Skipping Stones

by J. B. McGee

  I slow my pace, debating whether to keep going. I need to be alone, but something keeps my feet moving. I don’t think it’s my brain. Well, maybe it is. I think it’s more curiosity. In all of these years of coming to my grandparents’ house, there have never been other kids here. Definitely not guys that look to be my age.

  I think part of me is relieved to see a stranger. Someone who doesn’t know me – for a person to maybe look at me like normal. Not with the look of pity and regret.

  When I get to the creek, I just reach down and start throwing rocks into it as fast and hard as I can. I don’t even look at him because I’m not sure I care about anyone else right now. I’m not sure anyone else is worth it.

  “Grr!” I grunt as I continue throwing the stones, my pace getting faster. I see out of the side of my eyes that he’s completely stopped and his arms are crossed. I think he might actually be laughing at me. What a jerk.

  I turn a little bit. “What the heck is so funny?”

  “Oh nothing.” He points down to the pile that I’ve been pulling from. “Just help yourself,” he says amused.

  “Oh.” Ordinarily I’d apologize profusely, but not today. “Bug off.”

  I start to run away because I feel tears coming. The bricks are returning. As I start to sprint down the road perpendicular to the creek, I hear him.

  “Wait. Stop! I didn’t mean it like that.”

  I can’t stop. It’s like I’m treading water in the open sea. If I stop, I’m going to sink. I’m going to drown.

  I hear footsteps pattering behind me. “Hey! I said to stop. I’m sorry.”

  I know I can’t outrun him if he’s already caught up to me this fast. I can’t speak a word. Just trying to open my mouth causes my chest to burn. I shake my head no in protest.

  As he reaches my side, he says, "I didn't mean to get off on the wrong..." He looks down and chuckles, "the wrong foot."

  He’s just making my heart hurt even worse. Any other time I think I might have been excited to meet him. I got a good look at him before I took off, and now that he’s at my side I see his muscles even more. He’s gorgeous, a total jock. Tall and lean body, dark hair, sunkissed skin, his eyes are the color of milk chocolate. He must play sports. I can see the ridges of his muscles behind his snug white tank top. I’m not used to seeing bodies like that except in magazines. Perfection. Not too buff, just right. There’s something about those sculpted, exposed shoulders. My eyes don’t spend much time on them because they are drawn back to his magnetic eyes.

  I can’t speak. I wish I could. My mouth opens, and it’s like I’m sucking in salt water. I feel my lungs filling. All I want to do is cough it out. Except, instead of the water coming from my mouth, it gushes out of my eyes.

  I stop suddenly, placing my hands on my knees, and then walk to the side of the street and sit down. I wrap my arms around my sweaty legs. The humidity has already started, and it only contributes more to the feelings of suffocation.

  I bury my head into my lap and release the gates as my body starts to heave up and down. I’ve cried so much in the past several days that my sides ache. My throat hurts. My eyes burn.

  I feel his heat as he sits beside me, but he doesn’t touch me. I’m not sure if I want for him to touch me. I already have so much guilt from the sheer emotions of his mere proximity. My dad just died and I have desire for a hot guy.

  My dad. The sobs grow in their intensity. My daddy. This has to be a nightmare. This can’t be real.

  “This is clearly something more than my comment to you. What can I do to help you?”

  That does make me look up briefly, as a smile curves onto my lips. I try to speak, my voice quivering. “Okay, so maybe you’re not a jerk.”

  “No, I’m not. Apology accepted.” He reaches his hand, hesitantly to dry my tears. “I’m Andrew, but you call me Drew, and you are?”

  “Alex,” I whisper, “Alex Hart.”

  He smiles the most dazzling smile I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a guy that I thought was as cute as he is. He surely has a girlfriend, though. Guys this easy on the eyes are never available.

  “What has you so upset, Alex? And don’t say it’s my pile of rocks.”

  I can’t help but giggle. The bricks start to change to butterflies with each word he says, with each look he gives me. “My...I...I can’t talk about it,” I whisper.

  “Okay. Can you walk again?”

  “Probably, why?”

  “I’d like to share my pile of rocks with you. Skipping stones always helps me when I can’t talk about stuff, too.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief. That’s all I want to do. Well, except I can’t skip a stone for the life of me. I’m excellent at throwing them. “I can’t skip stones.”

  He bursts out laughing. “You can’t skip stones?”

  I shake my head. “Nope.”

  He stands up and reaches his hand out to help me up. “Well, let’s see what we can do about that, Alex.”

  I place my hand in his, and let him help me up. When our skin touches, I don’t want to let go. So I wait to see what he does. I’m disappointed when he releases me as I steady my feet. I glance up to him and smile. Smiling. It feels good. It’s easier with him, too. In fact, for a few seconds, I can forget the reason for the intense stabbing in my chest.

  I look down because I know I’m about to cry again, and I don’t want to do that in front of him. I’m not a cry baby. Maybe that should be past tense. I wasn’t a cry baby. I rarely used to do it because I hate it. I had always thought it was a sign of weakness. I’m a girl, but I’m strong. Now, I’m not sure what I am, but if it’s indicative of a flaw, then I’m not nearly as tough as I once thought.

  I squint my eyes closed as he lifts my chin. “Hey,” he whispers.

  I purse my lips and shake my head.

  “You don’t have to talk.” He holds his grip despite my shaking. “And if you need to cry, then cry.”

  That’s the permission the dam holding back my river of tears needed. I try to cover my face with my hands, but before I do, he wraps me into his arms. He squeezes me so tight. My body heaves, and the loud gasps that are coming from my mouth are hushed by his shirt. When I inhale, I memorize his scent: the smell of sweat, outdoors, and something sporty. Comfort. He’s soothing me. Or maybe it’s something else. Maybe he’s saving me.

  Is he even real because he seems too good to be true? He seems like an angel sent to keep me from drowning in the sorrow that has become the reality of my life. Or maybe he’s just a figment of my imagination. “Where did you come from?” I manage to ask through the sobs.

  “Me? Um. The creek?”

  My throat hurts so badly from crying. “So you’re real?”

  He laughs. “Last time I checked.”

  He pushes me back and our eyes lock. “No. Like where did you come from before the creek?”

  His eyebrows scrunch together. “My house?”

  Okay, if he’s trying to be cute, it’s working. “Nice. Where’s your house?”

  “Top of the hill, the other side of the street.” He points to our left.

  “Ah.” I take a deep, quivering breath. “When did you move here?”

  “A few months ago.”

  “So that’s why I’ve never seen you around?”

  “Might be.” He smiles.

  “How old are you?”

  “What is this? Fifty questions?” He winks. “Thought you didn’t wanna talk.”

  Hmm. He has a point, but I’m curious. I want to know more about him. Then again, maybe it’s that I don’t want him to leave me. Maybe it’s that I want to know where I can find him after today. I need to know he’s not going to leave. Because right now, he’s the only person that I feel like I can just be myself. “I didn’t.”

  “But now you do?”

  “Would appear so.” I shrug. “So. How old?”

  “Oh.” He nods. “Seventeen. You?”

  “Fifteen,” I mutter as I start to
walk back to the creek.

  He takes a skip to catch up. “So where did you come from? I’ve never seen you around.”

  I swallow. Talking about random things seems to come easy with him, but I don’t think I can talk about where I came from. This visit was supposed to be temporary. In an instant it has changed to what seems like a more permanent visit. Even if my mom pulls through and we go back to where I came from, it will be without my dad. It will never be the same. I open my mouth to try to speak, but my throat closes. I shake my head. “Can’t.”

  “Can’t what?”

  “Can’t talk about it.”

  He nods. “Okay.”

  We walk the rest of the way back to the creek in silence. It’s awkward. I hate silence. When we get back to the pile of rocks, he points. “Was that the best you could do earlier?”

  I love a challenge, but this is a lost cause. This is beyond a challenge. “Yup.”

  He smiles, and there is a glimmer of amusement in his sparkling eyes. He reaches down and picks up a stone. “Turn sideways.”

  I comply without hesitation, shuffling my feet. “Like this?” I look back over my shoulder and catch him looking at my backside. “Ahem. Up here. Like this?”

  He shakes his head, but doesn’t stop smiling. “Sorry.” He reaches in and puts his hands on my hips. Everything in my body swirls in conflicting directions. He pulls me to where my back is touching his front. “Like this,” he breathes into my ear.

  I freeze. My skin is wet from sweat, and his warm breath sends shivers down my spine. This feels so good: these emotions as opposed to the grief, the sorrow. I make an internal commitment to enjoy this normalcy. This is what I should be doing. I’m a teenage girl, out of school for the summer. I should be flirting with guys, especially hot ones – not mourning the death of my dad.

  “Mhmm. Now what?” I already know what comes next. Or I think I do. Maybe Papa hasn’t been able to teach me how to do this because he’s never held me like this. Maybe I’ve never had so much riding on a lesson of skipping stones.

  He reaches down my side and lifts my right arm and holds it, palm up, and places the stone in it. His voice is deep, soft, and has unspoken undertones. “There’s a certain way you have to hold it.”

  I turn my head and our faces are so close that our noses touch. The bricks that have taken occupancy in my chest for the last several days are back, but it’s not a feeling of suffocation. It’s the constriction that must be keeping my heart from pulsating out of my body. It’s a burning, on fire with desire. No. The words ‘fire’ and ‘burn’ aren’t welcome in my mind right now. My breathing hitches. Partially because of him and partially because of them, my parents. A tear escapes my eyes.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I know that I just met you and already I wish I could make it all better.” I swallow and nod. He uses the pad of his thumb on the hand that isn’t holding my arm to swipe it away. “There.” He manipulates my fingers around the stone. “Just like that,” he says.

  It makes me smile. I don’t think he understands what a lost cause I am. It’s going to take more than positioning my fingers to help me do this.

  He moves a little. “Now. As you sling your arm, give your wrist a little flick.”

  I glance at him, humored. “You think teaching me to skip a stone is that simple?”

  “I’ll help guide your arm.”

  “Ah, you make it sound so easy.”

  He chuckles, “It is easy.”

  “Matter of opinion.” I whisper.

  He pulls my arm back like a slingshot and as we’re gaining momentum to release the stone, I hear, “Alex!” being proclaimed through the entire neighborhood. It causes my already racing heart to speed out of control. I lose complete concentration, virtually spinning myself around as the stone is released, plummeting me into his arms, our lips just mere millimeters away from each other.

  We stare into each other’s eyes. Speechless seems to be my middle name for one reason or another today. I blink. “I...”

  “You can’t skip a stone to save your life, can you?” He smirks.

  I breathe for what seems like the first time in five minutes and start to laugh. “No. No, I can’t.”

  He brushes a piece of hair out of my eye. “You will. I’ll teach you.”

  “I am not sure I’m teachable. Been trying for years with Papa.”

  “Come back to me. I’ll teach you. If it’s the last thing I do...” His entire face lights up. “I’ll teach you everything I know.”

  I think I can see and hear in his voice that there’s more to that statement. I must admit that I’m curious. “Everything you know, huh?”

  “Everything.” He caresses my cheek, just below my eyes. “Come back to me. I’ll teach you how to deal with those beautiful tears of yours. I’ll teach you how to breathe again. I’ll teach you everything.” He looks down to his pile of rocks. “I’ll share those with you. And I’ll teach you how to skip stones. It’s a promise, and I don’t break promises.”

  “Alex! Alex!” I hear Memaw again.

  “I better go. It could be really important. I wish I could stay.”

  He backs away and puts his arm out, as if excusing me. I can barely take my eyes off of him. I muster the ability to break the pull that is attracting me to him. It’s like he’s the south pole and I’m the north pole on those big red fridge magnets I used to play with when I was little.

  “I’ll see ya ‘round?”

  He nods. “I hope so.”

  I start to run as I hear my name once more. Once I am able to get out of his immediate proximity, I hear the urgency getting more and more pronounced. The guilt consumes me once again. How could I just run off like that and not even tell them where I was going? How could I not come or answer as soon as I was called? As if they haven’t been through enough already?

  Then I glance back over my shoulder to see if he is still there, reassuring myself that he’s real. It’s also one last look at him to imprint it upon my brain in an effort to tide me over until I get to see him again.

  When I come over the small hill that leads to the house from the creek, I can see Memaw pacing and Papa sitting in the van. Crap. Her hands go up in the air, as if to say finally. “Hey.” I can’t speak in long sentences. I’m too out of breath. I know this is due to running, but also from the effect that Drew has on me. I just want to say his name over and over, but I can’t. I can’t think about him right now. I furrow my brows. “Where are we going?”

  “It’s your mother. She’s taken a turn for the worse, Alex. We have to go. Get in the van now.”

  I swallow and shake my head. “No. No way.” Disbelief. Denial. Call it what you want. It’s like an out of body experience. Like I’m watching of my life. All I want is a pause button, or a rewind button.

  She ushers me the rest of the way. My knees are too wobbly to make it on their own. “There’s an infection, Alex. It’s common, they say, in burn victims.”

  “We were only gone for a little bit.” I plop down into the burgundy captain’s chair in the backseat. “She was fine the last time we were there.”

  Papa glances over his shoulder and gives me a look of what I think is reassurance. It’s his look of hope mixed with fear. I know my Papa’s looks. As he puts the van in reverse, he says, “Things change quickly, Alex. Where were you anyway?”

  Guilt. It’s back. Guilt for being gone and delaying our arrival back to the hospital. Guilt for the few minutes that I wasn’t concerned about my mother. Guilt for feeling anything other than sorrow at the significant loss I have incurred. Guilt for being a boy-crazed teenage girl and wishing that Drew would have kissed me.

  I try to keep the crying at bay, but it’s so hard. Yet, my body is so tired and weak from fighting it. Even crying now reminds me of Drew. And that makes me feel a combination of guilt and anger. Anger for him coming into my life when I’m not in a position to do a darned thing about it. He called my tears beautiful I think as I wat
ch the familiar scenery on the thirty-minute drive to the Burn Center at Doctor’s Hospital.

  Thankfully, traffic wasn’t too bad. We didn’t get stopped by any trains. The drive was quiet. We enter the hospital and I say a quick prayer thanking God for this place, but I also beg him to please spare me a parent. Because I can’t lose them both. I can’t. I’ve always been told that He doesn’t give us more than we’re capable of handling. He has to know that I can’t handle that.

  As we exit the elevator on her floor, Papa tells me to sit in the waiting area until they get more information. I’ve only seen her once. I want to see her, I do, but I also know that the last time I saw her I collapsed. It wasn’t a good thing at all. The last thing the doctors and nurses need to be doing is taking care of me instead of her.

  I have had trouble getting the smell out of my mind. Every time I close my eyes all I see is white and flames. It’s quite a visualization. The white sheets that covered her body while they were waiting on the burn surgeon to consult. The fire from the explosion. The only way I can sleep is if I take the medicine the doctor prescribed and just wait until I can no longer keep my eyes open. Even then, I’m usually awoken with sweat and tears from the nightmares. In seconds I went from a perfectly normal, extremely intelligent, and pretty well-behaved teenage girl to a completely screwed up, confused girl.

  I need my mom to pull through this. I need a reason to keep living with this agony. Otherwise, why would I continue to torture myself? Torture. Just a few days ago, my idea of torture was stupid ham hock soup and pear salad. What I’d give to have that be my only form of torture. Heck, I’d eat both every day for every meal if I could go get a hold of a rewind button. A lump forms in my throat. There are no rewind buttons.

  Papa walks over and the look on his face is one with which I’m becoming familiar. Despair. Agony. Regret. No. I shake my head. No. This is not happening. “Alex, let’s go see your mother.” He takes a handkerchief from his pocket and dabs his tears and then mine. “They said...” His voice cracks. But he said we could go see her. That means she’s still here. I don’t understand. “We need to say our goodbyes.”