Golden

by Jessi Kirby

  The shelves are a mess of cardboard boxes, some closed and some overflowing with paint-splotched brushes and palettes. Easels lean precariously in the corner; a fine, colored dust coats the floor. I decide there’s no way Trevor actually brings any girls in here. It’s not exactly romantic. Or even acceptably clean. But it is exactly what I’m looking for since I have to be at school but can’t afford to be seen reading one of the journals I’m supposed to be sending out. Which I fully intend to finish doing once I read the rest of Julianna’s. I’m hooked now. I have to know what happens with Shane. Or Orion. I grab a stiff tarp from one of the shelves and sit down.

  June 2

  I went looking for inspiration today and I found Orion. Sitting on the beach of the little lake I think of as my secret. I still can’t believe he was there. Since the night we met I keep catching myself thinking of him when I shouldn’t be. Wondering where he is when I have no reason to care. When I left the party that night, we didn’t exchange numbers or talk about seeing each other again. That would’ve crossed the line I’d already tiptoed up to by letting myself get so swept up by the sparkling cold of the night and the warm brown of his eyes. When I left Shane’s house, I knew the only way I might ever see Orion again was by chance.

  I can’t say I wasn’t hoping for it, but I didn’t see it coming.

  The only thing I saw was the twisty, narrow trail in front of me and the green of the pine trees lining it all the way up to the lake. I used to take this same trail when I wanted to be by myself, and I’d lie there in the sun on the white pumice beach and listen to the wind whisper like far off rushing water through the tops of the trees. There’s something special about it up there, away from everything and everyone.

  McCloud is a lake like a secret, tucked deep in a little valley between tall gray mountains. The water is this deep blue-green that’s so still and clear you can see the reflections of the clouds drifting by on the surface, and the dark outlines of fallen trees suspended beneath it. It’s like a dream place, where two worlds meet. At least it was today.

  At the top of the hill where the trail opens up to the beach and the lake, I stopped short when I saw someone else was there. When I saw Orion was there. He was sitting cross-legged on a log near the edge of the water, bent over a sketch pad in his lap, pencil moving in short, quick strokes, no idea that he wasn’t alone. I froze.

  I knew I should leave before he saw me. That I probably shouldn’t be here, alone with him. But I wanted him to look up. Meet my eyes. And smile like he remembered every detail of that first night the way I did. I watched a moment too long before deciding I should turn around, but by then it was too late. That was all it took.

  He glanced up, and a smile hovered at the corners of his mouth, but he didn’t seem surprised to see me there. “Hi,” he said.

  It was so casual the way he said it, and he was so out of place I had to laugh. “Hi?”

  “Yeah. That’s typically what I say to people I know when I see them. Don’t you?”

  “Who says you know me?”

  “Who says I don’t?” He set his pencil down and smiled. It was quiet a moment. “So either you’re following me or I was right about the whole fate thing.”

  “Or maybe this is just a small town, where people run into each other all the time.”

  “At deserted lakes?” He looked around to make his point.

  “I promise I wasn’t following you. You somehow found your way to the one spot I didn’t think I would see anyone.”

  “Coincidence, then.”

  The word lingered between us, and I thought of how many times I’d hoped for a coincidence like this since the night we met. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

  He held up the pad in explanation, then set it on the log. “Drawing. Enjoying the day. Thinking of going for a swim. You?”

  “I just . . . wanted to get out for a little while, and so I came here and . . .” And there he was, and the sight of him sitting there was almost enough to make me believe maybe there was a reason. He smiled again, and the warm brown of his eyes tempted me to sit down next to him and forget everything else. I looked at the ground. “I should go,” I said, but I didn’t mean it.

  “I can leave if you want.” He stood, but he didn’t mean it either.

  “No, you were here first. You should . . .” I paused, unsure of what I wanted to say. “You should stay.”

  “Then you should too.” His eyes tried to catch mine, but I looked away again at the water, the mountains, the sky. Anywhere but at him, because I was afraid of what he might be able to see. Because all of a sudden it didn’t feel like we were standing on the beach anymore. It felt like we were balanced on a thin, thin line. That fragile one that divides the invisible space between something and nothing, or before and after.

  I stop there to reread the last sentence, and I know exactly what she means. And I can see it’s really happening. She’s really falling for him, and he is for her, and on the one hand I know it’s wrong, because she has Shane and they love each other and they’re perfect for each other. But the way she writes it, I think I might’ve fallen for Orion too.

  If I were her, I maybe even would have thought it was meant to be somehow. Despite the fact that it was wrong. Whatever it is there between them seems like the kind of thing that happens in life only if you’re lucky. But she might have actually had it with him. That connection or pull that’s there is sweet and romantic, and the sap in me wants to soak it up and see where it goes. I check my phone and flip a few pages to see how much more of this entry there is. I probably have just enough time to finish it.

  We didn’t cross that line today. He sat, picked up his notebook, and went back to sketching. I found a place close, but not too close, on the grainy white beach to sit and take off my shoes so I could dip my toes in the icy water. I lay back on my elbows and watched the sun sparkle on the surface of it. Let the warmth and the quiet soak in. And for a while we balanced there on the line like that, not saying anything, though more than once I thought I felt his eyes on me.

  “What are you drawing?” I asked him.

  “The trees.” He pointed with his pencil at a group close to where we were sitting. They were more like skeletons of trees, with bare branches and no sign of life left on them. On one of them someone had carved the words I WAS HERE into the bark, which seemed eerie and sad in a way.

  “Can I see?”

  He slid off the log onto the ground next to me and handed me his sketchbook. The trees on the page didn’t look like the real ones at all. They danced with shadow and light and practically swayed in the breeze that blew cool and soft over us. Even the words I WAS HERE looked freshly carved into the bark.

  “This is beautiful.” I traced my finger over the branches.

  He looked down, seeming almost embarrassed or shy about it. “Thanks.”

  “No, really. This is like something you’d see in a gallery. It’s . . . is art something you want to do for a living?” The thought of it, of him, wanting the same thing I did ran electric through me.

  He shook his head and took the pad back. “Not really. I’ve thought about it, but for now I just kind of do it for myself.”

  I nodded, so close to telling him I felt the same way about painting. That I understood, or used to. That a long time ago I knew what it was like to do something purely for myself. But then I noticed the black ink of a tattoo on the underside of his forearm. I wanted to reach out and touch it, but I pointed instead. “So is that just for yourself too, or can I see what it is?”

  He looked down and turned his wrist so I could see it. “That . . . was my sixteenth birthday present from my brother. It’s what he does.” He glanced from the tattoo to me. “I thought it was cool three years ago, but it’s kinda cheesy now, huh?”

  “That depends on if you just picked a symbol off the wall or if you got it because it actually means something to you.” I looked again at the three joined spirals, then brought my eyes back to his. “Does it?
Mean anything?”

  “If I tell you, you can’t laugh. Like I said, I was sixteen. And I thought I was being deep.”

  “I promise,” I said, ready to laugh. Then without thinking I ran my fingers over it just like I’d done with his drawing.

  His arm tensed under my touch. I drew my hand back. He cleared his throat. I looked at my lap. And the moment hung there between us, heavy, like clouds before a storm.

  “It’s called a triskelion,” he said. “Each spiral stands for something.” He pointed to the top one. “There’s motion, like taking action or moving forward. There’s evolution—that’s growing or changing with life. And then there’s illumination, which is understanding or knowing.” He paused, maybe waiting for me to laugh, but I didn’t.

  “It’s like the three parts of life,” I said.

  “Yeah. The parts I want to remember to do.” He smiled, then picked up a piece of pumice and tossed it in the water, where it floated on the glassy surface in front of us. “You ever go swimming in this lake?”

  “Never.” I wiggled my toes and felt the icy needles of the water.

  “You want to?”

  I shook my head.

  “I think I might.” He stood up and pulled his shirt over his head, then went for the belt that hung low on his hips.

  I forced my eyes away from his bare chest and out to the center of the water, hoping it might temper the tingly warmth that spread out in my own chest, knocking my heart around against my ribs. “I think I’ll wait here,” I said. “With my clothes on.”

  He stepped out of his jeans and tossed them over the log. “Suit yourself.” Then without another look at me he turned, took two long strides toward the water, and dove into the icy blue of the lake. Just like that. Fearless. When he came up, he was gasping for air. “Holy shit, that’s cold!” He half laughed, and made his way back to me at the edge of the water, where he waded back out onto the beach.

  “Damn, that was colder than I expected.”

  “It’s melted snow.” I pointed to the white patches still tucked into the shady crags of the mountains above us. “You probably just shocked your whole nervous system.”

  “Maybe.” He shrugged, then shivered. “Sometimes a shock to the system is a good thing, you know? Like a reminder that you’re alive.” He sat on the log next to me, dripping ice cold water, bare skin covered with goose bumps, and the biggest smile on his face.

  I looked out at the surface of the lake where the sunlight broke into tiny diamonds and spread out sparkling across it. “And that you have one wild and precious life.”

  He turned to me, and we were so close I could almost smell the sun and the lake on his skin. “That’s deep of you.”

  “You should talk.” I shoved him off the log, hoping he didn’t notice the sudden embarrassment in my voice. “It’s from a poem I read in English.”

  “And what’s the rest say?”

  “I don’t know the rest. Just the one line I liked. ‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life.’ ”

  “So.” He smiled through chattering teeth. “What do you plan to do with yours, Julianna Farnetti?”

  “In a perfect world?”

  “Yeah. If you could do anything you wanted. Without worrying about what people expect of you or have planned out or anything else. What would you do with your life?” His eyes rested on mine, waiting, and it made me feel vulnerable in a way, like maybe he knew about feeling restless or understood about wanting something more. Somewhere in the trees behind us, a twig snapped. A tiny ripple splashed against the shore. And the wall I’d spent so many years building crumbled.

  “I’d make art,” I said. “Paintings, that would make people feel something when they looked at them.” I paused, surprised at how easy it was to tell him what I always keep so close around everyone else. And then the rest came tumbling out before I could stop it. “And I’d leave here and travel, like we talked about. I’d watch the sun rise over different mountains and set into crystal oceans. And—” I caught myself before I could say the next thing I’d thought of. That I would have met him sooner. Or in a different situation, when there could have been a chance for something.

  “And what?” he asked.

  “And . . . I’d have no regrets,” I answered. “Which is why I need to do this.” I gave the water one more glance and made up my mind.

  Then before I could change it, I stood, peeled off my tank top and shorts, and took a running start. The second my fingertips touched the surface, sparks of ice lit my body up and stole my breath away, but I forced myself to go under. To feel the electricity there before I came up, laughing and gasping for air.

  And when I broke through the surface, I could almost swear I came up as someone new.

  Orion jumped in again with me, and we swam for as long as we could stand the cold, legs brushing and hearts pounding and teeth chattering.

  I’ve always thought I’m most myself when I’m with Shane, but today with Orion I was most like who I want to be. I was someone different and bold and honest. Not embarrassed or unsure about anything. Not even the feel of his eyes taking in the lines of my body, or the quiet shush of pencil moving over paper as he drew me there on the beach, drying in the afternoon sun.

  I stop at the doodle at the bottom of the page. Orion’s tattoo. She went home and drew it in her journal, like a memento from the day. I’m about to go back and reread what he said it meant when the high-pitched monotone of the bell rings out above my head. I jump at the sound of it, and it takes me a good few seconds to get my bearings and go from watching Julianna and Orion fall for each other at the edge of McCloud Lake to gathering up my stuff so I can make it to second period.

  I tuck Julianna’s journal in my backpack, grab the box full of the others I still haven’t finished addressing, and ease open the closet door, wondering if I’m the only person in the world besides the two of them who knows about this. I wonder where it went from there. If they saw each other again. Where Orion ended up. If Shane ever found out. What he would’ve done. The leap my mind makes at that last thought is a dark one and I dismiss it quickly before I slip out the door.

  In the hallway it’s crowded and bright and feels worlds away from Julianna and the story that’s unfolding on the pages of her journal. It’s all I can do not to duck back in the closet and finish reading. As much as I want to, though, I can’t miss a second day of all my classes for that. But nothing says I can’t pick it back up after school. Maybe even up at the lake where chance brought them together and choice made them stay.

  13.

  “Some say the world will end in fire,

  Some say ice.

  From what I’ve tasted of desire

  I hold with those who favor fire.”

  —“FIRE AND ICE,” 1920

  The dead trees are how I know I’m in the right place. Only now it’s not just a few at the edge of the lake. All of the trees around McCloud are dead from the volcanic gas that started leaking up through the ground years ago. It had probably just started when Julianna and Orion were up there. For a while the whole area was closed down, but then the scientists, or forest service, or whoever decides those things, determined it was safe for people to be in the area, even though the trees were dying. I never came up here after that, and the utterly deserted feeling it has makes me think not many other people do either.

  When I get out of the car, it’s so quiet in the parking lot I can almost hear my own heartbeat. The bleached white skeletons of the trees stand stiff against the gray afternoon sky like ghosts, which seems appropriate. It’s creepy enough to make me question what I’m doing here alone. I could just as easily hole myself up in my room to read the rest of the journal. But like yesterday, something in me wants to see the place Julianna wrote about—where she once swam in a sparkling lake, lay under the midday sun, and fell for a boy she wasn’t supposed to.

  But it’s so different here from how she wrote it, and it makes me a little sad as
I look around at the emptiness. It’s dead. A shadow of what it used to be. I wanted to see this place the way she did—beautiful and dreamy, and romantic. I thought maybe there would be something of that left. Some little piece of her world that’s been here all this time, like another secret I might be let in on. But there’s no life or beauty or magic up here. There’s only whitewashed trees and a sky that’s getting darker by the minute.