4. The Team Trip #3
“Good.” Reese leans over until her shoulder presses against Maren’s. Warmth soaks through the thin layer of cold still left on their skin. “Then we are even. The lake got me today. The bench got you. We put a stone on each side of the scale. Balanced.”
“I don’t want to be even because of bad things,” Maren says.
“Me neither,” Reese says. “I want to be even because we both just keep showing up.”
Maren lets that settle. The idea fits. She nods.
The day thins out in the gentle way they always do at the beach.
A few of the younger swimmers nap wrapped up in hoodies.
Someone starts a game with a frisbee that seems determined to escape.
Coach Hensley talks to the parents who have shown up to help wrangle the team about coals in the fire, hot spots, and the best way to trick damp wood into remembering it wants to burn.
When the sun slides down, the team drifts toward the fire ring.
The logs crackle in small, eager snaps. Smoke climbs and then makes complex decisions in the wind.
The light turns into something that lives, warm on the faces, wrists, and cheeks, bright on the curve of the smile, soft in the hollow of a collarbone.
Reese holds a stick with a marshmallow that bubbles too fast. She rotated it with solemn concentration. “The trick,” she says, very serious, “is to make it so ugly you feel sorry for it. Then it tastes perfect.”
“That is not a trick; that is a crime,” Maren says. She holds her higher, rotating the stick slowly, patient for the golden brown color to appear. She can be patient when there is a result she can see, golden crust forming, soft middle waiting.
“Watch and learn,” Reese says. Her marshmallow catches fire. She yelps and shakes the stick back and forth till the flame goes out. The surface turns into charcoal lace. She holds the blackened orb like a jewel. “Exhibit A. Disaster and delicious.” She pops the marshmallow into her mouth.
Maren laughs. It feels easier now. Like she can finally relax.
She sandwiches her perfect golden mallow between chocolate and graham crackers and bites.
The sugar rush is immediate. The hot middle sticks to the back of her teeth.
She licks it away as she watches the smoke curl into the kind of darkness that pushes the lake up into a wide, invisible presence.
Nicole tells a scary story that has more plot holes than plot.
The freshmen shriek at the wrong parts. Reese pretends to be bored but then jumps when a stick cracks behind them.
She scoots closer to Maren until their elbows touch.
The fire paints both their knees in warm orange.
The stars come out in confident points. A cool breeze moves across the top of the dune grass like a hand smoothing a dog’s fur the wrong way and then right again.
“Tomorrow,” Reese says, quiet, like she is speaking to the fire, not Maren. “I will go to the buoy. No sharks. No logs. Just me.”
“You do not have to prove anything,” Maren says.
“I know,” Reese says. “I want to do it anyway.”
Maren tilts her head and listens to the lake.
It slaps the rocks in a soft rhythm. A simple metronome.
She can feel her own breath matching it.
She can feel the space inside her body that the water leaves when she gets out.
It is not a bad space. It is a kind of echo that reminds her she was held.
She looks at Reese. The fire answers in her eyes. Not bright. Steady.
“I will go with you,” Maren says.
“Deal.” Reese smiles, slow, like something that took its time to arrive. “But first, we will dominate everyone here with our synchronized marshmallow skills.”
“We have no skills,” Maren states.
“We have enthusiasm,” Reese says. “And we have a captive audience.”
Maren huffs out a laugh. The team chatters around them.
Coach Hensley tells the moon it owes him five degrees warmer.
Heat strokes her shins, a ribbon of comfort against the outside chill.
She tucks her feet up under her and lets her shoulder rest against Reese’s on purpose this time instead of an accident.
Across the fire, someone strums a guitar, the sound more confident than it is in tune. The song is slow and sweet. It floats out over the darkness. The embers pop as a few sparks draft up like tiny stars that forgot where they were going.
“Tomorrow,” Reese says again, as if the word itself is a vow.
“Tomorrow,” Maren echoes.
They watch the fires settle into a red heart.
The evening folds in tighter but does not feel like a closing.
It feels like a hand cupped around a flame to keep it steady.
Their friends laugh and sing around the fire.
Coach lifts the lid on a cooler and calls for five more minutes.
Car doors thump softly in the lot beyond the dunes.
Maren tucks this into the part of her that keeps important things.
Between her and the next chapter, there is only this.
Warmth. Quiet. And a buoy rocking somewhere out in the dark.
A promise spoken softly that the night is allowed to keep.