NOAH

(Age 16)

"Do it, pussy!" I shouted. The sound skipped like a stone over the water to where Wyatt was perched on the rocky embankment. He released the rope long enough to flip me off, but his eyes stayed fixed on the creek-bed below. It wasn't long before our friends joined in, their hoots and calls echoing all around the Knot, scattered, like bird calls, urging him on.

I took a moment to study Wyatt. His colors were as green as the plants around him and moved like the water below, swirling, blending together into one.

From where I was sitting opposite him, I watched as his upper body tensed. His chest swelled with breath and he did a running leap off the edge, swinging out into the middle, releasing the rope at the perfect moment. The water exploded as he hit the surface, disappearing down into its blue-green depths. For a moment, everything went quiet, as if the whole world had been pulled under with him.

Finally, his head broke the surface, a huge grin, plastered across his face. He shook his head, spraying water in every direction and shouted, "How do you like me now, bitch!"

I had to laugh. Wyatt and I were guilty of always one-upping each other, competing and showing off whenever given the chance. Especially, if there were females present, which there were... in scantily-clad abundance.

It was officially Summer, and we were celebrating by getting drunk at the Knot, seeing who could make the worst decisions by the end of the night. 

With Wyatt's little stunt over, I got up from my rock, brushed the sand off my trunks, and made a beeline for the keg. I needed a refill, and Heather McNeil just happened to be standing near, talking to one of her less-attractive-but-still-pretty friends. I made my way over nonchalantly, knowing that I had to play this just right.

Her honey-brown hair fell around her shoulders and she had on a bright-yellow bikini that you could almost see through. Her nipples stood at attention against the thin fabric and I had to force myself not to stare as I approached, reaching for the nozzle without even sparing her a glance. Needing somewhere to direct my eyes, I pretended to watch one of the girls sunbathing. I was setting the bait, knowing if I was patient enough, I would eventually get a bite.

Heather and I had been playing this little cat-and-mouse game for a while and I had learned the best way to get her attention was to act like I didn't care. Which was easy when deep down, I knew this thing between us would never last. We were just having a little fun. A summer fling.

I could feel her pretty, brown eyes on me, calling to me, daring me to turn around, but I was determined to hold my ground this time. When my cup was full, I raised it to my lips and took a long, slow drink. Then, walked away as if neither of them existed. As if my cock wasn't getting hard at the thought of bending her over in that little bikini.

I spent the next hour making it a point to talk to every girl there, except for Heather. Eventually, I went back to my rock and waited. I'd done all I could to lure her in, and if it wasn't enough, then there were plenty of other fish at Silver Creek. Chasing after one girl really wasn't my style, and I wasn't about to start now that Summer was finally here.

It wasn't five minutes before she sauntered over, soaking wet from head to toe. One look at her and I knew the game was over.

"Hi Noah," she said, as water dripped off her hair, and rolled down her breasts, into her cleavage. My eyes shamelessly followed its trail, taking my time, letting them linger. Letting her know I was done playing childish games.

"Oh fuck," Heather cried out as I slammed into her again. I had her bent over the old picnic table just down the trail from the Knot. Her moans were loud enough to scare off anything living within a five-mile radius and I knew the others could probably hear back at the party but I didn't care. Let them fucking listen.

Muscles burning, I pulled out of her and flipped her over so she was flat on her back, her legs splayed out to the sides. I lowered myself between them and proceeded to fuck her until we were both a hot, writhing mess. When I finally collapsed on top of her in a sweaty heap, my legs had turned to rubber. I laid there for a while, struggling to catch my breath. Afterward, I stood and removed the now-full condom, tossing it in the weeds and readjusting my trunks back into place.

I wanted to get the fuck out of there but I had some manners, so I stood nearby, waiting patiently while she cleaned herself up and redressed. Her wet, yellow bikini was covered in leaves and dirt from when I tossed it on the forest floor. She definitely looked the part of someone who had just been fucked, and I could only imagine the others' faces when we returned to the party. That's just what I needed... more rumors about me and her going around. Despite popular opinion, we were not, and had never been, a couple. Which was exactly the way I wanted to keep it.

Heather was a total knockout, but she was also a lot of work. She was high maintenance and bossy, too used to getting her way with other guys, and I'd be damned if I let her pull that shit on me. From the beginning, I made it very clear that a relationship between us would never happen. Despite her best efforts, I'd managed to hold firm to that.

Trying desperately to think up an excuse to bail, we walked in silence down the trail back toward the Knot. Despite her disheveled appearance, there was a dopey smile plastered on Heather's face and just looking at it made my stomach sink. She was doing it again. Getting too comfortable and letting it put ideas in her head. She liked to act like the cold, detached girl who was just out for some fun, but underneath that, she was just as needy as the rest of them. I know because I'd seen it, in rare moments of vulnerability, usually preceded by a look like the one she was wearing right now.

I felt like an asshole for constantly having to knock her back down. But let's face it, I was basically just a carbon copy of Reid, and even Wyatt, though he was a little more lax on the no relationships rule, actually dating a few girls here and there. I had adopted Reid's philosophy of not wanting to be tied down, and so far, I hadn't regretted it.

The truth was, I had shut myself off to feeling anything real a long time ago.

Instantly, I thought of Lilah and the friendship we once had. But, those days were long gone and so was the image I had of her. Instead, it was replaced with one of a total stranger—someone I didn't know anymore. The times we did run into each other we played the part, never speaking, pretending that we weren't once inseparable.

Suddenly, I wasn't in the mood for partying. 

As soon as we got back to the others, I paused, pretending to look surprised. "Oh, shit! I forgot... I have to be at the shop early to help Gordy." Heather's face fell instantly, but I pretended not to notice.

Wyatt just shrugged. "More beer for me and the ladies," he said, resting his hand on the top of the keg.

I turned to Heather. "I'll see you around." And without waiting for a response, I walked off, once again, pretending not to notice the hurt look in her eyes.

It was a long walk back to my house but I didn't mind. I wanted the time to think, relished in the fact that I didn't have to force a smile or pretend to be anything or anyone for a while. I needed to move, to breathe. To be far away from people's expectations. I was also very conscious of the fact that I was taking the long way home, getting closer and closer to Lilah's house. Not that I would stop. Nope. I was too much of a coward to do that.

Still, sometimes when I would pass her place, I would find my eyes searching. Almost like I was expecting her to be there, waiting for me, sitting on her front porch, a book in her lap. Smiling, just like she used to.

I shook off the memories and the sentiment that was quickly filling my chest, knowing that dwelling in the past would only make me even more miserable. As far as I knew, Lilah hated my guts. Why else would she have gone five years without speaking to me?

I had to remind myself that I made no attempt to talk to her either. But, it was different. I wasn't the one who started avoiding her. And, I did try... at first. Showing up at her house, only to be ignored over and over again. I could only take so much. What other choice did I have but to move on?

Before I knew it, I was approaching the little green cabin. It looked just as sad and decrepit as ever like the porch was about to detach from the place entirely. Lilah was nowhere to be found. Even though I'd been expecting it, I couldn't stop the little pang of disappointment that shot through my core.

Reminding myself not to go there, that it didn't matter anymore, did little to erase the thoughts from my mind. On the contrary, because for the rest of my walk, it was all I could think about. 

That night, I dreamt about Lilah Mayberry... for the first time in years.

Only it wasn't a dream. It was a nightmare.

I don't remember how it started, or even where we were, only that we were both drowning. Being pulled down into the darkness together, by a force with no hands. There was no grip, no fingers wrapped around limbs, just an extreme weight. A pressure that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. A sinister gravity—an inky, black energy that was very much alive, very much filled with its own intent.

I reached out, knowing somehow that she was there, but couldn't grasp her, couldn't grasp anything but empty black expanse. Then, as if the very universe had opened up, the entire scene, including us, was sucked away in an instant, like being pulled through a quantum vacuum into nonexistence. It felt like every part of me was being scrambled. Everything I ever knew and cared about was being decimated and swept away by something so big, I never stood a chance at understanding it, let alone fighting it.

I woke up in a sickening cold sweat, stumbled to the bathroom, and puked up all the stale beer rotting in my gut. I went to the kitchen and chugged two glasses of water, then sat at the kitchen table, trying to shake the dream that was still clinging to my skin. Crawling through my veins. The dream that I couldn't quite grasp with the girl I didn't quite know. And yet, it felt like fact.

Eventually, the sun peeked through the window. Even though I was dead tired, the last thing I wanted to do was go back to sleep, so I showered and changed, and headed for Gordy's shop. I wasn't supposed to work today. I wasn't even technically an employee, but it didn't stop Gordy from paying me to help out.

I'd always loved cars. I was fascinated with taking them apart, examining all the different parts inside, the smell of gasoline and engine grease, the clinking and clanging of wrenches. Figuring out how each piece worked, how it affected the chain. It was like a giant, steel puzzle daring me to solve it.

Naturally, I was drawn to Gordy's chop shop. I started coming around over a year ago, doing things like sweeping up, helping find parts at salvage yards... grunt work, mostly. Then after a while, Gordy figured I might as well learn how to put the things I was tearing apart back together too, so he started teaching me to build engines.

Gordy was a lanky black man in his late thirties with a gap in his teeth and sense of humor like no one I'd ever met. When he wasn't insulting me or telling jokes, he was under a hood doing tune-ups... or outback smoking his nasty Kretek clove cigarettes. It was a habit he picked up during the war after they made the sale of flavored cigarettes legal again.

Gordon Colson was like the father I wished I had.

My own father hated his guts and used every derogatory term he could think of whenever Gordy was mentioned, knowing that it would piss me off. According to him, 'there's wasn't anything valuable to learn in a place like that except for how to end up a broke loser'. I wanted to tell him I learned more in the last year from Gordy than a lifetime with him but then thought better of it, because it would only end in one of us throwing blows. Instead, I mentioned the fact that Gordy was paying me and I was saving up for a car which would save him money, at which point he finally shut his mouth. Pops always was a greedy bastard.

Needless to say, I couldn't wait for the day when I no longer had to live under his roof. Until then, I had the shop to escape to, and there was still Ma and Cash to worry about.

The year after Lilah and I quit speaking, Ma had a string of "unexplained" miscarriages. At least, that's what Ma told us the doctor said. I often wondered if she wasn't hiding something to protect my father. 

Ma wasn't the same afterward. She quit eating, and her already tiny frame withered away to nothing. She was skin and bone, and always looked like death was knocking at her door. She never laughed or smiled and over time, she left the house less and less.

I never understood it. I couldn't grieve someone I never met the way that she did. I guess being a mother starts long before the baby arrives.

Then, she got pregnant with Cash, and everything changed. Slowly but surely, she got back to herself, got stronger, and I gave all the credit to Cash. I don't know what would've happened if he hadn't come along, with his head of dark hair and his little, toothless grin.

I loved all my brothers, but I'd always love Cash the most because he made Ma smile again.

Walking to Gordy's I could tell the day would be a scorcher. The sun was barely out, but I was drenched in sweat by the time I arrived. We worked all morning and by the time afternoon rolled around, everyone was dragging. Gordy decided to close up, saying that he was 'sweating in spots he didn't know he had'. The mental image was enough that I didn't argue, which left me the rest of the afternoon to do nothing. I thought about going home, but the walk would be brutal in the afternoon sun. 

I wanted to throw myself into Silver Creek but wasn't really in the mood to be around people, and the Knot was sure to be full of them on a day like this. I contemplated where else I might go, maybe just find a random place to jump in and forget life for a while. Then, it occurred to me that no one ever swam at Lilah and I's old spot because you had to cross over her property to get to it. 

Why not? I reasoned. It's not like she owns the place. Only the property leading up to it and I was sure I could make myself unseen if I wanted to. 

Having nowhere else to go—or at least, convincing myself that was the case—I headed in that direction. The whole way there, I thought about the past. About the crazy things we used to get into. From Lilah stealing her neighbor's dog because she thought he was abusing it—as far as I know, she still has him, a black lab she named, Shadow—to us sneaking out at night so we could go watch fireworks on the Fourth of July. Even the bad memories had a golden glint about them. They were irreplaceable. They were my childhood. 

When I reached Lilah's, I wasn't surprised that no one was around. Quickly but quietly, I skirted the edge of their property and made my way onto the trail that would take me to Silver Creek. I marveled at how little it had changed over the last five years, snaking and winding through the trees exactly like I remembered it. 

Shortly after, the trail opened up and Silver Creek came into view. My eyes began to take it all in; the water, the trees, the sun casting shimmering light off the banks. It was all so dreamlike. Like I'd been transported through time, right back to those golden-tinted memories. 

Then, something ahead made me stop dead in my tracks.

Standing six feet out into the water was Lilah. Her back was to me, but I knew right away it was her. It was the way she stood, the way she moved in the water. For a moment, I considered the fact that I might be dreaming again. 

She had on a black bikini and I quickly realized I'd never seen her in one before. Her body changed from that of a skinny little girl to a woman, and I struggled to keep my mouth from falling open, watching the water swell around the curve of her hips as she stepped further out. 

She was beautiful standing there, her brilliant colors reflecting off the water, their magnificence magnified, like some sort of unearthly creature. I had a strong feeling that she came here a lot, that it was her safe place. She looked different here... more comfortable than I'd ever seen her at school. Without realizing it, I took a few steps toward her. 

She must have heard me or sensed another presence because her head suddenly jerked my direction, and she whipped around, startled. 

Our eyes met, and for a moment, all we did was stare at each other. A thousand different emotions played in her eyes—shock, recognition, sadness, anger, and finally... apathy. A cool indifference settled over her face like my presence was nothing more than the wind jostling the trees. She wore it like an extra set of skin, hiding the rainbow of emotions I just witnessed. 

I had the opposite reaction. 

Every cell in my body stood at attention. I was awake, wide awake, in a way I hadn't been in a long time. Every fiber, every nerve, every ounce of my flesh prickled with an ultra-sense of awareness like an animal that had just been cornered. But, I had no urge to run. 

I wasn't sure if I should go or stay, or if she would even want me there. But one thing was certain.

Everything about her stole my breath away.