by Bryan Bliss
“Maybe it’s in the truck,” I say, going to the passenger side. I search the floorboards, the seats, even the glove compartment. Then, because she hasn’t moved, I search the driver’s side. When I still don’t find it, I pull out my phone—nine unread texts from Mom—and use it to check under the seats. Nothing.
“I need to find it,” she says, standing up suddenly. Her face is absent, like Jake’s. Void of possibility, of any hope to find resolution. For a second it scares me; how helpless I feel. It’s a ring in a field at midnight.
I turn around and walk slowly, searching for any gleam of light in the dirt.
“Maybe you lost it when you were hiding,” I say, beginning to feel the panic, too. If anything, Mallory is growing calmer by the second, but I’m not. “Where were you?”
“The tree line,” she says. And for a second I’m annoyed. I wouldn’t have ever found her because that’s always been out of bounds. I wish I could mention it, could see the indignation—maybe it would be guilt—flash across her face seconds before she gave me the definitive explanation as to why I’m wrong.
Instead, I point my cell phone to the ground as we walk, searching for a ring that is likely invisible. Part of me doesn’t want her to find it, which I realize is childish and petty. Then I imagine finding the ring, holding it up. Seeing the relief overtake her face, transforming her back into who she really is.
When we get to the tree line, she points at a large stump, once an even larger tree. “I was sitting there, waiting for you.”
We both drop to our knees, searching through the piles of dead grass, the leaves. We’re not halfway around the stump when she sits on top of it and says, “This is pointless. I probably lost it when we were at the park. Or the quarry. Or the hotel. For all I know, some guy at the campfire just gave it to his girlfriend.”
She hugs her knees, and I have no idea what to say. Part of me wants to be like, It’s just a stupid ring. But then I think about Jake and remember that sometimes even the littlest things will send him spinning. Seeing a kid walking a dog. A man jogging. Nobody knows the dread of seeing him fade away.
“It’s going to be okay,” I say. “He’ll understand.”
She laughs, which surprises and encourages me until I see her face.
“No, he won’t. Trust me.”
“When I talked to him in the field, he seemed like he’d do anything to make things right.”
“Well, this is different,” she says softly.
All I can do is mechanically pat her shoulder and offer up more and more general assurances. I hate not knowing how to fix this, so I stand up and pull out my cell phone again. I walk around the stump, hoping I’ll see a flash.
“Thomas, stop. Sit down.”
“We might have missed it,” I say.
“Really, you don’t have to do this. And you’re right, it’s a ring. He’ll get over it. Please just sit with me.”
I sit next to her on the stump, easily big enough for both of us. It reminds me of just how enormous the tree used to be, a hickory. We spent an entire summer nailing salvaged pieces of wood to its trunk, creating a makeshift ladder that unlocked the tallest branches, which we climbed, higher and higher until they began bowing dangerously underneath us. You could see downtown, our houses—to the next state, we liked to believe. It got hit by lightning and ended up getting cut down sometime during our sophomore year. It’s weird to think of something so big disappearing overnight. But even dead, it sticks to the earth like a monument, too stubborn to be completely erased.
When my phone buzzes again, Mallory reaches for her pocket and panics. “Oh, God, my phone.” She looks frantic before I pull it out of my pocket. She takes it, notices it’s turned off, and says, “Did you do this?”
“Will was trying to call you when I was talking to him. I thought that might be awkward.”
“Thanks,” she says.
“We could go buy a ring. In the morning.”
She pauses and then says, “It was his grandmother’s.”
It’s like the roots of the stump reach up and tie me to the ground. Somehow knowing that he didn’t pick the ring up on a whim makes me want to find it more, and I don’t understand why.
“He gave it to me for Christmas. Know what I got him?” There’s an awful weight in her eyes as she says it. “A certificate to play paintball.”
“Sounds pretty good to me.”
“Yeah, but not when somebody gives you a family heirloom. I mean, what a moron, right? Who does that?” She exhales and says, “Anyway, then I put it on and—”
She stops, won’t look at me.
“What?”
“It’s stupid. You’ll think I’m an idiot.”
“I already think you’re an idiot.”
She exhales again, louder and more forceful. Keeps kicking her foot against the base of the stump.
“I felt connected to somebody again.” She stares up at me, her eyes like two hands pushing into my chest. “It had been a long time since I felt that way about someone.”
It’s how I expect it might feel to fall through a trapdoor, to have solid ground underneath your feet and then, suddenly, there’s nothing. Falling and falling into the black. I put my arm around her. She has small shoulders, thin and fragile like a bird’s wing.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
Because she lost the ring and because we lost so much time. Because I’ve been such an ignorant prick and because right now I have no idea what else to do or say. She looks up at me, blinking as a piece of hair falls into her eyes. Those eyes haven’t changed since we were kids, big and blue and incapable of hiding what she’s really feeling.
And then I kiss her.
I want it to be electric, to have some romantic music swell around us as we realize this is the point of everything. But it’s a mistake. And I know it immediately. She pulls away from me, and the panic in her eyes mirrors exactly what’s happening inside me.
Sirens wailing. A chorus of “Oh, Shit! Oh, Shit! Oh, Shit!” But I can’t move my mouth, can’t apologize or explain why I thought it was a good idea.
I’m going to be sick.
“What was that?” She stands up.
“Mallory, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that—” My phone goes off, and I don’t want to look at it—I already know who it is—but Mallory turns away from me, and it keeps buzzing in my hands, so I answer it with a yell.
“Jesus, what!”
“Thomas?”
I can hear Jake breathing on the other line, like he’s been jogging. He used to run everywhere; people always talked about it. He could go for days. Now it sounds like a rattling engine ready to die.
“Jake. What do you need?” I have no idea how to make my voice sound normal with him on the phone. “Why are you calling me?”
“Do you realize how fucking stupid you’re being right now?”
“Tell Dad I’ll be home soon.”
“I’m not at home,” he says, as if he can’t believe I’d make that assumption. The heavy breathing, the background noise: it sounds like he’s in the middle of the interstate.
“Where are you?”
“At the bridge.”
“What bridge?”
“River Road. I want you to meet me here.”
There was a time when this call would’ve been everything. Jake wanting me to meet him anywhere. Now my entire body fills with panic, erasing any embarrassment I feel about what happened with Mallory. She fades away as I talk slowly.
“What are you doing at the bridge?”
He curses, spits, and then says, “I just need to talk to you before you leave.”
“Are you okay?”
He pauses, only a second or two, but it feels like my entire life is passing by. Then he says, “Can you be here soon? We need to do this now.”
I want to know what, why, but the longer I stay on the phone, the longer he’ll be out there waiting.
“Yeah, fine. I need to drop off Mallory first. But
I’ll be there.”
He doesn’t say anything, just hangs up—there one minute and gone the next.
I hold the phone in my hand, unsure of where to start with Mallory. “I need to go,” I say. “Jake’s out on River Road, at the bridge.”
She doesn’t move, doesn’t speak.
“I can drop you off before I go.”
Still nothing. I take a step toward her, expecting she’ll just follow me wordlessly to the truck. We’ll share an awkward ride back to her house, and I’ll live with the guilt of ruining this once again for—how long? Months? Years? However long, I have the undeniable sense that I’ve finally ended everything between us.
But the anxiety about Jake climbs up my neck and breathes in my ear, trumping everything else.
“Either way, I need to go.”
She spins around and faces me. “You can’t do that again,” she says. “Promise me you aren’t going to do that again.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry; just promise you’re not going to do that again. I have a boyfriend, and it’s bad enough that I lost the ring, that I’m out with you instead of him. Plus, that isn’t what tonight is about. It’s not what we’re about, Thomas. So you have to promise me right now that you’re never going to do that again.”
“I know, Mallory. I promise. And I am sorry.”
She still looks a little angry when she says, “And I’m not going home. So stop being stupid.”
“I don’t know if you should come,” I say carefully. I’ve already told her about Jake, but seeing him, having him focus on her with those empty eyes, is another story.
“Well, I don’t care what you want right now, so shut up about it already. What I want is to go to River Road to see why in the hell your brother feels the need to further screw up my graduation night with all his crazy.”
It stings, and she sees how I flinch immediately.
“Now I’m sorry,” she says quietly. And then we stand there, unable to deny how weird it’s become. But I don’t have time for awkwardness, not now.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
River Road is long, cutting across four counties and eventually getting swallowed by Highway 10 before they both spill into the interstate. The bridge, an old metal structure that crosses the river, soon to be the Specialist Jake Bennett Bridge, sits exactly in the middle of the county. I’ve known this place since birth, but every turn feels like a surprise as I try to get to Jake.
“Any idea what he wants?” Mallory says, her voice still noticeably tentative. “Does he go out to the bridge a lot? That’s a pretty long walk from your house.”
She rubs her wrist as she talks, both feet on the dashboard. Trying so hard to be casual. The truth is, I have no idea what Jake does when I’m not around. This phone call was the most animated he’s been in months. If he’s not watching a movie or eating, he’s in a mobile catatonic state. Moving only enough to remind you that he still exists.
I fantasize about miracles, that he’s been magically healed in the past two hours. That we’ll arrive at the bridge and he’ll be there, grinning like he did in his yearbook pictures. The guy jokingly voted Most Likely to Be Arrested. The football star. He never seemed to stop smiling, even when everybody else was worried about college or SAT scores. Jake was mythic to everyone.
The bridge comes into view first, then Jake. He sidearms a rock, and it skips across the water as I park the truck. The backpack sits open at his feet.
Dad never liked to fish but wanted us around the water as kids. So we’d get in the truck and drive to the river on weekends. He’d send us out to find the perfect stones, flat and smooth, and we’d throw them until our arms ached and the sun died behind us. We’d go to Mountain View Barbeque and have hamburgers, fries, milk shakes, never returning before dark. Half the time Dad would catch hell because Mom had dinner on the table and we were already busting at the seams.
When Mallory and I get out of the truck, Jake zips up the backpack and puts it on his shoulder.
“Thanks for coming,” he says.
“Yeah. Of course.”
Jake and I never had the kind of relationship where I’d go into his room and tell him about girls or what was going on in my life. Dad was never the sort to share his feelings, and he didn’t want us doing it either. I didn’t understand it, but it never really mattered, I guess. It wasn’t until I was over at a friend’s house and saw the way they were with each other that I knew we were different. In another world, maybe I’d come to this bridge all red faced and embarrassed and confess to Jake how I stupidly kissed my best friend.
“Good to see you again, Jake,” Mallory says from behind me. Jake nods at the dark water, otherwise motionless. I don’t know what he wants or if he’ll even talk with Mallory around, so I motion her back to the truck. Mallory hesitates, then walks away. When she’s leaning against the truck, I turn to Jake, but he is still facing the river.
“Is Mom freaking out?” I ask.
“Mom’s always freaking out,” he says.
“True,” I admit. I try to read his face, his body. Searching for any indication that he might do something dangerous to himself. He’s had the same pair of pants on for three days, and Dad has been itching to tell him to shave for longer than that. His gray army T-shirt is covered in stains and hangs from his shoulders. More than anything, he seems smaller. Not in size. Just in everything else. He sets the backpack on the ground again and scratches his face, his other hand still cupping the rocks.
I stare back at the river for a few seconds before I say, “So why are we here?”
“I haven’t gotten you ready,” he says. “That’s on me. And we need to change that before you go tomorrow.”
“Get me ready? Jake, c’mon.” I touch his shoulder, and he shakes his head, more a twitch than a denial. “I’m ready. I’ve done the PT. I can do one hundred push-ups now—probably more than you.”
It’s a weak joke, and I surprise myself by letting it fly. Of course he ignores it.
“I’m not talking about push-ups. Listen to me,” he says. “Everything you do follows you. And you need to know about it before you go. Every action has a reaction. Every good or bad thing you do has a way to fix it.”
It sounds like a mash-up of something he learned in science and a greeting card. It’s so bankrupt of sense, of meaning.
“I fucked up,” he says. “And I need to fix it. For both of us.”
He takes a step toward the bridge, and my body seizes. I reach a hand toward him. “Maybe we should go home and talk to Mom and Dad.”
This would normally make him laugh, and I can’t believe I’m even saying it. But I don’t know what else to do. How to make him stop being so vague.
Jake reaches back and throws another rock high into the air. The moon catches it, a flash against the sky, before it drops into the water. Something goes cold inside me.
“What was that?”
He cocks his arm again, but before he can throw anything, I grab him by the shirt. There’s a medal in his hand, a simple brown star dangling from a red, white, and blue ribbon.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Let go of me.”
He tries to wrestle free, and for the first time in my life I stop him. For the first time I’m stronger than he is. I put him against the railing, and the medal he was holding falls to the ground. As soon as it happens, Jakes stops struggling. He goes limp in my arms.
“Jake, what are you doing?”
“I’m doing this for you. Don’t you get it? First the medals and then—” He motions to the backpack.
“Jake, man. I don’t understand. What are you doing for me?”
He’s fading in front of me, and I can’t let that happen now. I want to slap him, the way Dad did to one of his army buddies who passed out on our porch one night. Right in the face.
“Where are the other medals?”
“They’re gone,” he says.
I look out into the river, impossibl
y black and who knows how deep. I let go of him and walk in circles, trying to think. Should I call Mom and Dad? Maybe they would finally take him to the hospital; maybe this will finally force them to see who Jake has become. But then I would be stuck, too. There’s no way they’d let me walk out of the emergency room or psychiatric ward—wherever they put him—and go to the recruiter’s office alone.
Mallory yells just as I see Jake’s arm move. The last medal arcs against the sky like it has wings.
Jake doesn’t move as I sprint toward the bridge, as I jump off the side and drop twenty feet into the river. I expect it to be cold. Instead, the warm water swallows me. I sink until my legs disappear into the wet mud at the bottom. Almost immediately a sharp pain travels up my right leg. When I pull up, it feels like I’ve lost my entire leg. But I still try to swim, to move, to catch even the smallest flicker in the dark water.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I dive down five more times before I finally listen to Mallory and get out of the river. My calf pulses blood, the cut long and deep. When Mallory sees it, her breath catches. Jake doesn’t move.
“Oh, God,” she says, bending over as I limp toward Jake. “What were you thinking?”
I ignore Mallory and shove Jake with both hands, nearly falling.
“What the hell?” He doesn’t answer, but I keep at him. I’m pushing him, trying to force him to react, to do something, even if it means taking a punch. I want to know he’s alive, even a little bit.
Only when I go for the backpack does he come to life, jumping backward and holding it away from me like it might explode. Mallory is shouting, too, trying to get my attention. When she grabs me, I reluctantly face her.
“Thomas, you need to go to the hospital.”
“I’m fine,” I say, turning back to Jake. I want to know why he threw the medals off the bridge. Why he can’t just tell me what’s wrong, what’s happening inside his head. I want to know why he cares more about some damn backpack than what just happened.