by Jeff Zentner
“We made it, Dill.”
“Yeah,” Dill said softly. “We made it.” If only we were making it in the same direction and the same place.
And their twoness made him think of Travis again. Lying alone under the ground, in the dark, while Lydia and I live and move forward and laugh. What tempered his guilt was the hunch that if Travis was watching them from some lofty vantage point, he was happy for them. Travis would have wanted us to be doing exactly what we’re doing.
They rode on a bit farther before Dill spoke again. “This part would have been hard to do with Travis.”
“Even if we had him pedal, and you sitting on the crossbar with me sitting on your lap, we wouldn’t have had room for the staff.”
“We’d have broken the bike. I think Travis weighed more than both of us combined.”
Lydia gazed into the distance. “You’re going to make me cry again. I’ll smear my mascara.” She turned back to Dill. “Oh wait.”
They pulled up to the school as a PT Cruiser limo was leaving, having deposited its passengers. Jasmine Karnes and her date, Hunter Henry, stood a little ahead of Dill and Lydia in line to get into the high school gymnasium. Jasmine turned, saw them standing there, and scowled at Lydia in particular. You two are trodding roughshod on the most important night of my life, her heavily made-up face said. She leaned in to Hunter and whispered something. Hunter turned, looked them up and down, and laughed, but in a way more for them to hear than as a manifestation of actual mirth.
“Hunter’s laughing because Jasmine pointed out the inherent futility of human existence and illusion of consciousness, and the only way he could emotionally process these ideas was through the incongruous reaction of laughter,” Lydia whispered to Dill.
They entered the darkened gym. A DJ played some generic pop hit from four months ago. They could hear the scornful whispers and muttering and feel the stares.
“How awesome does it feel that in a few short weeks, neither of us will see any of these people on a regular basis ever again?” Lydia said.
“You won’t. Some might be going to MTSU.”
“But they’ll never achieve the same critical mass of awfulness ever again. Even at MTSU.”
“True. It feels amazing. What also feels great is to not care at all anymore what any of these people think of me.”
On cue, Tyson Reed and Madison Lucas walked by. “Oh Lydia, honey,” Madison said, her voice dripping with mock concern, “I think they missed a spot or two on your spray tan.”
Lydia laughed breezily. “Did they? That is the last time I order the ‘Madison Lucas brain activity MRI’ spray tan package.”
“Always so clever,” Madison said, sneering.
“Always so not,” Lydia said.
Dill stepped between Madison and Lydia. “Hey, Madison, Tyson. Do you guys not get it? You can’t hurt us anymore. You can’t do anything to us. You can’t take anything from us. You’re nothing now.”
Madison’s expression was as though she’d just farted during a prayer. Tyson got up in Dill’s face. “You’re lucky it’s prom, Dildo. Otherwise I’d beat your ass. I don’t give a shit that your friend died and everyone feels sorry for you.”
Dill didn’t blink. He smiled. “You think you can cause me pain after what I’ve lived through? Go on. Hit me with your little fist.” He stared down Tyson until Tyson once more blustered about how fortunate Dill was that it was prom, grabbed Madison’s hand, and stomped away.
“Sorry about the whole no-college-wanting-you-to-play-football-for-them thing,” Lydia called after them.
Lydia turned to Dill, put the back of her hand to her forehead, and pretended to swoon. “My knight in shining armor!”
“Wouldn’t getting a black eye on prom night be pathetic?”
“Unquestionably.”
The DJ played a slow song. Lydia took Dill’s hand. “Come on, Sir Galahad. Being the only people dancing at prom is also pathetic.”
She led him to the middle of the dance floor, where they stood alone, people staring and snickering. Dill put his (shaking) hands on Lydia’s hips. “We should probably dance too close together, for patheticness’s sake,” she said. “We might as well do this right.” She drew in nearer to him. Near enough to feel his warmth. To see his (beautiful) jawline out of the corner of her eye and not the stares. To hear his (fast) heartbeat and not the snickers.
While they danced, swaying like two trees in the wind, she realized she wasn’t doing a very good job of feeling pathetic.
They rode home to Lydia’s under the moon and stars. Lydia sat on the crossbar, leaning her shoulder against Dill’s chest.
“The prom photographer guy seemed pretty unamused,” Dill said.
“I could not conceivably care less,” Lydia said. “The irony is that everyone acted more concerned with us mocking their precious rite of passage than with drunk driving or girls getting roofied.”
“I had the time of my life.”
Lydia turned, looked up at him, and smiled. “That was pretty badass when you stood up to Tyson, by the way. It was—dare I say—rather sexy.”
Sexy, huh? Dill took one hand off the handlebars and flexed his arm, mugging. “What can I say, babe? Tyson bought a ticket to the gun show.”
Lydia snorted, grabbed his wrist, and pulled it back down to the handlebars. “You are an irredeemable dork. Fortunately for our relationship’s continued viability, you suck at acting like a dumb bro.”
They passed Riverbank Books. Dill tried to concentrate on the road, but the geometry of Lydia’s neck distracted him.
“I’ll miss this,” Dill said. That was the understatement of the century.
“This town?” Lydia gestured back at the town square. “Or this?” She gestured at the two of them.
“This. Being together.” He loved the way the words being together felt on his tongue, like nectar.
Lydia reached up and pinched his cheek. “Aw. Look who’s getting the hang of this evening.”
Dill pulled away. “Is that pathetic? To miss you?”
“Of course not. I’m just giving you shit.” She rested her head back against Dill’s chest.
The floral night breeze blew a lock of Lydia’s disarrayed hair against Dill’s lips. It tickled, but he made no move to brush it away. They arrived at Lydia’s house.
When Lydia jumped off the bike, Dill took a quick look to make sure the coast was clear. Then he grabbed her by the waist and drew her to him. “There’s one more thing I’ll miss.” And he kissed her. The way she kissed him back left him doubtless that the rules were once more on hold.
“Anyway,” Dill said at last. “We better stop before your dad sees.”
“He deserves to see his daughter making out with the preacher’s kid as punishment for making me grow up in this hick town. But come on.” Lydia motioned for Dill to follow her into the backyard. She kicked off her shoes and walked over to the outside faucet. “Now we enter the final phase of Pathetic Prom. While our classmates are getting zongered at the Holiday Inn in Cookeville and getting pregnant, you and I will be playing in the sprinkler and looking up at the stars until your curfew. Yes?”
She didn’t wait for Dill’s answer before she turned on the water and the sprinkler chick-chick-chicked around the lawn in a circle.
“Come on, Dill.” She jumped in the sprinkler’s path and squealed and giggled like a child as it soaked her.
Dill put his hand over his face, laughed, and shook his head. Lydia was already a dripping mess. What remained of her mascara ran down her face in inky streaks. Her hair had come loose and fallen out of its elaborate style. It dangled sodden around her face. Water droplets coated her glasses. She cackled and picked up the sprinkler, chasing Dill with it.
He tried to run. “No! Get away!” He slipped and skidded on the wet grass and Lydia pounced. She tackled him (he didn’t fight that part too vigorously, especially when she lay on top of him for longer than necessary) and left him drenched. They ran and jumped t
hrough the sprinkler for several minutes, yelping and giggling.
Lydia’s parents stepped out onto the back porch. Lydia’s mom folded her arms. “Lydia, are you sure Dill thinks this is as funny as you do?”
He stood up, rivulets of water pooling at his feet, a colossal grass stain up the side of his suit. “Yes ma’am, I do. At least I think I do. I don’t always get what’s in Lydia’s head.”
Mrs. Blankenship sighed. “Welcome to the club.”
“All right, kids, we’ll leave some towels by the back door if you want to come inside later,” Dr. Blankenship said. “We’ll be up watching TV.”
Lydia gave them a “now scoot” gesture, and they went inside. Lydia grabbed Dill’s hand. “Okay. Stargazing time.” She pulled Dill out to the center of the lawn and they flopped onto the wet grass, lying on their backs side by side.
For a couple of hours, they talked and laughed incessantly about nothing in particular while they dried slowly. After that, they fell quiet and gazed up into the boundless starlit expanse while the owls and crickets sang their night hymns all around them.
Then, Lydia nestled up close to Dill and laid her head where his chest met his arm. Every nerve in his body suddenly felt like a rush of wind in long grass.
“Okay, Dill,” she murmured. “I lied. This is the final phase of Pathetic Prom. Instead of getting laid, your prom date is falling asleep on you.”
Lydia’s hair cascaded across his chest, forming tributaries and estuaries. Her breathing slowed and her head became heavy. What will become of this? Of us? No, don’t ask. Just accept this gift, this moment, after all that life has taken from you. He felt aglow, like his blood was fluorescing. Like you could see his pulsing, humming heart through his skin.
After a while, she stirred with a purring sound and snuggled in even closer, resting her lips on Dill’s neck. He could feel her warm breath. She laid her leg across Dill’s leg.
She’s it. She’s everything. She’s the standard by which I’ll judge beauty for the rest of my life. I’ll measure every touch to her breath on my skin. Every voice to her voice. Every mind to her mind. My measure of perfection. The name carved into me. If I could, I would lie with her under these stars until my heart burst.
He slowly reached over to her hair with his free hand, and caressed it. He gently ran his hand along its course. And again.
Again.
Again.
If he could be still enough, all the world’s motions would cease. The orbit of the Earth. The dance of tides. The march of rivers to sea. Blood in veins. And all would become nothing but her perfect and temporary thereness.
Hold this moment. Keep it. Until the next train whistle in the distance pierces the stillness.
The early June dusk was soft and green, not yet with the oppressive heat of summer. New grass grew on Travis’s grave. They sat beside it and searched for what to say to each other and to Travis. Lydia no longer felt like she was abandoning Dill, but she did feel like she was abandoning Travis. Which was somehow worse at the same time as it was more irrational.
“How long is your drive?” Dill asked, picking at blades of grass.
“I think about ten hours,” Lydia said, smacking a mosquito on her calf. She loathed making small talk in general—a thousand times more when it was with someone as important to her as Dill. But she understood why they had to do it.
“Are you doing it in one day?” Dill’s demeanor conveyed that he wasn’t enjoying making small talk any more than she was, but he also wasn’t ready to fill the silence with anything else.
“Yeah.”
“Damn. When are you leaving tomorrow morning?”
She sighed. “Probably around six.”
“Ouch. And then your internship starts—” Dill carefully plucked a ladybug from his arm and held it in his palm so that it could fly away.
“Next week. June ninth.”
“I wish you didn’t have to leave so early.”
“Me too, but I want to have some time to explore and get settled in before I start my internship.”
“Are you nervous to be working for the Chic lady? You said she was scary.”
Lydia laughed ruefully. “Yes, and she is.”
A pensive stillness passed while they listened to the hushed chirr of insects in the trees that surrounded the cemetery like an embrace. The ten days or so they’d had since school ended flew by in a blur of work, watching trains, sitting at the Column, random road trips (Graceland was Dill’s favorite), and lots and lots of lying under the stars and kissing.
Dill leaned back onto his hands. “Won’t it be hard to park Al Gore in New York City?”
“Yeah. I’m selling him to one of Dahlia’s friends from school. We’re meeting in the city and he’s driving Al to Stanford.” She felt a fleeting ache. Oh come on. You’re not seriously getting sentimental about inanimate objects now too, are you? You were not supposed to be this big of a mess. That was not in the plan.
“You’re selling Al Gore? I’ll miss him.” The wisp of betrayal in Dill’s tone told her that he was in the same mindset. Irrationality loves company.
Lydia ran her hand along the top of the grass. “Me too.”
“I hope you kept the bike from prom so I can give you rides when you come back to town.”
“I bet I can convince my dad to let us use his car.”
“Yeah, but the bike is pretty fun.”
Yes it is, Dill. Yes it is.
Fireflies flickered among the headstones in the leaf-green failing light. The cemetery smelled of clean dirt and sun-washed stone.
“We should have planned some ceremony,” Lydia finally said.
“Planning means we would have had to think about this, and I didn’t want to think about this.”
“Me neither.”
Dill gazed at the ground. Lydia pretended to do the same, but instead peered at Dill’s profile out of the corner of her eye, the glowing waltz of fireflies around his head. Her heart ached with the knowledge that every time it beat, it was counting away another second to her leaving and not seeing him anymore.
“Dill?” She put her hand on his knee.
He looked up. “Yeah?”
“I hope we’re always a part of each other’s lives, no matter where we go or what we do.” Let no one accuse me of not cheesing this up, she thought with an inward cringe. But I guess New York City’s going to give me an abundance of opportunities to be cool and unsentimental.
Dill scooted closer to Lydia and put his arm around her. “I’m committed if you are. You’re going the farthest in life.”
She rested her head on his shoulder. “Don’t count on that. I think the future has a lot of great surprises for you.”
“I hope.”
“Do you regret us—” Lydia started to ask, in a hesitant murmur.
“No. Whatever you were about to ask. I don’t regret anything about us.”
She thought about the things she would miss. She loved the way he cocked his head when he talked to her, to keep his hair out of his eyes; the way he sat, cross-legged, leaning on his hands. He didn’t always look at her when he talked, but when it was important, he looked her right in the eyes, and it made her tingle. And then there were his eyes; incandescent and dark all at the same time. Lightning illuminating a thunderhead.
It was strange to think about him existing beyond her view. She wondered if he had a completely different vocabulary of private gestures. Perhaps he held his head at a different angle. Sat differently. Perhaps his eyes contained a different luminosity and intelligence.
Lydia gave a mournful sigh. “I guess I should say goodbye to Travis.”
She and Dill stood by the grave. Dill put his hand on Lydia’s shoulder. She began to say something, but stopped. Again. And stopped.
“Travis, I miss you.” Her voice quavered. She took a deep breath. “And I’m glad that I got to have you as a friend. I talked about you at graduation in my salutatorian speech. About a month ago, Dill and I went to
prom together, and we wished you were there. I hope that you’re happy wherever you are. And you maybe have a cool cloak and a sweet sword or whatever. I’m sorry I don’t read enough fantasy to even know what sort of stuff I should wish you have. I did finish Bloodfall, though, and it was really good. I wish we could talk about it. I’m sorry I gave you so much grief over your staff. I’m sorry I didn’t tell more people sooner that we were friends. I’m sorry I didn’t know how bad things were for you at home. And I’m sorry I don’t have something more clever or profound to say.”
She wiped away tears and turned and hugged Dill. “I feel guilty leaving him behind.”
“Me too.”
They went to the Column, where they stole a few more quiet minutes together, listening to the river wear its way deeper into the Earth, the way people wear grooves into each other’s hearts.
Lydia let him pick the music on the way home. He picked “Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division, because he remembered that it was her favorite song. They sang along loudly. In Dill’s case, he sang because it felt like a more acceptable way of screaming in agony, which was what he wanted to do. The effort of trying to keep himself together was making him sick to his stomach.
They pulled up at Dill’s house.
“Well,” Lydia said, her eyes welling up. “I guess this is your stop.”
“Yeah,” Dill said, clearing his throat. “I guess it is.”
He opened the door and got out. He went around the front of the car to Lydia’s side and opened her door. She unbuckled her seat belt, jumped out, and hugged him. Tight. Tighter than she ever had before.
“I’ll really, really, really miss you,” Lydia said, and loosed the floodgates.
“I’ll really, really, really, really miss you,” Dill said, and broke down too.
They hugged that way for minutes, rocking gently, their tears mixing and falling, before either spoke again.
“Remember this, Dillard Early,” Lydia whispered, her voice cracking. “You are you and you are magnificent and brilliant and talented. You’re not your grandfather. You’re not your father. Their serpents are not your serpents. Their poison is not your poison. Their darkness is not your darkness. Not even their name is your name.”