“That sounds fun.”
“Want to come?” The words spilled out of my mouth before I even thought them through. It felt natural, I guess. Still, his eyes flash at the invitation.
“Yeah, sure. It’d be fun to hang out with my friend Winters.” Wrapping an arm around my neck, he gives me a noogie.
After lunch, which I can’t manage to keep down thanks to my stomach issues, Jeremiah picks me up in his Jeep and drives us out to Normandy, a lake with a white sand beach and ample camping area. I rarely see him wearing anything but mesh shorts and worn T-shirts that date to the prehistoric era, so it shocks me to learn he owns khaki shorts, a button-down shirt, and aviator sunglasses. And even more shockingly, he’s wearing them.
“How’s the leg?” he asks as he helps me out of his Jeep.
I downed a bunch of ibuprofen, so it’s not hurting anymore. “It only bothered me when I was running this morning.”
“I bet I’m right about the long distances. You’ll just have to be careful as you run more and more.”
“We’ll see what the doctor says on Monday.”
“I bet you twenty bucks I’m right.”
I huff. “You’re making my injury into a game too?”
“I thought you wanted to beat me at something. I’m just trying to be a good friend and give you opportunities.”
“Opportunities, my ass.”
“That language of yours is not very ladylike.”
“Ahem.” My brother clearing his throat interrupts our argument. Jeremiah and I look up to find Nick and his friends gaping at us. Evan’s face goes splotchy, as if invisible fairies just pinched his cheeks, and when he fiercely shakes Jeremiah’s hand, a look of pain crosses Jeremiah’s face.
“What is up with the guys in your life squeezing my hand off?” he mutters, wringing his fingers out.
“Just protective, I guess.”
“Yeah? Well I’m gonna have to stop shaking their hands or I won’t have a hand left to beat you at badminton later.”
I chuckle.
Evan brought a girl, Alisha. She’s my age and I know her from school. Always hung around the shop class guys. She definitely notices that Evan keeps looking at Jeremiah and me; while she’s collecting firewood for our campsite, she keeps snapping sticks in half and dramatically throwing them to the ground. Doesn’t she know she has nothing to be jealous of? I’ve never wanted Evan.
“C’mon,” I tell Jeremiah. “Let’s set up our tent.”
Setting up the tent consists of me doing all the work while Jeremiah stares at the rods, trying to fit them together and repeatedly reading the instructions. It baffles me that a country boy like him can’t put a tent together.
Then we decide to go for a swim. Inside the privacy of the tent, with Jeremiah waiting outside, I change into my blue-and-white checkered bikini. When I step back out to give him a turn to change, he gives me a once-over, then suddenly pulls his aviator sunglasses off and cleans the lenses on his shirt. Evan gazes over from the picnic tables, where he’s sitting with Alisha. She definitely notices him looking, but I pretend not to.
Jeremiah ducks into the tent to change into his bathing suit. Two minutes go by before I hear a thrashing sound and a curse.
“What’s going on in there, Jere?”
“I’m not used to changing my shorts while sitting down! You try it.”
“I just did it a couple minutes ago.”
“But I’m taller than you.”
“Jesus,” I mutter.
He emerges a couple minutes later wearing long, navy blue board shorts, nothing else, and leaving little to the imagination. Holy ab muscles.
We doggy paddle out to the rope line that encircles the swimming area. I throw one leg over a buoy and pull myself onto it. He does the same, facing me, shaking the water out of his crazy hair. Swiping the wet bangs off his forehead, he swiftly looks me up and down.
“What?” I ask.
“I like your bikini. It reminds me of these supper napkins my mom has.”
I roll my eyes. “You sure know how to make a girl feel special, Jere.”
“I notice anything that has to do with my mom’s cooking.”
“Boys.”
I take a deep breath and look around, enjoying the blue water and thick trees. The forest here is so massive it’s a creature unto itself.
We sit in silence until Nick, Kimberly, and their friends cruise up on her father’s speedboat.
“Want to come on the boat?” my brother calls. Jeremiah leaps off his buoy and climbs up the boat ladder before I can even respond. Soon we’re speeding around the lake, and after he gets his fill of driving the boat, Jeremiah wants to water ski. And of course he’s awesome at it, ripping up the waves.
“Does he have to be so good at every sport?” I grumble to Nick.
“He’s making the rest of us guys look bad, but I’m glad you brought him,” my brother replies, squeezing my shoulder.
At sunset, I sit on a smooth log to watch the blue sky change into purple and gold. Jeremiah joins me, carrying two cans of beer under his arms and a plate of sliced watermelon that we immediately dig into. I rip huge chunks off with my teeth, wiping the juice from my lips with the back of my hand.
He daintily eats his piece as I chow down. “Don’t eat the seeds! You’ll grow a watermelon baby.”
I spit a seed near his foot to piss him off and he laughs. The surface of the water was so busy earlier today when everybody was boating and splashing, but now it’s a calm blue, just like Jeremiah and me. I like being around him because I don’t have to worry about filling the silence. We just are. I study him out of the corner of my eye. Half of his crazy brown hair is pulled back with a band; I never thought I’d be into the ponytail look on guys, but it seems I am. He hasn’t put a shirt on yet, so I discreetly check out his skin. The Flash tattoo on his shoulder blade. The lifetime of scars and bruises spotting his arms and back, even though he’s only twenty.
“I can’t believe how nice it is out here,” he says, toeing the white sand. “I never knew this beach existed.”
“Not many people do, I think. It’s private. My brother’s girlfriend’s father works at the Air Force base, so that’s how we’re allowed to use it.”
He pops the cap on his beer and sips. “Kimberly seems nice.”
“You just like her because she gave you beer and pulled you around on her boat all afternoon.”
“You caught me,” he laughs. “I loved water skiing. I’ve never gone before.”
“But you looked like a pro out there! How is that possible you’re good at every sport?”
“That’s just silly. I stink at ballet—my little sister tells me that when I try to copy her moves.”
I snort, nearly choking on a watermelon seed.
Jeremiah slaps my back. “I told you not to eat the seeds, Winters.”
I spit another one at him and he smacks it away like a pro.
“How’d you get into extreme sports anyway?” I ask quietly, wondering where the adrenaline junkie-ness came from.
“I started trying to beat myself at stuff. To work harder. To learn more about my body and mind and their limits.”
I pop open my beer and take a long sip, processing what he said. The beer makes me feel a little lightheaded considering I couldn’t keep food down after my run earlier. “When did you start doing this?”
He toes a twisty root sticking out of the ground as he takes a drink of beer. “After high school, I reckon. I played soccer my whole life…and then I didn’t make it onto a college team…I needed something to do with my time.”
Is this what Matt didn’t want to tell me? Is that why Jeremiah hasn’t been truly happy in a while?
“So you were trying to get a scholarship or something?”
He nods slowly. “My best friend, Tre
nt, and I grew up playing together. He was a whole hell of a lot better than me, but I still thought I had a shot. He got a scholarship to play for Auburn, and I got nothing…I spent too much of high school dicking around.”
The boy can run a sub five-minute mile. “I’m sure that’s not true.”
“It is. I never pushed myself hard enough. I was too busy messing around with girls and acting all important. And Trent worked hard and left me behind.”
“Do you still hang out?”
“Not often—he’s four hours away and always has practice and games or whatever.”
I won’t ask Jeremiah if he misses his friend. That’s obvious. But I wonder if it’s a lot more than missing his friend. Maybe he misses the opportunity he never had. Maybe he felt like he had to prove he was just as good as his friend.
“What was the first crazy sport you tried?” I ask.
“I went BASE jumping off Fall Creek Falls on my eighteenth birthday. It was wild.”
Holy crap. That must be a few hundred feet tall! And he just jumped off the waterfall? I shake my head at the craziness while he smiles at the memory.
“But you’re not doing crazy things like that anymore, right?”
“My mom gave me a choice: my sports or my family. I’m still pissed at her for that… She hasn’t even acknowledged how good I’m doing—noticed that I haven’t done anything really dangerous in a while. It’s like she’s still punishing me for stuff I did last year.”
“But, um, aren’t you still bungee jumping? And white water rafting?”
“I’ve cut back, but I still need to do some stuff.”
How in the world did Jeremiah’s thinking get so jumbled? He said he couldn’t just quit cold turkey. Is bungee jumping at Dollywood his version of giving up cigarettes and starting the patch?
“But when will you stop all this? How will you know when you’ve, like, accomplished enough?” I ask.
He wipes the condensation off the rim of his can, his hand shaking as he thinks. “I’m not sure that I have any specific goals or anything. I just know I need to feel a rush.”
“But you’re great at racing, right?” I ask.
A curt nod. “I won my age group at the Marine Corps Marathon last year. Finished in two hours and forty-seven minutes!”
“And that’s not enough?” I exclaim.
“Like, after I finish a race, I mentally feel a sense of accomplishment, but I’m already thinking of another challenge that’s harder or more unique that I can train for and compete in.”
“If I dared you to swim across the English Channel, would you?”
“Sure.” He doesn’t miss a beat.
“Would you walk on hot coals like people on the Discovery Channel?”
Another long sip of beer. “If an expert was here to show me how to do it right and not hurt myself bad, then sure.”
“But why would you want to hurt yourself like that?”
“It’s not about the pain, Annie. It’s about the challenge.” He focuses on my face, and the combination of the sun setting over his shoulder and the serious look on his face makes my vision go spotty. I squint and look at the far banks of Normandy.
“When you put it like that, I feel like I haven’t done anything.”
“Would you stop saying silly things? Hardly anybody has the guts and the strength to do a marathon. And you’re working hard to get what you want.”
It’s nice hearing him say that if you work hard, you can do anything you want. I like knowing I can control my future. All those years ago when I did the Presidential Fitness Test, I never imagined I could run fourteen miles one day. But I did. But there also needs to be some sort of balance, right? I don’t want Jeremiah to take it too far. I could beg him to stop. But then would he be pissed at me like he’s pissed at his mom? Considering we aren’t together or anything, do I even have the right to try to help him?
He goes on, “And how can you say you haven’t done anything? I saw you waiting tables. It’s crazy that you can carry ten drinks on one tray above your head.”
The rest of the evening is pretty laid back. We sit around with my brother and his friends, telling stories, roasting marshmallows, and emptying a cooler of beer. The sweet summer air reminds me of what life used to be like before. Tonight almost feels like that. Well, except for Evan and Alisha giving me weird looks for their own different reasons.
At about midnight, Jeremiah announces he needs to sleep if he’s going to get a workout in tomorrow, so I say good night as well and duck into our tent. I thought it might be awkward sharing a tent with him, but I like being with my friend. It’s nice not being alone. In our side-by-side sleeping bags, Jeremiah looks over at me with a smile. “Good night, Winters.”
“Good night, Jere.”
But neither of us can sleep. He can’t get comfortable on the ground. My stomach still hurts from today’s run, and being in the same tent makes me want to curl around his body and rest my head on his chest. Not to hook up or anything—just to be warm. But I don’t want him to think I’m starting something. His breathing hitches each time I move a muscle.
On top of that, Nick and his friends are still raucously drinking beer and telling raunchy jokes.
Jeremiah checks the time on his phone. 2:00 a.m. “God, are they ever going to shut up?”
“Not likely,” I say. After camping, Nick never rolls home before dinnertime on Sundays.
“I knew I should’ve set this tent up farther away.”
“You mean I should’ve set the tent up farther away?”
He grumbles.
“I don’t get it. How can a country boy like you not know how to set up a tent?” I ask.
“My brother and I always wanted one growing up, but we never had the money. My dad’s a teacher and my mom’s a pastor and they had five kids. Things like tents came second to putting food on the table.” Jeremiah starts chuckling.
Not having money doesn’t seem like something to laugh about. “What are you thinking?” I ask.
“When my brother first got together with Kate, he was working at a camp. And he didn’t know how to set up a tent either—this camp had fancy cabins, so when he and Kate would sneak out at night to fool around, he’d just drag this giant parachute out onto the grass and they’d sleep on it.”
“Wait. The big parachute like we used in gym class as kids?”
“That’s the one.” Jeremiah laughs again. “Matt says she found it very romantic…Of course, she found out the truth later on that fall—they went camping and she had to set up the tent because he didn’t know how.”
I grin at that, snuggle deeper inside my sleeping bag, and shut my eyes. This morning’s run exhausted me and I’m begging for sleep to come, but I can’t seem to pass out—I’m too wired thinking about my leg, wondering if it’s really hurt or if I just worked it too hard today. And what the hell is up with my stomach? My body hurts everywhere.
That’s when I hear them talking.
“Who is this guy?” Evan asks. “He didn’t go to our school, right?”
“Nah,” my brother responds. “Jere lives over in Bell Buckle.”
“Are they dating?”
“I don’t think so,” Nick says.
“Is she ever gonna date again?” Alisha asks.
“Did you see that guy’s scars?” Evan asks. “I mean, you can’t possibly let a guy like that hang around your sister.”
Jeremiah tenses up in his sleeping bag next to me, going still as a possum playing dead.
“I think he’s sexy,” Kimberly announces in her I’ve-had-a-ton-of-beer voice. “Goooo, Annie!” Great, we’ve moved on to the cheerleader voice.
“Can we find something else to talk about besides my baby sister’s love life?” Nick asks.
“I’m just kind of surprised,” Evan replies. “I mean, I thought I
might have a shot.”
“What?” Alisha hisses.
Nick groans. “That better be the beer talking, dude.”
“I like her,” Evan continues.
“Oh God,” I mumble. Jeremiah stays still as a log.
“But I haven’t asked her out because I never saw an opening after Kyle died, and now she shows up with this random guy none of us has ever heard of before?”
“Let’s not talk about Kyle,” Nick says.
“It’s pretty pathetic Annie’s still swooning over him,” Alisha says. “What’s it been? Like, a year?”
I rush to cover my mouth.
“Shut up,” I hear my brother hiss. “Evan, if Alisha can’t keep her mouth shut, take her home.”
Somebody murmurs something I can’t hear.
“I don’t care how late it is,” Nick says. “She shuts her mouth or she goes home.”
Jeremiah sits up straight and jerks the tent zipper down, ready to pounce. I reach out and grab his shoulder, shaking my head, silently telling him it’s not worth it. I’m not messing up Nick’s birthday because some stupid bitch is stupid.
I suck in a deep breath, pulling my lower lip between my teeth. I clamp down on it to feel the pain.
Jeremiah re-zips the tent and looks at me sideways. “I like your brother. But if that girl had said something about Lacey or Jennifer, I would’ve dunked her head in a toilet and given her a swirly. Clearly Nick is more diplomatic than I am.”
I snort into my pillow, wanting to give Alisha a swirly myself. She doesn’t have a fucking clue what it’s like to lose the person you talked to every day for three years.
That’s the hardest part. For everyone else, life goes on. But for me, part of me is stuck in limbo with Kyle…and I kind of want to stay there. I miss him. It’s my fault he died. I suck in another deep breath, hoping it will tide me over for a while. I don’t have the energy to breathe.
“You all right?” Jeremiah murmurs, lying back down next to me.
“No one ever says shit like that to my face,” I whisper. “That they think I’m pathetic. But they have no fucking idea.”
The sound of crickets chirping fills the silence.
My little rant felt good.