The Sky Above Us

by Natalie Lund

  “You’ll be running again before you know it,” the nurse said.

  That’s it: the ability to move like an arrow down the field. The scouts at the camp this summer. His future.

  He was worthless now.

  “What do you think I should do?” he asked the nurse as he moved Nate to recovery.

  “About what?”

  “The future.”

  “What are you, seventeen?” he asked.

  Nate nodded.

  “Go to college. Make mistakes. Fall in love. Be young.” The nurse laughed, like he was remembering his own youth. He pushed Nate into a room where his parents waited. On TV, Judge Judy was scolding a man in a security guard uniform.

  “He’s awake,” the nurse announced.

  “I didn’t finish counting down,” Nate told them. “But they took my knee anyway.”

  “Not the knee. Just the ligament,” the nurse said gently. Then to his parents: “He’ll be loopy for a bit while the anesthesia wears off. I’ll come back in an hour or so and we’ll discuss aftercare and pain management.”

  “He thinks I should go to college,” Nate said.

  “Why wouldn’t you? They took Aaron,” his dad said with a chuckle.

  “I know soccer means the world to you,” his mom said, dragging her chair closer to the bed and taking his hand. “And I know this is going to be a hard road to recovery. But your future isn’t over.”

  Even drugged, Nate couldn’t believe her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  ISRAEL

  Twelve days before

  ISRAEL HADN’T SEEN Nate since school let out over a week ago. If it weren’t for Izzy, who told Israel he had to visit after the surgery no matter how guilty he was feeling or how angry Nate still was, he wouldn’t be standing at the top of Nate’s steps in the rain, waiting for someone to answer the door.

  No one did.

  Israel twisted the knob; it was unlocked. At first Israel couldn’t see anyone from the entryway. The living room was dark except for the light from the TV. As his eyes adjusted, he spotted Nate’s hair, slung over the couch arm and shiny with grease. Israel shrugged off his rain jacket and approached Nate’s feet. His friend’s knee was braced and propped on a stack of three throw pillows, his shoulders propped with a few more, so his body formed a V. There were two plates on the coffee table, one with an uneaten sandwich and the other with browned apple slices.

  “Hey,” Israel said. Nate’s face remained strangely blank. He would have thought Nate were asleep if it weren’t for the fact that he was looking right at Israel. “I rang the doorbell, but—” Israel shook his head and started over. “I came by to see how you’re doing.”

  Nate ground his elbows into a pillow and tried to push himself up into a sitting position, but his efforts barely raised him an inch. He sank back into the pillow.

  “Do you need help?”

  Nate shook his head and finally spoke: “I like it here.” Israel wasn’t sure if he meant here on the pillows or here in the house. Nate pointed at the recliner, and Israel took a seat.

  “So how are you feeling?”

  Nate shrugged. “The PT is a bitch.”

  “Again, I’m really sorry, man.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you?” Israel said, a bit afraid of the answer.

  “Yeah. I have to move on and figure out who I am now.”

  “Who you are? What do you mean?”

  Nate was quiet for a moment, tilting his head back like he was listening to the rain on the roof. Israel began to wonder if he’d even heard the question.

  “I was a soccer player and now I’m not,” he finally said.

  Israel felt the sickening swirl of the guilt again in his gut. For Israel, soccer was an activity that looked good on his applications, but for Nate, it was something that gave him purpose. It was woven into his DNA.

  “It’s okay,” Nate said, like he was reading Israel’s mind. “I deserved it.”

  “What are you talking about? Nobody deserves that kind of thing.”

  “I did. I do.”

  The doorbell rang.

  “That’ll be Shane,” Nate said.

  But the girl who’d driven Nate to the hospital, Janie, stood on the steps with a yellow polka-dot umbrella instead when Israel went to open it.

  “Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “What are you sorry for?” he asked.

  “I—I—I live next door.” She pushed aside damp bangs.

  “I know,” he said. Why did she sound so nervous? He’d seen her with his sister a few times too, and she always acted like she was about to jump out of her skin.

  “I was just checking on Nate.”

  “Come on in.”

  “I better not,” she said. The words came out in a rush. Before Israel could protest, she spun quickly and jogged back down the steps. She slid at the bottom, and he thought, for a second, that he was going to have two broken knees on his conscience, but she recovered quickly and power walked through the yard to her own house, her green rubber boots squelching in the mud.

  Israel returned to the living room. “That girl Janie was here for you.”

  Nate sat up now, looking interested for the first time since Israel had arrived.

  “She said she shouldn’t stay,” Israel said.

  That deflated Nate again. “Of course not.”

  “Is she afraid of us or something?”

  “She’s afraid of breaking the rules, I think.”

  “What rules?”

  “The ones that keep us balanced just so.” Nate made a flat plane with his hand. Israel didn’t entirely understand, but there seemed to be rules between him and Nate, too, like the rule that they needed Shane to grease the wheels of their friendship.

  A few minutes later Shane arrived on Nate’s porch with a clump clump of his oversized feet. He was drenched, his white shirt transparent, his short hair lying in wet triangles, one dripping down the bridge of his nose.

  “God, man, I could have picked you up. Don’t you have an umbrella?” Israel asked.

  “I forgot it.” Shane stepped on the floor mat, shivering.

  Nate pushed himself up so he could see Shane from the couch. “Were you trying to drown yourself or something?” he asked. Then to Israel: “He can borrow some of Aaron’s clothes.”

  Israel returned with the largest sweatpants and sweatshirt he could find in Aaron’s room. Shane stripped right there on the mat, leaving his soggy shorts and T-shirt in a pile. The hems of Aaron’s sweatpants squeezed Shane’s calves and the sweatshirt showed a sliver of his belly. He looked like an overgrown child.

  This, Nate seemed to find hilarious. Usually, jokes didn’t elicit much more from Nate than a wry grin, but Shane’s appearance made him laugh so hard he clutched his stomach. Shane joined in, his laugh still the big, sunny gulps that drew everyone in. Israel was happy to see his friends acting carefree, if only for a minute.

  When the laughter died, Shane sank onto the floor, folding his knees to his chest and wrapping his long arms around them like he was preparing to cannonball. “Who knew junior year would end with such a shit storm,” he said. “Let’s hope senior year is better.”

  “I second that,” Israel said.

  “You second it?”

  “Yeah, like I agree and support your statement. You know, like with motions in a meeting?”

  “I know what seconding means. I’m not that stupid,” Shane said.

  Israel flinched. His friend had never talked that way to him before.

  “I’m asking why junior year was so shit for you?” Shane said. “I mean, you get good grades. You’re going to college. You have a car.”

  It stung to have his friend go after him like this—to be another person who couldn’t really see him—but
what could he expect? They only knew as much about him as he wanted them to know. And maybe they wouldn’t judge him. They’d all been through a lot lately. Maybe he could tell them the rest.

  “I have nightmares,” Israel said quietly. “Well, they’re actually memories, of someone else’s death. And they’re getting bad. Or they were always bad and it’s getting to me more now because I’m stressed out. Making me feel like I’m going to break. I know, I sound crazy.” He said it as fast as he could, hoping that the more he talked, the less likely they’d be to laugh.

  But they didn’t laugh: Shane looked downward like a scolded dog and Nate squinted at him, as though trying to focus.

  “I have a secret too.” Shane glanced at the door as though someone might be eavesdropping on them. “I can’t really read. Not very well, anyway.”

  “That’s not a secret, man,” Nate said, so gently that Israel thought he might cry for Nate. For Shane. For himself.

  “It’s not?”

  Israel had witnessed Shane leaning forward in his desk so that he could see over the shoulder of the person in front of him many times. He’d tilted his own paper too. “No,” Israel said, trying to make his voice as gentle as Nate’s.

  Shane sighed. “Cass knew too. Do you think that’s why—why—”

  “No way,” Nate said vehemently. “That didn’t have anything to do with you. That was about her.”

  “When you said you feel like you’re going to break, I feel that way too,” Shane said to Israel. “Or I feel like I did break. And I don’t know how to put myself back together. Or if I even can.”

  Israel nodded. “Every night, I’m this guy named Randolph, who has a son and wife. And I’m in a car, skidding across the pavement, and then it catches fire and I can’t escape.”

  Nate shuddered.

  “How do you know it’s real?” Shane asked.

  “I found him,” Israel said. “The son.”

  “Fuck. Really?” Shane asked.

  Israel nodded. “I’m trying to stop the memories. I have to.” His voice cracked with desperation, but he took a breath. “And I think I found a way. I just need to learn how to fly.” It scared him—being so vulnerable with these two friends, who he’d always thought of as the royalty of their high school—especially after his own parents, their doctor, and Peter had all treated him like he was unhinged.

  “How to fly? Like fly a plane?” Shane asked.

  Israel nodded.

  “I love a good adventure,” Nate said.

  “I could use an escape,” said Shane.

  Israel thought of the moment in his nightmare where he pushed the red seat belt button over and over, where he tugged on the fabric. It had never released before, but OtherPlanes had given him back a sliver of hope. There’s a way out.

  And if his friends were willing to help, then maybe it really was possible.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  SHANE

  Eleven days before

  “SO WE’RE GOING to a flight school,” Shane said as he settled into the passenger seat beside Israel. Nate was already in back.

  “Yep,” Israel said. “This guy I’m talking to—he’s an expert on transmigration—said—”

  “Wait. Hold up. Transmigration?” Shane interrupted. Anything was better than sitting at home, trying not to check his phone every few seconds to see if Cass had posted anything on social media, but this still seemed wild.

  “Another word for reincarnation. I like it because it sounds less religious.”

  Less religious? Shane thought transmigration sounded like a cult practice.

  “Okay, so how exactly do you get to be an expert at transmigration?” Nate asked.

  “Most of us remember a little bit from one past life—usually only our deaths—but he remembers, like, all of them,” Israel said.

  “And what’s flying supposed to do about your dream?” Nate asked.

  “I’m trying to find this thing he saw in a past life. A doorway, I guess.” Israel spoke with such conviction that Shane twisted in his seat to make eye contact with Nate. Nate, who normally would have raised his eyebrows back at Shane, looked out the window.

  People were truly unknowable, Shane was beginning to realize. Everyone held a version of themselves up to the light while the real person crouched beneath. Except for him. Everyone had already seen through to who he was: a fraud, a failure.

  They crossed the bridge and drove down a country road for miles, the view occasionally punctuated by iron arches over ranch driveways. Homewood. Creek’s End. Douglas Ranch. When Israel’s phone alerted them that they’d arrived, there was nothing but a small blue sign. They turned, their tires kicking up dust. The drive cut through a pasture of scutch grass that was more dirt than plant. It felt like they were entering another world altogether: a dry, empty place.

  Three silver hangars sat at the end of the drive, a pair of pickups to the side and a small white airplane in front. A goateed man dressed in jeans and cowboy boots, an undershirt, and a tattered red baseball hat stepped onto the plane’s wing and climbed out.

  “That’s the pilot?” Shane asked.

  “Brad?” Israel asked when they were out of the car.

  The man nodded, a gold bar earring catching the sunlight. “You must be Israel.”

  “Yeah, these are my friends Nate and Shane.”

  Brad tilted his head back, as though he wanted to appraise them better from under the shade of his hat. Shane caught a glimpse of his eyes. They were like shallow tide pools: flat and blue with only sand beneath.

  “I hope that’s okay,” Israel said.

  “As long as y’all pay.” The man waved them into the hangar. “Sorry it’s so dark. There’s no AC, so I keep the lights off to make it cooler.” It was humid inside and smelled dizzyingly of fuel. A white-haired man in coveralls had a flashlight in his hand and appeared to be inspecting the engine of another plane. Shane wandered up to it. It was bigger than the one out front but still smaller than he’d imagined—like a sports car with wings.

  “I had a few students before you arrived,” the man said, but Shane found this hard to believe. It seemed like these two men were alone in the middle of this plane desert and always had been.

  “You boys thinking about becoming pilots?” Brad asked. “As your career?”

  They shook their heads.

  “Lots want to be commercial pilots, but out here you set your own hours.” Brad gazed out of the hangar, apparently seeing something in the drab landscape that Shane could not. “You can work for ranchers or do ads over the beach. Or teach lessons to folks, like me. Your life is yours. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” At this, he looked right at Shane. It sent goose bumps up his arms. Shane was so dependent on others, his life had never felt like his own.

  Shane could imagine himself now—not as a commercial pilot, but running a charter service, an island-hopper for the rich tourists so they could avoid the wait for the ferry and the toll bridges. He’d wear white short-sleeve button-downs, a hat like the commercial guys, and a bomber jacket the one month of the year it was cool out. He’d use his hosting skills, serving the tourists champagne when they boarded and promising them a smooth ride. He wouldn’t be at anyone else’s mercy, and people—if they thought of him at all—would remember him as the charming man who kept them safe. Nothing less.

  “We’ll go over payment, paperwork, and requirements for licensure up front and take a tour,” the man said with a grin. “And then we’ll get started for real next time.” Hearing that, Shane was more enthused than he’d ever been for school.

  * * *

  • • •

  When he got home later, Shane’s mom was in the kitchen, clipping daisy stems over the sink. Several already clipped blooms stood in mason jars tied with twine.

  “Where have you been?”

  �
�With the guys.”

  She sighed and put down the scissors. “Is this how you’re going to spend your whole summer?”

  “How should I be spending it?”

  “Thinking about your future.”

  He wanted to tell her that he was thinking of his future, and for the first time, it wasn’t with dread. But they’d agreed to keep flying a secret from their families to protect the real reason they were taking lessons—Israel’s real reason, that is.

  “I am, Mom,” he said.

  She wasn’t done with him, though. She pressed her lips. “I know you’re hurting. Heartbreaks are among the worst kinds of pain.”

  “There’s worse?” It was a joke, but she took him seriously and nodded.

  “Death is worse,” she said, and looked out the kitchen window. He knew she was thinking of her sister who’d died of ovarian cancer a few years before.

  “No one is dying, Mom,” he said. “I promise.”

  She gave him one of those sad smiles adults use to mean, I’ve seen more of the world than you. “Don’t forget to do your laundry,” she said.

  “Yeah, yeah. I won’t. Oh, can I borrow some money? A check.”

  “For what?” his mom asked. Shane’s parents didn’t usually blink when he asked for money. They told him that his only job was school.

  But he’d prepared an excuse, just in case. “An SAT prep class,” he said, knowing she’d eat it up. He was right. She beamed at him and gave him a blank check from her purse.

  Upstairs, Shane downloaded a flight simulator on his laptop. Eventually, Brad had told them, Shane would have to pass a written test, but he decided to cross that bridge later. The next lesson would be on the ground and in the air because, according to Brad, you learned to fly by actually doing it. Shane wanted to be as prepared as he could be.

  The simulator directed Shane to select a plane, and he picked a Cessna that looked like one in the hangar. The tutorial, though, was a string of text that appeared on the screen, and he was expected to read it while flying the animated plane. Shane turned the text off. He’d have to learn by trying—just like in real life.