8

Beau

I wait, a long pause like a person taking his last breath, trying to decide what to do. Willow looks like she’s attempting to figure me out. It also appears as though she feels bad for Samantha.

Samantha is on the verge of tears. Her lip trembles. She bites it to keep her composure. Then repeats herself.

“What are you doing?”

Her voice is barely a whisper now.

“Samantha, this is my new neighbor, Willow,” I say. It would have been easier if she hadn’t seen us arrive together. There’s nothing to Willow and me—we are only friends—but I can see how Samantha might think something else. “Willow, this is Samantha.”

I hate that the entire school is watching. This would be so much easier without a crowd. Samantha doesn’t deserve a public breakup.

“Samantha,” Willow says, voice strong. “So you are real.”

Willow thought my riddles might not be true. That maybe I wasn’t involved.

“Real?” Samantha asks, confused.

Willow sends me a hardened glance. She doesn’t seem to care for the way the situation is unfolding, either. She offers Samantha a look of sympathy. It’s unnerving, how none of my schoolmates seems to care that the bell will ring soon. No one moves or offers privacy.

I spot Grant trying to peer over the crowd. He’s standing next to Pax, who has no problem seeing the situation unfold.

“Willow, would you mind if I meet up with you later?” I hate to see her go, but I have something to take care of first.

Willow nods and disappears into the crowd.

“Beau?” Samantha says my name, trying to pull my attention back. She’s looking at me, hopeful.

“Want to take a walk?” It’s the only way to get her away from the crowd.

“Okay,” she replies.

Her anxiety shows in the fidgeting of her fingers, the slight tremor that she can’t quite hide. I wonder if she, too, feels that it hasn’t been working, this thing between us.

“We’ve been together almost a month now,” she says as we escape the onlookers.

I suspect she knows what I mean to say to her, that our time is over.

“We were never really together,” I reply. “Not officially.” My voice is soft, meant to lessen the blow.

“What about the times we shared at my house?”

“I remember.”

We make our way around the rear of the school, where only a few stragglers ever venture, leaving the crowd behind. I keep quiet as we pass two smokers leaning against a wall. They pay us no mind, more concerned with putting out their cigarettes and hurrying through the back entrance before the bell rings.

“Go ahead, Beau,” she says when we pass them. “It seems you want to say something, so do it.”

“I’m sorry.” I really am. I don’t mean to hurt her, it’s just that I don’t get close to people, which she’s known from the beginning. We were never meant to be anything more than casual, though it seems to have developed into more for her. “I don’t think it’s working out.”

She hides her face behind a blond blanket of hair. I almost reach for her. Not because I want her but because it would be nice, for once, to not be so unyielding.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” Her tone is sad, but there is a look of understanding when she meets my eyes.

“Yes.”

She sighs and blinks several times quickly. “I kind of thought we were good together.”

Shows how much I know about girls. I figured she understood that we are two worlds apart.

“Do you honestly think it’s working, Samantha?” I ask. “We haven’t spoken as much lately. We lead different lives. We don’t have any of the same friends. You live on the other side of town, and school is the only real time we spend together, unless I make the trip to your place.”

“I think it could work.” She reaches for the door, opening it and glancing inside to make sure we’re still alone.

A blast of cool air-conditioning hits both of us, ruffling our clothes and hair. We have a ways to walk to get to class, and we will likely be late, but it’s better than the entire school witnessing our breakup.

“Maybe, occasionally, I should head to your place.”

But even as she says it, she cringes. I don’t hold it against her. The swamp isn’t for everyone. It takes a certain person to be happy in such a quiet, eerie place.

“We both know you don’t mean that,” I say with a small grin.

I nod toward Samantha’s outfit, a beautiful flowery dress and heels. Her hair and makeup are perfect. I can’t help thinking about how quickly it would melt off in the swamp heat. Her clothes would be dirty in an instant, and her heels would never work.

“I have some shorts and T-shirts,” she replies, a small smile in her voice. “That would be okay for the swamp, right?”

“Sure. But it’s not just the clothes. You don’t like the swamp. It scares you. You told me that from the start. And I don’t want you to pretend to like it for me. You should never have to pretend for someone else.”

We take the hall to the front of the school, where classroom doors are shutting, the final bell ringing.

“Maybe you’re right. But I could still make more of an effort.”

“It’s probably best to let it go,” I reply.

She’ll find a guy more suited for her, I’m certain of it.

Samantha doesn’t protest. She simply bites her lip and offers one more look.

“Goodbye, Beau.”

…

“Man, did you hear?” Pax asks as he meets me for lunch in the library lounge. “Samantha left early today. Did that have anything to do with you?”

It’s odd to hear of her early departure, considering that she seemed fine when I last saw her. Maybe a little disappointed overall about our breakup but not too upset. I frown, thinking back over it. I can’t find any reason she’d need to leave school because of me. Unless it upset her more than she let on.

“Maybe. We broke up.”

“Sorry to hear that. How’d it go?”

“Not too bad. She was nice about it.”

“That’s a relief.”

“Maybe she’s sick.” I think over possibilities for her early release. “Who knows?”

Pax studies my unsure expression. “The thing is, I overheard one of her friends saying that Samantha was upset about a guy.”

I sigh, knowing it’s too big a coincidence to be anyone other than me. “Maybe she didn’t take the breakup as well as I thought.”

I feel a big hand settle on my shoulder. Pax grins goofily.

“Don’t worry about it. She’ll move on. They always do.” He pats my back roughly before stretching both arms out and leaning back in his chair. “Good spot here, by the way.”

Our school thought by adding several areas with comfortable chairs, and even more spaces between shelves with beanbags set right on the ground for people to sink into, that they would entice students to read more. What they’ve really done is made the library less of a quiet area and more of a designated separate cafeteria, since most people try to snag a room to eat in. The students not eating are either listening to music, earbuds in, or on the computers, surfing social media. A few do choose to read.

Pax brushes his mop of hair from his eyes and fills out the seat, making it look small under him. A second later, Grant arrives.

“Thanks for getting a spot,” he says. “I heard about you and Samantha.”

“Yeah,” I reply, not wanting to go into the details.

Grant empties a sack on the table. Out falls a chocolate bar, bag of chips, pretzel, can of soda, greasy hamburger wrapped in yellow foil, and a pickle—the only healthy thing in there—which he promptly hands to Pax because it’s his favorite, and because we know he sometimes doesn’t have money for lunch, since his mom was laid off earlier this year.

I toss a turkey-bacon sandwich Pax’s way and play it off like I hadn’t planned on eating much.

“Not too hungry,” I say.

I fool no one, but Pax takes the sandwich and eats.

“Thanks, man,” he says between bites.

“So what’s up with the new girl?” Grant asks. “She’s your neighbor, I hear.”

“She is, but I don’t know much about her yet,” I say.

I’m counting on that “yet,” even though a small warning flares in the back of my mind, cautioning Willow may be different than the others, evidenced by how she doesn’t demand my time—or much of anything from me, really—yet still I can’t seem to get enough of her. By now, with other girls, a date is usually expected. Not with Willow. What she expects is for me to know that she carries a knife in the bog, smiles at gators, and hails from Southern blood that goes back as far and deep as the swamp itself.

Sandwich now gone, Pax eyes my orange. I toss it to him. I’ll eat extra when I get home.

“You lucky son of a bitch,” Grant says. “What I would give to have a neighbor like her. All I have is the old man who calls me ‘damn kid’ and the lady who always forgets to lock her chickens up, so I’m constantly tripping over them in our yard.”

I laugh. He’s not kidding about the chickens. From the few times I’ve been to his place, I can attest that they’re everywhere.

“Now that you’re free, you gonna ask her out?” Grant asks.

“I’m thinking about it.”

“Good luck with that,” Grant replies.

“She have any friends?” Pax asks.

“Maybe. Why don’t you ask her?”

Pax actually has had a couple of girlfriends, mostly ones who have approached him, though he’s not with anyone at the moment.

I eat hush puppies dipped in buttery mashed potatoes and wash them down with a can of soda.

“I wish I had your life,” Grant says.

He doesn’t realize—because I hardly talk about more than school, girls, and mindless things with my friends—that the truth is, he wouldn’t want my life.

Not if he saw the dark parts of it.