Anything but Ordinary(31)

“He’s taking me to see Gabby,” Bryce said automatically. “I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah,” Carter said as they helped each other up.

Bryce opened the car door, then turned back to him. “See you.”

“Okay.”

She got in and slammed the door, watching Carter’s frame grow smaller in the rearview mirror as they drove away.





here to?” Greg said, his eyes ahead.

Bryce peeled her eyes from the mirror, breathing in the smell of air freshener hanging near the air conditioner. She pushed the OFF button and rolled down the window, closing her eyes as the breeze played on her face.

“Anywhere,” she said, leaning her head back on the brown leather headrest.

Over the rumble of his engine, Bryce heard him drawl, “If we could really go anywhere, I’d drive us down to Louisiana. Get one of those boats with fans on the back and float through the swamps. All the way down the gulf. Sleep in a hut hanging over the marshlands. Wake up and eat shrimp straight out of the water.”

“Louisiana in the summer, Greg?” Bryce chuckled, her eyes still closed. “It’d be like walking through an armpit.”

Still, she imagined it. Greg posed like a pirate at the front of the flat boat as it chugged through the moss and the reeds, his bare back golden brown, shining, his T-shirt tied around his head to soak up the sweat.

They drove for miles and miles, and Bryce let herself be lulled by the steady motion of the car. She was surprised when the truck slowed down outside of a long, manicured driveway, and they pulled into the parking lot of a golf course. A gilded metal sign read WHISPERING PINES.

Bryce got out of the truck, looking out over the hoods of expensive cars. “What, you want to hit a few balls?”

“Nah,” Greg said, coming around the side of the truck to stand with her. He stripped off his pale blue polo and tossed it through the open window. He wore a gray Army T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and Bryce felt her face grow hot. “Come on.”

Bryce followed him along the fairway, ducking behind a long row of pines, hearing the golfers’ shouts and laughter tinkling from the green. Finally they reached a slope covered in rocks.

Greg scaled down the slope with ease and waited for Bryce at the dusty bottom, sandstone surrounding them on both sides. “You’re never gonna guess where this goes.”

The deep V of rocks went on for some time. Bryce watched her footing as they went, the sandstone dust staining the red of her boots. Suddenly the sun’s glare wasn’t so strong.

She looked up. Thick metal slats crisscrossed above them, holding up a groaning metal bridge. Trees rose up where the rocks ended, close in color to the rust caked on the large circular bolts. She heard the sharp, sweet chirps of birds, with sparkling clarity. The shadows swirled around the lines of the bridge like ribbons.

“It’s a riverbed,” Greg said, his chest lifting and falling under the triangle of sweat at his collar. “Or at least, it was.”

Bryce smiled, remembering all the places Greg had led her. She had grown to trust the peaceful expression on his face when he was looking for just the right place, like he was fixing something that was broken. She’d follow his figure even as he wriggled through holes in electric fences, so they could find what he deemed a perfect spot in some farmer’s field. Once he found it, there was no fanfare; he would just sit down and pull grass out of the earth as he wondered aloud whether aliens existed, or if there was a spot on earth where no person had stood before. She always thought they were going to get caught trespassing, but they never did.

Bryce noticed tracks running across the bridge. “Do trains still run on this?”

“Never saw one before,” Greg said, making his way toward Bryce. He stood with his shoulder almost touching hers, his arms crossed. “But it’s been a long time since I’ve been out here.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve been anywhere,” Bryce breathed, enjoying the dappled light on the sharp rocks, the way the bridge and the trees seemed to support each other. “Feels like I’ve spent my life in a hospital bed. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.”

“Funny,” Greg said, chucking a rock down the empty riverbed as if skipping it. “You’re always trying to get out of that hospital, while I always had trouble getting in.”

Bryce raised her eyebrows in surprise as Greg told her how he almost got arrested trying to sneak into her hospital room after hours when they were seventeen.

“When you first got there your room was on the first floor, near the ICU. So when they tried to boot me one night when visiting hours were over, I climbed back in the window.”

Bryce laughed. “Did it work?”

Greg grinned up at the bridge above them, remembering. “Yeah, no,” he drawled. “It was the wrong window and the guy in there started screaming.”

“I wish I could have seen that,” Bryce laughed, her heart flooding. They climbed up to the edge of the riverbed, where the rocks met dry grass. They sat down beside each other, splaying out their feet.

Greg reached out to touch her cheek. “It was somethin’,” he said.

“Greg.” Bryce pulled away. “We can’t.”

He looked down. “I know, it’s just…” Then he looked up, his eyes meeting hers. “What if we could?”