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The music, the music's really bad.
Rick can zone out on bad music, if he really tries. It's either that space where this part should have gone here and this bridge should have gone over there where the people with the pitchforks are, or it's just -- floating on sounds that are like a foreign language nobody wants to ever learn.
They're on the beach, and it was semi-crowded even before they got there, and it's too hot. He isn't zoning. It's just bad music.
Somebody smiles at him from over by the grill and he heads there. It's, Elly or Andy or, something. Three years of his life and he still doesn't know this guy, and he says, "hey," and smiles back and gets a paper plate with a hamburger on it for his trouble.
He doesn't think he wanted a hamburger, but it's fine. He shouts, "Thanks," over the music and smiles again, moving away. Andy or Elly is giving somebody else their somewhat-better-looking food and he isn't smiling this time, so Rick probably has reason to be more sure about his name.
Well. Izzy says graduation is about all the things you didn't do, but Izzy's got his head up his ass about the whole thing. Rick heads off to give him a hamburger.
Rick never meant to get tongue tied around girls. He isn't really, quite, right now. It's more like brain tied; his head is working fine.
Candace Harrison is the bitchiest person he knows, or the bitchiest person he doesn't really know, as the case may be. Candace Harrison also looks really good in a bikini, and some place between these two facts, Rick has lost his vocabulary, because he doesn't even know what he wants to say.
He know plenty of people who don't have any problems reconciling these two facts. He's just finished going to high school with most of them. He probably shouldn't blame Izzy for this, but he does anyway.
Rick doesn't remember deciding he was always going to go the difficult route, and so it must be Izzy, because Izzy, he's pretty damned sure, has decided just that some time down the line.
"I'm not sure," he says, in the end. "We'll probably just head back when it's over and call it a night."
Candace flicks her eyes over to Izzy and back to him and gives him a raised eyebrow. He rolls his eyes and sighs to himself as she walks away.
"Fine, right, thank you, whatever."
"Who are you talking to?" Izzy says. Rick flops down by him, then stands up again. Really, the entire beach looks like a gigantic ad for Things You Didn't Do, all the little ways you didn't live out high school days like the people on TV. His legs are much too pale, he thinks, for his life to be anything like a TV show. "Let's go back in."
Izzy blinks at the sea, looks up at him. He's lying back on his elbows; it occurs to Rick that his tan is fine, but he still can't imagine Iz living in a TV show. Just about. "Are you going to swim like a dork again?"
"Yeah," Rick says, impatient. Izzy shrugs and stands up.
Rick is splashing around in the water. Izzy is floating around, either pretending he doesn't know him or finally getting into the Zen of the Swim.
"Rick," Izzy says, not bothering to open his eyes. "People out there think that an aligator got you and you're trying to get away."
"I care?" Rick says, surprised.
"Yes," Izzy says.
"I do?" he says, in genuine bewilderment.
"You're in high school," Izzy says. He still hasn't opened his eyes.
Rick thinks about pointing out that he isn't, anymore, but doesn't.
It occurs to him that Candace Harrison, out there on the beach, whatever her odd reasons were for asking him out after not exchanging one word with him for three years, is probably pretty glad right now that he said no about that party.
He isn't actually going to stop because of that, because. No. There are things he's been living his life by for years now, and he's not going to back out on them. But the spinning's a little less fun now.
"Dude," Brian says when they reach shore again. "We thought a fish got you."
Rick smiles and gets his towel. He hasn't put on enough sun screen.
Izzy is absolutely, completely and shamelessly flirting with the nameless grill guy, and the funny thing is, Rick doesn't think the nameless grill guy knows.
Rick doesn't often see Izzy in this mode. Mostly, when he does, it's with Alex, and he knows that's mostly because it would never occur to Alex not to play along or to take it even one step further. This is like something else, like Izzy taking his bucket and going to play in a bigger sandbox, and there's something sad to it.
It's also funny as shit, and he lays his head on his hand and watches nameless grill guy gesture and grin while Izzy watches him and gestures back. It's not a dance he knows, and he can't quite tell where Izzy learned it.
Somebody stops next to him and crouches down. Rick smiles hello and talks about the relief of being free from Mrs. Donaldson, and finals.
He took a shower, but he can still smell salt on his skin, under the faint smell of soap that doesn't feel familar even though it maybe should. It smells too sweet; maybe it belongs to Izzy's mom.
Izzy's back yard is only grassy in a half-assed way. The grass is faintly itchy at Rick's nape, but he doesn't have the energy to turn over.
"Any idea what time it is?" he says.
"Nah," Izzy says, drowsily. "Where's your watch?"
"I have no idea." Somehow, in the too-late hour -- whatever it is, it was too late before they ever headed out here -- and his brain that's still flowing around in the waves, that feels like a thing of wonder. "You want to go inside?"
"I don't think I can," Izzy mutters. Rick can maybe stand up, but the thought of pulling Izzy up too is enough to keep him lying there.
"Maybe we can sleep out here," he says.
"Be hot as hell in the morning," Izzy says. "And my mom'll freak."
The idea of Izzy's mom freaking out is entirely foreign. Then again, Izzy's like -- if Izzy was your kid, he'd probably be the kid you were always afraid would run away from home.
"Iz," he says.
"What," Izzy says, in a voice that says he knows Rick is going to use his own logic to make him stand up, and he resents it.
Rick didn't use to be sure of Izzy. He hadn't been, and then he had, for a long time now. Even at this late hour, though, he somehow knows that maybe saying it is not such a good idea.
"Your mom'll freak," he says instead.
"I just said that," Izzy says. Then, "I can't feel my legs."
Rick can, though he wishes he couldn't. Too much spinning and too many beers. They end up weaving their way in anyway. Rick is never going swimming again.