by Lara Avery
“Okay.” It was easy as that. “Do you want a ride home? I can tell them you want time alone.”
“Nah,” Bryce said. “Just tell them I’ll meet them back at the house later on.”
Carter leaned closer to her, as if he were about to whisper something in her ear. Then he wrapped his arms around her. Being close to him, Bryce felt the urge to dissolve, to crumble into pieces and float away, little by little. It was nothingness, but also relief.
“Hey,” called a voice. Greg. He’d pulled up across the street.
Carter let go, looking at her with his brow furrowed.
“He’s taking me to see Gabby,” Bryce said automatically. “I’ll see you later.”
“Yeah,” Carter said as they helped each other up.
Bryce opened the car door, then turned back to him. “See you.”
“Okay.”
She got in and slammed the door, watching Carter’s frame grow smaller in the rearview mirror as they drove away.
here to?” Greg said, his eyes ahead.
Bryce peeled her eyes from the mirror, breathing in the smell of air freshener hanging near the air conditioner. She pushed the OFF button and rolled down the window, closing her eyes as the breeze played on her face.
“Anywhere,” she said, leaning her head back on the brown leather headrest.
Over the rumble of his engine, Bryce heard him drawl, “If we could really go anywhere, I’d drive us down to Louisiana. Get one of those boats with fans on the back and float through the swamps. All the way down the gulf. Sleep in a hut hanging over the marshlands. Wake up and eat shrimp straight out of the water.”
“Louisiana in the summer, Greg?” Bryce chuckled, her eyes still closed. “It’d be like walking through an armpit.”
Still, she imagined it. Greg posed like a pirate at the front of the flat boat as it chugged through the moss and the reeds, his bare back golden brown, shining, his T-shirt tied around his head to soak up the sweat.
They drove for miles and miles, and Bryce let herself be lulled by the steady motion of the car. She was surprised when the truck slowed down outside of a long, manicured driveway, and they pulled into the parking lot of a golf course. A gilded metal sign read WHISPERING PINES.
Bryce got out of the truck, looking out over the hoods of expensive cars. “What, you want to hit a few balls?”
“Nah,” Greg said, coming around the side of the truck to stand with her. He stripped off his pale blue polo and tossed it through the open window. He wore a gray Army T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and Bryce felt her face grow hot. “Come on.”
Bryce followed him along the fairway, ducking behind a long row of pines, hearing the golfers’ shouts and laughter tinkling from the green. Finally they reached a slope covered in rocks.
Greg scaled down the slope with ease and waited for Bryce at the dusty bottom, sandstone surrounding them on both sides. “You’re never gonna guess where this goes.”
The deep V of rocks went on for some time. Bryce watched her footing as they went, the sandstone dust staining the red of her boots. Suddenly the sun’s glare wasn’t so strong.
She looked up. Thick metal slats crisscrossed above them, holding up a groaning metal bridge. Trees rose up where the rocks ended, close in color to the rust caked on the large circular bolts. She heard the sharp, sweet chirps of birds, with sparkling clarity. The shadows swirled around the lines of the bridge like ribbons.
“It’s a riverbed,” Greg said, his chest lifting and falling under the triangle of sweat at his collar. “Or at least, it was.”
Bryce smiled, remembering all the places Greg had led her. She had grown to trust the peaceful expression on his face when he was looking for just the right place, like he was fixing something that was broken. She’d follow his figure even as he wriggled through holes in electric fences, so they could find what he deemed a perfect spot in some farmer’s field. Once he found it, there was no fanfare; he would just sit down and pull grass out of the earth as he wondered aloud whether aliens existed, or if there was a spot on earth where no person had stood before. She always thought they were going to get caught trespassing, but they never did.
Bryce noticed tracks running across the bridge. “Do trains still run on this?”
“Never saw one before,” Greg said, making his way toward Bryce. He stood with his shoulder almost touching hers, his arms crossed. “But it’s been a long time since I’ve been out here.”
“It’s been a while since I’ve been anywhere,” Bryce breathed, enjoying the dappled light on the sharp rocks, the way the bridge and the trees seemed to support each other. “Feels like I’ve spent my life in a hospital bed. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.”
“Funny,” Greg said, chucking a rock down the empty riverbed as if skipping it. “You’re always trying to get out of that hospital, while I always had trouble getting in.”
Bryce raised her eyebrows in surprise as Greg told her how he almost got arrested trying to sneak into her hospital room after hours when they were seventeen.
“When you first got there your room was on the first floor, near the ICU. So when they tried to boot me one night when visiting hours were over, I climbed back in the window.”
Bryce laughed. “Did it work?”
Greg grinned up at the bridge above them, remembering. “Yeah, no,” he drawled. “It was the wrong window and the guy in there started screaming.”
“I wish I could have seen that,” Bryce laughed, her heart flooding. They climbed up to the edge of the riverbed, where the rocks met dry grass. They sat down beside each other, splaying out their feet.
Greg reached out to touch her cheek. “It was somethin’,” he said.
“Greg.” Bryce pulled away. “We can’t.”
He looked down. “I know, it’s just…” Then he looked up, his eyes meeting hers. “What if we could?”
Bryce opened her mouth, then closed it, losing her words in his deep blue eyes and long lashes. We should, she thought. She felt whole here, with him. She wanted to be in his world of dry riverbeds and old bridges.
He turned toward Bryce, putting a hand on her shoulder. Her thoughts stopped. She didn’t move a muscle. He was breathing through his nose, his lips turning up at the corners. His eyes found hers, then traveled down her face to her lips, then back up to her eyes.
“I missed you so much,” he said, his voice almost a whisper, and his mouth connected with hers.
Bryce didn’t pull away. Her blood coursed hotly through her veins, matching the heat outside so that her skin blended into the wet air, the sun-soaked rocks.
Greg put his hands on her waist, tucking them under her shirt to find her bare skin. His lips made a path to her jaw, her ear, her neck. A sound rumbled at the edge of their hearing, growing in intensity as Bryce wrapped her arms around his back.
Suddenly it ripped past them, taking over all their senses, pulling them apart.
“A train!” Greg called over the roar and squeak of wheels over the track, and they lifted their eyes toward the metal blur.
When it had passed, Bryce and Greg looked at each other. In the sudden silence, she remembered herself.
“What’s Gabby doing today?” she said, swallowing.
Greg scratched his head, looking uncomfortable. “She’s with her grandparents out in Hendersonville.”
Bryce nodded. Finally, she said quietly, “What do you really want, Greg?”
He dropped his eyes downward. “I don’t know.”
He leaned back on the dry grass and started talking up to the sky, almost as if Bryce wasn’t there. “My parents—they’re pretty excited I’m settling down. Moving to a big city with lots of jobs. They didn’t even think I’d graduate. Hell, they didn’t think I’d even make it to college.”
Greg’s family was originally from a tiny town a few hours from Nashville, out in the deep, deep country. He didn’t have much money growing up. His parents didn’t even have a TV. He and his brother spent most
of their time on their bikes, finding little ponds to go for swims, or climbing trees. He took to diving as he took to every other sport, like he’d done it all his life. When his parents saw how crowds would gather to watch him do flips off the high dive at the community pool, they scraped their money together to move him to Nashville so he could practice with a real diving team.
“It’s good that your mom and dad don’t have to worry about you,” Bryce said with a sad smile.
Greg shook his head. “I’m not saying…” He sat up. “Bryce, that was never really my dream. It was theirs, and it was Gabby’s. I’ve never really known what I wanted.” He blinked. “Except for you.”
Bryce didn’t move from his grasp. She wanted to go back to five minutes ago, before the train had hurtled through, breaking them apart. But the heat of kissing him had faded, and Bryce had begun to put dusty space between them, inch by inch. Space enough for the thought of Gabby to breeze through.
Greg’s face was hopeful as he asked, “Maybe we could get away from here, go somewhere else?”
“But where? How would we live?” With all the rigidity of their training, performing flawless dive after flawless dive in a square pool of pristine water, Bryce understood why Greg craved looseness the way he did. But they couldn’t just drive to Louisiana and float down a river. Life didn’t work like that.
She saw the uncertainty creep back into Greg’s face.
“You made a decision.” She breathed in deeply. “You asked Gabby to marry you. You made plans to move to D.C. You can’t just…undo that.”
Greg was looking at her, his eyebrows knit together. “I couldn’t do anything if I thought I wasn’t going to see you again. Gabby or no Gabby. I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning.”
His eyes had a fear to them, a fear and a longing. “I could never not talk to you,” Bryce said. “You were my boyfriend, but you were also my friend.” She sighed, giving what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “Maybe that’s all we can be now.”
Greg just shook his head, stood, and chucked another rock down the empty riverbed. It skittered over the dry rocks. But he didn’t argue or try to change her mind.
The sky began to pinken above them as they made their way back to the car. By the time they pulled onto River Drive, it had turned a midnight blue. The truck rolling to a stop in front of her house was almost a shock to Bryce. This would have been the point where Greg kissed her and told her to sneak out to meet him later in the barn. She would say maybe, I’ve got homework, but what she really meant was yes. Yes, of course. She always meant yes.
But Gabby was probably home from Hendersonville by now. She was probably calling Greg, wondering where he was. Bryce pushed open the truck door and hopped out of the cab.
Greg leaned toward her, hair falling in his eyes. He reached out his hand.
Bryce took it, squeezed, and matched her voice to the cool quiet. “’Bye, friend,” she said, and then she let go.
ryce’s palm filled with a creamy, fluffy pile of mousse. Her hands shook as she rubbed them together, feeling the airy liquid ooze between her fingers. Gently, she applied it to her hair, scrunching the ends up to touch her roots, letting the blond strands fall, curlier than before.
Looking nice was important today. Looking put-together, like a person who could do five reps on the rowing machine without having to sit down in the shower afterward. Like a person who would accept that the past was the past, and that her boyfriend was no longer her boyfriend.
A few days ago, Gabby had called. “The three of us should go bowling,” she had said. “I need a break from fussing about the wedding.”
“Are you sure?” Bryce had gulped as she stood by the pool in her pajamas. She was always in her pajamas these days, it seemed.
“Of course! We should have done this as soon as you woke up. It’ll be just like old times.”
Now she thought about calling Gabby and telling her she wasn’t feeling well. How could she stand watching Gabby and Greg together? How could she face her friend when she could still feel the touch of his lips on hers? She had told him they should just be friends. But he would never feel like just a friend to her.
Bryce sighed. She had avoided Gabby long enough. So she rubbed some concealer on the sleepless bags under her eyes. She almost dropped the bottle, bobbling it in her hands, when she heard a knock at the front door.
Bryce yanked her skirt down a few inches and emerged from the hall bathroom. A tall figure stood at the open door. Carter was in his usual khakis and a short-sleeved collared shirt made out of airy white fabric, accepting a glass of water from her mother.
“Look who’s here, baby!”
“Hey,” Bryce said, the knot in her stomach dissolving.
“Hey,” Carter echoed, taking a sip of water.
“To what do we owe the pleasure?” Bryce’s mother called over her shoulder, heading to the kitchen.
“Just came over to say hi,” Carter called, before adding more quietly to Bryce, “and to check on you, spaz-o.”
“I’m fine,” Bryce said, rolling her eyes. “You know I’m fine.”
Bryce’s mother breezed into the entryway, bearing a bowl of cold, lime-green gazpacho that probably looked better than it tasted. She handed it to Carter with a spoon. “Try this,” she said. “So, do you need Bryce to come in for another scan?”
“Dr. Warren probably does need her, yes,” Carter said, swallowing a spoonful.
Bryce shot him a death stare.
Carter mouthed sorry and cleared his throat, looking at her mother. “Is there lemon zest in here?”
Just then, the Grahams’ door creaked open once again, peppered with knocks from Gabby’s manicured hand. She popped in wearing a yellow halter dress and white espadrilles, her hair twirled into a messy bun.
“Helloooo…” she called, the door clicking shut behind her.
While Gabby and her mother exchanged tight hugs and compliments, Bryce moved behind Carter. Her mother hadn’t seen Greg or Gabby since Christmas break two years ago, Bryce had gathered. Gabby was the one who had taken that picture of her family with the wreath outside of Vanderbilt Medical. Had Greg and Gabby already been dating when Gabby took that photo? Probably. Bryce dug her teeth into her lip and smoothed her hair, bracing herself for Greg’s entrance.
But the door stayed resolutely shut. Bryce felt a mixture of disappointment and relief. She cleared her throat. “Greg’s not coming?” she dropped casually.
“Oh, no, he’s here,” Gabby replied with a wave of her hand. “He’s just waiting in the car.”
Carter was now balancing the bowl on the palm of his hand, untouched after the first sip. Gabby smiled deviously. “And this is Carter, right?”
“Yeah…” Bryce began.
“Carter,” Gabby said, giving his shoulders a squeeze. “Come with us!”
“Nah…” Bryce said, answering for him.
“Yes!” Bryce’s mother clapped her hands. She looked visibly relieved at the suggestion.
Carter looked at Bryce. She shook her head subtly. “Don’t you have homework to do?”
“I always have homework,” Carter said with a shrug.
“Let’s go, you two,” Gabby grabbed each of them by the hand, dragging them out the door. “See you later, Mrs. Graham!” she called.
Bryce allowed herself to be drawn toward the car, where Greg was sitting sullenly with the door open, wearing a white Hanes T-shirt and his old, worn Adidas flip-flops. At the sight of Bryce, his face lifted into a broad smile. He gave a short wave. Then he noticed Carter, and his eyes narrowed.
“Double date!” Gabby called, slipping into the driver’s seat.
Carter and Bryce exchanged looks as they settled into the backseat. “Carter is a friend of mine from the hospital,” Bryce clarified. Greg’s eyes lingered on hers in the rearview mirror, asking the silent question he had no right to ask.
Technically, the VFW was a community center for veterans of foreign wars. It was also the cheap
est place to go bowling in Nashville. And, as many of the kids at Hilwood knew, the best place to drink when you were underage. The grizzled Vietnam vet who ran the bar didn’t ID anyone who looked older than thirteen, as long as they listened to him talk about his time stationed in Saigon. The classic rock blared. Bowling balls crashed down the lanes launched by pot-bellied bowlers. Large fans on either side of the room hummed.
As the bartender filled a pitcher full of foamy beer, humming “We Are the Champions” along to the tinny speakers, Greg brought over old bowling shoes.
Bryce reached out for a pair. Greg lifted them out of her grasp. She tried again, and again Greg pulled them away. Bryce couldn’t help giggling. Greg was smiling, watching her struggle.
Carter banged his hand on the bar’s surface. “Well,” he said, “I’m going to get my own shoes.”
Gabby pulled Greg to accompany her on her turn, where he stood behind her and guided her arm to the proper trajectory. Bryce looked at them and found it hard to concentrate on anything else.
She pretended to tie her shoes. She untied and tied the knot three times.
“So how do neurologists do, generally speaking?” she heard Gabby say above her. They had returned to the orange-and-brown plastic seats.
“We work on commission,” Carter said dryly. “The bigger the brain, the bigger the paycheck.”
Bryce felt him looking at her. She sat up and laughed too late.
“So, Bryce, your brain—” Carter pretended to speculate. “Probably, close to one hundred K in total.”
“That much, huh?” Greg said, looking at Carter. His face was blank.
“Oh, yeah.” Carter reached over to put his hands around Bryce’s head. Bryce snorted and lifted her shoulders at his touch. “Bryce has a big brain. I’ve seen it.” He gave her head a little shake.
“Gross,” Bryce laughed.
“Have either of you ever eaten brain?” Gabby leaned in. “It’s delicious. Greg and I had it when we were in Spain, remember?”
Greg, who had lifted his arms into a stretch, let an arm fall on Gabby’s shoulder like it was the most natural thing to do. Bryce looked at the table’s crusty surface.
