“Oh, please don’t tell me you thought that would work.” I turn around grabbing her and wrapping her in a bear hug as I stand there. I can tell it’s a little too deep here for her to comfortably reach the bottom so I walk us over to a more reasonable spot before letting her go.
“Worth a shot,” she whispers.
She’s kneeling in the water, making it so that her chin is just at surface level and I’m standing next to her just taking it all in, looking around.
“I’ll be right back,” I say, grinning down at her as I make my own attempt at climbing this tree and swinging from the rope.
“Off I go!” My body swings and the rush that I feel as I jump into a river like a child is freeing. I shout before letting go and splash into the water. When I reach the surface, Mia is further into the water treading as I swim up to her.
My hand instinctively reaches out for hers and I pull her closer to me.
“It’s too deep for you here, Mi.” My fingers grip her hips, holding her in place, but not against my body even though every part of me wants to feel her legs wrapped around me.
A bit of water gets in her mouth as her chin dips and I watch her tongue part her lips, spitting it out. A piece of hair falls closer to her face and I take it between my fingers, briefly feeling the coarse strands as they’re soaked in water and tuck it behind her ear. My eyes don’t move from her lips the entire time.
Because for the first time in years, I really want to fucking kiss her.
Nate’s eyes are focused like lasers right now. Except they aren’t staring directly into mine, he’s solely focused on my lips as they shiver in this cold spring. The idea to come floating down this river was something I saw in an online forum for relaxing things to do. Hats off to whoever suggested it because it’s definitely served its purpose.
“Come on.” Nate leans in, gently grazing his fingers against my hips as he whispers against the rim of my ear. “Let’s get you back in your tube so we can finish.” Apparently this spring has a bunch of different avenues, and eventually could lead you out into the Gulf, but as long as we keep making right turns, we’ll end up right back where we started.
There’s been a serene feeling all afternoon today. I’ve seen it on Nate’s face too. A few times I’ve watched him close his eyes and let out slow breaths, something I’ve noticed he does while trying to calm his mind.
“I needed this,” he says, pulling me into a hug before I get in my car. “It’s something I’d never do on my own. And we survived the snakes, so win-win.” His chest rumbles in a deep laugh against my ear before we go our separate ways.
If I cry one more time before ten in the morning, I might lose it.
The other day I stopped by my dad’s to pick up some things that he said were mine or my sister’s. Alongside the box with all of our belongings was an open folder sitting on the counter. Normally, I wouldn’t invade his privacy, but the paper had the words past due written in giant red letters, so it caught my attention. Water bill, past due. Electric bill, past due. Rent, short almost six hundred dollars.
Growing up, I was the one making sure things were taken care of so Hannah didn’t have to worry about having a roof over our heads or food on the table. My dad worked, but spent so much of his money elsewhere, I had to make sure we had something to fall back on.
Looking at all of this stuff scattered across my counter just takes me back to being that scared teenager who had to become the adult when she definitely wasn’t ready, but had no other choice.
I’ve been trying to figure out how I can help him. Even though he didn’t ask, I can’t just sit back and let him become homeless because he didn’t pay his rent. The majority of the things in that box were actually Hannah’s and I have no idea if she wants any of it, but I’ll offer it.
“Morning,” Nate answers my call on the first ring.
“Do you want to come with me to my sister’s to drop off some of her things I found when I was cleaning my dad’s apartment?” No hello or good morning. Just straight to the point today.
Nate and Hannah don’t get along. They never have. He consistently refers to her as Satan’s spawn. Hannah and I are nothing alike. I’m friendly, warm… she’s cold and distant.
“Do I want to go into the Devil’s den? Let me think…”
“Ugh, please. If you come with me, it’ll be quick. You two can’t stand each other so she’ll want you out of her house as quickly as possible.”
“As long as we’re out before she can put a curse on me,” he agrees. We’re going to be leaving for our road trip in a couple of days, so I just want to get this done before that.
“Thank you.”
“Let me shower, I’ll be right over,” he says.
“So, when did you grab this stuff?” Nate calls from the kitchen as he peeks his head inside the box. I’m still in my bedroom grabbing my purse, but I can see Nate notices the papers covering my counter top. Once I do come out of my room, Nate’s eyes go wide immediately. I didn’t exactly try to hide the fact that I spent the previous hour crying, it would’ve done no good.
He’s at my side before I’ve taken more than two steps. “Why are you crying? What happened? What is all of this?”
“I’m fine. It’s just a bunch of shit I found at my dad’s. When he called me the other day, he said I could go look through some things and take whatever I wanted that may have been mine or Hannah’s…” My voice cracks. “He owes so much money, Nate. He’s behind in taxes, bills, everything… I’m sure he didn’t mean for me to find this, but how am I supposed to ignore it now that I’ve seen it? He apparently has a job… so where is all of his money going?” The question is rhetorical because I know the answer, but I fucking hate it. I reach for the papers on thecounter and gather them into a pile to place in a manila folder and then shove it in the drawer.
“How can I help?” He looks at me, pleading.
