RUNNING BACK

Chapter 31: Like the Shell Remembers the Ocean

I text Marshall and quickly realize that I'm not going to be able to explain it all over text message.

Me: Can you meet me somewhere?

Marshall: You okay?

Me: I have to tell you in person. It's bad.

Marshall: Okay. Sure. How about the lake?

Me: K

Marshall: 5:30?

Me: K

I grab my keys and hop in my car. It feels good to get out of the house. When I get to Lake Livingston State Park, Marshall is there and already stoking a campfire in one of the pits. He glances up as I walk slowly toward him. Something about the way he holds his body is tense, kinetic energy barely contained. Maybe it's nerves. Maybe he knows about the article, and he's worried about the implications. I hang my head, because if he doesn't know, I'm dreading what I have to tell him. If he gets in trouble, that's on me. That's all my fault.

I tell him anyway. The whole sordid story.

"Somebody made that shit up...somebody who knows a lot about what did and didn't happen in that locker room," Marshall says.

I nod, staring at the ground. "Yeah, I know. But that somebody knows I have more to fear if the truth comes out than he does."

"Like what? You didn't do anything wrong."

"No, I was stupid. I let my guard down. I was the reason you retaliated and that can't come out."

"Screw that. I'm not hiding from them."

"Marshall. Please." Against my will, those stupid tears start welling up again. They betray me every time.

He shakes his head and sits down on the bench near the fire. He throws another handful of twigs in, watches the flame curl and the sparks fly. I sit next to him, gazing into the dancing light.

"Do you ever miss your dad?" I ask.

He's quiet for a minute. "I didn't know him."

"But isn't it possible to miss someone you didn't know?"

"Yeah, I guess."

I nod.

"Like the shell remembers the ocean," he mumbles.

"What?"

"My dad's people, they're Creole. My mom always wanted me to keep in contact with them. We'd drive to Louisiana every summer and stay with them for a week or two. Anyway, PawPaw, my dad's dad, when I was nine or ten, he gave me a conch shell about the size of my hand. And he told me to listen to it. I put it to my ear and asked him what the sound was. 'That's the voice of the sea,' he said."

"Yeah, me and Pax used to do that at the beach," I mutter before I remember that he has no idea who Pax is.

Marshall pauses for a second, then continues. "So, then he said, 'You're like the conch, Marshall. This shell's been sitting on that shelf my whole life and probably some years before that. But it never forgets where it came from, like you.'"

"I don't get it."

"What he meant was that even though I never knew him, I'll always carry my dad's memory in my blood. Like the shell remembers the ocean and echoes it for an eternity."

I stare at the fire not saying anything. I'm weighing the truth I want to confess to him. Wondering if lifting the weight of that truth will be some kind of relief.