I clench my teeth before willing myself to remain cool. Casual. Just any other night. “Honestly, I’m tired and bloated and a little crampy.”
Well, Dad’s out. He instantly focuses back on the screen. “Good night, then.”
Mom’s not so easily repelled by seedy underbelly of female biology. “Already? But you aren’t due for another week.”
I just stand there for a moment, too stunned to do much more than stare agog at her. “You’re tracking my cycles?” Tagged, migratory birds are observed less than this.
“Well, I’d use the term ‘tracking’ very loosely here, Vandy-Bean. It’s all over the place.” She grabs her phone from the table, thumbs moving deftly over the screen. “I’m making you an appointment with Doctor Telsky this week.”
It takes me a long moment to remember who that is. I have so many doctors, specialists, therapists, and old home care nurses that they’ve sort of congealed into a single unidentifiable blob of needles, pastel scrubs, and gentle bedside manner. It used to work in my favor, though. It’s a lot easier to talk yourself into a prescription with that many chefs in the stew.
I groan when it hits me. “The gyno? Seriously? It’s just a period, Mom!”
“I know you don’t want to go on the pill,” she insists, probably already texting the office, “but it’ll help regulate it.”
My poor dad looks like he’s trying to melt into the couch cushions.
I’d argue with her, but time is quickly getting away from me. “You know what? Fine. Make the appointment.”
She looks so pleased at my acceptance that I almost feel bad for what I do next.
It’s not hard to make all the perfunctory sounds of me ascending the stairs, using the bathroom, and getting ready for bed. It’s a touch more difficult to quietly make my way back down, but weeks of sneaking around during sleepless nights have made me a deft foot at navigating all creaks, every stilted footfall, each knob, any hinge.
Knowing that doesn’t make my heartbeat any less thunderous.
I sneak out the garage door, because it’s the farthest from the den and any visible windows. As soon as I hit the night air, something inside me all at once loosens and clenches, like a bird finally fluttering free of its cage. I start toward the boat ramp two blocks from my house. Everything in the area is connected to the lake. The houses, the town, even the Academy. The night is thick and humid, filled with a symphony of cicada, and the impulse to run is so intense that I’m buzzing with it, this need to get away, to go toward something. Thankfully there’s no sign of Jerry, who’s either nodding off in the gate shack or sitting outside Reyn’s house to ensure he’s not causing trouble.
Speaking of Reyn…
He’s not on the boat ramp when I get to the top of the hill and look down at the water. No one is. I stand there for a suspended moment, panting more from exhilaration than exertion, and wonder why he isn’t here, too.
I pull out the black envelope and squint at the card inside for the millionth time.
Meet at the Cedar Shoals boat ramp, 10pm.
Come alone.
“No one can hurry me down to Hades before my time, but if a man's hour is come, be he brave or be he coward, there is no escape for him when he has once been born.”
Elevatio Infernum
I run my thumb over the embossed pitchfork stamped at the bottom. Because I’d searched online earlier, I know the quote is from the Iliad, and although the context is steeped in the grim fate of war, I also know what it means here; that there’s no turning back. I’d googled the Latin, too.
Raising hell.
Ominous much?
I’m sweating by the time I get to the weathered floating dock, both from nerves and the humidity. There’s a deep, tugging ache in my lower back, and as I gaze out over the dark water, I begin wishing I’d taken a dose before I left.
No.
No, it’s better like this, sober and clear-headed, able to take in every detail. I gulp in the heavy air and feel it—that same exhilaration I’d felt on the steps of Cresswell after the football game. Even the tight ball of anxiety wedged beneath my ribs is something bright and swooping and so unapologetically alive that it makes my ears hum with the spastic pressure of it.
It’s embarrassing how long it takes me to realize that I’m not the one humming.
I hear the motorboat entire minutes before I see the dark shape of it gliding across the glassy surface. Running lights reflect off the water the closer it comes, and when it’s near enough to make out the driver of the boat, my stomach drops.