We’re like the opposite of drunk when we jump. We’ve been running for miles by the time we’re leaping from the cliffs into the water just above the spillway. Once you make the jump on one of the Fall Creek Fridays, you’re part of the team. It’s our rite of passage.
It feels so good. The water is so cold. Then we get back out and run the last mile back to school. Right back here.
Lithia High doesn’t have enough money for one of those electric marquees like other schools have. We’ve got an ancient sign with plastic letters that the student government officers have to change by hand whenever it’s time for a new announcement or event. On the coldest, worst days, when we were out there freezing, trying to get those damn letters up on the board without dropping them, we cursed the cheapness of the school district, the fact that we’d ever signed up for this in the first place, the whole thing.
The last time I noticed, the marquee said HAVE A GOOD SUMM3R, the way it had for weeks. There was only oneE, so the student body officers always ended up having to use3s instead.
But now, those words are gone.
Instead, a date.
8/31.
My heart is tick-tocking harder than ever.
Who did this?
My hands begin to shake.
Who put this up?
How long has it been here?
Did it happen before
or after
everyone disappeared?
10.
WAYS TO BE OKAY
–Run.
–Read.
–Watch a show that makes you laugh.
–Make something.
–Help someone.
–Create a playlist.
–Hot chocolate.
–Warm baths.
–Pet your cat. Or your dog.
–Walk barefoot in the grass.
–Go for a long drive on a long road and listen to music. A really good song, an angry one or a sad one or a good beat one, one that matches the rhythm of what you’re feeling inside and brings it outside, so you can hear and scream and sing. Songs like that are like a handhold on a slick wall, something you can hold on to with all your might for as long as it lasts.
–Wrap up in a blanket and lie on the floor and tell yourself, “I don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to go anywhere. I don’t have to be anyone. I am just a person in a blanket on the floor.”
11.
