he’s been magically healed in the past two hours. That we’ll arrive at the bridge and he’ll be there, grinning like he did in his yearbook pictures. The guy jokingly voted Most Likely to Be Arrested. The football star. He never seemed to stop smiling, even when everybody else was worried about college or SAT scores. Jake was mythic to everyone.
The bridge comes into view first, then Jake. He sidearms a rock, and it skips across the water as I park the truck. The backpack sits open at his feet.
Dad never liked to fish but wanted us around the water as kids. So we’d get in the truck and drive to the river on weekends. He’d send us out to find the perfect stones, flat and smooth, and we’d throw them until our arms ached and the sun died behind us. We’d go to Mountain View Barbeque and have hamburgers, fries, milk shakes, never returning before dark. Half the time Dad would catch hell because Mom had dinner on the table and we were already busting at the seams.
When Mallory and I get out of the truck, Jake zips up the backpack and puts it on his shoulder.
“Thanks for coming,” he says.
“Yeah. Of course.”
Jake and I never had the kind of relationship where I’d go into his room and tell him about girls or what was going on in my life. Dad was never the sort to share his feelings, and he didn’t want us doing it either. I didn’t understand it, but it never really mattered, I guess. It wasn’t until I was over at a friend’s house and saw the way they were with each other that I knew we were different. In another world, maybe I’d come to this bridge all red faced and embarrassed and confess to Jake how I stupidly kissed my best friend.
“Good to see you again, Jake,” Mallory says from behind me. Jake nods at the dark water, otherwise motionless. I don’t know what he wants or if he’ll even talk with Mallory around, so I motion her back to the truck. Mallory hesitates, then walks away. When she’s leaning against the truck, I turn to Jake, but he is still facing the river.
“Is Mom freaking out?” I ask.
“Mom’s always freaking out,” he says.
“True,” I admit. I try to read his face, his body. Searching for any indication that he might do something dangerous to himself. He’s had the same pair of pants on for three days, and Dad has been itching to tell him to shave for longer than that. His gray army T-shirt is covered in stains and hangs from his shoulders. More than anything, he seems smaller. Not in size. Just in everything else. He sets the backpack on the ground again and scratches his face, his other hand still cupping the rocks.
I stare back at the river for a few seconds before I say, “So why are we here?”
“I haven’t gotten you ready,” he says. “That’s on me. And we need to change that before you go tomorrow.”
“Get me ready? Jake, c’mon.” I touch his shoulder, and he shakes his head, more a twitch than a denial. “I’m ready. I’ve done the PT. I can do one hundred push-ups now—probably more than you.”
It’s a weak joke, and I surprise myself by letting it fly. Of course he ignores it.
“I’m not talking about push-ups. Listen to me,” he says. “Everything you do follows you. And you need to know about it before you go. Every action has a reaction. Every good or bad thing you do has a way to fix it.”
It sounds like a mash-up of something he learned in science and a greeting card. It’s so bankrupt of sense, of meaning.
“I fucked up,” he says. “And I need to fix it. For both of us.”
He takes a step toward the bridge, and my body seizes. I reach a hand toward him. “Maybe we should go home and talk to Mom and Dad.”
This would normally make him laugh, and I can’t believe I’m even saying it. But I don’t know what else to do. How to make him stop being so vague.
Jake reaches back and throws another rock high into the air. The moon catches it, a flash against the sky, before it drops into the water. Something goes cold inside me.
“What was that?”
He cocks his arm again, but before he can throw anything, I grab him by the shirt. There’s a medal in his hand, a simple brown