Stranger in the Lake(38)
“I’m taking a detour.”
Micah twisted on the passenger’s seat. “This ain’t a detour, man. This is the wrong way.”
“Would you both just shut up and enjoy the ride? Listen to the music and just...chill. I know where I’m going.”
His friends were just high enough to let it go, and chatter turned to the most likely place to score some booze. Jax sank into silence. US 64 was a sloppy two-laner lined with gorges and dented guardrails under a canopy of trees, obscuring everything in darkness. It was hypnotic, the way the road dipped and disappeared just beyond the headlights, how it was the yellow lines that seemed to be whipping by instead of the car shooting forward. Jax laid on the gas, leaning into the curves in a way that had even Micah grabbing for the ceiling handle.
Jax looked over with a laugh. “Stop being such a pussy.”
“Stop driving like you have a death wish.”
“Pull over,” Paul said from the back seat. He was flush to the bench now, the seat belt tight across his chest, his hands gripping the seat on either side of his legs. “Let me drive for a while.”
It wasn’t the worst idea. Everything about Paul was neat and precise, including the way he drove, like Jax’s great-aunt Eleanor. Both stuck to the speed limits and kept their hands at ten and two. They liked order and craved control. He’d be a lot safer with Paul behind the wheel.
But Jax wasn’t looking for safety. He was looking for something that made him feel alive. The road stretched on, rising and switching back, rising again. Paul and Micah fell still.
At the end of a straight stretch, Jax veered onto the shoulder and slammed the brakes, his tires fishtailing in the gravel.
“Holy shit,” Paul muttered, slumping against the back seat. “You really could use some anger management. Has anybody ever told you that?”
Jax laughed despite himself.
Micah leaned into the windshield, frowning. “Rhodes Overlook, are you kidding me? It’s summer, not to mention nighttime. There’s no way we’re seeing the bear.”
It wasn’t a bear but a bear shadow, one that only appeared in the fall. Months from now, people would flock to this spot from all over, leaf watchers waiting for the sun to dip behind Whiteside Mountain and cast a bear-shaped shadow on the treetops below, rippling branches of red and orange and russet. His mom used to bring him every October.
Jax killed the engine and marched across the road to the outlook.
A flashback, to those late afternoons with his mom. Eating sandwiches and chips out of a cooler in the trunk, standing shoulder to shoulder with strangers on the edge of a lichen-crusted ridge, cameras dangling from their necks. It was something they did every year, just the two of them, a mother-son tradition that lasted until long after he stopped giving a shit about the shadow. Good thing it was dark, because he never wanted to see that stupid bear again.
He stepped over the railing. Jax knew from all the times his mother would pull him back by his shirt that one more foot and the ground would drop out beneath him.
What would happen if he took that step? Just...walked out onto the air? He’d have to crash through the branches and needles first, but eventually he’d hit something solid. At the thought of what that would feel like, blood pulsed through his veins, infusing his organs and bones with life, which was really messed up since the only thing he could think about lately was death. His mother’s. His own. One small step and it would all be over.
Behind him, a car door swung open to a rhythmic dinging.
“Jax, man, come on. Let’s go.” It was Micah’s voice, but Jax knew without looking that those were Paul’s shoes crunching in the gravel. He stopped right behind him, a silent, supportive presence.
What Jax needed was a sign. A butterfly landing on his arm, maybe, or a twinkling in the nighttime sky like his mom winking at him from that fluffy cloud. He looked up, and all he saw was blackness. No stars. No movement. Nothing but Jax, standing at the highest, loneliest point on earth.
“Don’t even think about it,” Paul said, his voice low and quiet enough that Micah across the street couldn’t hear it. “I’m serious, Jax. Take one step and I swear to God I’ll murder you myself.”
Jax puffed a laugh. Leave it to Paul to both sense his gruesome thoughts and try to turn things around with humor. That was one of the things Jax loved best about his oldest friend, that he always knew what Jax was thinking without him having to say the first word. It was why they were such good friends, because neither of them ever felt like he had to explain.
But it was Micah, with his wild hairs and coal-dark streak, who surprised Jax the most. Micah stepped up beside him, toes flush to the edge, leaned his upper body over empty air and screamed. He just...opened his mouth and let loose. He screamed like Jax did when he reached the top of Balsam Bluff, long and loud and hard enough to make his ears ache and his eyes water. And then he filled his lungs and screamed some more.
Jax exchanged a look with Paul, who grinned.
The two of them joined in on the third go-round, Jax clenching his fists and giving it everything he had. He pictured his dad back at the house, his fingers stabbing the computer keys, and Pamela on her knees upstairs, clutching a Bible to her chest. To stand here, screaming with his friends into the vast, hostile wilderness, felt sad and pointless and stupid.
But for once, for however long the moment lasted, Jax didn’t feel so alone.