Page 100 of The Serpent King

Dill pulled away. “Is that pathetic? To miss you?”

“Of course not. I’m just giving you shit.” She rested her head back against Dill’s chest.

The floral night breeze blew a lock of Lydia’s disarrayed hair against Dill’s lips. It tickled, but he made no move to brush it away. They arrived at Lydia’s house.

When Lydia jumped off the bike, Dill took a quick look to make sure the coast was clear. Then he grabbed her by the waist and drew her to him. “There’s one more thing I’ll miss.” And he kissed her. The way she kissed him back left him doubtless that the rules were once more on hold.

“Anyway,” Dill said at last. “We better stop before your dad sees.”

“He deserves to see his daughter making out with the preacher’s kid as punishment for making me grow up in this hick town. But come on.” Lydia motioned for Dill to follow her into the backyard. She kicked off her shoes and walked over to the outside faucet. “Now we enter the final phase of Pathetic Prom. While our classmates are getting zongered at the Holiday Inn in Cookeville and getting pregnant, you and I will be playing in the sprinkler and looking up at the stars until your curfew. Yes?”

She didn’t wait for Dill’s answer before she turned on the water and the sprinkler chick-chick-chicked around the lawn in a circle.

“Come on, Dill.” She jumped in the sprinkler’s path and squealed and giggled like a child as it soaked her.

Dill put his hand over his face, laughed, and shook his head. Lydia was already a dripping mess. What remained of her mascara ran down her face in inky streaks. Her hair had come loose and fallen out of its elaborate style. It dangled sodden around her face. Water droplets coated her glasses. She cackled and picked up the sprinkler, chasing Dill with it.

He tried to run. “No! Get away!” He slipped and skidded on the wet grass and Lydia pounced. She tackled him (he didn’t fight that part too vigorously, especially when she lay on top of him for longer than necessary) and left him drenched. They ran and jumped through the sprinkler for several minutes, yelping and giggling.

Lydia’s parents stepped out onto the back porch. Lydia’s mom folded her arms. “Lydia, are you sure Dill thinks this is as funny as you do?”

He stood up, rivulets of water pooling at his feet, a colossal grass stain up the side of his suit. “Yes ma’am, I do. At least I think I do. I don’t always get what’s in Lydia’s head.”

Mrs. Blankenship sighed. “Welcome to the club.”

“All right, kids, we’ll leave some towels by the back door if you want to come inside later,” Dr. Blankenship said. “We’ll be up watching TV.”

Lydia gave them a “now scoot” gesture, and they went inside. Lydia grabbed Dill’s hand. “Okay. Stargazing time.” She pulled Dill out to the center of the lawn and they flopped onto the wet grass, lying on their backs side by side.

For a couple of hours, they talked and laughed incessantly about nothing in particular while they dried slowly. After that, they fell quiet and gazed up into the boundless starlit expanse while the owls and crickets sang their night hymns all around them.

Then, Lydia nestled up close to Dill and laid her head where his chest met his arm. Every nerve in his body suddenly felt like a rush of wind in long grass.

“Okay, Dill,” she murmured. “I lied. This is the final phase of Pathetic Prom. Instead of getting laid, your prom date is falling asleep on you.”

Lydia’s hair cascaded across his chest, forming tributaries and estuaries. Her breathing slowed and her head became heavy. What will become of this? Of us? No, don’t ask. Just accept this gift, this moment, after all that life has taken from you. He felt aglow, like his blood was fluorescing. Like you could see his pulsing, humming heart through his skin.

After a while, she stirred with a purring sound and snuggled in even closer, resting her lips on Dill’s neck. He could feel her warm breath. She laid her leg across Dill’s leg.

She’s it. She’s everything. She’s the standard by which I’ll judge beauty for the rest of my life. I’ll measure every touch to her breath on my skin. Every voice to her voice. Every mind to her mind. My measure of perfection. The name carved into me. If I could, I would lie with her under these stars until my heart burst.

He slowly reached over to her hair with his free hand, and caressed it. He gently ran his hand along its course. And again.

Again.

Again.

If he could be still enough, all the world’s motions would cease. The orbit of the Earth. The dance of tides. The march of rivers to sea. Blood in veins. And all would become nothing but her perfect and temporary thereness.

Hold this moment. Keep it. Until the next train whistle in the distance pierces the stillness.

The early June dusk was soft and green, not yet with the oppressive heat of summer. New grass grew on Travis’s grave. They sat beside it and searched for what to say to each other and to Travis. Lydia no longer felt like she was abandoning Dill, but she did feel like she was abandoning Travis. Which was somehow worse at the same time as it was more irrational.

“How long is your drive?” Dill asked, picking at blades of grass.

“I think about ten hours,” Lydia said, smacking a mosquito on her calf. She loathed making small talk in general—a thousand times more when it was with someone as important to her as Dill. But she understood why they had to do it.

“Are you doing it in one day?” Dill’s demeanor conveyed that he wasn’t enjoying making small talk any more than she was, but he also wasn’t ready to fill the silence with anything else.