We both laughed sadly.
“I know it's kooky, what I did. Telling myself some bullshit fantasy like a little kid. But I should have died in that camp. And I think it worked, writing to you, thinking about coming back to you. Even if it was just to see you again for a day. Even if I knew nothing could come of seeing you again.
Finally, the tears I refused to shed in front of him, the tears of relief and regret, poured from my eyes. “I said you should have stayed dead. I didn't mean it, Bobby. I'm so sorry. I never meant it. That was so cruel of me.”
“I know you didn’t.” His hand caressed my hand resting on his lap.
“I'm so happy you're back.” I clutched the hand on top of mine, lifting it to my face and sobbed into it. “I thought you were dead. All these years . . .”
Bobby stole several brief glances at me, trying to maintain his eyes on the road. “Hey. Hey,” he said sympathetically. He pulled his hand from my grasp and propped up my chin. “You got me through it. Okay?”
I nodded. Maybe this could be enough. Maybe we could be best friends. Bobby was prepared to be content to see me again, even if meant seeing me with someone else, unlike the first time around when he left. If he could put those emotions aside, then I could, too.
“You should rest up,” he said, reaching to the back of the cab for a jacket and passing it to me. I wrapped myself in his scent, the closest I could allow myself to linger in his embrace. I didn't care how hot it was. Then, I dozed off.
I woke up to Bobby gently shaking me. “Wake up. I have one more surprise,” he said.
I pulled myself out of my slumber and the cocoon of his jacket.
“Where are we?” I asked, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. My vision followed the landscape illuminated by the headlights and in a second I realized where we were—a sight ingrained into my mind no matter how long it had been since my last visit. It was the Lightlys' lake house. The place I spent long summer days swimming and running and climbing with the boys.
The place I married Rory and the last place I saw Bobby before he left.
Seven years earlier
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
The sound of Mrs. Lightly's grandfather clock carried down the hall. It didn't sound like the mere announcement of the passage of time, but rather a countdown towards something inevitable.
Tomorrow I would marry Rory. Rory, the handsome, sweet boy I had known since as long as I could remember. The nice brother. The one who did all the right things. I got the good Lightly. The one who was studious and ambitious. The responsible one. I was the luckiest girl in town, they all said. I loved him. I did. But then why was I up the night before my wedding, nursing a deep ache?
Cold feet was normal of course. It was just pre-wedding jitters.
After working out those last minute wedding details with my mother and sister, I spent the rest of my time with my cousins and a few girlfriends who arrived later that afternoon. Rory stayed with Bobby and his cousins and friends. After we were all tired from the day’s activities and the sun baking our skin, the boys and girls retreated to separate cabins. I should have been utterly exhausted, but after lying for what felt like an hour, I grew too restless. I tiptoed out of my room, barefoot in my thin white nightgown, and stepped out into the night air. A gentle breeze lifted my gown, making the warm night balmier than the temperature suggested. I planned on sitting at the dock to stare at the moon. Out here in the country, it looked so huge, almost like a painting. The sky was particularly clear on this night, and already I could see the sparkling silver glinting off the gentle ripples of the black waters. That's when I noticed a single light on in the boat house. It had an attic that had been converted to a small lounge room, with a beat-up couch and a couple of small tables. Just a place people could take a break from the water without walking all the way back to the houses.
I gravitated to the light, just like all the creatures do, my feet sinking into the cool earth with each step. I didn't know who was in there. I wasn't even sure if it would be appropriate seeing as my nightgown was not proper attire for most eyes. But my feet continued, marching me towards the light.
I crept up the creaky, narrow staircase.
“Who's there?” a voice called out. I knew who it was, and the dull ache grew sharper.
“It's me,” I called out, reaching the top of the staircase and crouching to pass the short threshold. Bobby was sitting on the couch shirtless, facing a circular window with views of the lake. He kept his back to me.
“Oh, hey.”
Next to him was a bottle of Jack, a quarter of the way through. “Really, Bobby? Jack? Have you been sober at all today?”
“I'll be fine tomorrow,” he scoffed.
“Yeah, I know. You better be.”
I plopped down behind him so that his back still faced me as he sat on the edge of the sofa. “Can't sleep?”
“No. You?”
“No.”
He had been his usual self earlier that day, flirting, jesting, being effortlessly fun. But now he was quiet. One of his fits.
“I'm surprised you haven't been like a fox in a chicken coop going after the hens in the girl's cabin,” I ribbed.
He looked at me out the corner of his eye before unscrewing the cap and taking a swig. “Nope.”
“Well, then is it because your brother is marrying your mortal enemy?” Usually I'd let him brood, sit there with him until he emerged from the quiet. But tonight, I needed to know why. Something in my gut pushed me to pry. Hints of that something escaped through our time in the woods. But they were so vague and fleeting, like a vapor, I wondered if I had imagined them or if they were amplified by the herb that had since faded from my system.
“Maybe,” he shrugged.
“Oh, I'm sorry are you being broody, Bobby?” I taunted in a baby voice, trying to get back to the safe, familiar, childlike way we related to one another.
“Shut up.” He shoved me halfheartedly with his shoulder.
“So when's Bobby Lightly going to get married? You have, what? Two years left in college after taking a year off. Meet anyone special?”
“Yeah, but she's off limits,” he said, uncharacteristically somber.
“Oh.” I was afraid to ask. It was the second time I heard him make such a comment that day, the first being in the woods when I told him he could have any girl. Not any girl, he said.
Sitting at an angle behind Bobby, he couldn't see my eyes wandering along his back. Tanned from summers in the sun, light freckles peppering shoulders that grew muscled over the past couple of years. His hair mussed up, brown with flecks of summer gold, always a little longer than Rory's. He smelled of the sun. Of his pillows when we used to take naps together or use them as weapons against each other. Of the lake and grass.
“You know, I don't hate you, Lil,” he confessed.
“I know,” I replied nonchalantly. “How could anyone?” I pouted, trying to make light of the tense tone he had taken.
“I take that back,” he added, taking another sip.
“Bobby, really, don't get too drunk.”
“I'm not even a little drunk, Lil.” Bobby did hold his liquor well and seemed unfazed, but it wasn't like him to drink alone like this and I wondered why.
“Hey, wanna go in the lake?” I perked up.
He turned to look at me slowly, a look of mischief in his eyes. We'd snuck down to the lake in the middle of the night hundreds of times, usually with Rory. The rules were always the same. No clothes. No lights. Just the moon.
“Yeah,” he nodded.