I feel like I’m walking into a photograph from the past. Familiar and aching, but still just out of my grasp.
Another breath. More forced steps. I tuck my hands deep into my pockets and walk towards the dock, bypassing the cabins for now. Each step feels like walking into a memory. My legs remember the route.
The wood creaks beneath my weight, and for one dizzy moment, I’m just that fifteen-year-old boy again. My heart aches, feeling the ghost of a towel around my neck, Brett yelling for me to just jump in already after Bowen shoulder-checked him into the lake with his little half smirk on his face.
My legs all but give out by the time I get to the end of the dock. I fall heavily, trying to pull air into my burning lungs.
It’s okay.
It still smells like summer. Like skin and sunscreen and secrets whispered after dark. Like dimpled smiles and burnt s’mores. Like half the momentsthat made up my whole life. Like the very reason it was a life that I couldn’t bear to lose.
It’s okay.
All the memories arehere. They’re in the water below, under the same sky, soaked into the wood of the dock and beating away inside me. The breeze cools the wetness on my cheeks, and I slip my eyes closed.
The lake is warm. Warmer than usual.
My fingers and toes are so pruned, Brett said I look like a baby monkey. He said that right before he came running at me in the water, hollering to the sky with a hot pink pool noodle aimed right for my head.
Lake Jousting, he calls it.
Just like with every game, Brett takes it very seriously. There are a lot of noodle whacks and even more dunking. Dunking ofme, because there was a better chance of the Loch Ness monster showing up to hang than me being able to pick up one of the twins. Bowen keeps winning, though. Mostly because he had no shame playing dirty, and Brett has hollered, “Where is your honor!” while getting flung into the water multiple times.
My stomach hurts from laughing so much, and my cheeks hurt from stretching my sunburn with every smile. There is nothing better.
I feel weightless. Free.
After a while, Brett floats next to me. Both of us looking up at the sky. Bowen lounging on the dock, soaked through with his sunglasses on. Tucker is tossing gummy bears into the air and trying to catch them in his mouth next to Bowen.
It’s perfect.
Bowen slides back into the water with a soft splash, joining Brett and me. His arm brushes mine, and I sigh.
“I want to live here forever,” Brett mumbles, tired but content.
We spend the rest of the day sprawled on the dock, lazily naming shapes in the clouds.
I fall asleep between them.
Kit
The first thing I hear is the crickets. My face is warm, too warm, the kind of warm someone gets from falling asleep in direct sunlight.I groan softly, not wanting to open my eyes. I fell asleep with my memories, and I know the reality is just on the other side of my eyelids.
I just want a moment longer.
But the nudge to my side has my eyelids flying open, anyway. It was a gentle nudge, but something in the quick tap makes me think it wasn’t the first one.
At first, all I see is a silhouette, a figure standing over me, backlit by the last golden rays of the day. Tall. Broad shoulders that taper down to hips that have hands braced on them. Their head cocks to the side, and it’s that movement that has my stomach bottoming out.
Black curls.
Black brows drawn together.
The last lingering whispers of sleep vanish.
“You’re trespassing.”
Thatvoice.
