Into the Darkness

by Andrews, V. C.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Yes, why?”

  “You’re so quiet.”

  “I’m just enjoying it all so much,” I said. “Besides, you’re not exactly a motormouth.”

  He laughed and kissed me softly. When he did, the sun moved as if it intended to send its rays between two trees and spotlight us in the woods. The rays fell around us. I was transfixed, caught up in a moment of pure ecstasy, but Brayden looked up at the sunlight and squinted. He looked very upset and unhappy for a moment, in fact. It was as if he thought the sun had disturbed us rather than highlighting us as something special. He turned quickly and, still holding my hand, walked faster through the woods, more like someone fleeing, again moving silently.

  “Are you all right?” I asked when we closed in on the cabin.

  “Yes, yes,” he said with the rapidity of someone who wanted to get the issue off the table. “Let’s just get to our picnic.”

  We entered the cabin, and I picked up the bag with our sandwiches and the brownies I had made. He seemed suddenly distant to me and stood for a moment as if he had forgotten where he was and what was happening. I thought perhaps he was worrying about his mother.

  “Maybe you should check your cell phone,” I said. He looked at me, then nodded and did so.

  “Nothing. C’mon,” he said, grabbing the bottles of spring water. “We should sit close at the lake.”

  I could hear and even feel an urgency about him. He was acting like someone who expected to hear a whistle declaring an end to our enjoyment. Maybe he was anticipating a call from the clinic or his father, I thought.

  We left the cabin, and he led me to another fairly clear area close to the water. I took out the light blanket and spread it, and we sat. He was still quieter than usual as I took out the sandwiches. I studied him. For all the time he had been outside, he hadn’t picked up much of a tan. His skin was as clear as it was the first day I saw him, the same fair complexion, whereas I had begun to darken. Of course, I had spent hours on the lake in a boat, but Brayden never wore a hat, and he had told me that he was out every day.

  “I made you some brownies,” I said, and he looked at the food.

  “Wow, that’s great. Thanks.”

  “You said you were hungry.”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said, and unwrapped his sandwich.

  We sat there eating slowly and watching the activity on the lake. Whenever I turned my eyes to him, they met his. It was almost as if we were tuned to each other and our eyes moved in sync.

  “So many boats out there today,” I said.

  “They ride those motorboats late into the night.”

  “Do they? What did you do this morning?” I asked.

  “Nothing much. Waited for you.”

  “Well,” I said, thinking that this might get him more animated, “you’ll be happy to know that I followed your advice about Shayne.”

  He turned quickly. “How?”

  “I told someone this morning that the story about me and Shayne was true, but I added the idea you suggested.”

  “Really?” He smiled. “And?”

  “Well, I told it to this friend of mine, Ellie, who, although she pretends to be my best friend and is the girl I’m probably closest to, I’m sure has already spread the story, even though I deliberately asked her not to, knowing that she would. It’s probably heating up cell phones as we speak.”

  He laughed. “I’m proud of you.” He tapped his bottled water against mine in a toast. “Great sandwich by the way,” he said. “Thanks.”

  “I’m actually a pretty good cook. I’ve been working with my mother in the kitchen ever since I could hold a dish. You’ll have to let me make you a real dinner soon. My mother keeps asking to meet you.”

  “Does she? You’re a complete woman, Amber. You’re bright and beautiful and compassionate and capable. Someday some lucky guy is practically going to rupture his tongue rushing to say ‘I do.’”

  “Why can’t that be you?”

  He smiled but lost the smile quickly and turned away.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I wouldn’t bet too much on my future.”

  “Why not?”

  “Let’s just take it an hour at a time. I won’t even say day,” he told me.

  It was as if a dark cloud had moved over the sun. I felt the chill shoot through my body. All of his trouble and sadness came rushing in around us as though we had left an opening in the wall of happiness we had built around ourselves. It was always waiting, lurking just outside, hoping to have an opportunity. Right behind it came reality, angry that it had been put aside and not given the respect it deserved. Here we were, pretending to be in our own safe, magical place, while not that far away, his mother floated in some pool of great depression. From the way he had described his father and from the little I knew, Brayden was more like an orphan, someone who did not know his own past and did not even dare to dream of his own future.

  I reached out to touch him. His arm felt strangely cold. For a moment, it was as though he had lost all feeling and didn’t realize my hand was on his forearm. Finally, he turned and smiled.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Amber. These hours are too special to lose or damage by worrying about what’s to come and what isn’t.”

  “Okay,” I said in a tiny voice, the voice of someone much younger, the voice of a little girl who was afraid of losing her childhood faith and imaginary friends. Somehow, at one time or another, when we reach a certain point, we know we’ll soon cross a line and leave that precious place where all hard and true realities are uninvited, where we can curl up comfortably around our dreams and feel invulnerable and protected.

  Brayden’s right. Let’s not think. Let’s not worry. Let’s not go there for now, I told myself.

  I felt moved by his ravenous hope and hunger for some happiness. Leaning toward him, I offered my lips to show him that I agreed, and we kissed softly. He brushed his hand through my hair and looked at me as if he wanted to remember every inch of my face. Then he seemed to snap out of his reverie and return to his sandwich, holding it up.

  “Delicious.”

  He drank some water, and we ate in silence for a few moments before we finished and lay back on the blanket. He put his arm around my shoulders, and we stared up at the sky. A lonely cloud had somehow lost its way crossing from one horizon to another and appeared to be driven in two directions. The winds above eventually began to unravel it. It broke into gauzy wisps of itself and then moved in one direction more than the other.

  “Clouds are slaves to the wind,” Brayden said. “I wrote that in one of my poems.”

  “I like it,” I said. “When will you let me read your poems?”

  “When I’m finished,” he said. He sat up and plucked a brownie out of the wrapped paper. “Now, this,” he said, holding up another, “is a real poem.”

  “Right.”

  We turned when a peal of laughter sounded very close by. It came from our right.

  “There’s someone in the woods,” I said.

  He nodded. “Let’s get out of the open.”

  We moved quickly to pick up our things and fold the blanket. He led me down behind some thick bushes, and we waited and listened. We heard their voices grow louder and moments later saw the Russell twins with one of their friends, a shorter, stouter, dark-haired girl. I didn’t know who she was, but she stopped to complain about scratching herself on a low bush. They were all wearing shorts.

  “There’s no one here,” the girl whined. “Let’s go back. I want to go swimming, and your mother said we were going to have ice cream sundaes soon.”

  “I’m sure I saw some girl walking in the woods,” one of the twins said. “It looked like Amber Taylor.”

  “Well, she’s gone.”

  They stood there a moment, and then the twins relented and turned around.

  “I wondered if they might have seen us when we were at the spring,” I told Brayden.
>
  He nodded. “Someone’s always ruining it. Glad they didn’t find the cabin though.”

  “Maybe we should return to your house,” I said. “Or we could go to mine.”

  He thought a moment. “I like the idea of going to yours, maybe to your room.”

  “Yes, of course. There’s no one home. It’s a big day at the store, I’m sure.”

  “All right.”

  He helped me wrap up everything and get it all back into the bag. Then he paused and looked sharply at the woods again.

  “Are they coming back?” I asked. He didn’t answer. “Brayden?”

  “What? Oh, no. They’re gone.”

  “Good. Ready?”

  He turned back to the woods. Maybe it was just my imagination, but despite the warm sunshine and the soft breeze coming over the lake, I felt a darkness, a chilling emptiness. For a few moments, all of the sounds around us, the monotonous hum of boat engines and the chirping birds, went silent.

  “Brayden?”

  I touched his arm. It felt like ice, so cold that I jerked my fingers off.

  He turned slowly. His eyes looked different, more gray. “Tell you what,” he said. “You head home first. I’ll follow in a while. I want to check on my mother and my father and then get all my stuff together.”

  “I can wait.”

  “No,” he said sharply. Then he smiled when he saw the look on my face. “It’s better for now if no one sees us together coming out of the woods. You don’t need more gossip about you, and people wouldn’t understand about me, with my mother in a clinic seriously ill and all. Okay?”

  “If you think that’s best,” I said.

  “I do. For now,” he added. He kissed me quickly. I felt no warmth in his lips. It was more like a period to a sentence, small, quick, and final. I suddenly felt something ominous, like a dark cloud on the horizon threatening the sunshine.

  “You won’t be long, will you?” I said.

  “No, I won’t be long.”

  I still hesitated. He smiled.

  “I won’t be long,” he repeated.

  “Okay.”

  I turned and started away. After a few yards, I looked back. He was still looking after me, but there was something final in the way he stood and gazed at me. He lifted his hand. I waved back and then continued on. I walked with my head down, plodding slowly because I felt a trembling in my body. Something wasn’t right. All of a sudden, something wasn’t right, I thought.

  When I reached the Littlefield and Knotts houses, I heard someone call my name and looked up to see Angie Littlefield with Myra Kent, another girl from her class.

  “Oh, hi,” I said.

  “Where are you coming from?” Angie asked.

  “The lake,” I said.

  “You can’t go to the lake through that property. It’s posted. That’s private property,” she said, probably because her parents had forbidden it.

  “There were lots of rabbits and birds, deer and raccoons.”

  “So?”

  “They didn’t pay attention to the signs, either,” I said.

  “Huh?” Angie said as if I were speaking in a foreign language.

  “Why should they be able to do that and not me?” I added. It was definitely something Brayden would have said.

  And, as he would have done, I left them standing there with their mouths wide open.

  16

  Too Different

  He didn’t come to my house.

  Somehow I wasn’t surprised, even though I was very disappointed. Fifteen minutes after I had arrived at the house, I stepped out onto the front porch and looked down the road, anticipating that I would see him coming. Some of the neighbors drove in and out of the street, and I saw Angie and Myra start out for town, but other than that, the street was very quiet. Nervous now, I pulled a chair up closer to the railing and sat watching for any sign of him. When minutes became close to an hour, I decided to call his cell phone. As before, it rang and rang. After nearly two minutes, I hung up and returned to the porch. When I heard the phone ringing inside a half hour later, I practically flew off the chair and nearly pulled off the screen door to get into the house quickly.

  “What are you doing?” I heard my mother ask, and felt my heart sink with disappointment. Just on my “hello,” she realized that I was out of breath and excited.

  “Just sitting out front,” I told her, fighting to calm myself.

  “So, what have you done with yourself all day?”

  I thought a moment and decided I was through with half truths.

  “I went on a picnic with Brayden.”

  “Oh, how nice. Is he there now?”

  “No. He was coming over, but he hasn’t appeared yet.”

  “How is his mother?”

  “There wasn’t any change as far as I knew earlier, but maybe something’s happened,” I added, now thinking myself that this could be the reason he had not arrived. Perhaps he had gone right from the lake and either met his father or taken a bus or a taxi. “He’s not here, and I can’t reach him on his cell phone.”

  “Oh, well, then maybe something is going on. I’m sure he’ll call you when he is able to. Why don’t you come to the store around closing time? We’ll go to Von’s for some dinner tonight.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Unless Brayden shows up,” I added quickly. “I sorta promised I would make him dinner here. I’ll call you.”

  She was quiet a moment, but she didn’t hang up. I was about to say, “Mom?” to see if she was still there.

  But then she said, “The other night, when you were out too long and said you fell asleep at the lake, Amber, were you with Brayden?”

  For a moment, I couldn’t swallow. “Yes,” I said.

  “You didn’t have to keep it a secret, honey,” she said. “You know that we trust you to do the right things.”

  I could feel the tears welling in my eyes.

  “I know. I’m sorry,” I said.

  “We’ll talk about it some other time,” she promised in a softer voice. “For now, it’s just between us, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said. That simply meant that Dad wasn’t going to be informed, but I certainly didn’t underestimate the significance.

  My parents never lied to each other or kept secrets from each other. I knew that because too often either my mother or my father would tell about something that was guaranteed to upset the other, but hiding it was just not in their DNA, as they say.

  “Women can have some secrets between them. It’s the nature of our species,” she told me, bringing a smile to my face. “Don’t worry.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “See you later, then,” she said.

  I returned to the front porch and looked out at the street. There was still no sign of him. I tried calling him again, and again the phone rang and rang until I gave up. Finally, I accepted that he wasn’t going to appear for whatever reason, and I went up to change into something to wear to dinner with my parents. I was coming downstairs when the phone rang. I rushed to it.

  “This story you’re spreading about me is so ridiculous that it makes you look like someone very desperate,” Shayne began after my hopeful “hello.”

  “Excuse me? What story?”

  “You know exactly what story I mean.”

  “Most people know I don’t spread stories and that I hate gossip. Maybe it’s your sister’s doing. You surely know she was spreading a story about me.”

  “She never would . . .”

  “You mean the evil dwarf?” I interrupted. “Weren’t those your words?”

  “It had better stop,” he said.

  “I have no intention of talking about you anymore,” I said. “I hope you and your sister reciprocate. Maybe you can threaten to expose something else about her to your parents to get her to stop.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that. I hope this new guy has better luck with you than I had.”

  “In his case, it won’t be a matter of luck,” I said. “I imag
ine, though, with most girls you date, it is.”

  “Right. Enjoy yourself,” he quipped. I could hear the frustration building. He hung up before I could reply.

  I wondered if I should call Ellie and pretend to be angry that she had betrayed my confidence but decided against it. Why stop her now? I thought. Brayden’s plan was working. I smiled to myself and left the house. My parents and I would walk to the restaurant and walk home. I didn’t need our car. As I went past Brayden’s house, I wondered when he would get back to me. For whatever reason, he wasn’t going to answer his cell phone, and I had no other way to get to him. I had no choice. I’d have to wait.

  When my cell phone rang before I turned the corner at the end of the street, I scooped it out of my pocket quickly, hoping again that it would be Brayden, but it was Ellie.

  “What are you doing tonight? Are you with the new guy?”

  “No. I was going to have dinner with my parents in town.”

  “Boring,” she sang. “A few of us are getting together and going for burgers and fries at the Coral. You know, the place on the other side of the lake. I’ll come by and pick you up. Where are you going to be in, say, an hour? Home or at the store?” she followed, assuming that I would jump at the invitation.

  I knew why these girls wanted me along. They all hoped to hear salacious details about my time with Shayne. I wasn’t afraid of that, but I didn’t want to do anything to prevent me from meeting Brayden if and when he should call. My parents would understand if I backed out at the last moment, especially my mother, but it would be more difficult to get away from the girls.

  “I’ll call you back and let you know,” I said.

  “Oh, c’mon. You haven’t been out with us for a long time, Amber.”

  “I’ll call you back,” I insisted.

  “Yeah, well, don’t keep me waiting too long. I have to pick up Charlotte first. Her father took away her car.”