I look away before she catches my stare.
“How was school this last semester?” she asks, bending down to pick up a small stone on the shore.
I glance away from her hands, turning over the stone in her fingers, and say, “Tedious. I don’t think my teachers liked me very much. What about you?”
“It was okay.” She shrugs and looks over the river again. “It’ll be weird this year, though. I’ve never changed schools before.”
“I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
“What’s your favorite subject?”
“History.”
I feel like I should smile at that, but it doesn’t come.
“Really?” she says, smiling again. “I never would have thought that. I didn’t think anyone liked history besides the teacher.” Then she adds, “Are you glad it’s almost over?”
I shift my weight, wondering if I can change the subject before she realizes it, but it’s no use. The truth will come out eventually. “I’m actually not going back to school,” I tell her. “I took my GED test a couple months ago.”
The skin between her eyebrows creases together. “Why?”
“I got expelled,” I say, trying to sound like it doesn’t bother me. “I guess they have a problem with kids who don’t take attendance seriously.”
Harper doesn’t have a response for this, because she knows exactly what I mean. She probably thought I didn’t do that anymore. I think everyone thought it was a “phase” I’d been going through. Like most kids with problems.
If only.
I can see her thinking about something, and I wish I knew what.
Then she says the last thing I expected: “Let’s go swimming.”
“What?”
“Swimming,” she says again. “When was the last time you went?”
“Probably the last time you were here,” I admit. Libby never wanted to go without Harper here. It was never any fun with just the two of us.
“All the more reason to do it,” Harper says, shrugging.
Before I can say another word, she takes off her T-shirt, revealing a dark tank top underneath. Then she kicks off her shoes, leaving them on the bank.
“I don’t think I feel like—”
“Come on, Kale.” Harper backs into the water, a smile playing along her lips. Daring me. “What else do you have to do?”
I kick off my shoes in response and reach back to pull my T-shirt over my head. The water is freezing and I have to hold back a shiver. A part of me is afraid it’ll trigger unwanted traveling, but I convince myself it’s too soon to worry about it. I sink deep into the river. Letting it wash over my chest and then my shoulders. My bruised ribs ache every time I take a breath, but the water feels good.
Harper is already in the middle of the river, where the wide bend arches around, the water coming to a standstill before moving on. It’s deep enough to come up to our necks.
The pebbles are smooth under my feet, and the pull of the river lures me downstream, but I don’t let it drag me away.
One summer, Libby and I decided we wouldn’t swim in the river until Harper was with us. And summer came early that year. The days would make us sweat and stare up at the sun, only to wonder if it would bake you if you stood there long enough. Going down to the river was tortuous. We would stand on the shore, our Tshirts clinging to our backs and our hair damp.
On a Saturday afternoon, Uncle Jasper called the house, telling us Harper was here. We ran out the door and down the path, not caring about the sun because we were finally going to swim.
We ran through the back door and shed our shoes. I was the first up the steps and into Harper’s room, where her bag wasn’t even unpacked yet.
But when I saw her, I stopped, blocking half the doorway, because I instantly knew something was wrong. She was always great at faking things like that. But not with me.
When Libby pushed past me into the room, Harper put on a smile and agreed to go swimming with us.
Libby went back downstairs to find Aunt Holly, but I stood there until Harper finally looked at me. She knew she could fool Libby—not me.
I never had to say a word.
“It’s nothing,” she said, digging through her bag and avoiding my eyes.
“Harper—”
“Kale,” she said in the same tone. That’s what she did when she wanted to change the subject. She would make it into a joke. But this time her smile fell, like the act was too much for her to keep up. “I’m fine. Let’s just go swimming, okay?”
Now so many years later, this Harper has gotten so much better at hiding things. Even with me. I don’t realize it until now, when—for an instant—she gets this faraway look in her eyes, like she’s thinking about something she’s trying to bury. It comes and goes so fast.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She blinks and it’s gone. “Yeah, why?”
“I’m not Libby,” I say. “You might be better at hiding things, but this is me you’re talking to.” Then I ask, “Six years isn’t too long to forget that, is it?”
Harper stares, the water coming up to her chin. “Maybe. I also thought a person could change in that time. But I was wrong about that, too.”
The little moment of happiness that I may, or may not, have had is gone. She might have been talking about herself, or maybe her mom, but it hits too close to home for me to ignore it.
I move away from her and say, “I need to go.”
“Kale, wait,” she calls after me.
I wade out of the water and pull on my shoes, not caring if I get them wet.
Harper puts her hand on my arm and I stop, my wet fingers clutching my shirt. I can’t remember the last time someone touched me like this.
“Kale.” The way she says my name makes my heart jump. “Just … please, listen.” She doesn’t speak again until I look at her. She lets go of my arm and says, “I wasn’t talking about you—”
“But it still applies, doesn’t it?” My voice is harsher than it should be.
Harper wants to deny something she can’t, I can see it. Then she says, “If you haven’t, then I’m okay with that.”
“What do you mean, you’re okay with that?”
Harper looks suddenly like she doesn’t know me. Maybe she doesn’t. I barely know myself. “I’m okay with it, because it’s you.”
“Well, I haven’t.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing. Maybe you haven’t changed—or haven’t seen yourself change—but you have.”
“I haven’t changed, because I can’t.”
We both know what I’m talking about. We aren’t talking about change—we’re talking about me leaving. Always leaving because I can’t stop.
I can never stop.
“Why?” Her voice is desperate for an answer.
“I can’t.”
When I don’t say anything else—letting those words sink in—I think she finally understands, even if she doesn’t know the truth. Because when most people say they can’t, they don’t mean they can’t. They either mean they’re too afraid to or don’t want to.
I am neither.