When You Were Here

red-and-white top hat?
    Yep. There’s a bird glued to the top, though. So weird.
    I pretended to take his picture, and she laughed, but we kept on like that for the rest of the ride. By the time we got off she hadn’t looked up once from her phone.
    “Thank you,” she said, when her feet touched the ground.
    “Why didn’t you just tell me? We didn’t have to go on it.”
    “I didn’t want you to know I was afraid of heights. It’s so lame, my stupid fear of heights.”
    “Holland, you never have to go on a Ferris wheel for me ever.”
    She took her phone out one more time and wrote back to me. Good, because I frigging hate those things.
    I laughed when I read the text and then took her hand. We walked down the path along Ocean Avenue. “Tell me what else you’re afraid of.”
    “So you can use it against me?” She squeezed my hand when she said it, and I knew she was joking.
    “Seriously. So I know. So I don’t have to take you up in a Ferris wheel again to find out.”
    “Spiders, for sure.”
    “You picked the wrong state to live in.”
    “I know,” she said as we leaned to the right so a late-night cyclist on the concrete path could cruise by. “There are spiders all over this city. All over my house.”
    “Know what I do with spiders?”
    “Don’t tell me you keep them in a cage as pets.”
    “Uh, no. You’ve been to my room. No spider cages there.”
    “What do you do with spiders then?”
    “My dad taught me how to rescue them. Whenever there was a spider in the house, we’d shout, “Spider Alert!” And he’d arrive on the scene with a salute and a glass, and I’d go find a sheet of paper. And then he’d put the glass over the spider and slide the paper underneath. He’d carry the spider to the yard or the door, or whatever, and free it. He didn’t like killing things. So that’s what I do too.”
    “Look at you. Such an animal lover. Even for spiders.”
    I shrugged. “He loved animals. All animals. I mean, he wasn’t one of those people who had a house full of lizards or snakes, but he wasn’t the guy who stepped on spiders and killed them to get them out of his house either. Obviously. My sister was a total freak, though. She was terrified of bugs, and even though I was only nine or ten it was my job to capture and free the spiders Laini found when my dad was out of town. When my dad would come home from whatever trip he was on, the first thing I did was give him the spider count. It was this running thing we did. Then he’d high-five me and take me out for doughnuts as a reward or something.”
    “Do you miss him?” Holland asked as we neared a bench. She gestured to it, and we sat down.
    “Sometimes. Like when I’d pitch and win and he wasn’t there, or when I’d pitch and lose and he wasn’t there. Or sometimes when I jump in the pool and I come up, andthere’s no one else there but me. But then there are days when I don’t think about him. Which sucks and doesn’t suck at the same time.”
    “If he were here, right now, what would you tell him? And not just some epic thing, but what ordinary, everyday thing would you tell him?”
    I ran my fingers through her hair, letting her blond waves fall against my hands. “I’d tell him you beat me at Whac-A-Mole tonight. And I’d ask him where to take you tomorrow night and the next day, because one of the things that sucked the most when I started going out with you was that I couldn’t tell him, and I wanted to, because he always liked you.”
    She smiled and moved closer. “I always liked him too, and I’m totally afraid of spiders, so I’m glad he taught you well. I’m also afraid of getting locked in bathrooms,” Holland offered.
    I mimed checking an item off a list. “Do not lock Holland in bathroom. Duly noted.”
    She leaned into me. “No, silly. Like gas-station bathrooms.”
    “Oh, well. I can totally see that. I don’t want to get locked in gas-station bathrooms either.”
    “And cold. I’m terrified of cold. I hate snow and windchill and temperatures below seventy degrees.”
    I wrapped an arm around her. “I know that was just a cheap trick to get me closer to you.”
    “It was.” She rested her head against my shoulder. Westayed like that, quietly, as the joggers and cyclists and other late-night warriors pounded through their cardio. It was Los Angeles after all. Fitness is a round-the-clock endeavor.
    “And being far away from you,” she said, then looked up at me. No more