Auggie
MAYTE IS DRESSED IN A SHIRT THAT HANGS BAGGY OVER HER SMALL frame, reaching all the way to her knees, and black leggings.
It’s teal and short-sleeved with Ariel from The Little Mermaid across it.
I was given a blue one with a dancing Snoopy from the Peanuts cartoons and some sweatpants.
Mayte had them when I picked her up for today’s adventure. They were Aida’s.
After a short walk from the car, I lay the blanket out on the dirt and we both set our bags down on it.
She kicks her shoes off before pulling her feet onto the blanket, and I do the same.
I unzip my backpack and pull out two bottles of water, a bag of sea salt potato chips, and a peanut butter sandwich (made by moi—true man stuff) for each of us.
“What a chef,” she says, taking her sandwich out of the plastic bag. “What a man.”
See?
I grin at her. “I can do better. Just wait. One day you’ll show up to French cuisine.”
“You know how to make French cuisine?”
“No,” I say, and she laughs. “But I can put French fries in the air fryer.”
“Yeah, not quite the same thing,” she says. I stretch out on the blanket, propping myself up on my elbow. Mayte stretches her legs out, too, laying her head against me. I run my hands through her hair as I look out at the lake.
We eat our sandwiches quickly, neither of us saying much, and it feels natural. I don’t feel the need to fill the silence. I like the sound of the birds and the ducks, the breeze blowing through the trees and against my skin, the feeling of her body against mine. I could sit like this forever.
Mayte, on the other hand, will always try to fill the silence.
“Are you sure about this?” she asks, swallowing the last bite of her sandwich. She hands me her ziplock bag and I stuff it into my backpack. “You can change your mind. I won’t be upset if you change your mind.” She sits up and kisses me. “Part of me wants you to.”
My heart races. I wonder if it’ll ever stop doing that when we kiss. I hope it never does.
“I’m one hundred percent sure,” I say. “I feel like this is how it was meant to end.”
“I guess stories always end how they’re supposed to end,” Mayte says.
“Are you sure you’re not the wordsmith in this relationship?” I ask.
“Oh, are we in a relationship now?” she asks, raising her eyebrows.
“Technically we’ve always been in a relationship because we’ve been two people relating to each other and that’s the actual definition of a relationship, but—”
She leans in and kisses me again and I shut up. Then she curls her pinky around mine. “We’re dating now. Deal?”
I laugh and nod. “Deal.”
She hands me half the pages, pulls the instructions up on her phone, and we start to fold. I’m way better at it than I thought I’d be, but of course Mayte’s are better, more meticulous and pretty.
“I didn’t know it was that easy to get a boyfriend,” Mayte says.
“Right?” I ask.
“You’re my first,” she says.
“I know. You’re my first.” I grin at her. “Chévere, ?no?”
She laughs and then focuses back on her folding.
“Hey. Wanna know a secret?” I ask, after rolling it around in my mind for a minute.
“What?”
“My first and only other kiss,” I say, “was a girl in third grade who was dared to kiss me.”
Mayte’s jaw drops and she looks up at me, eyes laughing, covering her mouth. “That doesn’t count!” she finally says.
“She wiped her mouth and spit afterward,” I say, laughing.
Neither of us can stop laughing as we continue folding, and by the time we’ve finished with each page, my stomach aches. Our origami sits in a pile. We look at each other.
“Ready?” I ask.
She nods. “Ready.”
We each take half of the little boats and set them on the lake, ready to send the story off to Aida. Once they’re all in the water, I take her hand, and we stare at the bobbing fleet of folded pages. They sit in the water almost motionless, rocking only slightly.
“I forgot there aren’t waves in a lake like in the ocean,” Mayte finally says, looking at the boats.
“I guess not,” I say.
“Here,” Mayte says, rolling up her leggings and starting into the water.
She begins herding the boats farther out into the lake. I roll up my sweatpants and join her. Right away, my pants unroll, water soaking through the material.
Once we’ve gotten up to our knees, the hem of Mayte’s shirt getting wet, we start to push the water, making waves with our hands, trying to send the boats out farther. They move a little more, but not much.
“I think that’s as far as we’re gonna get,” I say, hands on my hips.
“I think you’re right,” she says.
We wade back to the shore and stare out at the boats. We’re quiet, holding hands until she breaks the silence again.
“Also, a shark’s not going to eat them.”
“Yeah. That one’s for sure not going to happen,” I say, then turn to her. “It doesn’t have to be exactly the same.”
She sits down, her feet in the water, and reaches for my hand, pulling me to sit beside her. “Auggie?”
“Hmm?”
“Would sharks actually attack paper boats, or is that just a story thing?” She lays her head on my shoulder. “I thought they go for shiny stuff.”
“Honestly,” I say, putting an arm around her, “I don’t know.”
The sun is waning, as if sinking into the water, reflecting off the surface like it’s reaching for the boats.
The boats drift out farther, the breeze making quiet waves on the lake that reel them in.
And then one by one they start to disappear.
I pull Mayte closer to me as the boats droop under the weight of the water they’re absorbing and then sink beneath the surface.
And just like that, my story is gone.
But I guess it isn’t, really.
I look at Mayte beside me, talking out loud to the lake, to the sunken boats, to Aida.
She is part of my story, part of my future.
The realization that writing The Next Great American Novel is not my most important thing.
That’s part of my story, part of my future.
Me, out here, caring more about who I am and could be instead of trying so hard to prove myself to colleges and publishers and magazines.
That’s part of my story, part of my future.
I know what I’m capable of now. I know what I mean.
And that’s a story only I can write.