A Sea of Unspoken Things

Chapter Six

Six

Every time I’d been to Trentham Gorge, it was with Johnny, and that’s where we were the first time I remember it happening.

The memory was still so clear. The sound of our voices echoed down into the cavern above the cool blue-green water the first time we drove out to the swimming hole by ourselves. The ravine along the bottom of the gorge was rocky and shallow in most places, but there was one perfect pool deep enough to dive into just a quarter-mile hike from the trailhead.

Johnny, Micah, and I traversed the maze of steep rocky paths up the ridge, where there were at least six different heights you could jump from, and I’d taken the lowest one, watching from below as Micah and Johnny plummeted through the air, howling until they hit the water.

I could still see it, too—the view before I stepped off the ledge with my arms floating up over my head. I hit the water, my body piercing down past the surface, and my eyes opened just in time to watch the light race away from me the deeper I sank.

Johnny had already climbed back up the rocks to take another jump when I surfaced, and when I looked up again minutes later, my stomach dropped. He was standing high up on the cliffs. Not on one of the levels of well-worn jumps that looked out over the gorge. He was at the very top.

There was a razor-thin silence between me and Micah as we looked at each other, but Johnny’s feet were already running toward the edge when the scream left my mouth. His legs kicked as he flew out into the air, and instantly, my heart was a metronome syncing to Johnny’s. That’s when it happened. Not the third-eye sense I’d always had with my brother—the undercurrent of awareness that had been there as long as I could remember. No, this was something else.

The feeling of falling flipped my stomach on itself as the ground disappeared beneath his feet, and suddenly, I was falling with him. Sinking down, my head plunging below the water, and I couldn’t breathe. But the only thought taking shape as I sank was that I was about to watch Johnny die. And when he did, my own heart would stop beating.

He hit the water with a deep whoosh just before Micah’s hand found me and yanked me toward the surface. I was gasping for air, coughing up the cold water, and when Johnny didn’t come up right away, I put my face back under, searching for him. The trail of bubbles hid him in the deep blue for an agonizing, terrifying moment before they began to clear. And then he was moving, his long legs kicking him toward the surface.

I came up, the burn of tears exploding in my eyes and nose when he finally appeared. He had an enormous smile on his face, his hair plastered down the sides of his neck. My heart was still pounding so hard that I felt like I was going to choke on it. It was several seconds before I realized what was happening—that the chaotic race of my pulse didn’t belong to me. That the adrenaline I could feel coursing through my body wasn’t really there. My own paralyzing fear was fused to it. I couldn’t pull the two apart.

Micah pushed me toward the bank, and I was barely able to keep myself afloat until I was climbing up the rocks. But Johnny was laughing, the sound echoing through the gorge. He was completely oblivious as I stared at him, trying to catch my breath. Behind him, Micah’s face was red, his eyes furious. He shoved Johnny into the water, his own chest heaving, and it was the first time in my life that I really began to see my brother clearly. I’d always thought that we were the same. That we were two shades of the same color. But as I sat there, watching Johnny swim back to the bank, I had only one thought: that he was a storm in the clouds, just minutes away from breaking.

Now, sitting at the kitchen table, I was thinking the same thing. I studied the photograph again, tracing the contrasted lines of the rockface with my finger. The photo paper was still glossy and fresh, slick to the touch, and the reflection of light on its surface obscured the image just enough for me to imagine Johnny up on that ledge. He’d earned himself a reputation for being fearless, but that day was the first time I began to realize that we weren’t immortal. That I could lose him. And that terror had opened a kind of doorway between us.

For years after that, the same link would wake from time to time, connecting us in an impossible, metaphysical way. I could feel what Johnny felt in those moments. Almost like I was him. Spaces and things that held on to bits of my brother felt like conductors. That, I expected, was what had happened in the diner. The darkroom. The first time I’d sat down at his desk. The traces he’d left behind were still alive all around me, and if I wasn’t careful, I’d keep tripping those wires.

I set the photograph down, clicking my tongue, and Smoke leapt up from the heap of blankets on the sofa. He was out the front door as soon as I had it open, trotting down the drive ahead of me and turning toward town before I even had the door locked.

It was even colder than the morning, the cloudy sky painting everything in shades of dusty blue, and the thin jacket I’d brought was proving to be useless. I couldn’t stomach the idea of taking one of Johnny’s coats, and I wouldn’t risk it now that I was convinced I was somehow connecting with him. I still hadn’t even dared to step foot in his room.

I followed Smoke, tugging on the beanie I had stuffed in the pocket, but my steps faltered when I spotted the truck in the Walkers’ driveway. The slow, creeping sense of dread I’d had since I arrived in Six Rivers opened its gaping mouth inside my chest and I picked up my pace, watching the house from the corner of my eye. It wasn’t until I was past the turnoff that I saw the flash of a red checkered shirt beneath a pair of canvas overalls.

I nearly tripped over my own feet when Rhett Walker came into view. But it was the blood on his hands that made me stop breathing. Before him, a deer was strung up by its hind legs, its middle cut open over the dirt. The silver coat gleamed beneath the stain of blood painted over its body. The same blood that painted Rhett’s forearms as he reached into the cavity and swept his hand from top to bottom.

I instinctively covered my mouth and nose, as if the scent would find me all the way out in the middle of the road, and a nauseous feeling swirled in my stomach. As if he could feel me watching him, Rhett’s head slowly turned, eyes finding me over his shoulder.

He recognized me right away. I could see it in the way his pale, clear eyes sharply focused, his hands slipping from the carcass. The last time I’d seen Rhett Walker, he’d had a fistful of my hair, shaking me so hard that I’d bit my own tongue. Only a few days after his son Griffin died, he’d shown up at our door drunk, barely able to stand on his own two feet. Before I’d even known what was happening, he had his hands on me, his voice so loud it distorted in my ears. He wanted to know what I saw that night. What I knew. And if there was ever a moment that I was close to breaking the promise I’d made, it was then.

Ranger Timothy Branson had managed to haul Rhett off before Johnny got home, and I’d never told him about it. I was terrified of what he might do if I did. That was the same night I decided to leave—that I knew I had to. It was the very first time in my life that I’d admitted it to myself. That I didn’t just love Johnny. I was scared of him, too.

Rhett didn’t so much as blink as he watched me, and I forced my gaze ahead, walking faster. I had to resist the urge to keep checking over my shoulder as I walked, the unsettling vision of the man hovering bright and heavy in my mind. Like I was dragging it behind me.

Smoke didn’t pick up his pace until the first sight of town came into view, and the sound of the music took shape in the quiet. Johnny Cash’s “Cry, Cry, Cry” echoed out in the darkening trees, the lights of The Penny like glowing rainbow smudges in the descending fog.

The bar had been closed up and quiet when I’d walked past that morning, but now it was filled with people. Its windows were open to the street, the small parking lot packed with cars, and a few had their tailgates down, where several people sat with bottles of beer dangling from their fingertips. Their attention drifted in my direction as I came up the road, and I tried to ignore the way their voices hushed. A few of them gave me a nod as I passed and I returned the gesture, determined to make it through the door without having another stilted, half-true conversation about Johnny.

I ducked inside and the music exploded around me, twice as loud once I was within the walls of The Penny. It smelled like stale beer and old, unpolished wood. Bright lights washed over the little stage at the back, where a band was set up, and there wasn’t an empty table in the whole place. License plates covered the walls, reflecting the neon glow of the beer signs over the taps, and it took several seconds for my eyes to adjust enough to spot Olivia sitting at the end of thebar.

As soon as she saw me, she sat up straighter, waving, and I followed the line of stools to the seat she’d saved for me. The lowball glass of whiskey that sat in front of her looked untouched.

“You made it.” She was already flagging down the woman behind the bar, who was setting down two glasses of beer in front of the women beside us.

“What would you like?” She was looking at Olivia, but she tipped her head toward me.

“Go ahead,” Olivia said. “I doubt I know your drink anymore.”

Immediately, I was reading into the comment. Was it an attempt to make the point that I’d been gone for too long? Or maybe an implication that I drank something pretentious now that I lived in the city? But when I looked at Olivia, that innocent, sweet look was still in her eyes.

“Vodka soda, please,” I said.

The bartender nodded, plucking a glass from the counter behind her.

“Okay, maybe I do still know your drink.” There was a grin at the corner of Olivia’s mouth now.

The cymbals crashed behind us, and all at once the music died out. It was replaced by the sound of the loud voices in the room. Laughter and shouting and the clink of glasses hitting the tabletops. The vodka soda landed in front of me and I thanked the bartender with a nod, lifting it to take a sip.

Olivia did the same with her whiskey, her glass drifting toward me in a mock salute. There were a few awkward seconds before she finally started talking. “Remember when we used to hang out in the parking lot and pay the loggers to buy us beer?”

I smiled, and this time it was a genuine one.

“Amazing what a ten-dollar bill and a pretty smile could get you back then.” She snickered.

“To the loggers.” I lifted my glass again, repeating the mantra we used to say.

Olivia clinked her glass against mine. “To the loggers.”

We took a synchronized drink, and Olivia pushed her glasses back up her nose.

“Can’t believe this place is still here,” I said.

“Really?”

I laughed. “Yeah, maybe I can believe it.”

“The Penny’s an institution. Wouldn’t be Six Rivers without it.”

There was something nostalgic about the place that made it feel as if time had stood still. Like maybe all these years hadn’t passed and when I stepped outside, it would be 2004 again.

I turned my glass on the counter, watching the light reflect off the ridges. “Ran into Sadie this morning at the diner.”

“Yeah, she owns it now. Took over the place years ago, which no one complained about. Food’s better, that’s for sure.”

Another song started and Olivia’s shoulder touched mine as she rocked back and forth on her stool. The tension I’d felt when I walked through the door was slowly bleeding out of me, the vodka already warming me up.

“I saw Rhett Walker, too,” I said in a low voice, eyeing the ring of condensation on the bar top before me. “Just now. On the way over.”

Olivia stopped swaying, falling quiet for several seconds. Her fingers were tapping the side of her glass now. “Thought you might.”

“Didn’t know if he’d still be around.”

What I really meant was that I’d hoped he wouldn’t still be around.

“Did he say anything?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“He mostly keeps to himself these days. I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

I tried to believe it. The thought of sleeping in the cabin knowing that Rhett Walker was next door was more than unsettling.

“He and Johnny still managed to get into it,” she said. “That’s for sure.”

“What do you mean?”

She shrugged. “Just…about everything. The dog, a fallen tree on the property line, Johnny burning stuff out back. Always something. The guy is impossible.”

I took another long drink. “Yeah, well, he’s been through a lot.”

“We all have, right?”

I didn’t answer.

“I miss him,” she said, more softly. “I got so used to having him around at the school that it’s been strange. He seemed to really like it—being around the kids.”

“Really?”

“Really. I asked him to come in and talk to my classes when he first started working with CAS. You know, like a visiting artist kind of thing, and they were so into it. I mean, like I said, the kids just loved Johnny. They each did a project based on a photo from his Instagram feed, and you would have thought he was a rock star walking in here. They were so inspired. He actually mentored one of them last year—Autumn Fischer. She even wound up getting accepted to Byron, like you.” She waved a hand in the air. “I’m sure you know all about that.”

“Yeah,” I lied, my smile growing heavy. That tight feeling had returned to my chest. “He talked about it all the time.”

I couldn’t remember the last time Johnny and I really talked. And when we did, it was almost always just a string of halfhearted updates about what I was painting or what shows were coming up. I’d never mentioned anything about my periodic dates with Quinn or anything else that fell outside the bounds of my work because sometimes, it was more like an interrogation than a catch-up. It always felt like I was reporting to Johnny. Like I needed to feel like he was proud of what I was doing. In some twisted way, it justified me staying in San Francisco.

The conversations were never long. When I asked Johnny about anything in his life, it was met with one-word answers and reasons he needed to go. For a long time, I thought it was because he was trying to protect me. Using himself as a shield between me and Six Rivers. But when he died, that nagging feeling that something had been going on with him made me wonder if his tendency to dodge my questions wasn’t about me at all.

“I was really proud of him, you know?” she said. “It just seemed like things were finally lining up for Johnny. Like he’d found his thing. His purpose.”

“Yeah,” I replied. I had thought the same thing many times.

“Did he ever bring anyone else from the CAS project in to talk to the kids?”

She thought about it before she answered. “No, why?”

“Just wondering. I didn’t know if he was working this area with anyone else.”

“I mean, just Josie.”

“Josie?”

“Another researcher out at the coast. Fort Bragg, I think. She was Johnny’s counterpart, kind of overseeing his work for CAS.”

I couldn’t remember Johnny ever talking about her, but the name still felt familiar. I made a mental note to take a closer look at Johnny’s records for any mention of her. If she was Johnny’s counterpart, they’d probably worked together in person. She could even be the owner of the backpack.

“James?” A woman’s voice called out from down the bar, and I looked up to see Amelia Travis.

It took a few seconds to place the forest ranger. She wore a long-sleeve denim shirt dress, her hair down and long, swept to one side. She looked almost a decade younger out of her uniform.

I waved in reply and she stood, making her way toward us, drink in hand. When Olivia’s shoulders drew back, her lips pursing a little, I immediately clocked the change in her demeanor. She was watching Amelia’s approach from the corner of her eye.

“I thought that was you.” Amelia leaned in close, trying to raise her voice over the noise of the bar. “You settling in all right?”

“I am.”

“Good. Heard you made it over to the school today.”

Beside me, Olivia was pointedly staring in the opposite direction.

“Sorry, small town.” Amelia laughed. “Just about everything is news around here. Wanted to make sure you hadn’t run into any problems.”

The way she phrased the non-question made me a little uneasy. “No. No problems.”

She waited a beat. “Well, you just let me know if there’s anything I can help with. Anything at all.”

“I will. Thanks.”

“You look after this one.” Amelia was talking to Olivia now, gesturing toward me.

Olivia’s placid smile was dismissive at best, but I couldn’t tell if Amelia had picked up on it.

“You two have a good night.” Amelia disappeared into the crowd, leaving an empty space between us.

“What’s that look about?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Nothing. She’s nice enough. Just a bit meddlesome.”

“What does that mean?”

“Travis takes her job very seriously. She keeps a close eye on things, and you know how people around here are. They don’t really like that.”

I knew what she meant. With the exception of the loggers who moved through town periodically, new residents were few and far between. Even after decades, Timothy Branson, who’d had the office before Amelia, had been kept at arm’s length. Especially after Griffin Walker died. People were devastated by what happened, but the moment Branson raised more questions about Griffin’s death than could be answered, the town was quick to cut him out. Like if there was a lie to be unearthed, a truth to be discovered, it wasn’t an outsider’s job to do it. That’s what had made Rhett Walker knock on my door that day.

“She said she was a friend of Johnny’s,” I said, meaning it as a question.

Olivia snorted. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“Yeah, I thought that didn’t sound right.”

What I was really thinking was that it seemed careless, considering the fact that he had secrets that wouldn’t be safe in the hands of someone like Amelia. It wouldn’t take much digging to begin putting pieces together that we’d worked hard to bury. But why would Amelia lie about her and Johnny being friends?

I took in the way Olivia shifted on the stool. She reached up, tucking the hair behind her ear. All at once, it dawned on me.

“Were you and Johnny…?” I didn’t finish.

Olivia’s eyes widened, her cheeks flushing. “No!”

I stared at her, holding back a smile.

“No,” she said again. “Are you kidding? I mean, Johnny? Interested in someone like me?” She looked genuinely embarrassed.

I was sure Johnny had relationships, but it was one of many territories that we didn’t venture into when we talked. He’d never been good with women. He tended to get involved with women who fell hard and fast, but Johnny didn’t get close to people. Sadie had been a good example of that. She’d spent our high school years at the mercy of his fickle attentions. And just like him, they were always shifting.

Back then, I didn’t have any friends who weren’t infatuated with my brother, and I’d decided a long time ago that it was because people were intensely drawn to the mercurial parts of him. As if the very things that made him so different were also the things that made him captivating. You never knew when Johnny was going to show up or disappear, what he was going to do or say. It had been an exhausting atmosphere to exist within and, at the same time, always made me feel singular. Like being one of the only people allowed in my brother’s inner world meant that I was special.

I spent several seconds debating whether or not I wanted to ask the bigger question that had been eating away at me since that morning. About Sadie’s son, Ben, and whether Olivia had any idea if he could be Johnny’s.

Before I could make up my mind, Olivia turned on her stool to get a better view of the band and the drums picked back up, the music blaring through the speakers. I let the thought go and did the same, watching as the front man strummed his guitar and Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” filled the place.

I had to willfully let myself sink into it. Nights like this one were rare for me, aside from the occasional drink with Rhia or the string of onetime dates with guys I met on dating apps. The Penny was nothing like the little neighborhood bar down the street from my apartment in San Francisco. The last time Johnny visited, I’d taken him there and he’d been personally offended by the fact that there was a lavender cocktail on the menu.

A smile stretched on my lips, remembering the way his face had looked.

“I know I already said it, but it’s good to see you, James,” Olivia said, suddenly.

I turned to look at her. “It’s good to see you, too. Really.”

The door to the street opened, making the heat of the room contract, and when my eyes flicked up, I felt my entire body still. Micah Rhodes shouldered past a few people in the doorway, tugging the beanie from his head. His hair fell into his face before he raked it back and made his way toward the other side of the bar. His gaze didn’t land on me as he cast a few polite smiles to the people he passed, and when I felt Olivia watching me, I dropped my eyes.

“Have you seen him since you’ve been back?” she asked.

“Not really. He came by to drop off Smoke when I got in yesterday.”

She drained her glass, lifting a hand to signal the bartender again, and then she leaned forward just a little to see Micah shrugging his jacket off.

I could admit to myself now that I’d underestimated what it would be like to see him again. To stand in the same room and chart the changes in his face since the last time I looked at him. It gave me a panicked feeling, like I needed to get into my car and drive back to San Francisco before it could wrap its hungry tendrils around me. Those memories were still floating just beneath the surface of my skin. His hands sliding up my back beneath my shirt, the humid air, the sound of breath against my ear.

I’d hoped that it was just yesterday, that after so long, it was bound to stir things up that I thought were long dead. But as I sat there in the red and orange lights of the bar, my eyes tracing his sharp angles in the dim light, I had that frantic itch again. Like being pulled and pushed at the same time. It almost made me consider getting up and leaving.

He took a seat with two other men, and as if he could feel my gaze on him, he suddenly looked up, meeting my eyes. I swallowed, fixing my stare back to the bar top, but now a slow, burning heat was moving over the side of my face, down my throat, and over my shoulder. Everywhere I imagined his eyes would land.

“How’s he been?” I asked Olivia, keeping my voice low.

“Before all this? He’s been good. He works as a fly-fishing guide on the rivers and stays busy during the season. One of the only guys we grew up with who isn’t working as a logger, so that’s something.” Olivia paused. “But since Johnny? Honestly, I don’t know.”

“Sadie said he’s not himself.”

“That’s putting it lightly.” She leaned closer. “He took it hard. Of course he did.”

I could hardly hear the words anymore, drowned out by the beat of the music. I resisted the urge to look back at Micah for all of five seconds before I finally gave in. He wasn’t watching me anymore, but I could see his awareness of me in the stiff set of his shoulders.

“But he definitely isn’t himself,” Olivia continued. “Doesn’t come around a lot. He and Johnny were on the outs for a while there, too, so I figured maybe that has something to do with it. Like he feels guilty maybe.”

“On the outs how?”

“I don’t know what it was about, but with Johnny? Could have been a million things. Those two were like family and family’s like that. Just as likely to kill them as you are to kill for them.”

The words made me suppress a shudder. She had no idea just how true that was. But she and Amelia both were right about Micah being family. It wasn’t just the teenage angst and first love that had made him so hard to shake. It was everything else. Long before I was in love with him, we’d been threaded together in that permanent way that happened when your childhoods were interwoven. When you grew with someone. When they knew versions of you that no one else did. There was no erasing memories like that. There was no way to pretend that they didn’t go right on living beneath your skin for your entire life.

I watched the way the amber light moved across his cheek, the muscle in his jaw ticking as he stared into his glass. Micah was the only person who knew my brother like I did. How to see his storms coming. How to weather them. How to protect him from himself. And that had been the biggest problem between us—Johnny.

I spent years after I left unraveling that thread, trying to follow it to its end. But the answer wasn’t singular or simple. With Micah, nothing was.