I ask, “So what happened?”
He clears his throat and continues. “I told him, ‘Please don’t tell anyone.’ Then I was just gone. I ended up somewhere in the nineties so it was an easy year, but the whole time I was there, I couldn’t stop thinking about Miles and if he would ever talk to me again.”
“I guess he did—talk to you, I mean.”
Kale nods. “Oh yeah, I called him when I got back and he came right over with my baseball stuff I left behind, nonstop asking questions. Almost as much as you the other night.” Then he looks at me different and asks, “But what about you?”
“What about me?”
“Did you leave any friends behind when you left?”
I run my teeth over my bottom lip and shake my head. “No. Nobody worth mentioning, anyway. I had some friends in middle school, but things changed when we grew up. Well … I changed. I guess they didn’t like who I turned out to be.”
“I like who you turned out to be,” Kale murmurs. He stares a moment before shrugging. “I mean, I always have.”
I hear Bryce downstairs in the kitchen. Even so, the house still feels too quiet. “At least I’ll have a couple friends when I start the school year. It’s better than where I left off. Wish you were going to be there, though.”
“Wish I was, too,” he says, staring at the floor again, looking like he wants to say something else but doesn’t. He has that look a lot, like there are things he’s thinking but will never say. Not even to me.
“We’re still neighbors and we’ll see each other,” I tell him. The floor creaks underneath my feet when I move and sit down next to him. “Even if it means you’re my only source of a social life.”
“What social life?” Kale looks up, smiling wide enough so his dimple appears.
“Exactly.” My hearts pounds faster, my mouth dry. “But it’s different with you. I don’t know how to explain it.”
“I do.” There are bits of blue in his gray eyes, something I haven’t been close enough to see in a long time. “When I’m around you,” he says, “I don’t care if I ever see another person.”
My smile slowly disappears, too nervous to do anything but keep his gaze. The room is deafening, and the only thing I hear is something pounding against my chest.
For the shortest moment, I think Kale might kiss me. And it’s the scariest moment in my life. How can something that should be simple be so confusing and cause so much anxiety?
Downstairs, the door slams shut and Kale flinches and looks away. We hear a truck start up outside and the tires crunch down the gravel driveway. Five years ago, being alone in the house with Kale wouldn’t have meant a thing to me, but not now. Not when there’s nothing but air between us and my heart is telling me to do something reckless.
I can’t lie to myself and say he’s just my next-door neighbor. Not anymore.
“I should get home,” I hear myself say. “Uncle Jasper gets cranky when he doesn’t eat dinner and he won’t start without me.”
He nods, almost too quickly. “Okay.”
Once we’re out of his room and downstairs, it feels like whatever happened upstairs never did, and my heartbeat returns to normal once I get outside. The sun is just over the trees now, shining an orange-yellow light into the woods. Kale follows me out the door after slipping on his shoes.
“I thought Uncle Jasper gave you Aunt Holly’s old Rabbit,” he says, looking over to where his car sits alone.
“He did,” I say, “but I felt like walking. Driving point-four miles seems like a waste of gas when I have legs that work just fine.”
Kale groans. “You’re making me sound lazy.”
“And I’m making myself sound like I actually care about saving gas.”
He laughs once, glancing toward the woods. “Let me walk you home then. After all, it is my fault you had to come over here.”
“You don’t have to.” I look over, meeting his gaze.
“I want to. Come on.”
I follow Kale into the woods and along the narrow path we know so well. The birds fly between the trees, catching bugs in the evening light. When we come to the bend in the river, where there are no trees to filter the light, the sun shines down full, reflecting off the water and turning it into a mirror. I slow down, almost able to see to the bottom from how clear it is.
I feel Kale next to me, close enough to touch. But I don’t look at him, afraid I’ll lose my nerve. So instead, I ask, “Feel like going for a swim?”
“You really like swimming, don’t you?”
“You already know that. Come on, we’ll be quick.” I slip off my shoes and stuff my socks inside, acting before I change my mind. I’m not going to mess this up again. I’m not.
“Seriously, right now?”
Kale stares at me like he did last time. Like I’m joking. “Why not? Besides, we haven’t played Sinking Ship without Libby before, and without her here, maybe one of us will actually win.”
I take off my T-shirt, keeping my tank-top on.
“I don’t even remember how she did it,” he says. “I think she almost made me drown once from laughing so hard.”
“I don’t know either. But now we have the chance to see which of us is better.” When he still doesn’t make a move, I say, “Come on, Kale. I promise, this will be the last time I ask you.”
Kale lets out a quick breath, a sign of him giving in. “All right, fine.” He kicks off his shoes, leaving them next to mine, and slips his T-shirt off. I try not to stare at his chest and flat stomach, or the lines of his hips that disappear into his jeans. The bullet gaze is barely visible across his ribs. It’s hard to get used to this Kale. The one who isn’t a boy anymore.
I step into the river, feeling the slippery stones under my feet and the cold water creeping up my skin. When I reach the middle where the water comes up to my neck, Kale is right behind me. We wade out in the middle, barely able to touch the bottom. There’s a large rock on the river bed, right beneath us. We don’t have to look down to know it’s there.
“Are you sure about this?” Kale asks, his dark hair splashing black against his face.
“I don’t know, but let’s do it before I change my mind.”
We both take deep breaths and sink down at the same time, grabbing hold of the rock at the bottom to keep us anchored.
The world underwater is a quiet one, one unlike any other. The sunlight shines through the water, right down to where we’re floating at the bottom with our hair pulled by the lazy current.
We were smiling on our way down, but now, the distractions from the top world are gone and the watchful eyes of the clouds are forgotten. Everything above us slowly fades until nothing is left. Down here, it’s only us. And something neither of us can ignore it any longer.
When he comes closer, I don’t feel the knot in my stomach like I did before—when we were in his room and I couldn’t think of anything except how hot the air felt and the lump in the mattress I sat on.
Here, nothing feels more right.