“My fingertips touch the bottom of the hem, it’s fine,” I said, as I settled into the seat and dropped my backpack on the black rubber mat. Then I buckled the seat belt and leaned my head against the door, exhausted both mentally and physically from practice. He revved the engine, it rumbled loudly, and he let his foot off the brake as he shifted the truck into gear.
“Whoa. I love the way that sounds,” I said as I glanced over at him lazily.
He whipped his head towards me and smiled.
“You must get all the girls with a truck like this.”
He turned to look forward out the windshield, hit the gas, and smiled, but he didn’t reply. That made me nervous.
“It’s okay if you want to ride around for a while,” I said as we approached my street. I decided that if he wanted to explain himself, it would ease my anxiety and make school less awkward, so this was his chance to do it.
“Yeah? Okay, cool,” he said. I could tell that he was trying to downplay his enthusiasm. “Where do you want to go?”
“Down to the river. It’s a quiet place to help me calm my mind. I’ll show you the way. Keep going straight until the end of this road, then turn left onto Mooreland Landing and go through the gate.”
We rode in silence until the gate, and I told him the code that I knew because a classmate lived in this part of the neighborhood. Once we rolled through the gate, his tires hit gravel, and he stopped to look at me.
“Okay, it’s a straight shot from here, hit it,” I said as I rolled the window down and rested my head on my arm so I could feel the breeze on my face. The wind blew through the waves of my hair, and I closed my eyes and smiled for a moment as his tires crunched down the road towards the James River. When I opened them again, Chris was looking over at me pensively.
“You okay, Allie?” he asked.
Moments later, we approached the Tuckahoe Canal crossing. It was constructed of beautiful, decaying old stone. I ignored his question and trailed off on a tangent, pointing to the ground beside the bridge.
“When I was ten, and we were on our way home from the river, my dad saw a Red-Tailed Hawk that was injured right there in that spot. He had been shot by a hunter, and he couldn’t move his wing, so my dad wrapped it in a beach towel and carried it the whole way home on his bike, then we put it in a cardboard box and took it to Maymont to be rehabbed.”
I looked at Chris, but he just looked back at me, listening, captivated.
“Another time, after a day at the river, my friends and I walked back to our bikes, and there was a snake intertwined in the spokes of my wheels, which I didn’t notice until I had already stood the bike up and climbed on. I hopped off and dropped the bike so fast!” I said.
When I looked at him again, I expected him to look shocked or impressed by these stories, but instead, he looked confused, like he was about to ask me a question, so I quickly got out of the truck and walked towards the dock before he could ask.
When I got to the dock, I noticed that the wooden swim ladder had come loose, so I pulled the rope tight and lashed it to the piling so it wouldn’t float away. Then I took off my shoes, sat down on the end of the dock, and dipped my toes in the James River. The water was freezing as it lapped at my toes. I could hear Chris taking off his shoes behind me, then he came up next to me and sat down.
“Holy shit, this water is cold!” he said, pulling his feet out quickly, then easing them back in.
“I know, right?” I said, trying to withhold laughter because I was still upset.
“You seem to know this place pretty well. Do you come down here a lot? I wonder who built this dock?” he asked as one whole question.
I paused before replying. “My dad did, a few years before he left us,” I said, my eyes locked on the river.
“I’m so sorry, Allie. That’s horrible. How old were you when he left?”
“He left four years ago when I was 14,” I replied, my eyes never leaving the water.
“Does that mean he has never seen you play field hockey?”
“Not that I know of.”
“That’s insane, you are such a talent, he doesn’t know what he is missing. I’m really sorry, Allie. I can’t imagine what that’s been like for you.”
I leaned back on my hands and lifted my gaze across the river to the James River Boat Club. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Chris glance at me, then lean his head back to look at the sky. We stayed there in silence until a boat came by and rocked the dock.
“It’s probably time to go,” I said, still feeling rejected and growing eager to leave. I still wasn’t sure what he wanted from me.
“Ok,” he said, as he stood up and held out his hand. I took it, and he pulled me to my feet, then I pulled my hand from his, grabbed my shoes, and headed back to his truck. When I looked back over my shoulder, he was still standing there, and he almost looked hurt.
We climbed into the truck and shut our doors in unison. The deafening sound of them closing at the same time was strangely satisfying. I sat back in the seat, tossed my shoes on the floor, and put my bare feet up on the dash. When I looked over at him, I saw that he was staring at my legs, but quickly looked away when I caught him.
