I’m prone to wander. I’m prone to outlandish claims and making poor decisions because I’m compulsive. I’m prone to stay close to those I love and question others and never turn that gaze inward. I’m prone to seek after a certain individuality, yet I still look to belong. I want to belong. And I’m prone to loneliness. I need company, and it might be important to know why.
One winter, when I was seven years old, snow had piled up on the sagging roof of our first house, on the very land where our current trailer sits. The log bench out front had at least six inches coating the faded rings. The driveway was cleared of any snow, the shovels resting against the cold wood of the front porch, the kicked-over can of embers burning bright overhead—not to get too poetic or anything. I mean, it was only a memorable night because of what happened at 3:00 a.m. beneath the floorboards: the heating coils drove lines of sparks through the wood like some gigantic sciatic nerve—a malfunction of amazing proportions.
Flames gathered and sucked in the oxygen of our quiet house. Minutes later, Mom was running and yelling because she couldn’t find me and assumed I was already out of the blaze. The local fire department got there in time to witness the last moments of our little home.
But before it all went to ash, and before the firefighters could stop her, Mom ran back into the walls of heat. I was in my closet, huddled in the corner, a ball of curiosity and fear, choking on the smoke. I don’t remember much more of that night, but I know Mom returned from the burn unit a few weeks later with black lungs and scars all over her back and chest and legs. And I remember seeing the snow shovels in the heap of soaked ash, hissing in the aftermath, in the wetness.
All that to say I was a wonderful mess myself, and not without my own issues. And maybe I wasn’t the only one. I thought of that moment, of being huddled in a ball, of Mom’s black lungs and scars, as I stood in the campsite with adrenaline dripping off my body. The only other time in my life when I’d felt such a massive dump of energy.
Night. A five-letter word for “sunless,” “nocturnal,” “a period of affliction,” “opposite of day.” There is a difference between saying the word and reading it on a page. It’s like reading the word “soldering” and then hearing someone say it. That’s how it felt to be around Skye. Like people could tell me all day what he was like or what he was supposed to be like or how popular he was or what made him him, and yet, when I was next to him, he was something else entirely. Maybe everyone is like that.
You can’t separate the idea or the sound or the taste from the thing itself. It’s like hearing someone talk about love, say love, but never live it. It’s impossible to know it unless it becomes a river and carves into the rock and cuts deep canyons in your heart.
I was acutely aware of standing next to Skye as I surveyed the damage to our campsite.
The bear had completely ransacked our food. Our dry bin was torn to pieces—devoured. The cooler was still there, but all the bread and muffins and candy bars were demolished or gone entirely. What remained was torn or smooshed or half-eaten. We spent thirty minutes cleaning up what we could find while Nash repeated his safety speech about how we shouldn’t have food in our tents and how to shout if we heard a bear and how we should sleep closer to one another the next night.
The chilly bin, with all of our eggs and meat and fluids, was still locked. At least that much worked in our favor. I remembered Nash telling Skye and Shelby to close the coolers when they were done and make sure they locked properly, but I didn’t think it was because of bears. At least the bear only got one of the two.
As Nash droned on, I found myself standing next to Skye, waiting for everyone else to leave, and enjoying the fact a little when I realized he was also waiting.
I heard the various tents zip up in the distance, and neither of us said anything for a moment. That pause became interminable, like a person could live and grow and achieve all their hopes and dreams and then die having led a good life during that pause. That kind of pause. We were just standing there.
“So, did you used to work as a bodyguard for high-profile targets?” Skye said. “Or maybe you just practice throwing sharp things at night? Or both?”
I didn’t know how to respond, so I just listened to the river roll over itself, the waters dipping and curving in the starlight. Rivers never sleep. I wasn’t ready to either. I wasn’t even close to being tired. I was bouncing on my toes again without realizing it, because I had so much adrenaline flowing through me.
“Want to walk down this beach and see if we can get a good view of the sky? Too many trees near the campsite,” he said.
“I won’t mention that I already have a good view of the sky—with an e.”
“But you just mentioned it,” said Skye.
“Yeah, but I said I wouldn’t mention it, so it negated the rest of the sentence.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works. Like when people say ‘Needless to say’ and then continue to say something . . . needless. It’s ludicrous.”
“Are you saying I’m ludicrous?” I said.
“Nope. You can’t rap. I’m just saying that a construction of words that is really hiding the truth behind it is obnoxious. Are you a construction of words?”
“What else are we made of? We’re just big bags of words.”
“Maybe right over there is a good spot to stargaze?” said Skye. “I mean, I’d like to rest this bag of words for a while. Speaking of bags of words, you sure know how to carry your vowels.”
He nodded at my feet, and I realized I was bouncing on my toes again. I tried to settle down as we made our way to a nice stretch of near-white sand. I was impressed by his agility with the prosthetic; I’d thought it would slow him down, but it rarely did. I watched him touch it again. We both lay on our backs and stared upward at the stars.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked.
“For credit in Wixom’s class, for starters,” he said.
“No. I mean, why are you with me right now, and not Shelby?”
“I’m interested in getting to know you.”
“But Shelby’s prettier,” I said.
“Wow. So, you must be on board with what Wyatt thinks of me.”
“Why did you mock Wyatt and not me? I live in the same kind of trailer as Wyatt. And my grandpa runs the mortuary, and people make fun of me all the time for that. Why not you?”
“I want to get to know you, like I said. Like I keep saying. People won’t give me a chance to be somebody different.”
We both stared upward and let the light show wash over us. I watched Skye touch his leg again, and tried to change the subject.
“There’s the Big Dipper,” I said. “Acting all big.”
“And dipping,” said Skye.
The stars were pinpricks of light, the Big Dipper tilting as if full of stars on the verge of flowing out, as if saying, “Drink me!”
We were quiet for another minute.
“Maybe it’s best if we don’t get to know each other too well,” I said, unable to stay away from the idea.
“Why not?”
“Because what happens in a few weeks when we’re back in school?”
He shifted in the sand, and we rested in silence for a beat.
“I don’t know. That’s part of the whole future thing. I have zero idea what it will be like,” he said.
“You sure you won’t just fall back in with your buddies and forget I exist?”
“I always knew you existed,” he said.
“Really? Then name one person I hang out with at school.”
He rested a beat and touched his leg again. “Wyatt?”
“That’s what I figured,” I said.
“C’mon, Indie, I just want to get to know you. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
“So, you don’t want it to mean anything?”
“That’s not what I meant,” Skye said.
“Yes, it is. Words can mean anything, especially what they’re intended to mean when you say them. But look, I’m not mad. It’s probably safer if we don’t get to know each other all that well. That way you don’t have to fake something you’re not. That way we can keep our secrets and move on and be just fine. Everybody leaves, anyway.”
“Great strategy,” he said.
“I know.”
“So, you’re going to go through life and not get to know anybody at all?” said Skye.
“Worked for me so far,” I said.
“Has it?”
Skye grabbed my hand, and I pulled mine away immediately.
I knew Skye as the soccer phenom, as the athlete with Division 1 potential, as the guy who planned on jetting from Idaho as soon as he got that first offer, as the guy all of Shelby’s friends were after.
I figured he had to hear how hard my heart was beating in that moment. I felt the beat in my chest, my neck, my arms, and down to my toes and back again. I felt like I had a separate heart for each limb, for each part of my body.
“You really are forward,” I said.
“It’s just holding hands. It doesn’t have to mean anything. Needless to say, you are smart and fiery, and I like that.”
“Yes, it does have to mean something. And those things are needless?”
“Just messing with you.”
Stars wheeled overhead. We watched for a few minutes as some stars threw themselves into the blackness, and some proceeded unmoved in their brilliant light.
I listened to the water and remembered where I was, and some of the magic of the moment slipped away into the sounds of the river. I’ve heard the horrible, haunting suck of the strainer for the last two years. The fallen logs and the sleeper boulder beneath the roaring waters—right where my mother was pulled under and drowned.
After we got word of what happened, Grandpa drove out to the spot and camped on the river. He wouldn’t let me go with him that first time. Said I was too young to see it, that she would be unrecognizable even if they could get her out. But it didn’t end up mattering. The water was so high and she was so deep that the search and rescue crews had to wait for the dam levels to drop in order to get her body out.
But that was just it: her body was too deep. Even with lower water levels, they couldn’t get to her. I remember staring at that water months later, when I finally visited the site, knowing she was stuck beneath it, and yet the river moved on like it always had and always would without a care in the world.
I was lost in that moment next to Skye, my mind reeling backwards, completely assailed by memory because of the river, when he spoke again.
“Were you and your mom close?” he asked.
I couldn’t talk about that. “Why not Shelby?” I said instead.
“You really can’t get over that, huh? I like Shelby,” he said, “but not like that.”
“Why? Did you date her best friend or something and now you can’t date her because of it?”
He was silent. He didn’t move. He didn’t speak.
“Holy buckets. I knew it!”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“Way to be predictable,” I said.
“Thanks. But that’s not why. I don’t think it matters if I dated her best friend. Besides, that friend is in college now, and I’m still here. And I’m talking to you, not her.”
“You were talking to me,” I said as I stood and brushed the sand off my board shorts and sweater. “That’s part of the whole past thing. I have a good idea of what Skye was like, so I know exactly what his future will be like.”
I started walking away, knowing he was perfectly capable of returning to his tent on his own. I was drenched in confusion and I was annoyed and the adrenaline was still circling my heart and I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to sleep.
I had my crosswords in my tent, and I could work on those until I fell asleep. I could try to think of all of the four- or five- or six-letter words for “confusion and regret,” because I felt them all in that moment but didn’t know what to say. Was I angry at Skye, or at the fact that I wasn’t allowing myself to open up to him when he was clearly trying? Could I separate the two?
“I think we were supposed to be on this river together, Indiana,” he said to my back.
I didn’t turn. “I don’t believe in coincidences,” I said over my shoulder.
If I had turned, Skye would have been an outlined shadow against the backdrop of the river and pine and sky. I didn’t turn, and I didn’t stop until I was in my tent with my head on the pillow, the headlamp off, my heart pounding, heat burning in my chest and neck and face. Wyatt was snoring in his tent—another lie. My eyes got heavy, and I forgot about Skye as I turned on my back and felt the weight of the ring on my chest and thought about a great sink opening up in the sheet of space and swallowing me whole.