pulls away.
He wants the cold in Naim's hand back in his, Naim had always run cold like a corpse, while Ryan was hot like a furnace. Most times Naim curled into him, siphoning the heat from his body and apologizing for his finger tips like icicles pressed to the ridges of Ryan's torso, but Ryan never cared.
They walk toward the sand. The parking lot gives way to a path through some dunes, sea grass whipping around their ankles, and then suddenly they’re on the beach and the sand is everywhere, getting into the seams of Ryan’s sneakers, that awful gritty feeling of wet sand squelching with every step. Ryan hates the feeling immediately, hates the way it sticks to his socks and weighs down his shoes, but Naim stops walking.
He’s staring at the water, eyes dark and glossy with unshed tears.
The ocean is loud. Ryan didn’t expect that, somehow, even though he knew it would be. It’s a roar, a constant crashing that drowns out everything else, and the waves are dark and choppy, whitecaps breaking against the shore. It looks nothing like the pictures, nothing like the stories Tom used to tell, he would tell stories of the warm waves lapping at his ankles and surrounding him like a hug, but these waves feel like they're trying to drag them under.
Naim takes a step forward, and then another, and Ryan follows. The sand is wetter here, packed down by the tide, and their sneakers sink slightly with each step, making that horrible sucking sound. Ryan can feel the water seeping through the canvas of his shoes, cold and immediate, and he hears Naim’s breath hitch.
They stop where the sand is dark and firm, maybe ten feet from where the waves are breaking. Naim is shaking harder now, violent tremors that have nothing to do with the cold, though Ryan knows he’s cold too. He’s only wearing that thin black hoodie, the one that smells like the cigarettes they used to steal from Tom and share in the mill.
“I can’t,” Naim says, and his voice breaks on the second word. He clutches the urn tighter, hugging it to his chest like a child with a teddy bear, and then he’s crying, really crying, those deep ugly sobs that Ryan has only heard through phone lines until the last two weeks. “I can’t do it, Ryan. I can’t—he’s in here, he’s still here, and if I—if I let him go—”
Ryan’s chest caves in. He has never heard Naim say this out loud, this fear that letting go of the ashes means letting go of Tom completely, and Ryan gets it, he does, because he’s spent two weeks terrified that if he stops watching Naim for even a second, he’ll lose him too.
But right now, in this moment, Ryan stops thinking about Bandee, stops thinking about who might see, stops thinking about the church and Arlene and the fact that they’re standing in public where anyone could drive by and see them. He reaches out and takes Naim’s hand—really takes it, lacing their fingers together right there on the beach where God and everyone can see—and squeezes.
“I’m right here,” Ryan says, and his voice is steadier than he feels. He feels like the waves have already dragged him down, that he's drowning with no anchor to hold on to. “Yeah? Im right fucking here, and we can do this, you can do this."
Naim looks down at their joined hands, then up at Ryan’s face, and something in his expression shifts, cracks open. He nods, still crying, those silent tears streaming down his cheeks, and he lets Ryan lead him forward.
They walk into the surf together.
The first wave that hits their ankles is freezing, shockingly cold, and Ryan gasps, but he doesn’t let go. The water soaks through his jeans immediately, heavy and dragging, and the sand shifts under his feet, trying to pull him down, but he holds on tighter to Naim’s hand. The urn is between them now, Naim holding it with his free hand, and the water is up to their shins, then their knees, and Ryan’s sneakers are full of water, sloshing with every step, but he doesn’t care.
“Okay,” Naim whispers. “Okay. Okay.”
He’s talking to himself, or maybe to Tom, and Ryan stands beside him, a solid prescience, feeling a little less like he's drowning and a little more like he's the one keeping Naim above a water. Another wave crashes against them, splashing up to their knees, and Naim doesn't gasp at the cold this time, welcoming it.
Naim unscrews the top of the urn with trembling hands. The wind picks up immediately, greedy, and Ryan shifts his body to block it, creating a shelter with his torso while Naim tilts the urn.
The ashes are dark gray, and when Naim tilts the top of the urn toward the surf they begin to fall and burst into a cloud of dust, flying across the top of the water before the ashes begin swirling into the foam, disappearing into the dark water. Naim makes a sound like he’s dying, a wounded animal noise that Ryan never wants to hear again and he starts to tip the urn faster, desperate to get it over with, and Ryan puts his hand over Naim’s, slowing him down, holding his shaky hands in his to keep him steady.
“Easy,” Ryan murmurs. “Easy. We’ve got time.”
They stand there, hands overlapping on the urn, and let the ocean take Tom piece by piece. The water is bitter cold, numbing Ryan’s legs, and the salt spray is on his lips, stinging, but he doesn’t move. He watches the ashes dissolve into the gray water, watches Naim’s face crumple and then slowly, slowly begin to settle into something else, something as close to peace as he can get, sending his father out to sea, so he doesn't have to die in Bandee.
Even if it hurts, Naim knows he has to let the version of his dad that he knew go, he has to let him be free of that town.
When the urn is empty, Naim holds it for a moment longer, then lets it fall into the water. It bobs for a second, then fills and sinks. Gone. Ryan guesses there's no point in keeping an empty urn anyway.
Naim turns to Ryan, and his face is open, raw, every defense stripped away by the wind and the water and the grief, and Ryan looks at him,really looks at him, for what feels like the first time since Tom died, and sees the boy he's been obsessed with since kindergarten, when he gave him an olive green crayon, the boy with the sharp tongue and the soft center, the boy who sketches Ryan's face in the bleachers and kisses like he’s drowning, the boy who is still here, still alive, still his.
Ryan looks around. The beach is mostly empty, only the faint idea of people, blobs on the horizon, too far to see them, too far for anyone to care. It feels like it's just them in the whole world, like in the mill, or Naim's bedroom when his mom is working or Ryan's truck off the road in the middle of a field in the dark.
So he kisses him.
He kisses him soft and slow, tasting salt on his lips, feeling the way Naim’s cold hands come up to cup his face, the way Naim sighs into his mouth like he’s finally breathing for the first time in two weeks. Naim kisses him like he wants to suck the air from Ryan's lungs, and he would give it all to him, would give him all the breaths he ever taken if it means Naim's get to breathe.
Ryan doesn't want to stop kissing Naim, it's not heated, but he drags his warm hands between Naim's jacket and his long sleeve , gripping the flannel tight in his palms to keep Naim close, to drag him impossibly closer. Naim is cold like the water lapping at their ankles, and Ryan is like the sun warming him to his core.
When they break apart, Naim’s eyes are closed, tears still leaking out, but he’s smiling.
And then Ryan shoves him.
Not hard, just enough to knock him off balance, and Naim stumbles backward into a wave that crashes over his waist, soaking him completely. He comes up sputtering, hair plastered to his forehead, and his eyes go wide with shock, and for a second Ryan thinks he’s gone too far, that this was the wrong thing to do—
Then Naim lunges at him.
They crash into the water together, roughhousing like they used to before, like kids, like nothing bad has ever happened. Naim tackles him into a wave and Ryan goes under, comes up coughing and laughing, and then he’s grabbing Naim’s ankle, pulling him down too. They’re splashing each other, hands cupping seawater and hurling it the other, shouting nonsense, “You asshole!” “You love me!” “I’m freezing!” “You started it!", and the water is bitter cold and the salt tastes like metal on Ryan’s tongue and his jeans are heavy and dragging him down and he’s pretty sure his phone in his pocket is destroyed, but he doesn’t care.
Naim is laughing. Really laughing, that full-bodied laugh that Ryan hasn’t heard in weeks, the one that crinkles his eyes and shows his teeth, and he’s smiling, and he’s alive, and he’s here.
They wrestle in the surf until they’re both exhausted, until their fingers are pruned and their lips are blue, until Naim finally holds up his hands in surrender, chest heaving, grinning so wide it looks like it hurts.
“Truce,” he gasps. “Truce, you maniac.”
Ryan flops back into the shallow water, letting the waves wash over him, and stares up at the dark clouds. His heart is pounding, his body is numb, but he feels lighter than he has in weeks. He turns his head and sees Naim lying next to him, also floating, also staring at the sky, and their hands find each other in the water, fingers tangling together in the sand and the salt.
Naim is shivering from the cold, and Ryan wants to warm him up, and before he think about those blobs on the horizon getting closer and seeing them, he swings a leg over Naim's waist and hovers above him, one forearm holding him up as he brings his other hand to Naim's face gently, and lowers himself until they're wet cracking lips touch again.
Naim tastes like salt and sand, making a breathless little noise into Ryan's mouth. Ryan keeps kissing him as the waves threaten to drag them out to see, but Ryan is holding on to Naim, arm buried in the sand, anchoring them to the ground. Ryan pulls Naim's head up so the water stops threatening to drown him, and breaks the kiss.
“We should go,” Naim says breathlessly, his teeth chattering. “Before I freeze to death and you have to explain to my mom why you let me drown in the Pacific.”
Ryan laughs, water in his ears making everything sound muffled and far away. They stand up, dripping, heavy with wet clothes, and trudge back toward the shore. The sand is stuck to their shoes, their jeans, their jackets, everywhere, and Ryan knows they’re going to ruin the upholstery of his truck, but he doesn’t care about that either.
They walk back across the parking lot, leaving wet footprints behind them, and Naim is still holding his hand. He hasn’t let go since Naim pulled him up.
When they reach the truck, Ryan shakes his head hard, sending water droplets flying everywhere like a dog, and Naim yelps, ducking away.
“Don’t!” Naim laughs, shielding his face. “You asshole! Don't do that again."
Ryan grins at him, water dripping from his hair down his face, and he knows he looks ridiculous, knows they both do, probably look a little insane, soaked to the bone and breathlessly laughing with tear stricken faces. “No promises,” Ryan teases.
And when Naim smiles at him Ryan feels warm despite dripping cold ocean water, feels his whole body warm. They're going to be okay, he thinks to himself, he knows they will be, Naim will never move on but he will survive, and Ryan will be right beside him to hold him up when surviving feels a little too hard that day.
Ryan can be his anchor, stopping Naim from being dragged out to the sea.