The sun finally surrenders to the night, and darkness enfolds us all. I lean against the ghost gum, stomach uncoiling. I exhale shakily, blowing red dust into the dark night. I wait for Trav, and I wonder. All our lives, we played games according to my rules. Even Amy. I still believe I’m the reason he stabbed her.
A crow lands at my feet, wings folded disapprovingly behind him, talons caked in the rusty dirt. I spit on the ground, rub it between my fingertips, and smear it onto my forearms.
The crow lifts off, and I watch until he’s just a speck in the night sky. Trav arrives, head down, hands in his pockets, and I whisper to no one, “He’s back.”
—
Trav nods once, instantly looksdown like he’s done something wrong, plunges his hands back into the deep pockets of his black board shorts. His black T-shirt is sleeveless, hooded.
You’ve been gone so long you missed everything.
I have. I’ve only seen Trav in a full-length wet suit. The man standing a foot away is covered in tattoos, from the arches of his feet to the tops of his thighs. Two sleeves end neatly at his wrists. His lower half is sea-themed, swirling waves and busty mermaids, twin anchors on both knees.
But his arms tell a different story.
Woods. These woods.
I scan his forearms, and he slowly lifts his head.
A grove of towering ghost gums reach up to his elbow. Trickling through is a bubbling creek, lit by moonlight. A crow sentry circles the sky, guarding a boy perched on a bone-white branch. The boyis bare-chested and filthy, eyes set on the creature half hidden in the creek bed. Me.
In his tattoo, I’m half fish, half girl. Not a mermaid or a siren. Something else. My scales are molar-shaped and shine wetly in the moonlight. The colors are repulsive, the red of raw meat, tobacco-stain yellow. Crammed in my mouth are rows and rows of needle teeth. My hair is mud-slicked, my hands are shark teeth, and there are two incisors where my eyes should be.
Trav spits on the dirt, scrapes it in with the heel of his reef walkers. The creek hums over my left shoulder. I slink to it, wordless, wondering if he’ll follow.
He does.
A handful of stars shine weakly, spilling their reflection onto the creek. They look like they’re trapped in there. My favorite spot was the shallow trench lined with sun-warmed pebbles, slick with silky mud. It’s not lost on me that the fish-girl was hiding here.
I sink to my knees and plunge both fists in, grabbing at pebbles. Trav steps around me and lowers himself like he always did, propped up on his palms, the tips of his toes. I squeeze the pebbles in my fists, and my blood burns thick enough to turn me to stone.
“Did the surfer make it?” I finally ask, half opening my fist, peeking in.
“Think so.”
Did you want him to? Or did you want to watch as the life drained out?
Like you did with Amy.
I inspect a pebble, rub it with the back of my thumb. It’s oval-shaped, the color of a ghost gum, looks like the moon. How instinctive it is that I want to give it to him. Ten-year-old me would have reached out, fist clenched.Guess what I got?
He’d scramble forward, wait for my fist to open. I’d make him wait, too. Just enough to make him sweat with need. Then I’d uncurl my fist, place it into his sun-brown hand.You can have it.
The thing about Trav was that he could never accept a gift without giving one in return. A simple gift like a moon-shaped pebbleand he’d disappear into the thorny gully where the wild blackberries grew. He’d emerge, shirtless and bloodied, T-shirt tied in a tight knot, bulging with berries.
Did I take advantage of him?
I’m not sure.
I know only that something changed the day we went to Amy’s house. I don’t know if Trav felt it, too. Maybe it was only me who went home to an absent mother, a rage-filled father, briny sheets, and a paper plate of bloodied kangaroo. Maybe I was the only one who burned and burned and burned.
Violent kids are overt or covert. The blood boys simmered with hot anger and obscene punch lines. Meanwhile, I was small and wordless and raging so silently.
The afternoon I tried to drown Amy, Trav was there. Watching from the low branches of the ghost gum. I never told anyone that. Only he and I knew.
I hauled Amy up, her swimming cap askew, ears burning red. Half of me ached to apologize, the other half said,Let the fucker drown.
Trav had that watchful, predatorial hunger. Was I surprised he finished off what I couldn’t?
