Page 10 of Catch and Cradle

I blink and focus on her. “Huh?”

She raises an eyebrow and waits.

“What do you mean?”

She stays silent for another moment and then shrugs. “Hmm. Guess we better get this lobster home.”

The four of us hold Jim over our heads like we’re the aquatic version of a Chinese dragon costume in a parade. We only make it to the edge of campus before all our arms start aching and we decide to take turns going two by two. By the time we make it to our place, the combined impact of flying today and doing four and a half shots has me ready to drag myself up to my room and pass out.

I’m about to crawl to bed after we’ve manoeuvred Jim inside and set him down on the couch when Jane looks up from checking a text.

“Did somebody lose their phone? It’s from Becca. She says she had to get something out of the closet after we left and found a phone on the floor.”

We all pat our pockets down.

“Not me,” says Paulina.

“Me neither,” Iz adds.

I’ve already felt the empty pocket of my joggers.

“That would be me.”

Jane looks back down at her phone and starts typing. “I’ll ask her where she is. Maybe you can go grab it.”

“No, that’s okay. I—”

“Whoops! Already sent it.”

Great. Not only am I the drunken lobster thief, but I’m now the drunken lobster thief who can’t even keep track of her phone.

Iz and Paulina say their goodnights as we wait for Becca to answer. Her text comes in about a minute later.

“Oh, she only lives a couple streets over, or she says she could bring it to practice tomorrow.”

It shouldn’t thrill me to find out she lives so close. Half the student body lives in this neighbourhood, but that doesn’t stop my chest from doing the weird mix of constricting and flooding with warmth it does sometimes when I’m near her.

“I’ll just get it tomorrow. Could you tell her thanks?”

I’ve done enough damage for tonight. Jane is about to send the text when I remember I actually do need my phone tonight.

“Oh, shit. Wait. I was supposed to call my mom when I got in. Fuck.”

Jane looks up. “I’m sure she’s assumed you’re fine.”

“Yeah...”

I could message her on Jane’s phone or my laptop, but then I’d have to tell her I lost my phone within hours of arriving, and that would result in a huge conversation about whether I’m okay or not and if I’m ready to be back on campus, which is not something I feel like having at the moment.

“I should probably just go get it. What street is she on?”

Jane gives me the street name and number. We say goodnight, and I head outside. I pause on the bottom step of the stoop, take a breath deep enough to taste the salt in the air, and then take off down the street.

3

Becca

I can taste the salt in the air. I let my head drop back and close my eyes, filling my lungs as far as they’ll go. Even after a few years in Halifax, I haven’t gotten used to being so close to the ocean. Everything changes here. The shoreline expands and contracts like the ocean is a pair of breathing lungs too, filling and emptying again and again, over and over, always taking something when it goes and bringing something new when it returns.