“Here I am,” I say, lowering my hand and closing my eyes again.
With a heavy thud, Drew drops into the grass next to me. “Your mum said there was a letter from the college?”
“Yup.” I can’t help the grin. It’s too much fun to play coy.
“And?”
“And what?”
“Did you get in, you overmodest dumbass?”
“Got in.”
His hand closes around my shoulder and gives me a good, firm shake. “Congratulations! That’s amazing news!”
I let him shake me, my head lolling with each impulse.
“Yup.”
It’s always been like this. He’s the loud, energetic one, and I’m the quiet one, trudging after him. I don’t mind, though. I enjoy not having to be the one to carry the conversation, to make the decisions when I don’t care either way. Drew has always been happy to fill up whatever space between us I left empty. That’s why he’s my best friend.
Not that that makes me special in any capacity. Drew is everybody’s best friend. He’s our school’s resident golden boy — an amazing swimmer with the upbeat extroversion of a golden retriever, and the looks to support his status as the literal center of attention.
“So you thought you’d celebrate by going outside and lying in the grass somewhere?”
“Yup.”
“Honestly understandable.” He pauses. “The great Max Feeld is moving out to conquer the world. Ain’t that news?” He says it like he’s already dreaming of it.
I hit him. My fist seems tiny against his shoulder. I doubt I’d be able to hurt him if I tried. “It’s not that special! I still might flunk at uni or something.”
He lets out a bray of a laugh. “Snowball’s chance in hell!”
“Right. Gimme five years, and I’ll be the president.”
He acts shocked. “Is that confidence I’m hearing? From you?”
I don’t reply.
The earliest memory I have is of Drew. I was on the playground down the street, sitting in the sandpit, playing with my molds. When I looked up, there was a boy standing next to me, asking brightly, “Do you want to be friends?”
And that was kind of that. We soon found out that he had just moved into the house next door, and so we saw each other not just every day at kindergarten, but also before and after school.
After a while baking quietly in the sun, Drew nudges me. “Wanna go to the lake? You’ve got your swimming stuff in your bag, right?”
He’s really not very good at idly lying around. That’s another way we differ. He loves to run, to climb, to talk. He doesn’t deal very well with long periods of silence. Even in class, he’s always doodling in his notebook. He says it helps him concentrate.
“Yup.”
“So?”
“Sure, let’s do it.”
He practically jumps to his feet, and by the time my eyes have adjusted to the blinding light of the sun, his hand is already extended, waiting to hoist me up. He pulls me to my feet like I weigh nothing at all, and has to steady me with his forearm to keep me from face-planting.
The lake isn’t far from where we were laying down. We only have to walk a little further along the street, and the glittering surface of the water comes into view.
I love the lake. If the weather and time allowed it, I would probably come here every day. To swim, lounge in the grass by the water, go for walks around it. It’s far enough away from the properly urbanized areas that it is pretty empty here and only gets crowded on the weekends. I only like to swim when it’s mostly deserted. You know, male chest, et cetera.
Right now, there’s nobody else here. It’s late afternoon on a Wednesday; people might still show up, but it is only going to get cooler now as the day draws to a close.
Arriving in our usual spot by the water, we drop our things and start changing. Drew is already wearing his trunks and only has to take off his T-shirt, revealing his toned abs, pecs, and shoulders in a single, fluid motion. Meanwhile, I wrap a towel around my hips, laboriously swapping my shorts for swimming trunks before taking off my top.
Next to Drew, I know I look tiny. I don’t work out enough to gain muscle: when I tense my core, the line down the center of my abs becomes visible. But that’s about it.
As Drew turns and starts walking towards the water, I watch the shifting in his back muscles. It’s hypnotizing, the way his muscles clench, moving with his shoulder blades as he rotates his arms in preparation for the swim.
“You coming?” he asks, turning to grin at me.
I flinch, then give a hurried nod and follow him to the edge of the water.
With the sun beating against my chest and face, the coolness of the water is just right. I revel in it as I walk in further, until the ripples leak against my belly button. A breeze picks up, shifting my hair, cradling my bare torso.
Next to me, Drew has stopped wading. “To the rocks?” he asks, busy rotating his shoulders.
“M-hm!”
The rocks are a conveniently placed group of boulders at the center of the lake — perfect for youth like us to sunbathe on or jump off. Drew and I spent whole days there when we were younger, ferrying food over in tightly tied garbage bags.
“Race ya?” Drew’s eyes gleam in the sunlight as his grim turns impish.
“In your dreams!” I yell, diving into the water. My bare toes push against the soft mud as my face breaks through the surface, and I do the first stroke to push myself under. This is my favorite part about swimming. The first dive. That moment when the heat of the day fades, when the sweat and dust are washed away, and the current, the slight pull of it in your hair, stays. My lungs are filled to the brim with air, and as my legs kick out, it feels like I will never have to come back up. It feels like I don’t need air, like my body has been breathing merely for the comfort of nice smells.
My movements are slow and measured. My arms stretch out forward, pushing water aside with barely hollowed palms before my legs kick.
When I resurface, the shore has moved a considerable distance away, and I’m proud, only to see Drew surfacing ahead of me, almost a third of the way to the rocks.
I don’t yell, though. My movements stay calm and wide, my face barely disturbing the surface as I glide through the water.
Drew waits for me. When I catch up with him, he’s floating on his back with only his nose, eyes, and mouth above the surface. He must have heard my movement, because he opens his eyes as I draw close and turns back around. He doesn’t grin or make a joke, though, about how much slower I am. He stopped with those years ago, when he started to get significantly more athletic than me, and he figured out that I didn’t like such comments.
“So, does that mean that you’ll disappear now?” he asks abruptly, as the rocks slowly edge closer. “Never looking back?”
My stomach draws together at the question. How did he—
“I mean, obviously, we’ll stay in contact,” he goes on, musing, not noticing my reaction. “But you’ve never really talked to any of the others, have you?”
I release a breath. The relief comes with a big helping of guilt, though. I plan to never look back, breaking contact with him just as much as with everybody else. “Why would I?”
Drew cocks his head before reaching up to pull himself up onto the rocks. Water droplets fly off his skin in cascades, and I once again catch myself staring.
“You could make friends? Live it up a little before moving away.”
He offers me his hand, but I ignore it, heaving myself up onto the stone clumsily. Without his help, I have to rest my chest against the hot stone before readjusting my grip to push myself up further to finally get my legs up as well.
“Why would it matter?” I ask, slightly out of breath. “It would be just another month and a half anyway.” The faster I’m out of here, the better, after all.
“Because it’s fun? You haven’t even been to a single party yet. You’re supposed to look back at this time with nostalgia. You know, the good old times.”
I frown. Literally all I care about is getting the hell out of here. Why would I care about making memories? “They don’t even like me.”
“They don’t know you. There’s a difference.”
That did not stop them from bullying me in the past, but I don’t bring that up. I haven’t been pushed in the hallway in four years. They mostly just leave me alone now — I don’t know why myself, the only way I can explain it is that they lost interest.
“So… what?” I ask incredulously. “You think if I go to parties now and start hanging out with people, I’ll make friends?”
“Yup!” he says, as he vaults up the next-highest boulder. “And I can say that with certainty, because unlike them, I do know you.”
He lowers his shoulders in a slight crouch, then takes a step forward and jumps off. His body describes a perfect arch, and he dives into the water with barely any splash.
I watch the ripples in the water as I wait for him to resurface. A confusing new thought has overtaken the proposal in my mind: if I’m feeling bad for leaving Drew behind, wouldn’t it be a good present to leave him with some good memories of me? Wouldn’t it be nice to have some good memories with him, too? Because in spite of all my convictions, I know that I’m going to miss this. I’m going to miss him.
“So, what do you say?” Drew asks, climbing back onto the rock. With the droplets on his skin, it looks like his freckles glitter in the sunlight. “It’s not like you have anything to lose, is it? Two months and you’re gone and all that stuff.”
I haven’t moved since he jumped, still sitting with my legs stretched out over the hot stone, leaning back onto my arms. I have to lean back my head to meet his eyes.
“Would it make you happy?”
“It would!” he says positively. “And it would make you happy, as well.”
***
I return to shore before Drew. He said he wanted to do a few more laps and went off in the opposite direction after making sure I didn’t mind waiting for him. The opposite is the case: I have something to do that I don’t want him around for.
The wet towel underneath me, my damp hair carefully tied back, I pull out my notebook again. The click of the pen is almost expectant, like it’s curious what we’re going to write now.
The notebook opens easily to the first blank page, but I don’t start writing immediately. Instead, I watch the little silhouette in the water, calmly swimming a wide arc around the rocks.
Yes, I think, my conviction rising. If it makes him happy…
It’s like the pen moves on its own as I start writing.
Sunshine asks me to come outside,
Tries to coax me out of the safety of my room
With the promise of a beautiful summer.
I follow, because I hope to feel his warmth
One last time.