Nothing But Blue

by Lisa Jahn-Clough

  It was late in the afternoon, so all the little kids were gone by the time we got there. A few couples walked along the shore. A group of older teens, college kids by the looks of it, had a boom box, so loud rock music filled the air. I watched a circle of gulls follow a boat out in the bay. A dog barked after them while its owner trailed behind.

  “Is this an okay spot?” Jake asked.

  “Can we move away from that dog?” I asked. “I don’t want it to walk on our stuff.”

  We found a spot and laid out our towels. I took off my shorts and top. I was painfully aware of Jake watching me. He smiled and peeled himself out of his shirt. He had a clean, smooth chest, and you could see his abs. He definitely worked out. I pulled on my tankini top to cover my belly and crossed my arms over my chest. I wasn’t bold enough to show that much skin yet.

  “Last one in is a loser.” He ran down toward the water.

  “Not fair!” I called, running after him. “You didn’t give me warning.”

  Jake reached the water and waited for me to catch up. “Okay. Let’s go together, then.”

  He counted to three and we dove under only to rise up screaming from the icy shock. Jake grabbed me by the shoulders and dunked me. I swam a few laps around him. I’ve always liked being in the water. It’s the one place where I can forget about my body and everything else. It’s like nothing matters under water. I was smiling when I came back up. Jake leaned over and we kissed. I felt like a new person. Relaxed and happy. This was the magic I wanted.

  After about ten minutes of dunking, splashing, and kissing, we ran to our towels to warm up. I lay on my front and stared out at the ocean. The sea and the sky were almost the same color.

  “It’s all blue,” I mused. “Nothing but blue as far as you can see. But if you put air or water in a glass, it’s clear. Why is that?”

  Jake shrugged. “Something to do with reflection of light, I think,” he said.

  “It’s so beautiful.”

  “Yeah, but it’s all an illusion.” Jake picked up a tube of sunscreen. “Let me put this on your back. You don’t want to get burned.” He straddled me and moved my hair out of the way. He started massaging my shoulders with lotion.

  “You have gorgeous hair,” he said. “Especially when it’s wet and sleeked back. Really sexy.”

  He rolled over next to me. He put his hand on my thigh, then moved it slowly to my hip, then waist, and kept slipping it up. Then he moved back down again, then up, then down, caressing my body. He tucked some strands of my hair behind my ear and whispered, “Let’s get out of here.”

  We went back to the car. We kissed more passionately than ever before.

  “Do you want to?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. I did. I did want to. I wanted Jake to love me. He scrambled into the back seat and I followed, banging my head on the roof as I climbed over the seat.

  He fumbled out of his suit. I took off my bottoms but left the top part on.

  “Wait a sec.” Jake leaned over and took something out of his wallet. A condom. He put it on like he was a pro.

  For some reason this struck me as funny. I was going to have sex with the cool guy in a car at the beach. I burst out in laughter.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “It’s just … I don’t know … this seems funny.”

  “I thought you wanted to.”

  “No, I mean, yes. I do, but it’s just that I didn’t believe this would ever happen.”

  “It’s happening,” he said.

  He lifted my hips and I sat on his lap. “Mmm. Can you take your top off?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. He could see my stomach and all, but I wasn’t sure I was ready for him to see everything. He didn’t ask again, and I respected him for that. He held my neck and then moved his hands to my back, gripping tightly.

  I watched out the rear window at the sun shimmering like crystal on the tips of the small waves. The same little dog from earlier was splashing in and out of the water. The owner was smiling and laughing like she was having the time of her life just watching her dog play.

  I was surprised when Jake let out a deep breath and moved me off his lap.

  “Man oh man,” he said. “It just happened so fast. I couldn’t wait.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. I had felt something, but I wasn’t sure if it was what I was supposed to feel. He was acting like it was all over and I still wanted to keep kissing and touching. I wrapped my arms around his back. I wanted him close. I wanted to be with him forever. I wanted him to love me and me to love him. I wanted to be important.

  “Do I matter?” I asked.

  He unwrapped my arms and worked his way back into his shorts and T-shirt. “What kind of question is that?”

  “I don’t know.” I found my bathing suit bottoms and put them on. Then I asked again, “Do I matter? Am I important?”

  He turned my hand over and put his lips on my palm. “I wouldn’t have done this if I didn’t think you were just fine.” He pinched my butt. “I like that you have a little extra to squeeze.” He took something out of his pocket. It was a thin, colorful braided rope. “This is for you.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “It’s a friendship bracelet. Don’t you know about friendship bracelets? All the girls wear them. But this one is special. This means we are more than friends.” He tied the bracelet in a double knot around my wrist. “So you’ll remember me.”

  As if I could ever forget.

  NOW

  I don’t know when I fell asleep, but at some point night sounds stopped and morning sounds began.

  The dawn sky is a grayish purple at first, and then turns pink. The sun rises through the trees, and slowly everything brightens. I always thought a sunrise looked the same as a sunset, but it’s not the same at all. Dawn is soft and quiet, as though it wants to wake the world up gently. Whereas sunsets are so bright and electric they almost seem to scream, Hey! Day is done! Go to bed! It seems it should be the opposite.

  Shadow is still nuzzled under my shoulder. He fits there in a tight ball. His back legs are curled under him, and his chin rests on his front paws. It’s amazing how small he can make himself. His cheeks flutter a little bit as he breathes. Every once in a while he makes a small whinny, like a tiny horse. His eyes flicker back and forth under his lids. Perhaps he is dreaming of chasing squirrels or rolling in the grass, or maybe he’s dreaming of a comfortable, plush dog bed—the fancy, expensive designer kind. Stuff he’ll never get from me.

  I stroke his nose. He murmurs a little. He lets out a deep sigh from way down, then yawns awake. Our eyes lock and I swear we are telecommunicating. The gold flecks in his eyes glimmer.

  “I need you,” I say out loud.

  He curls back his mouth and smiles. And then it’s like he actually is talking and I can hear him.

  I need you, too, he says.

  He breaks the gaze and does a perfect downward dog stretch and then shakes from head to tail, like nothing happened. It must have been my imagination.

  My stomach releases its now familiar grumble. I don’t think I have ever been truly hungry in my life, up until now. There were girls at school who bragged about how many days they could go without eating, how they craved emptiness more than food, but I was never one of them. I’ve always liked eating, even if my parents said I was fussier than a baby about what I ate.

  Though fussiness is not a problem anymore. Now I’m happy if I can find a crust of bread—I don’t care if it’s white or wheat or full of vegetables.

  I take a drink of water, then pour some into a cup for Shadow. I try to work out the gnarls in my hair. I know I’m probably starting to smell worse. I can still feel the welt on my cheek where the branch swiped me. There are mosquito bites on top of mosquito bites, but they hardly itch anymore. I remember the frog from last night. That means there must be a pond nearby.

  “Do you know if there’s water around here?” I as
k Shadow.

  He leads me through the woods to a pond. I don’t know if it could be called a pond exactly, but it is a body of water and it’s big enough for me to submerge. There’s algae around the edge, but the center is clean. A morning mist rises from the surface. I take off my shoes first and then the rest of my clothes, glancing around nervously. I’ve never been naked outside. I fold my clothes into a tidy pile.

  A breeze whispers around my body as I kick aside the algae and dip my toes in. The muddy bottom is soft and squishy. I wade in farther and it gets colder.

  It’s only thigh-high, but I paddle around for a minute until I’m used to the cold, then duck my head under. I heard somewhere that in the old days people used to clean themselves with leaves and mud, so I take some from the brink and rub myself down, then dive under again.

  When I’m done I dry off with my T-shirt and put on my second pair of clothes. I rinse and wring out the clothes I’ve been wearing and drape them over some branches to dry. This will make them smell like muddy pond water, but it will be a vast improvement from how they were smelling.

  I sit by the pond and wait. I suddenly wish I had a book to read. I can’t even recall the last book I read for fun, not since I was in grade school at least. I play with a stick, making shapes in the mud and letting them fill with water. Shadow splashes around in the pond chasing bugs.

  “Why am I here?” I ask out loud. Shadow stops his game and comes over. He raises his eyes and looks into mine. “Do you know what is wrong?” I study his eyes. “I believe you do know, but you can’t say, can you?” Shadow ignores me and wades into the water again.

  A stream of light pokes through the trees and sparkles off the blade of Jimbo’s knife on the ground with the rest of my stuff. It is not a long knife, about eight or nine inches, with a thick, black metal handle. I pick it up and turn it around in my hand.

  You have power. A voice echoes as though it’s someone other than me, telling me what to do. It is definitely coming from inside, but it’s not the same as the chanting voice, and it is definitely not Shadow.

  I hold the blade up to my face. A distorted, fuzzy image of me reflects back.

  You have the power to end your life. Here. Now. No one would know. No one would care. You would be free. The voice is so clear, but it’s all monotone. There’s no feeling in it, which makes it eerily convincing.

  Shadow is swimming across the pond. He can’t see me. He wouldn’t notice if this blade slipped into a vein in my neck. He wouldn’t notice until the blood came gushing, and then he’d be too late to save me.

  He can’t save you anyway. He’s just a dog.

  I hold the knife inches from my face. I stare at my reflection in the blade, then shift my gaze to Shadow, then back to me, back to Shadow, me, Shadow, me, Shadow.

  Shadow reaches the other side and turns around. His head bobs on the surface like a glowing buoy. I am still holding the knife in the same position when he slithers out of the water and shakes, sprinkling droplets all over me. Shadow stares at the knife, then at me.

  If you have the power to end your life, you have the power to live it, too. It’s not the strange voice anymore. It’s coming from Shadow this time.

  I look at him—his mouth doesn’t move. He’s not actually talking, but I hear his voice loud and clear. I don’t know how I know, but I am certain it is him. It’s like Shadow and I can understand each other all of a sudden. It’s not my imagination. It can’t be. He says again, You have the power to live.

  He may be right. I could die any number of ways. I probably will, so why do it myself? There may come a better time, a time when I absolutely need to die, but is that time now? I put the knife down.

  I sit there for a while thinking about appropriate ways, times, and places to die. I think about it casually, as though life and death are nothing more than day and night. I mindlessly try to comb out the knots in my hair with a stick. It’s useless—the stick gets caught in all the tangles.

  I pick up the knife once more, but this time it has a better purpose. I pull my hair into a ponytail and slice through. My hair is resistant, but eventually I hold my ponytail out in front of me.

  My head feels instantly better. “There,” I say. I lay the hair on the ground.

  “What now?” I ask. I can see my reflection in Shadow’s eyes. I rub my scalp and tousle my cropped hair with my fingers.

  You know, he says. You know.

  I fiddle with my bracelet. Shadow is right, I do know. I know I have to keep going until I get to the house where I belong. Back to my room. Back to the sea. Back to where I matter. Back home. That’s where the answers are. That is my reason to keep going, my reason to live. When I get there everything will be clear again. I will have shelter. I will have love.

  “Are you coming with me?” I ask.

  Of course, silly, he says.

  “You’re not just a dog, are you?” I ask.

  He nuzzles his nose under my hand, but he doesn’t answer. He gets up and starts walking. I wrap the knife in one of the shirts and put it and the rest of my clothes into my pack.

  When I get to the road I look in both directions, then head toward the rising pink sun. East toward the sea.

  It’s too early for traffic, and it’s not a busy road to begin with. The temperature is mild with an autumn nip. Colors are starting to appear in the trees, and everything crackles and glows. Shadow walks ahead but keeps turning around to beckon me onward. Come on. One step, then another and another. We’ll get there.

  Hitchhiking is dangerous. Hitchhiking means crazy people will rape and murder you and cut your body into a million little pieces and bury them one by one or toss them into the sea. At least that is what happens to teenagers who hitchhike in the movies and on TV. So no one hitches anymore. Not like they used to—or like we assume they used to in the old days when there weren’t as many rapists and murderers driving around and hitching wasn’t the dangerous, deadly means of travel that it is supposed to be today.

  I haven’t yet stuck my thumb out, but I have renewed energy, so when I hear a car in the distance behind me I think now is the time to start. The car slows down when it nears me. It’s an old small hatchback, a “safe” car. The window opens and a young woman smiles.

  “Where you headed?” she asks. She has a soft, girlie voice. She doesn’t seem much older than me.

  “East,” I say.

  “It’s awfully early to be hitching all the way out here.” She sizes me up.

  I hesitate. Even though I am talking to this stranger, I still have to be careful what I say.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” she says. As if to prove it she gets out and walks around the car. Shadow sniffs her and wags his sign of approval.

  She is wearing a gray suit jacket and a matching skirt with chunky black platform heels. Her curly hair is desperate to fling free of its tight ponytail. She looks like an art student posing as a businesswoman. She scratches Shadow behind his ear in the spot he loves. She doesn’t seem to mind that her suit gets covered in silver fur. This is a good sign. Don’t people always say you can judge a stranger by how they treat a dog?

  “I’m Clara,” she says. “You look like you could use a hot cup of coffee …” She pauses, waiting for me to tell her my name.

  “Blue,” I say, softly.

  A car comes in the other direction. It slows down for a curiosity stare, decides that it’s not worth stopping, and speeds by. We both watch until it’s gone.

  Clara studies me again. I put my hand up to my head, suddenly self-conscious about my do-it-yourself haircut.

  “I don’t care what you’ve been doing, Blue,” she says. “If you’re in trouble or a runaway or whatever.” She sighs. “I have a job interview, but I’ve decided not to bother.”

  I’m not sure if she’s saying this last part to me or to herself. She reaches out her hand. At first I think she is going to touch me, and instinctively I shrink away, but her hand sweeps past me. I get a whiff of apricot lotion. H
er perfect nails are painted purple. My own nails have been bitten down, and there is dirt under what is left of them. I clasp them behind my back.

  “I can take you to town at least.” She points down the road. “About twenty miles.”

  That’s a day’s walk in less than half an hour. “What about my dog?” I ask. One thing for sure, I am not getting into a car with some stranger, even a nice-looking stranger in a clean car, without Shadow. Shadow peers from me to Clara expectantly, then brushes his head under my hand.

  I’m yours? he asks. I hear him loud and clear, but Clara doesn’t. I realize it’s only me that understands him. I also realize it is the first time I have called him my dog.

  “Of course your dog can come,” Clara says. “I love dogs. My boyfriend had a Rottweiler.” She pauses. “I mean he still has a Rottweiler …”

  She opens the door to the back seat. “Let me just make some space.” She takes out a leather bag and puts it into the trunk. Shadow follows her with curiosity. “What’s his name?” She pats him on the rump.

  “Shadow.” As if on command, Shadow hops into the back.

  Clara smiles. “He certainly is a happy pup.” She opens the passenger door for me. “Hop in, Blue,” she says.

  I put the seat belt on and clutch my backpack on my lap. The back window is down all the way. I can see Shadow’s head in the side mirror, sticking out with his nose to the wind. His mouth opens in a wide grin. I wonder if he’s ever been in a car before. If not, he’s sure taken to it instantly.

  Clara starts asking questions: “Where are you going? Are you from around here? Why are you hitching?”

  I struggle for the best answer, but she goes on before I come up with anything.

  “That’s all right. You don’t have to answer. Not much of a talker, are you?”