Don’t be silly, Eleanor. If you have time for a drink at the airport, you have time for a chat with your poor old mama. Amy, the boys came tearing over here a couple hours ago, eager as can be. They’re waiting on you down at the riverbank.”
My mother’s mouth pulled into its usual pucker. You wouldn’t think someone with a next-level case of chronic resting bitch face could manage to look even more unpleasant; somehow, she had it down.
“I hope this isn’t a precedent for this trip, young lady. When I was your age—”
Grandma waved her hand, swiping the rest of my mother’s thought into dust.
“When you were her age, you were running through those woods to the Franklin place and back every time I turned around. Go on, Amy. Go catch up with them.”
“I also didn’t have a series of assignments to complete before August.” She squinted at her phone, holding it high to search for a signal. “Ugh. Never mind, I don’t have time for this. Come kiss me goodbye, Amy. Try not to waste the entire summer, if at all possible.”
Such an even, light tone with an audience, as if she was only joking. As if even a single block of white space in my sketchbook wouldn’t be taken out on me in a million tiny ways. I suffered through her air kiss, waved her into the house, and felt a small, strange stir of pride at the void in my chest.
She’d left me in River Run every summer since I was old enough to be left, completely ignorant that three months away from her meant relief—meant three months without her criticism and scrutiny and hovering shadow. It had taken fifteen years, but that soft, needy part of me that craved her approval had finally scabbed. It did no good to mourn what you never had in the first place.
I set off for the cove on a path I could walk in my sleep, the unchecked trees and ancient boulders enfolding me in their sameness as my thoughts turned to him, like they did every summer before we reunited. Like they did over and over again every season in between.
And every time, my mind would eat itself, wondering if I’d imagined a different slant to his gaze, or whether I’d ever see a return on the years of patient hope; whether he’d ever thought of us as more than childhood friends. Wondering what he’d say, how he’d look. How he’d look at me.
The path broke at the riverbank, opened to the wide, calm cove, tree-ringed and perfect for swimming. I rounded the boulder, and there they were.
My boys.
Ben crouched beneath a tree, lighting a cigarette in his cupped hands and fiddling with the Zippo as he inhaled, sparking then dousing the flame over and over. My cousin was all angles—shoulders and brow, chin and jaw, pale and thin with hair to match. He’d grown it out almost to his collarbone, tucked the ends behind his ears in careless swoops. Teddy leaned against the trunk behind him, wiping his forehead on the hem of his worn T-shirt. Leaf shadows scattered across his skin, played over the dips and swells of his hip bones. Brushed the angles of his sunburned arms, leaner than last year and defined in ways that made my breath go short, then catch, as he shook his hair back from his face.
I’d sketched that face so many times. I’d traced those lips and shaded those cheekbones, captured the shadows of his eyes over and over on countless sketchbook pages. I’d run my fingers over that jaw and neck, smoothed down the dark fan of his hair, blending it past his ears, past his collar, over his shoulders until it matched my memories. Even with every relentless hour at my desk—every drop of talent and training bled from my hands onto rough-toothed paper—none of it came close. None of it prepared me for him.
“Holy shiiiiiiit,” Ben suddenly screamed, flinging his cigarette aside. A wild laugh ripped from my throat as he ran at me and caught me in a hug, hopping up and down in crazy circles. “Amy, you’re taller than me. Teddy, the girl is taller than me. She might even be taller than you. Goddamn, child, I missed you.”
“I missed you too. So much.” I meant to match his shriek, but a sudden rush of emotion dropped it to a whisper. Ben’s hugs always felt like home.
The approach of Teddy’s footsteps at my back tugged at my limbs and heart; the quiet words that followed curled through me like a breath of smoke.
“There’s my city girl.”
His voice was lower than I remembered. I spun directly from Ben’s arms to his, pulling him closer than I’d ever dared. If I’d had any doubts, they dissolved as he enfolded me. I wasn’t imagining the tremble in my eyelids, or the barely audible rasp of his inhale. I wasn’t inventing the slight tilt of his head, or the brush of his lips against my jaw as he spoke.
“How about me? Did you miss me, Ames?”
“Only every single day.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right.” He drew back, taking me in from the ground up. “Damn. Benny, you called it. Girl went and grew up on us, all at once.”
“Hopefully to your satisfaction.”
Something unfamiliar, almost wicked, flared in his eyes.
“No complaints here.” He pulled me in again, one hand drifting over my back, the other sneaking into my hair. I dropped my forehead to his shoulder, squeezed my eyes shut at the rise and fall of his chest.
Ben wandered back to the riverbank and bent over, scouring the ground. He reached down, plucked his still-lit cigarette from the dirt, and took a drag, standing straight then bending backward to exhale into the sky. I barely noticed his follow-up sigh, or the way he turned toward the river, fixed his eyes on the flow of the current.
Too much was happening beneath my skin. Everything was suddenly real.
Hours later, we huddled around our bonfire, formed as always by our own years-old ritual: I gathered exactly fifteen smooth, fist-size river rocks and arranged them in a circle in the center of the clearing. Teddy scoured the surrounding woods for dead branches, stockpiling enough to sustain a blaze long into the night. Ben gathered and prepared kindling scraps, then lit the fire itself.
He’d done four years of Boy Scouts proud with the perfect little bundle of sticks and dried grass, but his big production fell flat when he held the lighter to the kindling and thumbed the flint wheel. It didn’t even spark.
Teddy dropped his head in his hands as Ben shook the Zippo, tried a second time, and came up empty.
“Again, Benny? I told you to quit fucking around with it about a thousand times.”
“Don’t tell me it came as a shock when I ignored you.” Ben flicked the wheel another couple times before giving up. “Well, what now? Don’t you have your own shitty lighter? Or did you come out here prepared to bum off mine, like usual?”
“Since when do I count on your slack ass, Benny?” Teddy grinned, producing a plastic Bic and making quick work of the kindling. “Happy now?”
“Very. You’re a credit to us all, Theo. To your family, your legacy, and River Run itself.”
“Don’t call me Theo, bitch.”
“Bitch, I’ll call you whatever I want.” He glanced at me, then cracked up, smacking Teddy’s shoulder. “Oh shit, dude, look at her face. I always forget the introductory adjustment period.”
“Every year, Amy.” Teddy shook his head. “You show up and act all shocked, like you haven’t heard us do this a million times. Like you forgot all about us.”
“Can you blame me? You guys are horrible. Like, why are we even friends?”
“Eh, whatever, Ames.” Teddy smirked, unfurling from his hunch and stretching on the ground like a snake, tapping his knuckles to Ben’s extended fist. “You can’t get enough of us.”
I didn’t answer. Of course I hadn’t forgotten their unfiltered dynamic—how they constantly dragged each other, launched profanity and insults and snark through the air like skipping stones, passed them off as jokes before they left a mark. Of course I hadn’t forgotten them. But I did do my best to sweep them away each year, bury them alongside everything I missed too much—eleven summers, countless memories. A load too heavy to lug with me through winter.
“Guys, look.” Ben’s hushed voice drew our eyes. He lay on his back, gaze fixed overhead, lit by the fire and the fading day. Teddy dropped down next to him and I stretched out the opposite way, my head resting between both of theirs.
The treetops formed a frame around the sky, around that slow, immeasurable shift from bruise-purple dusk to deep, limitless night. Stars winked into view, clusters bursting into layers, closer, then far, then farthest. Infinite.
“It never gets old, does it?” Teddy’s voice brushed against my ear and I turned my head his way, falling into his gentle, upside-down smile. “I’m glad you came back to us.”
“I’ll always come back to you, Teddy.”
The words rode out on my heart, vacating my mouth before I thought to close it. I snapped my eyes to the sky, fixing them desperately on the moon. Dreading his reply.
Silence. Nothing but slow, even breathing. I marinated in humiliation, hoping Ben hadn’t heard, wondering how long they’d string this one out. They’d make it last the season, no doubt, rag on me until the words lost even their most basic meaning.
Teddy’s fingers touched my cheek. My breath stuttered as they slid to my chin, tilting my face back toward him. Firelight stroked shadows over his features, turned his eyes to candle flame. They drew mine in, caught and held, in a way they never had before.
“Careful what you wish for, Ames. If I had my way, you’d never leave me again.”