And a knife.
I crouch at the beer-colored creek, pressing a hot sharp stone into my palm. We used them as bottle openers, sticking the sharp ends under stolen beers, grunting with effort. Sometimes, if we couldn’t get it open, we’d smash the rock into the bottle neck, press our lips to the broken glass, and drink, long and deep. Luke chugged an entire beer like that before vomiting blood and splintered glass.
The local kids used to swim here after school, tearing off our school uniforms, splashing in T-shirts and cotton underwear until Heath told me not to. Later, the year-ten boys arrived, roaming the woods in their feral packs, hot with hunger. They found me on my knees, water pooling the tops of my thighs, stuffing slimy palmfuls of creek mud in my fists, squishing it through the cracks in my knuckles.
Then one of them called my name.
Mangled hair down to the shoulder blades, he stared hard at my T-shirt and the mud in my fists, and his eyes were like a shark, starved. A Bell Miner bird chimed, once, twice, sounding like a dinner bell. My skin stung. My mouth burned hot. I prayed he would look away.
Prayed he wouldn’t.
You’re either the shark or the food.
For the first time in my life, I was both.
Yeah, I liked it.
I squeezed my fist tighter, letting the mud splatter on my thigh like hot chocolate.
Heath charged the water then, grabbed my elbow, pulled me roughly to my feet. He stuffed my wet legs into my skirt, marched through the creek, and split his knuckle to the bone on the boy’s teeth.
That was the first summer without my mum.
She’s shot through,Dad said.Can ya blame ’er?
In our town, mums often shot through, never to be spoken of or heard from again.
Can ya blame ’er?
Yes. I could. And did. My hometown hummed with anger, and after my mother left, I joined its chorus. I had no idea what to do with all that pain. Heath and I were expected to simplyGet on with it. You got nothin’ to complain about. Why are you crying? Little bitch.
Sometimes I slumped at the foot of my bed, out of breath even while sitting still. Sometimes I cut my palms with fishing hooks, let the blood drip onto my tongue, tasting like salt and rage.
I get to my feet, peel my jeans and T-shirt off, think of the hungry boy as I wade in. Think of him again as I drop to my knees, grabbing at mud, squeezing it through my fists. I glance at the creek bank, remembering. I wonder if the boy left town, but he probably didn’t. Blood boys don’t leave blood towns.
I lie on my back and drift in the filthy current, thinking about Amy Anderson. Amy was different. From us, I mean. We were mud-crusted fingernails, bare-chested and underfed. Feral. Amy was nice. Amy had bulky teeth, a limp ponytail, and a mum who dropped her off at our filthy creek on summer afternoons because she wanted to hang out with Trav and me. She didn’t technically live in Kangaroo Bay, and I guess that was the first line drawn between us.
Us. Them.
Her house in Pine Bay had soaring ceilings, air-conditioning, and private access winding down to the sea.
She also had a mum.
Trav and I were the only ones invited to her tenth birthday party. I was surprised, because Amy and I weren’t really friends. We justsat next to each other at school, and when she found out that Trav and I met up at the creek, she got her mum to drop her off. She never asked if she was invited. She wasn’t.
Trav and I wandered into her home, slack-eyed and silent, the filthy cuffs of our jeans dragging on her slate floor. We watched a movie on her sugary pink bed, piled high with heart-shaped pillows. It started out fine, until it wasn’t.
I was digging into the popcorn bowl when I saw something. Amy’s pink-polished fingers inching toward Trav’s hand. Her hand grew closer, grazing his. I felt myself grow very, very still. My jaw locked. My chest burned with anger.
Trav drew his hand away and tucked it into his pocket, keeping his eyes locked on the movie. Amy’s hand hovered in the space his used to be, and the silence stretched and stretched. I hid my rage away, but the heat kept building.
Later that week, I invited Amy to the creek, alone.
And I tried to drown her.
I watched her floating in her striped swimsuit, eyes half closed and restful. And I crouched on the bank, hungry like a shark. I don’t remember crossing the water, don’t remember if she cried out when I grasped the back of her skull, shoved my knee atop the small of her back, and held her under. But I do remember her clawing at my arm, breaking the skin. I remember the pink glitter in her nail polish sparkling in the sun. I remember the fight fading as her limbs stopped thrashing. I remember the stillness, the strange calm.
In the silence, I thought of my brother. Saw his face in my mind. Surf Lifesaver of the Year. I felt guilty. Watched.
