“Even with a head start, you can’t win,” he teases.
I push him back from the stairwell and roll my eyes. “Whatever.”
Silas chuckles, and I can’t help but smile at the sound.
This place has always been ours. When everything feels too hard, we come here. Up above the world, where no one expects anything from us. Where we can watch the world and just take a break.
And while I don’t need to escape the way he does, I need him. And here, with the wind coming through the cracked window and all of Prince Edward Island stretched out below us, the only thing we need to do is to be exactly who we are.
Silas grabs the binoculars we keep on the shelf and steps towards the glass, lifting them to his eyes as he scans the wide stretch of the Northumberland Strait. The ocean curves around us on both sides, and we both peer out at the lobster boats dotting the water.
“Four… five…” he mutters, sweeping from left to centre as his brow furrows in focus.
He hands me the binoculars next, and I turn to the right.
“One… two… three.” I lower them and squint toward the far edge of the water, but there’s nothing else. “Only three on this side.”
Silas takes them back, his forehead still scrunched as he thinks. “So… only eight,” he says, glancing up at me. I nod, and he shrugs. “They must have come back earlier today.”
“Guess so.” I step over to the bin we keep up here and pull out one of the comic books we’ve stashed in it, then sit down with my back against the wall of the lighthouse. “Do you think Redwave should be able to fly?”
Silas grabs his sketchbook and sits next to me, tilting his head in thought. “Yeah…” he says slowly, flipping to the latest page. A tall figure stares out at us, with windswept hair and clenched fists, as waves crash on a rocky shore behind him. Red energy ripples along his arms like water, and his eyes glow red with fierce determination.
We started creating him this summer, when we’d read every comic we owned twice and wanted one that actually made sense for us. We wanted a superhero who didn’t win because he was the strongest, or the fastest, or the smartest. We wanted one who knew how it felt when the world didn’t fit quite right.
Silas picks up his pencil and starts drawing a cape across Redwave’s shoulders. “He can fly away from stuff that bugs him.”
I watch the way his brow dips in concentration, and his tongue pokes out at the corner of his mouth as he shades the fabric with quick, confident strokes. He’sreallygood at drawing. He gets all the shadows and can make it look like things are in motion. He can even draw hands. I don’t think he knows how rare that is.
I lean my head back against the wall. “I think he should also have, like…stick-it power,” I say.
Silas’s pencil stills, and he turns his head to look at me.
“So he can have the power to get through anything that sucks. For when he can’t fly away,” I say, then I lift oneshoulder in a shrug. “Because… he won’t be able to fly away from everything.”
He stares down at the page for a moment. He’s quiet for so long, I don’t think he’s going to respond. But he does.
“Do you think you’ll ever fly away?” he asks quietly.
I nudge his arm with mine so he looks up at me. “Not if you’re here with me.”
The corner of his mouth twitches with a small smile.
“I think stick-it power is our greatest power,” I say. “No matter what.”
Silas nods, and his smile breaks free. Then he turns back to his drawing and continues to work on the cape.
We stay in the lighthouse, reading and drawing comics until the sky darkens, and a chill seeps through the cracks in the windows. We pack everything back into the bin and make our way down the stairs and onto the cool sand. We cross the beach slowly as the last bit of warmth lingers in the air, and the breeze rustles the leaves on the trees just past the dunes. The sky deepens from gold to orange to indigo as the sun slowly sinks below the horizon, and we silently ride our bikes along the dirt road towards home.
When we reach the edge of my yard, we both stop and look up the road. Silas’s dad is just pulling the tractor out of the field, the headlights sweeping over the rows as he turns towards the farmyard.
I glance at Silas. His eyes catch the last of the fading light, wide and bright even in the dusk. He doesn’t say anything, but I can feel what’s rising inside him.
“He’ll understand,” I say. “He always does.”
Silas exhales and tightens his grip on his handlebars.
“Lighthouse again tomorrow when I get home from school?” I ask.
