I ignore the gasoline-stained fingers that run through my hair. I ignore the sandpaper-rough hands as they paw at my breasts. I ignore the fact that Ricky forgot the rubbers, again.
Six minutes. That’s all it takes to go from tension-twisted to sagging.
“So, hey,” Ricky starts in, buttoning his jeans.
“I’ve gotta go,” I say, not wanting to hear whatever nonsense he’s suddenly so serious about.
“Wait, what? Right now? But you just got here.”
“I’m meeting my friends at the quarry pond,” I say. Weeks I’ve kept to myself in my room, my own prison; that is, when I’m not working the roadside market—or my hookups with Ricky. If I don’t meet my friends today, Wyatt says he’s going to stage an intervention. “So...later.” I slide off the workbench; I can’t get out of here fast enough. I shimmy my dress back down and retrieve my lost flip-flop.
“Okay. Later, as in tonight?” His shaky confidence weakens his voice. “Because some guys are taking their girlfriends down to the bottoms to drink some beers and—”
“I’m busy,” I say before he can ask me to do something more involved like date.
“Well, I was thinking maybe this time—”
“What did I tell you about thinking?” I stop smoothing my hair and give him that look. The one that says we made a deal to do this discreetly and keep it uncomplicated. No dating. No labels. No couples stuff. Just me and him and...this, whatever this was.
“Look, I’ve been doing some thinking myself,” I start, and Ricky’s shoulders collapse, knowing what’s coming. “I think this has run its course. Maybe we should just cool it for now.” And by for now, I meant forever.
He yanks off his baseball cap and runs a frustrated hand over those spiky hairs of his, then snugs it back on. No point in him arguing because I’ve made up my mind, but that won’t stop him from trying. God, this shed is muggy and hot. I’m about to suffocate.
“Weatherly, you know I like—”
“I gotta go.” I cut him off in the middle of his attempt to rationalize. I grab the door latch to the shed to leave. “It was good talking to you.”
“Weatherly,” he pleads one last time. I pause, giving him a half second of false hope. Not intentionally, though, I’m peeping through the door crack to make sure the coast is clear.
“Wait five minutes before you leave,” I remind him. Then I slip out of the shed.
Adaire used to wait for me at the top of the path that leads to a hideaway pond, that church-rolled joint having been put to good use, her eyes heavy slits. Her brows would be a little looser, like a pair of chilled-out caterpillars.
Now, it’s Davis who’s waiting for me at the edge of the path.
“Ricky Scarborough? Really?” he says, watching past my shoulder as Ricky sneaks out of the shed.
I groan a mind-your-own-business sort of sound.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” We haven’t shared more than a handful of words lately. He keeps trying; that’s what friends do, I guess. It’s like he needs me—and our connection to Adaire—to get through it all. Drowning himself in work and EMT-training school only does so much.
People heal their hearts in different ways.
Me, I plan to ignore the pain in my life until it numbs me from the inside out. I offer him the last hit of Adaire’s joint. He declines.
“Picking up her habits now?”
“Don’t start,” I snap back.
We walk down the rear path. Overgrown weeds poke at my bare legs. An errant grasshopper flees out of the way as we enter the woods.
Ethereal. That’s the word that comes to mind when I walk into the woods. Adaire told me about that word after reading it in one of her fantasy books years ago. It sounded airy and magical and soulful. That’s what these woods feel like when I enter them. Like where I’m going is a secret place that only my heart knows.
“I got a package from her.” Davis says this as if it’s the most normal thing in the world to receive mail from the dead.
“Recently?” I perk up at what he’s telling me. There’s a stupid flash in my brain that says, Maybe she’s alive! A fleeting thought as I recall the burial.
“No. I found it in one of the bottom drawers of the tool cabinet. I think it’s been sitting there since my birthday back in February. She’s probably having a good laugh that it took me so long to find it.”
I smile at that. “What was in it?”
Davis shrugs. “I don’t know. I haven’t opened it.” He pauses, letting the emotion that’s risen to the surface simmer back down. “If I open it, then that’s it. It’s over. The last piece of her will be gone.”
This kicks me hard in the chest. I’d do anything to have one last piece of Adaire.
I touch him softly on the arm. “You open it when you’re ready” is all I say.
It’s a good ten-minute trek to the hidden pond. A circular valley surrounded by stretching Georgia pines. A rock quarry once, so many years ago, that eventually filled up with rainwater. Voices from the others sneak through the trees until we reach the small clearing.
This is supposed to be a celebration of life in remembrance of Adaire. Enjoying a few beers, reminiscing on the good times. I don’t want to think about it, much less talk about it.
Raelean Campbell stretches out on a sunning rock, waving an arm hello. Wyatt, Adaire’s older brother, clings to a rope swing like it’s the only thing holding him up. He tosses off his baseball cap, ready to dive—when a gunshot cracks within the depths of the forest, causing us all to jump and hush quiet.
A murder of crows scatter over tree canopy where the shot rang out.
It sounded close.
“What the hell?” I scan the woods from the direction it came.
