The following is a work in progress
One
Today was going to be a great day! The morning sun peeked through the clouds, casting a warm, golden light over everything. The sky was huge, stretching forever in soft blues and whites. In the background, the familiar buzz of summer’s insects filled the air, little things darting about like they were in a hurry. Maybe they knew their time was short. Maybe that’s why they never stopped moving. But the river - the river - it never rushed. It just kept going, slow and steady, like it had always been here and always would be.
Yes, today was going to be a great day indeed. Chores were done, no school, and I had a small jar packed full of fat, wriggling earthworms I had dug up from the flower beds last night.
The three of us - Mom, Brett, and I - sat around the kitchen table, the smell of eggs and biscuits still hanging in the air. I was shoveling food into my mouth as fast as I could, eager to get outside and start my day. Between bites, I told Mom we were having fish for dinner. She just smiled, that knowing kind smile, and told me to have fun and be safe. “I’ll have the cornmeal and frying pan ready,” she had said, like she knew I’d come back with something. That was all the encouragement I needed. With my old fishing rod in one hand and a small tackle box - found buried in the attic years ago - in the other, I set off toward the river, looking for the perfect fishing spot.
I had been warned about the river. It was deep, murky, and full of things. Some were just fish, but others - others - you had to watch out for. One of them was a shark. Not just any shark - the shark. Brett and I had seen it a few times, slowly gliding through the water like it owned the place. It had a jagged notch on its dorsal fin, probably from a fight. We liked to imagine it had been in a hundred battles and had never lost. We called it Notched Fin, the toughest thing in the river.
Our land wasn’t much for growing things. It was mostly covered in a short, tough grass that had somehow learned to survive in the sandy, salty soil. Mom had to work hard to keep two trees and the flowers in the flowerbed alive. Even the grass seemed like it struggled to grow in spots. Like Old Man Bill’s place, our land sloped toward the river, but unlike his which was on the other side of the river, ours had been carved away over time. In most places, the drop was two to four feet, where the river had bitten into the earth as it curved on its way out to sea. Further upstream, near the bridge to Old Man Bill’s house, the land fell away even more sharply - fifteen feet straight down, a sheer wall of earth that made fishing there impossible.
Two
So, with Brett trailing behind me, I walked the shoreline, looking for a spot where the river slowed just enough for the fish to gather. Somewhere perfect. The river gurgled beside us, steady and unbothered, like it didn’t care whether today was a great day or not. It would just keep going, same as always. We had walked a little ways down the river when I heard the creak of the back screen door. I glanced up and saw Mom stepping outside, a basket of wet laundry in her arms. She walked toward the clothesline, her movements smooth, practiced - like she had done this a thousand times before, like she would do it a thousand more.
"Aaron, you forgot to take the trash out," she called, her voice light but firm. I groaned inwardly. I had hoped she wouldn’t notice. I turned back toward her, already running through excuses in my head, but I knew better. Mom could see right through any scheme I tried. She always did.
Mom was smart. Really smart. Before she met my father, she had been studying to be a nurse. Maybe even a doctor - she could have been one, I was sure of it. But then she met him. And for some reason, one I didn’t think I’d ever understand, she gave all that up to be with him. She did a lot of reading and would sit on the couch for hours, her nose buried in a book, her eyes scanning the pages like she was searching for something - maybe something she had lost. I used to think she was just lonely, that she missed my father. But now I wonder if it was something else. Maybe it wasn’t about missing him. Maybe it was about missing everything she never got to do, everything she had put aside for this fairy tale - a single mom trying her best to raise two young boys. I wonder if she ever looked at her life and thought about what could have been. If she ever dreamed about the path she had once walked, before love - or duty - pulled her another way. She never complained. She never even seemed angry about it. But I could feel it. Sometimes, in the way she looked at the river - standing there, staring blankly as if watching time itself slip away with the current, lost in thoughts she never shared. I could feel it in the way she wrapped herself in a blanket while she read, as if shielding herself from something too big to face head-on. Within a year of marrying my father, Mom was pregnant with me. A year after that, the war to end all wars began. And three months later, with Mom carrying my little brother inside her, my father left and never came home.
I asked her about my father once. Just once. The way she hesitated, the way her face tightened for the briefest moment before she answered - it told me more than her words ever could. There was something there, something heavy she carried. I never asked again. I was afraid of what I might find.
"Aaron! Go on, now," she said, nodding toward the house. "Before I have to ask again."
Three
As I bent down to set my fishing rod and tackle box on the ground, a strange sensation prickled the back of my neck - like I was being watched. And I was. Across the river, Old Man Bill stood on his shoreline, his figure still, his posture heavy. He wasn’t just looking - he was staring. Right at me. He must have walked down from his house without a sound, appearing there like some kind of ghost. Maybe he had been standing there longer than I realized. His hands hung at his sides, limp, as if holding the weight of something invisible. He didn’t wave. He didn’t move. But in his eyes - hollow and sunken - I saw something I didn’t understand then but would come to know all too well: a kind of knowing, a kind of warning. It was as if he had something to say - something important, something vital - but the words had been swallowed by time, trapped behind lips that had already lived what I had yet to learn. He wanted to tell me. I could feel it. But he couldn’t. Or maybe he knew I wouldn’t understand even if he did. Maybe he knew the constant gurgle of the river wouldn’t allow the sound to travel through time, that whatever wisdom he had would be lost beneath its endless current, slipping away before it could ever reach me.
A chill ran through me, a wrongness settling deep in my stomach. Life had beaten this man. That much was clear. But now, staring into his tired, worn face, I had the strangest feeling - like I was looking at a reflection, a future I wasn’t ready to see. That look, the look on Old Man Bill’s face, would haunt me for the rest of my life. Or at least, until something inside me carries it somewhere I can no longer reach.
I turned to Brett, searching his face to see if he saw what I did. But he was already kneeling by my tackle box, poking at the jar of worms with the kind of fascination only a kid could have. If he had noticed Old Man Bill, he didn’t seem to care. When I glanced back across the river, Old Man Bill was already walking away, slowly making his way up his hill - each step deliberate, heavy, like walking up his gentle slope was no longer easy for him.
Four
“Brett, keep an eye on my stuff. And don’t let my worms escape," I said.
He grinned, already reaching for the jar. I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist playing with them. They were slimy and weird, stretching and shrinking like tiny, wriggling mysteries. Which end was the head? Which was the butt? One moment, they were fat and short, the next, long and skinny. A puzzle to figure out, something to poke and prod until curiosity was satisfied.
Brett was always like that - curious, thoughtful. He asked more questions than anyone I knew. He was smart, too. Smarter than I was when I was his age, maybe smarter than I was even now. He read more, thought more. And unlike me, he never got into trouble. If something went wrong, it was because I had some dumb idea, some plan that didn’t work, some shortcut that turned into a mess. Brett followed the rules. Not because he was afraid of breaking them, but because he actually seemed to understand them in ways I didn’t.
Mom said he was special. I believed it. He was only one grade behind me even though he was almost two years younger. And when I struggled with my math homework, he was the one who helped me, not the other way around. Sometimes I wondered what he would grow up to be. A doctor? A scientist? Something important, something great.
I watched him as he turned the jar over in his hands, studying the worms like they held some secret only he could uncover.
Then, without another thought, I turned and ran up my gentle hill. The wind brushed against my face, my steps light and quick. It was easy.
Five
I was happy to be reminded about the garbage. I'd rather take it out after every meal than deal with a leaky bag later. I reached under the sink to grab it, the familiar rustle of the garbage sack filling the quiet kitchen, when the sound came. It wasn’t loud, not exactly. More like a shift, a deep, heavy swoosh - like the ground itself had sighed. But I felt it. Beneath my feet, in my chest.
I froze, gripping the garbage bag tighter, my eyes flicking toward the window. Outside, Mom had stopped moving. She had been hanging laundry, but now the shirt she was holding had slipped from her fingers, forgotten. She was staring toward the river, her body rigid. Then, she called his name.
"Brett!"
Her voice was sharp, cutting through the late morning air. She called again, louder this time.
I should have gone out the front door, like always. That was where the garbage can was. But something pulled me the other way. I stepped toward the back, toward the porch.
The screen door creaked as I pushed it open.
Mom was already running.
I stepped outside and everything stopped.
Except it didn’t. The wind still blew, the river still gurgled, the insects still buzzed - oblivious, uncaring. Life moved on, indifferent to what was unfolding. But inside me - inside my chest - something locked up. I couldn’t move. I could only watch.
Mom was sprinting toward the lower part of the riverbank, her arms reaching, her screams raw and desperate.
Brett.
His face, wide-eyed and terrified. His only free arm reaching for his mama.
And around him, the water. Churning. Moving.
Notched Fin!
I stood there, frozen, warmth spreading down my leg, soaking my pants. I couldn’t move, couldn’t think. I just stood there, watching, unable to believe what I was seeing, unable to understand that this was real.
I couldn’t hear Brett, but I saw his lips form the word: Mama.
His free arm stretched toward her. He wasn’t fighting. He knew he was in trouble but he didn't understand what was happening. He just wanted his mama.
And then -
Notched Fin took him under one last time - never to be seen again.
Mom fell to her knees, her screams ripping through the air, as something shattered - not just in the world around us, but inside - inside both of us.
I was still standing there, still holding the garbage bag, still stuck.
Mom slowly turned her head and looked at me, her face tightening just slightly - so small a change that only someone who had spent their whole life watching her would notice.
Just for a second. Just a glance.
But it was enough.
I knew.
It was my fault.
I was the one who led Brett to the river’s edge. I was the one who left him alone. I was the one who didn’t take five stupid seconds to take out the stupid garbage that was still in my stupid hands.
It was my fault she didn’t become a nurse or a doctor. It was my fault she was alone. It was my fault Father didn’t make it home.
That one look was all it took.
I knew.
And then, somewhere deep inside me, something shifted. A voice - not my own, but still me - whispered in the back of my mind.
"Shhh - It’ll be okay…"
It was barely a thought, barely a sound, but it was there. A cruel little thing, pressing against the edges of my mind, slipping between the cracks of my breaking self.
"You don’t need to be here. I’ll carry it."
A strange numbness spread through me, something distant, something separate. The weight of it all - Brett, Mom, the river, the look - was too much. And so, something inside me reached out and took it.
Six-
During the next year, lots of people stopped by to help. Aunts, uncles, neighbors, and friends - they all stopped by to make sure Mom and I had food and to ensure basic chores were being done. Everyone tried to convince me it was just an accident. The river’s edge where Brett had been playing wasn’t stable and had collapsed into the river. I can't even remember what we were doing or why I left Brett there but it was me that left him there alone. It was me that led him to that spot at that moment. Every time I’d try to explain this, they’d dismiss me and tell me that I can’t blame myself. Looking back at mom lying in her bed, I’d quietly think to myself, ‘tell that to her.’
They didn’t see the look Mom gave me that day. They didn’t hear the whisper in my head. They didn’t know.
I let them talk. I let them bring their casseroles and soft words and empty reassurances. But we never believed them. I sat by Mom’s bed every night, reading to her in the dim glow of the bedside lamp. I brought her food, helped her drink when she would let me, bathed her, changed her sheets. She never moved. She never spoke. Not once. Sometimes, I thought she might - when her breath hastened, when her fingers twitched just slightly against the blanket. But nothing ever came. Nothing but that same distant, empty gaze.
At first, they kept coming. The neighbors, the aunts and uncles, the family friends. They brought food we didn’t need, offered help I never asked for. “If you need anything, just holler,” they’d say, standing in the doorway, waiting for me to nod. And I would nod. That was all they needed, a little reassurance that I was fine. That I wasn’t giving up. But I never called. Never asked. Eventually, they stopped waiting. Then they stopped coming. The knocks on the door grew less frequent, then faded completely. The house got quieter. We told ourselves that we preferred it that way.
However, in those quiet moments, those times where sadness would threaten to reach the surface, I would give up. It was a simple game I played - a trick really. Just pretending to be someone else. It let me skip time - it was so reassuring. So, I let her clean the house. I let her water the plants. I let her cut the grass. But the garbage - that was mine. That was the one thing I couldn’t let go of. The one thing I had to control.
I’d check the garbage every night. Every morning. Sometimes twice in an hour. Just in case. At first, it was just making sure. Making sure I never forgot again. Making sure I did something right. But soon, it became more than that. If I didn’t check the garbage, my chest would tighten and I’d not be able to do anything else. So I checked. And I checked again. After, I’d retreat into my game. Pretending to be someone else so that I could forget.
That was my entire eighth grade year. My routine became endless, without time just like the river. Everyday was the same. Fifty six steps to the kitchen sink. Thirty seven steps to mom’s bed. Five taps to let her know it was time to drink some water. For some reason, mom wouldn’t help unless I tapped her five times. It got to the point where I myself couldn’t move without tapping my leg five times.
One day I discovered an old note pad that someone left behind on the kitchen table. Inside there was writing from a girl who felt oddly familiar to me. This too became one of the games I’d play. Writing notes back and forth to my mystery penpal. She’d tell me of the chores she did and what she still had to do. Of life that continued to move on. I’d tell her that I didn’t want to be here anymore.
The nights were the worst. When the noise outside faded and the only things left were my loneliness, my sadness. The only sound left was the river, the same gurgling unchanging river. The wind shifting the trees. The dark clouds rolling in from the sea, blotting out the stars. And Brett’s hand, reaching, reaching, always reaching.
And always, I woke in a cold sweat. Always, tap myself five times on the leg before making my way to the kitchen. Always, I checked the garbage.
Seven
On a cold morning, one day short of a year after I killed Brett, Mom took her last breath.
We sat with her - just the two of us - until he had to leave, our fingers curled around her cold hand. I had long since stopped hoping she would look at Aaron, that she would speak, that she would tell him she didn’t blame him. She never did.
Once again, I had to endure the endless number of strangers coming by to make sure Aaron was alright. I’d hear them whisper to each other in the other room or outside the front door. They’d whisper that it was mercy and now he can finally move on. Now he was free.
Move on!? Free!?
They didn’t know. They didn’t wake up every night gasping for breath, searching for something to hold onto before a never satisfied shark and river made them fall into darkness. They didn’t feel the weight pressing against their ribs, the cold fingers curling around their mind, pulling them under, the endless sound of the river.
Move on!? Free!? What the hell did they know!
Yet, moving on wasn’t really a choice - it was survival. I didn’t think. I didn’t plan. I just knew I had to go. I had to get Aaron out of that house.
Eight
Before we started tenth grade, I lied about our age and enlisted in the Navy. The recruiter knew. The entire community knew. A desperate boy looking for an escape wasn’t uncommon, and they needed bodies more than they needed honesty. The only person I told was my closest nephew. I expected him to tell the others, but he just nodded and said he’d take care of the house while I was gone. Little did he know, I had no intentions of ever coming back. Or maybe he understood more than I thought.
The rules and structure were good for him. Aaron was able to hide his routine and repetition within the routine and repetition of the military. Orders given, orders followed. It was surprisingly easy for him. From time to time, I’d step in and protect him from his pain. A chief died today. He doesn’t need to know that. But he does need to know what is happening. I quickly took the small military green flip pad from my back pocket and jotted things down like I’ve been doing for years now.
“Sonar, contacts?!”
The sharp words broke my concentration… or was I concentrating. I don’t remember. Panic started to set in as I couldn’t even remember how I got here. It was always the same, everything seemed oddly new, sharp - like I was hearing sounds, smelling things and focusing on objects for the first time. It was as though I was waking up but I was already awake. Hearing no contacts, I quickly tapped my leg 5 times and reported my findings to the XO.
“Conn, Sonar - Sonar has no contacts.”
Then I grabbed my notebook from my back pocket. There she was, my secret penpal - Erin. That reassuring handwriting of a woman still telling me of things she’d done and things still to do. My response was almost always the same - I didn’t want to be here anymore. So pathetic. She had such a calming effect on me. She didn’t even know me or how she helped me but it was her that allowed me to continue. So, after touching the cold knob of my sonar 5 times, I began my now familiar routine, written down and followed to perfection like only the military would allow.
I never left a chore undone. I checked, double-checked, triple-checked every detail - exactly five times. In the Navy, that wasn’t a problem. It was an asset. I thrived in the rigid order of it, in the certainty that if something was done right, lives would be saved. Every night, the same nightmares would emerge. First, images of Old Man Bill’s face. Why didn’t he warn me? The river - never changing. Notched Fin, mindlessly patrolling forever doing his job. Always the same result. Me waking up in a cold sweat, tapping my leg five times and then going to the head to make sure the garbage had been collected.
Nine
I didn’t remember making the decision to come back. One moment, I was moving forward - always forward. The next, I was standing here, staring at the front door of my mother’s house. My house. I wasn’t sure why I had come. Maybe to confront it. Maybe to prove it didn’t matter anymore. Maybe because I had nowhere else to go. A part of me - maybe Erin, maybe me - had hoped the house wouldn’t be here. That time and neglect would have taken care of it, sparing me from whatever this was. Maybe it would have burned down, collapsed in on itself, reduced to ruin so I could turn away and never look back. But it wasn’t. The house stood exactly as I left it. The grass was trimmed, the paint intact. My family had done what they promised. They had kept it alive.
The key slid into the lock as if no time had passed at all. As if I still belonged here. As if I had ever belonged anywhere. I pushed the door open. Inside, the air was still. Hollow. Sheets had been draped over the furniture, a weak defense against the dust. But the dust had still crept in, settling into the corners, collecting in the folds of fabric. To the right, the stairs leading up to Brett’s and my bedroom. To the left, the couch. I could still see her there. Wrapped in her blanket, book resting in her lap, eyes scanning the pages but not really reading. Mom had always been somewhere else. A white sheet covered the bookshelf against the far wall, softening the sharp edges of the fireplace beneath it. The dining table was still where it had always been. The chairs were still tucked neatly under it. The back door stood at the end of the hallway, closed. Silent.
I stepped forward, my feet moving on their own. I turned right. The door to my mother’s room stood ahead of me, closed. The wood grain was as familiar as the lines in my own hands. I didn’t remember opening it, but suddenly, I was inside.
The bed was exactly as she had left it. The blankets pulled up neatly, the pillow undisturbed. I could almost convince myself she had just stepped out for a moment. That she would be back.
I stared at the bed, at the stillness of it. My heart began to beat faster, my breathing began to shorten as anger and resentment started to build deep inside.
Soft, steady. A voice I had always known temporarily broke the tension.
"You don’t need to be here."
It was enough to make my breath hitch, enough to send a flicker of something through me. I turned, before I could think, before I could let myself feel.
I walked into the kitchen.
I knelt down, opened the cabinet under the sink.
I checked the garbage.
Just to be sure.
Slowly, that familiar dread curled deep in my gut that I’ve been running from my entire life. A now distant whisper pleading for me to leave, trying to tell me this wasn’t going to go well.
I pushed open the back screen door. It creaked on its hinges, just as it always had.
The wind met me first - sharp with salt, thick with memory. To my left, the clothesline poles still stood, stripped bare. The rope was long gone, but the metal posts remained, stubborn and rusting, defying time itself.
I turned my gaze to the right.
My body locked up before I even registered why. A tremor started in my fingers, then spread - chest tightening, breath catching, muscles coiling.
The river. The unforgiving slope. The spot where Brett had been. I half-expected to still see him there. His small, desperate hand reaching. The water swallowing him whole.
My pulse slammed against my ribs, a wild, erratic drumbeat. Faster. Harder. Too hard. My breathing turned sharp, shallow, sucking in more air than I could use.
Old Man Bill’s house was still there, too. Why didn’t he stop me? Why didn’t he warn me!?
The river answered with its same low, indifferent gurgle. Time, unbroken. Water, unchanged. The world had kept moving, and yet… Nothing had changed. Nothing at all.
Including him.
A shadow cut through the water, the slow, steady patrol of something ancient, something mindless. A dorsal fin broke the surface, gliding, circling.
The notch in its fin.
Notched Fin!
Everything stopped. My breath. My shaking hands. My hammering heart. A lifetime of rage, grief, resentment, and pure, unrelenting hatred compressed into a single, razor-sharp point. It wasn’t the river’s fault. It wasn’t time’s fault. It wasn’t Old Man Bill’s fault or the wisdom he so desperately wanted to share.
It was Notched Fin. Notched Fin had taken everything. And I was going to take it back. I was going to kill Notched Fin. I didn’t care what it took. I didn’t care if I had to drag it from the river with my bare hands.
I was going to end this.
Ten
For three weeks, I prepared. It wasn’t just planning. It was ritual. Each day, after tapping my leg five times and checking the garbage I walked to the river. Stared at the water. Listened to the gurgling current that never stopped. I scouted the shoreline, traced my steps over and over. I memorized the angles, the shadows cast at different times of the day. I left nothing to chance.
I bought a heavy throwing net, reinforced with thick rope, and a speargun, and five of the sharpest spears I could find. I checked them every morning - five times in fact. Ran my fingers along the netting, feeling its weight, its purpose. Loaded the spears. Again. Again.
Then, finally - he came. One morning, just as the mist lifted from the river, the water broke.
A shadow glided through the surface. The notch in the fin.
This was it.
I moved before I could think, before I could second-guess. I hurled the net. It hit the water with a heavy splash, sinking fast. Notched Fin thrashed, twisting, fighting as the net tangled around him. The more he struggled, the tighter it pulled. Just like I planned.
I lifted the speargun. Fired.
The first spear punched through his side. He jerked, tail slapping the water in a violent crack. I reloaded. Fired. Again. And again. Five times. One missed. I didn’t care. I’d keep shooting if I had more. I’d tear him apart if I had to.
Notched Fin shuddered, body twitching against the net, blood mixing with the brackish water. His fight slowed.
I pulled the net toward shore, dragging him inch by inch. Almost there. Almost within reach. I wanted to see his eyes. I wanted to look into them and watch death die.
But three feet from shore, the net loosened. For a split second, he hung there, caught between water and land, life and death. Then - he slipped free. His body, still and motionless, drifted with the current. The river carried him away.
I stood there, chest heaving, heart beat pounding in my ears. The world around me blurred, distant, unreal.
I had won.
I had finally won.
Notched Fin was dead. The thing that had so utterly destroyed my life, stolen Brett, stolen my mother, stolen everything - gone. A shuddering breath left me. My whole body sagged. Relief - real, solid relief. The river grew quiet, just for a moment. The wind held still. Even the gurgling water softened, as if waiting for something...
Then - a ripple.
I blinked.
A small fin broke the surface of the water.
It cut through the river, slow, patient. Young.
The current moved on. The river gurgled, unchanged, unsatisfied.
I looked back at the clothes line and cried out, “moma!”
An unbearable pain began to form in my head as I began to sob uncontrollably. The muscles in my face contorting, tears streaming from my eyes. Turning back to watch the young shark disappear under the water, “Brett! I’m so s….”
"Shh. It’s over now."
A pause. A breath.
"You don’t have to hurt anymore. I’ll take care of it."
The weight in my chest loosened. The pain dissipated and my face relaxed. The rage, the grief, the everything - drifting, fading, slipping beneath the surface. The river gurgled. The wind whispered through the trees.
"Aaron. You don’t have to be here anymore."
Eleven
Years passed. Notched Fin was dead, but Aaron had completely gone away and hadn’t come back since the young shark glided past me that day he killed Notched Fin. We did not wake in the middle of the night gasping for air anymore. The night sweats, the tapping, the ceaseless checking - they faded, washed away like footprints in the sand.
A young couple had moved into Old Man Bill’s house. They had two children - a boy and a girl, close in age. I never saw them, but I heard them sometimes. Their laughter carried over the water, light and free, untouched by time. If I closed my eyes, I could almost believe it was a sound I knew.
I spent my evenings wrapped in a thick quilt, sitting on the porch, watching the river, time itself, move with the current.
One afternoon, as the sun hung low in the sky, I decided to take one last walk to the river - to say goodbye. I didn’t know why. Maybe I owed it to myself. Maybe I owed it to Aaron. Maybe I was just tired of avoiding it.
The ground beneath my feet sloped steeply, far steeper than I remembered. I moved slower, not because I was afraid, but because I carried something heavier than fear. The wind shifted, bringing the sharp scent of salt and water, the distant hum of summer insects. The river gurgled softly - steady and unbroken. I stepped closer.
Across the way, movement. A flicker of color through the trees. Two figures emerged - a boy, a girl. They were young. Not much older than Brett and I had been. The boy had a fishing pole in his hand. The girl trailed behind, talking, laughing, singing. The sight of them was like looking through a window into the past. A past that no longer belonged to me.
I watched them for a long time. They didn’t notice me. I wanted to say something. To warn them. To tell them. The words sat on my tongue, heavy and useless. I had nothing to give them. No wisdom, no truth, no way to make them see what they weren’t ready to see. Just like Old Man Bill had once looked at me, wanting to speak but knowing it would not matter, I stood there now, staring across the river at a life that would move forward regardless of what I said.
The boy glanced up.
He raised his hand. A wave.
I hesitated.
Then, I looked down at the water.
The river, unchanged. The river, endless. The river, always moving forward. “I understand now.”
I turned away.
I clenched my dress to keep the bottom from dragging in the sand - my hands, no longer belonging to the boy who once lived here. And I began the long walk up my impossibly steep hill.