It’s all right.
Many of us have our own.
I look at Bo for confirmation, but he only shrugs his shoulders with a smile. He and Kai are close too. Kai somehow brings all the guys together.
I expect Ty to walk away but he doesn’t like he is looking for company or a talk.
I know Ty on evenings like this. He would usually go hang out with Kristen and probably score a quickie. But he lingers around now, searching for something.
Someone, to be exact.
Dani.
Right.
Dani still won’t talk much. Except for when she is with Ty, who is obsessed with her.
One evening, he comes to talk to me.
“What do I do to make her smile more?” he asks.
And I see it then.
Oh, Ty…
He paces around and pushes his blond hair back in frustration as he stares at me like I am a couples’ counselor.
He fusses over the girl, takes her to walks, to the springs, brings her flowers. The rest of the guys sneer at him and make crude jokes. But Ty doesn’t bat an eyelash.
I smile when I watch him.
He is falling for her, fast and deep. Just like everything else that Ty does—he dives head in.
It’s cute and charming. Except Dani is like an empty shell.
“Did you talk to her? What happened to her since the Change?” I ask him.
“Yeah. Her family is gone.”
“There is always a trauma behind it all,” I say. “Hers might be different. Or her view of it is. Talk to her more,” I suggest.
But it’s hard to prioritize someone else’s trauma. We all have our own.
There are days, evenings, and nights, when we go quiet and don’t talk to anyone. Paradise can block out grief and emptiness. Until it feels like you are suspended in time. That you’ve been tricked. That it’s a fancy lie, and the world is ok.
It torments you. It kills you with doubt.
Once in a while, I see Ty on the beach by himself. He is quiet. The sunshine Ty is alone, sitting on the sand, his elbows resting on his knees, head low.
In those moments when I watch him from afar, I know that those who smile and laugh the most and try to cheer up others often fight the darkest battles. And when I spot him one night on the beach, in the dark, and go to check on him, he is drunk and laughs when I shine my flashlight at him. But his face is wet, and I know he is crying.
But what can I do?
We all have traumas that rip through us with claws so sharp that they make our hearts bleed. Mine started before the Change. In a way, the Change made things better for me, or so I’d like to think.
Katura, on the other hand, asks more questions than anyone. She goes on hikes and disappears into the jungle or behind the rocks north and south of the beach. She joined the boys on a fishing trip one morning.
“She didn’t care about the fish, that for sure,” Kai said later. “She looked around, studied the beach like she was mapping out the island.”