Riley's Pond (New Adult Romance)

by Harley Brooks

  I tried to talk but I couldn’t form words. My tongue filled my mouth, protruding slightly. A look of horror washed over Ally’s face.

  “Oh shit! Riley!” she screamed, scrambling to her feet. “Riley! Come quick!”

  Ally threw up in the wastebasket beside the sofa, leaving another mess for my mother to deal with when she returned home. Riley ran down the stairs to answer Ally’s murderous screams, and she nearly knocked him over in her escape.

  “I think I bit his tongue off!” she cried out, sending me into a state of panic and quickening Riley’s descent.

  He shoved the washcloth off the bathroom counter into my mouth, soaking a towel in cold water and throwing it on the rug in the family room to dilute the blood stain. I couldn’t talk, couldn’t feel my tongue, and felt my heart bounce in my chest.

  “Damn, it looks like someone got bludgeoned to death.” He rushed back into the bathroom and grabbed a new roll of toilet paper. “Come on jackass. We better get you to the hospital before you bleed to death in the basement and I’m forced to bury your sorry butt in the backyard before Mom gets home. You know how she hates it when we don’t clean up our messes.”

  That’s when the laughter started.

  **

  Dad burst through the Emergency Room doors with the finesse of a wild elephant. The flasher bar still rotated on his car. My designer cuff alerted him I’d escaped the “compound,” formerly known as home.

  Mom’s car slid sideways with a loud squeal behind the sheriff cruiser. The echo of her heels clicked against the linoleum floor, arriving a couple of seconds before she did. Her hand flew to her mouth and her eyes pinched.

  “God, Jaxson! What the hell?” Dad asked, his face scrunched in reaction to my gruesome state. My mother couldn’t say anything around the fist she pressed in her mouth. The anguish on her face was almost as agonizing as the headache pounding my brain.

  The only one not repelled by the grisly scene of layers of bloody gauze stuffed in my mouth was my evil guardian in the chair next to me. Riley fought to keep from breaking into hysterical laughter again. I’d listened to his hideous revelry the entire twenty minute drive to the hospital. He pointedly obeyed the speed limit during the agonizing trek. Every time he glanced at me with my mouth full of a wads of toilet paper, he launched into hysterics.

  Dad’s fists pushed his hips, lips pursed tight. Mom blanched and grasped Dad’s arm for support. “Well? Anyone care to tell me what the hell happened?” he demanded.

  Riley snorted, stifling the giggle clamoring for release. “Ally came to see Jax.”

  Eight

  SEEKING SANITY

  Taylor

  A second week passed and I went stir crazy. My day began with breakfast, or in my case, just coffee—maybe an apple or banana. If Grammy had her way, I’d eat waffles or pancakes every morning and plump to a size that wouldn’t fit inside the Mini.

  I begged out of tagging along with her to run errands. Everywhere we went, Grams introduced me and I’d have to repeat the story I’d made up about coming to visit for the summer, and once my age was revealed, I’d be offered up to any boy between seventeen and twenty.

  To be honest, I wouldn’t mind a “summer love.” Someone who didn’t want anything beyond hanging-out, but might engage in some steamy make-out sessions to release my penned up hormones. Someone who’d understand when the end of August arrived and I said “goodbye,” it was forever. I didn’t need some clingy boy expecting me to rush back every school break and rekindle something that would never grow beyond lust.

  “Love” wasn’t something I needed. I didn’t want to get involved in a relationship doomed to fail once the body heat cooled, nor did I want the pressure commitment created. I’d walked out of a relationship where commitment meant confinement. Also, being on the receiving end of another heartbreak didn’t fit into my summer plans. My parents did a pretty good job of mangling my heart and I feared it to be the beginning of many years of missed birthdays, weekend visitations at the mall or worse, at a strange house with a possible “replacement parent” doting to win my affection.

  Before I talked myself into the depths of gloom, I decided to get outside and soak up some serious Vitamin D. I grabbed an apple out of the basket, sinking my teeth into its juicy flesh and noisily slurping the sweet nectar before it ran over my chin.

  Standing on the deck, I relished the feel of the warm wooden planks beneath my bare feet. Beyond the garden fence, an expanse of bright yellow sunflowers blanketed the meadow. In the distance, a cluster of cottonwood trees and pines formed at the end of a tree line stretching from some unknown beginning, running along the base of the mountain at the edge of Grammy’s property. A dark green spot on the horizon of a sea of yellow—a place to be explored.

  I slipped on my sandals and jumped onto the grass. The splintered picket gate beneath a jasmine covered arch, whined when I pushed it open. I toed across the weathered stone path through the vegetable garden and set out on a quest to discover what treasure lay hidden within Nature’s wooded guard.

  Water gurgled and bubbled over rocks, glittering against the bright rays of the early afternoon sun as I followed along the banks of the creek. Stopping to dip my toes in the cool stream, I leaned back against a rock and turned my face to the orb warming my little piece of heaven. Two squirrels playing tag on the rocks across the creek, paused momentarily to study the human invading their world. I flicked my foot, sprinkling their fur to send them scurrying to their hideaway.

  The dusty dirt turned to mud between my wet toes and grit ground beneath the balls of my feet. I rinsed my feet in the brook running beside me, but soon my sandals felt heavy again from mud caked on the bottoms.

  A well worn foot path trailed over a hill and wove through bushes covered with berries and tiny white daisy-like flowers. Thorny bushes gave way to ferns. Overhead, blue jays sang a light melody as they flew through branches laced into a leafy ceiling. A single shaft of sunlight pierced the foliage and came to rest on the still, indigo waters of a pond. An oasis hidden beneath a jacket of shimmering leaves and the heavy scent of pine.

  Large boulders rimmed the edge of the water. Stone chairs. I kicked my sandals off, felt the chill of the dirt under my feet before wading into the dark water. Small kernels of gravel mixed with the sandy bottom and ripples kissed my legs when I cautiously inched deeper, having no idea when the bottom might give way and suck me into its murky depths.

  I slid on the silt, hissing when water covered my shorts and cold tendrils wrapped my stomach. The edge of my blue T-shirt floated outward. Once the initial shock disappeared, the water actually felt refreshing. The single sunlit beam widened around me and warmed my damp skin. I twirled slowly in the water, barely brushing my fingertips on top. My memory banks tickled with a lullaby from my childhood, and I hummed the melody while dancing in my own private lagoon.

  Giving little attention to my footing as I pranced, I failed to notice the sides slowly drop. Suddenly, water circled my chest, covering my arms. My last step sealed my fate, and I went under. A circle of waves distorted the light on the surface above me. I gave a strong kick, propelling upward. A second kick gave me a strong foothold again, and I lifted out of the water, throwing my long blonde locks back with a jerk of my head. My lungs filled with a deep breath of fresh air. Two more steps moved me to waist deep waters and I raised my arms to gather my wet strands of hair, twisting to wring out the excess water.

  About to walk out of the water all together, I froze at a rustling sound in the bushes ahead. Trapped in a liquid cage, I waited for whatever creature would break through the thicket and possibly devour my wet body.

  Nine

  THE POND

  Riley

  Two o’clock in the afternoon. The sun set high in the sky and the air sizzled with anticipated heat. I’d raced through my chores, doing most of them half-assed just to get them out of the way. Mom finally got off my back and left to meet a girlfriend for lunch. Dirk practically followed t
he shadow of her car out of the driveway, dropping his sidekick to the pavement and rolling off to a friend’s house.

  Jaxson, tongue still swollen, mumbled something unintelligible when he walked through the back door after his graveyard shift.

  “Hey, Batman,” I sneered as he passed. He replied by extending the middle appendage on his right hand. Jaxson said he hated living the life of a “bat.” When he slept everyone else worked and when he worked, everyone played. My nickname stuck after that, mainly because it pissed the hell out of him.

  Jaxson’s bedroom door slammed and the click of the lock echoed in the stairwell. Only someone with a death wish dared disturb him once that door locked. He’d taken on extra shifts at the rail yard trying to pay off his court fine before his sentencing hearing tomorrow. His drunken stint and joyride at one o’clock in the morning a few weeks back, earned him a bed in the “county’s finest” for five years on its own merit. He hoped if the judge knew he worked a steady job and had paid a chunk toward his restitution, he’d get a lesser sentence. Dad warned him he wouldn’t get out of jail time, but I think Jaxson still believed in fairytales.

  However, crashing into the city’s granite marker welcoming those lost or having nowhere else in the world to be, proved a whole other matter. According to Dad, it could pack another year on Jaxson’s jail sentence. Destroying the marquee also earned him the wrath of the city council and the right for every old lady in town to voice their disgust for his behavior.

  Even Lydia Daniels gave Jaxson a public tongue lashing at the church picnic. A quiet, private woman who owned the house on the other side of the meadow, had no trouble finding words to cut Jax into a dozen humiliating pieces in front of the last of the congregation lingering to clean up. Mom, who stood stoic through the whole ordeal, broke down after Mrs. Daniels’ last word followed her to her car.

  None of the things giving notoriety to that night; the newspaper, the local radio’s daily recount, the judge’s harsh comments after slamming the gavel, hurt like watching Mom fall apart. Mrs. Daniels spoke the truth. Jaxson gave no regard to how his selfish behavior affected the one person who never turned her back on us. Mom.

  The phone rang, landing me back in the present and I waited to see if anyone—even a stranger passing by, would answer. On the fifth ring I picked it up, hoping they’d hung up.

  “Riley, why the hell can’t anyone answer the phone?”

  Dad.

  “I was in the bathroom,” I lied.

  “Is Jaxson home?”

  “Yeah. He’s gone to bed.”

  “Well, wake him up. Company’s coming.”

  “You can’t be serious. Jaxson will mash me between the floorboards if I wake him.”

  “Hell, you sound like a girl, Riley. Man up, would you?”

  I waited, clicked my tongue against my throat and mentally planned my escape once I woke Jax.

  “You’re not going to do it, are you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Fine. Take the phone to him and I’ll wake him,” Dad snarled.

  I dramatized a wisecrack play-by-play the entire walk to Jaxson’s bedroom. “We’re taking the ‘stairs of death’, slowly, anticipating the monster’s ill mood before we reach the lair. So far, the half-eaten body count is over a hundred, their dismembered limbs flung around like confetti.”

  “All right, enough, smart-ass,” Dad barked around a laugh.

  I procured a deep breath once I’d arrived at the door to the monster’s den. Here goes nothing I thought, but may have said it aloud before pounding on the door. Silence. My feet shuffled nervously and I puffed a sigh, blowing my hair in the air. After another round of knocks, I stepped back to allow a safety zone in case Jax’s fist came at me.

  “WHAT!” sounded the menacing growl from the other side.

  “Dad’s on the phone.”

  “Tell him to go to hell! I’m sleeping.”

  My father blared in my ear. “You tell him I heard that!”

  “Dad said he heard that.”

  “What the fu–” Jaxson wrenched the door open and I held the phone out, receiver facing forward. Jaxson stood in the doorway, his “tighty-whities” looking insanely good on him. He would need to be really careful in jail.

  “Give me that perv,” he snapped, taking the phone and slamming the door.

  Jaxson’s loud reaction to whatever news Dad delivered, bellowed before I took my second step and I stopped to listen.

  “You’ve got to be shittin’ me! The Guard? I’d rather do jail. Two years!” The quiet on the other side of the door permeated the house. The eye of the storm. A loud crash preceded Jaxson’s shrill.

  “FUCK!”

  I don’t remember touching the stairs. Once I heard the floor creak under the weight of Jaxson’s step toward the door, I knew I had to get the out the house, or I’d be dead. Jaxson wholeheartedly believed in “killing the messenger.”

  Later, I’d found out my dad contacted a sergeant buddy involved with the National Guard, calling in an old favor. My brother would go from the courthouse to the recruiting office in the morning.

  **

  Weeks passed without any rain and the dirt on the trail billowed like brown baby powder over my bare toes, turning my black flip-flops gray. The pungent smell of wild sunflowers growing for miles in either direction, filled the air as I ran through the field. Over the ridge, the line of trees appeared to be planted. Their symmetrical line formed a natural fence along the creek edging the base of the mountain range that guarded the west side of the valley.

  I wound my way through the thicket, stubbing my toes on a couple of rocks. Even with the afternoon sun burning in the sky, its beams barely penetrated the thick, leafy canopy surrounding the pond. Streaks of lemon colored light carried sunbeams from heaven and placed them on the wild ferns. Some stirred into the shimmering stream, spilling into the dark, still waters of the pond.

  Our pond. Jaxson and I spent an entire summer rolling large boulders from the hillside into the then “bubbling brook” to dam the water. We dragged picks, hoes and shovels from the garden shed, digging and scooping mucky mud, slowly deepening the pool. Three months of hard work and more fun than I’d had in my then twelve years of life, and the pond was finished.

  Jaxson turned fourteen that summer and stood a foot taller than me. He was our measuring stick and when the water hit his chin in the center, we were satisfied. It was great…and our secret. We feared if anyone knew, that “anyone” being Dad, he’d forbid us from swimming in the pond and probably send his county cronies to destroy it.

  Two years ago, Jaxson discovered Ally and beer, and we stopped working on the pond. I caught them skinny-dipping and threatened to tell Mom if he ever brought her back. He gave me a black eye, but kept his promise, probably more out of guilt, than some brotherly bond.

  My jealousy issues with my big brother began that summer. I begged and pleaded to hit any “bases” with Kaylee, but Jaxson just snapped his fingers and Ally became putty in his hands. In middle school, Jax always had girls hanging on him and calling incessantly on the phone. I wanted to be just like him when I got to high school. Funny how those goals changed when I discovered my golden idol turned out to be made of clay.

  Still, Jax landed on his feet like a cat from whatever height he fell from. I, on the other hand, feared heights. His lifestyle scared me. He resembled a car speeding down a dark highway, the headlights spanned over the flash of dots down the center. Ahead was a cliff, a bridge washed out, or a deer standing and waiting. No one could reach Jax. It seemed the more Mom and Dad tried to rein him in, the harder he rebelled. We just waited for the car to sail off the cliff.

  If Jax had yelled for me, I didn’t hear him. I left his drama behind and headed for the one place I could find peace and separate myself from everything happening at home. Over the rise of the small hill in front of me and down through the chokecherry shrubs, I’d find my private sanctuary. The pond.

  The waterline varies between my h
ips and a foot or so above the top of my head, depending on whether we’ve had a rainy spring. Winter yielded a good snow pack in the mountains and a fair amount of rain fell the past few months, so I knew the depth would be perfect for the rope swing.

  About to break through the scrub oak and bushes into the clearing surrounding the pond, I skidded to a halt when I heard the sound, damn near landing on my butt when I slid on the loose gravel. Silence enveloped the wooded surroundings and I suddenly worried my breathing sounded too loud.

  The light melody started again, carrying on the breeze from angelic lips to my ears. Cautiously, I moved an inch or two where I could see the pond. A beam of light pierced the opening of branches above the water, illuminating the beautiful creature swirling in the water. Her fingertips pricked the top, sending ripples from where she stood to the edges of the pond…and up my spine. She disappeared under the water and I took another step, but remained hidden.

  She emerged from the sapphire pool almost in slow motion. Her head flipped, sending her wet, golden mane arcing through the air, the thousands of water droplets sparkling in the sun like a shower of diamonds.

  She turned my direction. Dark lashes glistened against pale pink cheeks and full lips still hummed the bewitching tune that stopped my world from spinning. Her wet baby blue T-shirt clung to curves my hands longed to touch and when her delicate fingers braided into her hair, the small silver ring piercing her navel shimmered in the sunlight.

  All the saliva in my mouth evaporated. My name escaped my memory and my swim shorts suddenly felt tight. I’d never seen her before, but knew immediately I didn’t want to go without seeing her again. Every teenage boy’s fantasy—wet and gorgeous. Swimming in my pond.

  What I didn’t realize in this defining increment of time? I faced my future. No clues warned me my summer plans were about to be altered. That I could handle. What I didn’t know, nor could have prepared for, was that in the three short months of summer my entire life would be redefined. I embarked on an unknown journey having the potential to destroy everything I believed, and possibly everyone I cared about, in its wake.