“You just said you thought it was weird,” he counters.
“Well, that was before I knew what it meant.”
Miles seems pleased with my answer, and we leave his bucket on the shore for a while, not wanting to let go of Miley while we hunt for tadpoles one last time.
As the hours pass, a blanket of grey clouds starts to filter in, growing thicker until there’s a complete patchwork quilt over our heads. When a sudden crack lights up the whole sky, Miles hurls himself out of the water for the grass and toward his trailer.
“Miles, wait!” I call, rushing after him, knocking his discarded bucket sideways. Miley leaps to freedom as the first wave of drops falls from the sky.
I plunge toward him, trying to catch up, but my short legs remain sixteen steps behind his. The dam breaks, and in seconds, we are both drenched from the sky’s reservoir. My eyes dart around the yard for a place where we can take cover. I don’t want to leave him yet. I’m desperate for our day not to end when I remember…
The bunkhouse.
It sat vacant all summer long, the twin beds still made, the glass door untouched. But when I reach for the handle and find the latch unlocked, my eyebrows lift.
“Miles! In here!” I call.
He’s only a few feet from his trailer when he spins around, terror etching his face. He hesitates. He ping-pongs betweenboth places before racing after me. When he crosses the threshold, I yank the door shut.
By the time I turn around, Miles is nowhere in sight. I climb the ladder to check the top bunk, expecting to find him there, but it’s empty. There’s only one other place he could possibly be.
The wind whips against the glass, rattling the door. I make sure it’s latched tight, locking the storm outside before dropping to the floor. Miles has scrambled under the bunkbed and is huddled in a heap in the far corner. I crawl underneath to hide with him too.
“Well, that was crazy,” I whisper.
My eyes adjust to the darkness, and Miles’s face comes into view. His pupils are the size of marbles, his lower lip’s trembling, and his breathing is coming out strangled. My vision adjusts even more as I see that he’s huddled in a tight ball, his legs bunched up beneath him. I don’t know what’s happening to him, but I know I won’t leave him until he’s no longer shaking the way that he is.
“It’s okay, Miles. I’ll take care of you,” I say, holding my hand out to him. Because that’s what friends do. They take care of each other.
The crinkled worry softens a bit at the bridge of his eyebrows and he reaches for me. His fingers lace with mine. We stay like that for a while, waiting out the rain. When his breathing begins to even and I can tell he feels safe again, I work up the courage to ask him what I’ve wanted to all summer.
“Miles, what happened that first day we met? You know… that night on the dock, when…”
I can’t finish that sentence because I need Miles to. I don’t know what came next, but I could guess. The way those long dark locks that matched his slipped out of view. A woman driving away in the red car. The same car that hasn’t been back since, not once.
A sadness knits his eyebrows back together, and I almost regret asking. I wouldn’t want to do anything to make him not want to hunt tadpoles with me anymore or be my friend. I just want him to be okay.
“You promise you won’t tell anyone?” he whispers.
“I promise.”
It’s a long minute before he says anything else. Like he’s trying to arrange the words in an order that won’t hurt as much. He starts to shake again when his eyes well with tears. It makes me feel sad inside.
Miles’s sadness is my sadness.
“She left,” he confesses.
I let him take all the time he needs because he’s having a hard time saying the rest. I can tell he’s never told anyone else.
“My mom… she left me and my dad.”
My faces pinches with confusion. I ask myself at least a hundred silent questions I’m hoping Miles can’t hear.
Parents leave?
When?
Will my mom leave too?
