Becca looked over me at DeShawn. “You can’t see stars like this in New York City, can you?”
DeShawn shook his head and craned his neck to look up. “Not like this.”
“Wow, that’s kind of sad.”
DeShawn shrugged like this had never bothered him.
“Do you miss it a lot?” Becca asked.
“Soon as I turn eighteen, I’m moving back.”
I suddenly felt left out. DeShawn had the city; Becca had Haiti. What did I have? Where was I moving when I turned eighteen?
“Can we visit you?” Becca asked. “In New York?”
DeShawn sat up, looking a little surprised. “I guess.” Then he started pulling off his T-shirt.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Cooling off,” he answered, and dropped off the dock and into the water, barely causing a ripple as he went under. Becca and I sat for a moment in silence. I thought of us all together in New York City, where I’d never been. All I knew were the pictures of Times Square and the Manhattan skyline. I pictured us walking down Broadway, or up on top of the Empire State Building. Somewhere, an owl called. Then, out in the lake, DeShawn’s head burst up through the surface.
“How is it?” Becca called.
“Way nicer in here,” DeShawn said. He ran his hands through his short, wet hair and spat out a stream of water. His head disappeared again as he went back under, and appeared again farther out, on his back, moving slowly away from us.
“Do you think he’s gonna try to swim to the other side?” I asked, only half joking.
Becca laughed. “You’d miss him, wouldn’t you?”
I could feel her eyes on me, but I didn’t look at her. I kept watching DeShawn floating in the dark water.
Becca stretched her body back out on the dock. “When I was little,” she said, “I used to lie on our couch with our cat and pretend that the couch was a raft and we were in Noah’s flood and Smokey and I were the only survivors.” She sighed. “I like it out here, better than in those stuffy cabins. I wish we could sleep out here tonight.”
I didn’t know who she meant by “we,” and was trying to think of a way to ask her, when she sat up suddenly. “Shh! Listen,” she hissed.
There were voices on the trail; it sounded like they were heading our way. Then we could see the glow of two flashlights bobbing through the trees, coming toward us. Then DeShawn’s voice: “Get in the water, quick!”
I probably would have just sat there on the dock, wondering which was worse: getting caught out here by an adult, or jumping into that cold, dark water, if Becca hadn’t grabbed me by my sleeve and pulled me with her off the dock.
The water wasn’t as cold as I would have guessed—the day’s hot sun must have warmed it some. Still, it was a shock. We didn’t have enough time to swim out and around the beach, reaching the shore farther down and missing whoever was coming down the path. By the sound of their voices, they were already on the beach and heading straight for the dock. They would have spotted us. So instead, Becca and I hung against the side of the dock and, as quietly as we could, made our way to the very edge, where DeShawn was already treading water. The three of us hung in a row against the end of the dock. The only way we could be seen was if whoever was out there walked to the very edge and looked straight down.
We heard the boards creak as the two people walked out onto the dock and stopped short just at the edge. That’s when I recognized the voices. It was Bethany and Nola. They’d been talking as they walked, and now, bobbing in the dark water, my hands gripping the slippery underside of the dock to keep from drifting too far out, I could listen to what they were saying.
“I still feel bad about earlier, though.” That was Nola’s voice. “I guess it really was a bitchy thing to do.”
Bethany: “No, you were just trying to snap her out of it. Like, what else are we supposed to do if she won’t hang out with us, won’t even talk to us? And I don’t know what’s up with that horrible hoodie she’s always wearing now. I’ve never seen that thing before in my life.”
“You’ve got something against girls in hoodies?”
“Shut up. That thing needs to go. I don’t think she’s washed it in weeks.”
“Well, anyway, I still feel bad.”
There was a long stretch of silence. I wondered how long they were going to stay out here. Even though the water wasn’t that cold in the beginning, now I was starting to shiver. I needed to sneeze.
“Oh, look,” Nola’s voice said. “Somebody’s shirt and shoes.”
I looked at DeShawn and then Becca. She had her eyes closed. I wondered if she was praying.
Then Bethany: “Gross. One of the kids must have left them out here earlier.”
I heard Nola let out a loud sigh. “It’s really pretty here. Wouldn’t it be awesome to build a cabin on this lake and just live out here, cut off from society and everyone?”
“That sounds horrible, actually.”
“What? You’d prefer to stay in good ol’ Grover Falls?”
“I told you, I’m going to travel. Saving up for that plane ticket to London and then I—”
“I know, I know—backpacking across Europe, visiting all the essential cities: Paris, Florence, Rome, Athens, and then across the Mediterranean to Morocco. You’ll see what there is to see in Africa, visit the pyramids. And then it’s …?”
“India. I have to see the Taj Mahal. I want to see the Himalayas as well. Then I guess I’ll go to China—the Great Wall would be cool—and then I’m off to Tokyo, catching a flight to Los Angeles, and then I’m driving across the country back to the East Coast. Australia will have to wait for another time.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re being realistic about this, at least.”
“You laugh, but just you watch. I’m going to do it.”
“And when is this little excursion taking place, again?”
“When I turn eighteen, before college.”
“A trip around the world will take a while. You’ll be gone a long time.”
“That’s the idea.”
“Nice.”
“I told you, you can come with me! But we’ll be roughing it, sleeping out on the road and in hostels.”
“The occasional brothel.”
“Of course.”
“Okay, but after our adventure, we come back here and build my cabin?”
“What about college?”
“Fuck college. Cabins are better.”
“Okay, deal. But you’re responsible for meals. I hate cooking.”
“Ramen noodles it is.”
There was a burst of laughter from both of them, trailing off into small chuckles, and then silence. But after a while, I could hear something, a new sound, and I knew what it was without looking—but I wanted to see.
So I turned in the water, reached up to grip the edge of the dock, and slowly pulled myself up out of the lake so that just the top of my head was above the dock—enough to see the girls where they stood, like giants, above me.
“You saw them? You actually saw them kissing?” Becca asked. We were standing on the beach, shivering in our soaked clothing.
I nodded. I felt sick.
“In the Bible, it says greet your brother with a friendly kiss. Was it that kind of kiss, or …”
I shook my head. “It definitely wasn’t that kind.”
I thought of them in each other’s arms, their lips pressed together and moving like they did in the movies, making little sounds, Nola’s hands on Bethany’s butt. It was like a fucking romantic comedy. Were stars shooting across the sky above them?
“So weird,” said Becca. She shook her head and smiled.
DeShawn sneezed. “What do you think we should do?” I asked.
“I guess we’d better head back to camp,” said Becca. “It’s g
otta be late now.”
That wasn’t what I meant. “But about what I saw?” I said lamely.
“Ben likes Bethany,” DeShawn explained.
“Oh.” Becca looked a little confused.
“It’s not about that!” I said. “It’s about … I don’t know, they’re counselors, and Bethany’s the pastor’s daughter, and …” I trailed off, not knowing what I wanted to say. If I’d seen Bethany kissing a boy, I would have been angry, jealous, but I wouldn’t have felt like this, like that expression—the rug out from under me.
But Becca just looked annoyed with me. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I’m too cold and wet to stand here anymore.” She turned and began heading back up the path toward the camp, and we followed.
When we got to the clearing, the game of capture the flag had ended. They had lit the bonfire down by the edge of the forest across the field. We could hear talking and laughing as everyone had hot chocolate and roasted marshmallows. Part of me wished I was down there stupidly making myself a s’more, and that I hadn’t seen what I’d just seen. “Well …” Becca stepped away from us. “I’m going to my cabin to change before anybody sees me.” She looked at us both. “Guess I’ll see you guys tomorrow?”
We nodded.
Becca turned to go, then stopped and looked at me. With her long hair wild and wet, her face a little red, she looked completely different. “You know her plan will never work, right?” she said. “There’s no way she’ll have enough saved to get all around the world like that. Not by the time she’s eighteen, anyway.” Then she turned and ran to her cabin before I could say anything.
I had a hard time falling asleep that night. It was hot and stuffy in the cabin. But only minutes after lights-out, almost everyone else was sleeping. Hearing other people sleep always made me more anxious to fall asleep myself, which made it even more difficult to drift off, because I was concentrating too hard. I tried lying very still in my sleeping bag and not thinking, but after an hour, I started tossing and turning. The thick cotton of my sweatpants itched against my skin, and I wondered if I was having an allergic reaction to the lake water. Jerking off usually helps when I can’t sleep, but even with all the snores I couldn’t be sure somebody else wasn’t awake. There was that sound guy, Paul, lying on a single cot in the corner of the room. From my top bunk, I could see his back turned to the wall, not moving, but I got the feeling he wasn’t a deep sleeper, either. Finally, I couldn’t take the itching anymore and shucked off my sleeping bag, hiked up my knees, and pulled off the sweatpants and tossed them on the floor. I rolled onto my stomach and stuffed my face into my damp pillow.
For some reason, every time I closed my eyes, I saw that picture on the flyer Becca had given me weeks ago—of that man, Michael Keegan, and the Haitian orphans. And for some reason, it made me so angry I wanted to punch Michael Keegan in the face. I tried concentrating on something else—anything—but then I just saw Bethany and Nola kissing, and that was worse.
At some point, though, I must have drifted off, because I had a dream.
I dreamed that I was sitting at a campfire in the middle of a dark forest, and Becca was there with me. I had this feeling that I was supposed to tell her something important, something she had to know, but I couldn’t remember what it was, and she was going on and on about Michael Keegan, so I couldn’t think. While I hurt my brain from trying to come up with it, suddenly she turned to me and said, “You can kiss me.” And in this dream, I suddenly really wanted to kiss my cousin, but maybe because it wasn’t my cousin anymore.
When I looked again, it was Bethany, smiling at me with her brown eyes, and her long dark hair falling down past her shoulders. Here was my chance. I leaned forward to kiss her, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get close enough. She was always just inches away from me, even though she didn’t seem to move. It was like my ass was glued to my seat. I’d had dreams like this before, where I couldn’t move, and sometimes, even after I’d woken up and opened my eyes, for a few seconds I would still feel paralyzed—this horrible feeling of my body frozen in my bed. I would have to concentrate really hard to finally be able to move. That’s what I did now, in my dream: I concentrated and was able to lean forward enough to reach Bethany, but now I couldn’t kiss her, because she was suddenly eating a marshmallow off a sharpened stick. Her lips were smacking, and her mouth was full of white goo.
She’d ruined it! I was so mad at her. Why did she have to eat a marshmallow now? I wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her. I almost wanted to hit her. But then her marshmallow fell off her stick and rolled into the dirt away from the fire. She looked so sad, I wanted to get it for her, but every time I reached down to grab the marshmallow, it rolled away from me. It was such an easy thing to do, but I couldn’t do it. I was on my feet now, reaching out with Bethany’s sharpened stick, trying to stab the marshmallow that was rolling away from me like it was alive.
Soon I was away from the campfire, following the ball of white into the dark trees. It led me through the woods and down to the river, where DeShawn was standing on the dock. The marshmallow rolled across the dock and was almost to the edge when I grabbed it, just before it fell in the water. I was relieved, but then there was another marshmallow rolling across the dock toward the other side, and I rushed to grab it, the first marshmallow still in my hands. Pretty soon, there were dozens of them rolling around on the dock, and I was trying to catch all of them before they fell into the water, while my arms were full of the ones I had saved. It was almost like a video game, but it wasn’t any fun, just stressful. DeShawn wasn’t any help. He just stood there with his hands in his pockets, watching me.
Finally, one of the marshmallows actually rolled off the edge of the dock, and when I tried to grab it, I lost the whole pile in my arms. All the marshmallows went spilling into the lake, so I had to jump in after them. They sank like rocks, and I dove down into the cold, black water, looking for them. I came back up, gasping for breath. I’d lost all the marshmallows.
“Got the whole thing on camera,” somebody shouted. And I looked up at the dock to see DeShawn, grinning and holding up an iPhone, recording me. I panicked. For some reason, I didn’t want anyone to see that video. I didn’t want anyone to see that I had lost the marshmallows.
“Give me that, DeShawn!” I yelled, splashing in the water. DeShawn just smiled. And then suddenly, I couldn’t swim. Even though I was still paddling, my body wouldn’t stay afloat anymore, like the water was pulling me under. I called out to DeShawn for help, but he wasn’t there. I was sinking. I couldn’t breathe. Then I felt hands around me, somebody pulling me to shore. I was being dragged onto the sand. I looked up to see faces, faces of the Haitian orphans from Becca’s flyer. They had saved me. They were looking down at me, waiting for me to do something, but I couldn’t move. I still couldn’t breathe.
“He needs mouth-to-mouth,” someone said, and then Haley Thomas appeared, hovering over me. I had a great view of her breasts. She put her lips on mine. I opened my mouth and felt her tongue. And then her body was on top of mine, and she was rubbing against me. Her body felt so warm and real. I was getting hard, and I didn’t care about the Haitian orphans watching, or the marshmallows I’d lost. It just felt so good. She was moaning and saying my name over and over: “Benjamin, Benjamin, Benjamin.”
And then I woke up.
Before I even opened my eyes, I knew that I’d done it. Birds were singing, insects were buzzing, and lying on my stomach, I felt a wetness around my crotch and sticking to the front of my boxers.
I opened my eyes and looked around me. Everyone else in the cabin was still asleep. It must be early. I tore off my sleeping bag and swung down from my bunk onto the floor. I changed into new boxers and put my sweatpants back on, rolling my dirty boxers up into a ball and tossing them under the bunk in the corner—I didn’t know what else to do with them. Then I put on my sandals and rushed out of the cabin.
<
br /> I found Ms. Swanson where I thought she’d be: sitting in the dining hall at the back table, already showered and dressed, holding a cup of coffee. She looked up when I came in and blinked in surprise.
“Benjamin,” she said, “you’re up early.”
“Ms. Swanson, I have to tell you something,” I said in a rush.
She looked at me for a second. “Okay,” she said, and gestured to the seat across the table.
I already felt a huge sense of relief, even before I’d told her anything. Here was an adult, a smart, trustworthy adult, an adult I’d known my whole life, who could take care of this problem for me, who could tell me what to do. She would sip her coffee and listen to me and make everything okay.
I sat down across from her. “I saw two people … kissing last night,” I began.
Ms. Swanson’s mouth twitched, and she looked around her quickly. “Benjamin, I …”
But I cut her off. “It was Bethany and Nola. They were making out down by the lake.”
Ms. Swanson’s eyes widened for just a moment; then her face returned to its calm expression. “Okay,” she said. “Thanks for letting me know.”
I waited, but there was no more. No asking for more details, no exclamations of alarm or questioning my truthfulness. She took a sip of coffee and then looked at me. “Anything else?”
“No,” I said, “but aren’t you going to do something?” This sounded rude and weird leaving my mouth, but I couldn’t help it.
Ms. Swanson looked tired—tired, sad, and maybe even a little amused. “What would you like me to do, Ben?”
I felt confused. I wasn’t the one who was supposed to know what to do. “I don’t know. Talk to them? Tell their parents?”
“Are you going to tell their parents?” she asked.
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