1
I was walking down a riverbed in the middle of a forest. It hadn't rained in days and the riverbed was empty except for rocks and a pair of boys pretending to drown. The tall one was wearing jeans; the short one, khaki shorts.
"Let me go!" Shorts said. He was standing on the river bed, reaching into the empty air.
"No," Jeans said. He held Shorts' sleeve.
"But I have to save him," Shorts said.
"You'll die," Jeans said. "Would he have wanted you to die for him?"
"Yes!" Shorts said.
2
The fan blew smoke in my face while the chair hugged my body and the boy over me slowly pressed the air from my lungs.
Pot smells like incense, at first. Then it starts to smell like dreams. Then poison.
"Are you okay?" the boy on me asked.
I couldn't breathe, but there wasn't enough air for me to say so. Eddie Izzard's screen-time audience laughed on the TV. Fuzz and Sophia wouldn't look at me. Thaniel's fingers touched my throat. I began to breathe again.
He said everything would be okay, but his breath was like incense, and his eyes were all pupil.
3
We sat on the pier watching the schoolchildren wander on the grass. Then teachers showed up, and they ushered the children out onto the pier. Thaniel pulled out a knife and played with it.
A blue-eyed girl in pigtails watched.
Thaniel smiled at her. She smiled back.
The teacher saw and pulled the girl away. She looked back over her shoulder to wave.
Thaniel waved back. To me, he said, "She could have been dead by now." He put the knife away.
"Yeah," I said. "I know."
4
We stood on the pier watching two guys share a cigar and I felt Thaniel holding back. "Go ahead," I said. He looked at me, then at his friends. He took a drag off the offered cigar. His eyes closed and he blew rings of smoke.
John said, "She texted me again."
Thaniel handed over the cigar. "What'd she say?"
Jay took the cigar.
"Three little words," John said.
Thaniel whistled. "Bitch," he said.
John didn't say anything. Jay puffed on the cigar and handed it off. "That one new?" he asked.
Thaniel put an arm around my waist. "Enough," he said.
5
When it started raining, I wasn't ready to go back inside. I wanted to stay outside in the rain. Puddles reflect, but they aren't as accusatory as mirrors. The rain fell on my head, and my hair fell wet around my face. I walked by his side and our hands were slick.
"I already have plans," I said. "Elizabeth and Will."
"Oh?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. "Elizabeth's the more outgoing of the two. Will's kind of shy."
"You sound prepared," he said.
I said I was, and he let the topic drop. I didn't bring it up again. I walked along in the darkness, in the rain. His hand worked its way out of mine, but he put an arm around my shoulder. His armpit was superheated. His arm was just warm.
6
I was walking in the mall when I texted the boy in the hat to ask him if he minded being used. It took him a while to get back to me. By then, I wasn't as depressed. But when he said he didn't mind and asked
why, I told him what I had meant to tell him earlier. I was feeling down, and needed to hear someone - anyone - say they loved me, even if it wasn't true.
He said he loved me.
He never stopped.
7
The boy in the hat was sitting next to me at the conference while the poetry slam was going on. He commented about how some people presented and how others didn't, and he approved of some readers while not of others. I listened to his commentary, agreed with some but not with others, I disagreed out loud when I had to, and told him to shut up when necessary. He was annoyingly self-assured. I gave him my phone, the way I wanted to with Dan, and told him to give me his number.
He gave me his name.
Thaniel.
8
While we wandered around the book store, I mentioned Thaniel to Tom. Like a good older brother, Tom's hackles went up at once. He wanted to know just about everything, from who and where to when and how. But not why. I think he saw why in everything else.
I just wanted to flirt a bit, get used to having someone interested in me, again. I hadn't had anyone interested that way since my last boyfriend. And Tom was too good a soul to be anything but concerned for my well being.
I told him, sort of off-handedly, that I was thinking about fucking this kid I'd met at the writer's conference.
Tom wanted to know everything. And when the total of people Thaniel had slept with was beyond counting, Tom wanted to keep me away. Even more so when mentions of drugs and alcohol came into the mix. Tom was straight edged, almost more of a ruler than a human being. He was in love with the law.
For a time, I guess I was too, though, so I could forgive him. I could forgive myself. It's just a phase; at one point, Thaniel was in love with law too. So it all works out. No full blooded delinquent among us.
9
I still don't know how to answer the questions that come up from my young swimmers who are too innocent to realize that sometimes people hurt themselves on purpose. Injury to them is something accidental. Injury is when you fall off your bike or trip over the sidewalk and scrape your knees. Injury is breaking your fall on your palms and getting rocks wedged into tears in the skin. Injury is something that goes away, eventually.
And the scars from injuries are small, and don't have shapes.
Except mine do, and I don't try to explain to anyone that these were done on purpose, because they don't take kindly to the realization that sometimes it's something beautiful, and everyone who sees the badge of purple across my leg still asks how I bruised it. I still lie, too, and tell them I fell down the stairs and it was a bad fall but I'll be okay eventually. It's strange how many of them still believe me, and I laugh on the inside, except I'm not really laughing because I don't want them to believe me.
Too many people believe the lies I carve with my lips.
I want someone to look at me and tell me I'm lying.
10
We sat on the pier, and this time we were alone. He smoked a cigarillo—green apple flavor. The temptation to ask for a drag was strong. Instead I asked him for a favor. He had a collection on his skin and I wanted to begin one of my own.
He held my hand right before and right after, but the during I can't recall. He pressed the end of the cigarillo into my palm until the smell of burned skin reached my nose. Then he lifted me off his lap and said I passed out. He might have kissed me. My palm hurt.
We walked together and a blister raised over my burn. I ripped it open; let the juices drain. Burns were more fun than cuts, I told him. He only laughed, and his shirt sleeves didn't disagree. They were pulled low to hide his arms until he healed. We were both wrecks, healing on at our own pace.
I think I said I love you to him.
One last time, a dozen times.
Each time I called the last time.
I think we both knew it wasn't. Not until I was in college again, and my palm was healed, and then I stopped talking to him. People keep asking. He's just imagination, I tell them. I invented him, the same way I invented my summer.
What about your palm, they ask.
What about it?
Isn't it burned, they ask.
Look close, I tell them. All the lines are there; there is no injury, and never was.
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