THE RIVER
He was fifteen when he met her. His father had touched down in yet another forgotten, forsaken town in the midst of the mountains. It had one stoplight, one bar, one way in and one way out. This time was different, his father had said, promising a change, a fresh start, and, above all, permanence. He didn’t take him seriously. Those words had been his father’s mantra since he was born and they were always followed by the same story with the same end—him, packed up with the rest his father’s stuff, and shipped away to another lonely ghost town.
She was wearing white that day and no shoes which he thought was odd. Later he found out that she just didn’t want to. It was one of those days, she had said, which didn’t make any sense to him, but made perfect sense to her. She was like that. Her wavy, black hair fell to her waist in an unreasonable tangle and her deep blue eyes slid right over him as if he were merely part of the scenery. She was beautiful with hollow cheeks and one tooth on the left side slightly out of place. Her eyebrows angled in sharp defiance. She was sitting cross legged by the river he had been exploring.
Sit down, she said, making him start. He hadn’t realized she’d seen him in the darkening twilight. He sat. For a long, long time, he stayed next to her, wordlessly in the deepening darkness and watched her from the corner of his eye as he pretended to gaze at the river. He was comfortable in the silence though. She had a strange way, even then, of making him feel at ease.
She turned to him after the moon had risen, kissed him full on the mouth, and left. Speechless, he froze. No girl had ever kissed him before. Her lips were wet and cold and soft, shaping to his like clay. She tasted like honeysuckle and salt. It was only after that he realized she was crying when she kissed him. How strange, he had thought. How beautiful. By the time speech and feeling returned to him, she had vanished.
That was when he met her.
He had returned to that spot every day for a month, hoping to see her again, but she was never there. Finally, he had accepted that it was just a perfect moment in his memory. Everyone is entitled to one, he thought, and he started going just to have a secret place away from his father and the rest of the world. A place just for him. And it was a brilliant place, a perfect light in the vast wildness around him. The river was slow moving and meandering. Spanish moss clung to the tree branches hanging out over the water. From his vantage point on the rock cliff, he could see the town, but they couldn’t see him. Just the way he liked it.
***
He curses silently to himself as he walks out of the classroom, not as oblivious to the laughter and shouting of the other kids as he appears. What was the point, though, of making friends when he was just going to be gone again in a couple months? No one could know his secrets anyway. He closes his locker and notices curious looks from classmates and teachers alike, but they all look away when he stares back. They always wonder about the new kid, especially the one that keeps to himself. He looks away, ignoring the stares as he heads out of the hallway.
By the time he makes it to the river, the sun is starting to set. Sitting back against the rock he watches the colors change across the sky, thinking about the stares and his father.
You’re in my spot, a voice like cold water says.
He tenses, heart pounding like a waterfall on the rocks below. It’s her, he thinks, but he doesn’t turn around.
You haven’t been here in a month, he says. It’s my spot now, but you’re more than welcome to join me.
He turns around and she graces him with a smile. He pats the rough stone beside him.
I was here first. I’ve been coming here since I was seven, she says, arms crossed like armor over her chest. Seniority rules. It’s definitely my spot.
I’m not going down without a fight, he says, grinning up at her, wondering where this banter was coming from, but the offer to share still stands. Take it or leave it.
If I sit, that doesn’t mean you win, she says.
He nods and she sits, knees pulled up to her chest, arms shifting to wrap around them like ribbon. And suddenly, he doesn’t know what else there is to say. Heat rushes to his face. She’s looking at him with those eyes that see and don’t see. She’s not smiling anymore, only looking with her eyes locked on his. There is a sadness in them, he realizes. She’s shattered like a block of ice dropped on the floor. He falters like a man blinded by the light, wanting to comfort her, yet not knowing how. Quietly he says, you can talk to me if you want to.
She blinks, but doesn’t look away. Her lips tremble. The seconds pass.
You’re as broken as I am, is what comes out. She can see the sadness in his eyes, too.
***
As months swept by like rushing water, they met every day they could. Slowly, he and she became friends.
He told her about the fish in the river below. He told her about exploring the wilderness around them. He told her about all the places he had lived, about being the new kid, about the stares. He told her about his mother, gone before he knew her, before he even had a memory of her face, her voice, her smell. He told her about his father, the way he gambled with a rough crowd, the way he drank when he won, the way he drank when he lost, the way he hit either way when he finally stumbled home. He told her about his training, the push-ups, sit-ups and miles he would run before school. He told her one day his father wouldn’t dare hit him anymore.
And, as slowly as the river flowing by, she began to trust him back. She told him about the river, where it came from, where it was going. She talked about the stars and how there was beauty in the world if he only stopped to look. She told him about her cat, the way he only had three legs, but was still strong, a survivor. Finally, she told him about the big, white house full of emptiness at the end of that long, gravel drive. And she told him about the man who lived there—a protector who wasn’t. She talked about the way he would creep in when she was sleeping, shrouded in darkness and desire; the way he would touch and kiss and use and leave and act like it never happened. She talked about being sick after. She talked about hiding and hating and revenge. She talked about running away. She talked about screaming and never being heard. She talked about fighting and how that made it worse. She talked and trembled until she could say no more. Then, she cried. Great heaving sobs that went on and on until his shirt was soaked and his arms ached from holding her. But he didn’t let go and the girl in the white kept crying.
And, all at once they became something more.
***
Then the day came when his father told him they were leaving. His father’s “friends” were getting angry about the money he owed them. But in this new place things were going to be different. We just need a fresh start, his father said, and we won’t have to move ever again, you’ll see. He tries but he can’t keep his mouth shut. Words come spilling out like water bursting a dam. We can’t leave here, he says. I won’t go I can’t go you can’t make me I’m staying here I’m not going anywhere with you ever again.
His father cuts him off with the blows. His father’s not dumb, he knows. The beating is carefully calculated to inflict the greatest amount of pain without actually killing him. You better be packed when I get back, his father says, tripping his way out the door to the bar.
When he finds the strength to stand, agony rips through him. Every breath is painful. He can’t raise his arms without crying out. Pain burns like fire. He’s cracked my ribs, he thinks.
Slowly, he makes for the river.
***
The black Cadillac crunches down the long, gravel drive. She drives, he rides shotgun. They have a plan. They are going to escape. He knows where his father keeps the money, watched him hide it once when his father was too drunk to notice him there. He’d never had the nerve to go near it before. But they have to get it, just take it and they’ll be free. He can taste it, he can feel it, he can see it, and it’s all her. She is freedom.
They pull up to the dark house, everything the way he left it. Good, he thinks, his father’s not back yet. Wait here, he says, I’ll be right back. He shuffles inside and makes straight for the bedroom. He doesn’t notice the nightmare slumped in the armchair. He doesn’t hear the monster breathing.
He shifts the dresser with agonizing slowness, his ribs screaming in protest. He pops the false back, the bills tumble out like water over rocks, a picture in their midst. Curiosity overwhelms his sense of purpose for a moment. He picks it up. It’s his father, younger and in a suit, smiling for once, his arm around a deep blue- eyed beauty in a wedding dress, her wavy, black hair tumbling down her back. She’s laughing in this picture. My mother, he thinks. He had never seen a picture of her before. His father had made it clear never to ask again the one time he did. She had died when he was very young. He stares at the picture captivated, forgetting all else. Emma and Jay, June 1st, 1997 it says. He rips the picture in half, slipping the image of his mother into his pocket. That’s when he smells it.
The stench of spirits pervades the room, infecting it like a poison. A hand is suddenly on his shoulder, ripping him back. He swings wildly, hoping all his training would add up to something, to this moment when he rises up and holds his own against his father. His fist connects with his father’s bloated stomach. His father laughs. Then the blows come with the shouts and curses. But most of all comes the hurt. It’s everywhere and his father’s everywhere and he can’t see and can’t hear except for the ringing. And then it stops. The ringing fades and he hears his father shouting, fear in his slurred words.
The girl in white has entered the room. Stop it! she screams at his father, her blue eyes flashing, her black hair a wild mess. You’re killing him!
No, he thinks. No.
His father stares wide-eyed at her, his face bloodless, his eyes unfocused from the drink, his knuckles swollen, bruised and red.
Emma, his father slurs stupidly, nonononono, you’re dead.
No, he thinks, run! He tries to move, but can’t. He sees her standing next to him, fierce, defiant, and proud. No! Run! Leave me! Please! I can’t! I can’t! He’s crying, his ribs on fire, trying to breath the words out. He sees it and she can’t. He tries harder to stand, pain clutches him and his vision flickers like sunlight on water.
My names not Em—, she gets out before his father screams and pounces. He grabs her hair, yanking her head back, her hands flailing, her feet sliding in his blood on the floor.
His father slams her face with the force of a mountain into the corner of the dresser again and again and again. His hands scrabble for his father’s ankle, desperate, clawing, searching.
No!
He can’t breathe. He is drowning.
He doesn’t see the police barge in. He doesn’t see his father carried off, arms cuffed behind his back, face, hands, torso splattered in blood. Doesn’t feel the EMTs lift him into the ambulance. Doesn’t know yet that the girl in white is gone.
***
I’m sorry
***
It doesn’t matter if you’re from a small town or a big city; at the end of the day, they’re all the same. The people laugh and love and lose the same. They grow up, go to school, and move away or stay in the same place, it doesn’t matter. And they all wait (and call it living) until it’s time for them to go. Or so they say, anyway, but he knew she was never like that.
She lived in a big, white house with black shutters and a black door at the end of a long, gravel drive. She was born there and lived there her entire life. But she never called it home. A house is just a house, she would say, filled with empty things. Once, as he laid next to her with the river flowing by, he asked her what home was. She rolled out of his arms and sat up, her back facing him. She didn’t know, she answered, and didn’t care. That hurt. She was his home after all. But he also knew from the start that she was broken.
***
He watches the black Cadillac that was freedom torn away pull up that long, gravel drive. A three- legged cat curls and twists around his ankles. He takes a breath, the pain pleasantly burning its way through him. He closes his eyes for a moment listening to the approach. He can smell her, feel her. But he opens his eyes and he’s alone. Silence and then a black haired, blue eyed man rises out of that black Cadillac. He watches for a moment, before stumbling out of the trees, towards the man.
Excuse me, he says.
The man looks around at the unsettling noise of his feet dragging over the gravel, eyes widening, fingers tightening on the keys in his hand. Yes? the man asks in a voice of trembling with wary quiet.
He shuffles closer, aware of how his shattered, beaten, unhealed body, so accurately reflecting his soul, frightens the man.
You’re the judge right? You dish out the justice here? he says, moving ever closer and closer.
Yes, the man replies, if you have a case you may come to my office on—
And who dishes out justice on you then? How do you pay for your crimes? He asks.
The same way as everyone else, the man says, backing away now toward the door of the big, white house.
He continues forward, the fire burning brighter and brighter. That doesn’t seem very fair to me, he says. I think you should pay here and now for all you did to her.
What are you talking about? He whips out sharply, back against the door, I never—