That Summer(48)

“I’m not going home,” I said again as the clouds slipped over the sun, amazed at how fast the weather can change, a front blowing in a matter of minutes.

He started the engine, ignoring me, and put the car in gear. We slid away from the curb just as big fat drops began to fall, splashing across the windshield and my face. The cars coming towards us were turning their lights on, all at once. I opened my door and jumped out, slamming it behind me as my feet hit ground.

“Haven!” Sumner yelled at me, stopping the car again as I cut across the side of the road to a path, the back way we’d always taken to the mall to buy candy and Slurpees when I was little. “It’s getting ready to pour; don’t be stupid. Come on, get back in the car.”

“No,” I said softly, knowing he couldn’t hear me. It was really raining now. I kept walking, hearing Sumner yell my name but knowing I couldn’t go back to him, that he wasn’t what I’d wanted him to be. Maybe he never had been.

As I got farther down the path I couldn’t hear the traffic anymore, just the rain and thunder. I cut across a small creek, on a plank stretched across it, and saw the first flash of lightning shining suddenly above and then disappearing. It was followed by a crack of thunder that seemed to come from right behind me, pushing me forwards. The path was different than I remembered it, twisting around trees and rocks I didn’t recognize, but then it had been a long time. Everything looks different when you’re older, not staring up at the world but down upon it. Another clap of thunder boomed over me. I was sure the path came out in my neighborhood somewhere.

I couldn’t see houses or lights, just trees followed by more trees, stretching into the distance. Suddenly I wasn’t even sure if I was still on the path at all, and that made me panic and start to run, brushing branches out of my face as the rain pelted my back and dripped into my eyes, slippery and cold. The sky was black above me now and I started to think about tornados, the world swirling around and me with nothing to hold on to but trees, and this pushed me to run faster, the sound of my breathing hoarse in my ears. I couldn’t see the path anymore in the rain and the dark, and everything was slippery beneath me as I ran harder, towards what had to be a clearing ahead. I thought of the houses on my street with their warm lights and the even, green lawns and all the landmarks, so familiar I could find them in my sleep. I ran to that clearing, sure that I could see it all in front of me—until I reached the last set of branches and pulled them aside to reveal more branches, and leaves dripping with rain, and pushed through with all my strength to burst out into open space, my heart racing in my chest, and kept running until I hit something, hard, something that moved and jumped back, its own breath hitting my face.

It was Gwendolyn.

She was sopping wet, her hair sticking to her forehead, in a white T-shirt with a red tank top showing through beneath and black running shorts. A pair of headphones hung around her neck, attached to a Walkman clipped to her waist. She was breathing hard, her face flushed and beaded with raindrops, and she was the first person I’d met in a long, long time who stood taller than me and looked down into my eyes. The thunder boomed around us, with another flash of white light, and Gwendolyn Rogers and I, breathing hard, stood still in that clearing, close enough that I could see the goose bumps on her flesh. She stared at me with her big, sad eyes as I stared right back, unflinching even when she raised her hand to my face and brushed her fingers across my cheek as if she wasn’t sure I was real.

It seemed like we stood there together forever, Gwendolyn and I, two strangers in a clearing with the rain pounding down, inexplicably brought together in a summer storm. I wanted to talk to her, wanted words to come so I could say something that would make this all real. Something about what we had in common: a neighborhood, a summer, a revelation about a belief once considered sacred. But she only stared at me, her face wistful, a small smile creeping across it as if she knew me, had lost me along the way and only now found me again, here. I think she knew it too in that moment. She knew me.

Then I heard my sister’s voice.

“Haven!” A car door slammed, hard, and then again, “Haven! Are you there?”

“I’m here,” I said to Gwendolyn, and she pulled back from me, dropping her hand. I turned to look for my sister, who was still calling through the rain and the trees. “I’m here,” I said again.

Ashley was coming through the brush now. She was bare-legged, wearing a yellow raincoat like the Morton Salt Girl, pulled tight. The trees were bending overhead, wind whistling through as the rain blew across me. I turned back around: Gwendolyn was already running down the path the way I’d come, a blur of white and black.

“Haven?” Ashley was closer now and I turned to the sound of her voice. Her raincoat was dripping wet, shiny and bright among all the green. I could see the headlights of her car now, beaming into the clearing. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I got lost on this path.”

“We were so worried,” she said, coming to stand in front of me and wiping her hair out of her eyes. “Mom’s practically hysterical calling everyone, and then Sumner Lee shows up and says you went running off into the woods back here.”

“He talked to you?” I asked.

“He was worried too,” my sister said, so small and wet in front of me. “We all were. God, Haven,” she said softly, “what happened to you today?”