Chapter 15 #2
“Just played cards with some of the guys in our cabin. You?”
I shake my head, focusing out on the lake. There’s a small shadow in the mist that I squint at.
“Duck!” I shout.
Immediately, Caleb leans forward. I do too, reflexively. The canoe rocks precariously. The paddle Caleb was holding slips off the side and into the water. Our slow momentum comes to a halt, giving the mallard enough time to move out of the path of our incoming canoe.
“What…how—” Caleb glances between the green-helmeted bird and the wooden paddle slowly drifting away.
“There was a duck.”
He blinks, glances at the bird, and then starts laughing. Loud, husky sounds that echo across the surface of the lake. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“You can see it. Right there.” I point toward the duck, who’s rapidly swimming away. I kind of wish I could do the same. Something tells me Caleb’s amusement is heading toward annoyance.
“All I see is our way of getting back to shore disappearing.” Caleb points in the opposite direction, toward the floating oar.
“Won’t we just like, I don’t know, drift toward it? Or paddle with our hands?” I lean down to demonstrate, attempting to drive the currents with the sheer force of my palms. We angle slightly to the right, and then move back to the left.
Caleb bursts out laughing again. Despite the fact we’re currently stranded, I smile.
“Please tell me you didn’t think that would work.”
“Not now, I don’t,” I reply.
Caleb shakes his head before he stands, pulling off his Landry Baseball sweatshirt in one smooth motion.
“What-what are you doing?”
“Getting us back to shore. I thought that’s what your hand paddling was trying to accomplish.”
His sweatpants disappear next. I swallow and look out at the lake. All three feet of it I can see in front of me.
We’ve shared plenty of heated moments, but this is the most I’ve seen of Caleb. Ever.
There’s a quiet splash, then a dark head bobs to the surface of the lake beside the canoe.
“Fuck, it’s freezing,” he informs me.
“Not surprised,” I reply.
“I didn’t hear you offering to jump in, Matthews,” Caleb responds, before he swims toward the wayward oar.
“Here.” Caleb’s back beside the canoe, holding he paddle. He holds it up to me.
I stretch over to grasp the wooden handle, and I don’t realize that was a mistake until I feel the canoe follow my movements. It tilts to the left. All of a sudden, lake water is pouring inside. Caleb was right. It’s cold.
I yelp, and then jump ship. Literally.
When my head emerges from the lake, Caleb is treading water beside me. “Didn’t you get an A in Physics?”
“Of course I did,” I respond through chattering teeth. “You have a plan to get us out of this, I hope?”
“Yeah,” Caleb replies. Then he smiles, which I’m not expecting. We’re treading water in what feels like an ice bath. Why does he look so amused?
“What?” I ask.
“I’m glad you came, Matthews.” The warm feeling his words elicit chases away a bit of the water’s chill.
“I just capsized the canoe.”
“Yeah, you did,” Caleb agrees. Then he kisses me. Familiar heat spreads through me, like a frozen flame.
Kissing in the water is difficult. It’s a challenge, staying afloat and remaining close enough to Caleb to kiss him. We manage to do it, though, until my arms are numb
“We should probably deal with the canoe,” I tell him.
“Yeah, probably,” Caleb agrees. After one final kiss, he swims over to the canoe. He flips it over in one smooth motion, then tows it toward me. The wayward paddle gets tossed inside, followed by our clothes.
Caleb literally has to haul me up and over the side of the canoe. Somehow, I adjusted to the temperature of the water, and the air is cold and unpleasant now that I’m wearing wet clothing. I wrap my arms around myself, trying to retain some body heat.
Caleb makes climbing into the canoe look easy. He gets dressed, and we finally start moving again. The mist is beginning to clear. I can see at least a dozen feet ahead now.
“So your grandfather is managing everything himself this weekend?” Caleb asks.
“Some of his old track buddies are coming over to help, but for the most part, yeah.” I look around at the scenery slowly emerging through the vapor lingering mystically in the air. “I’m worried about him.”
“If you’re worried about a weekend, how are you going to handle leaving him in the fall?”
I exhale. Part of me is surprised this possibility hasn’t occurred to Caleb already. Maybe it has, and this is a test. “I’m not leaving in the fall, Caleb. I’m staying in Landry.”
His face is completely blank. Nothing. “Why?”
“You know why.”
“Did you apply anywhere?”
“No,” I admit. “College is crazy expensive. That’s money we don’t have. And even if I got a scholarship someplace, I can’t leave the farm. Leave Gramps.”
“You could sell the farm. That land is worth millions.”
He says it like it’s easy. Like it’s nothing. Spoken like someone with no attachment to this town.
“Matthews Farm has been in my family for generations. Gramps has lived there his whole life. So have I. I’ve known this is what would happen ever since—ever since my dad died. Gramps can’t manage things by himself. I’m all he has left. He’s all I have left.”
“You’ve known since freshman year.” The words sound flat. Delivered more like he’s talking to himself than to me.
“I didn’t think it…mattered.”
Caleb shakes his head. “Great. That’s just…great.”
“I don’t get why you’re mad,” I say. “Surprised, yeah. But why do you care if I’m here? You’ll be gone.”
“Did you listen to a damn word I said at the field that day, Lennon?”
“Caleb…we both knew this was temporary. I mean, you’re…you. I figured this would have ended a while ago.” I pause. “I’m glad it didn’t. Hasn’t. But I know it will.”
Caleb laughs, but it sounds totally different than before. It’s a hollow, sad sound. “I don’t know where you got the idea this was temporary from, but it wasn’t from me. It’s good to know that’s what you think, though.”
Unease trickles through me, paired with the sinking suspicion I just messed up. “What did you think this was, then?”
“It doesn’t matter. I can’t keep doing this.”
“Keep doing what? I thought we were just, you know, having fun. Messing around.”
“Having fun and messing around,” Caleb repeats.
“I mean…I enjoyed it.” I squeeze the excess water out of the hem of my shirt, wayward drips falling on my legs and the bottom of the canoe. “I know you’re more experienced.”
When I gather the courage to glance up, Caleb is rubbing a palm across his face. The canoe isn’t that big. When his hand lowers, I can see the freckles on his nose and the droplets clinging to his eyelashes. “You think this is about sex for me?”
“I’ve heard the stories. I saw you kissing Madison.”
Caleb’s jaw tenses. “Have you been kissing other guys?”
I laugh; I can’t help it. “Of course not.” Aside from Noah, a sandy-haired surfer who spent a couple of weeks in Landry visiting family the summer after my sophomore year, Caleb is the only guy I’ve kissed since Ryan James in middle school.
The suggestion I’m juggling multiple boys is honestly funny.
Caleb’s expression only darkens. “Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t act like it’s ridiculous.”
“Well, it is. You know how people act around me.”
Now, Caleb laughs. But it’s not really an amused sound. “I know Masterson sat next to you on the bus yesterday. And last night, I learned James is planning to ask you to prom.”
“I…what? Where did you hear that?”
“Where do you think? James had a lot to say about you during cards, actually. Heard all about eighth grade and the conversations you have at your locker.”
“Conversations? It was one conversation, maybe two. He asked me to hang out, and I said no. The end.”
The canoe hits the shore, lurching me forward. Caleb climbs out immediately and I clamber to follow him. He pulls the canoe all the way onto shore, stashing it in the same spot among the ferns.
Then, he keeps walking.
It takes me a second to register he’s really just walking away. And not at a slow pace, either. I have to literally run to catch up with him. “Caleb!”
At first, I think he’s not going to stop. But he finally slows, then turns around. “What?”
“Where are you going?”
He raises his eyebrows, then glances deliberately down at his soaked clothes. “To change.”
“We were in the middle of a conversation!”
“The conversation is over, Lennon. And so are we. Although, according to you, we never even started. So we’re just back to being nothing, I guess.”
“I…” I don’t know what to say. I made a lot of assumptions about me and Caleb, and I guess the saying about that is true. I do feel like an ass.
“We’re fine, Lennon,” he says. “Don’t worry about it.”
But Caleb doesn’t look fine. He looks disappointed and upset.
And it twists something inside my chest, knowing it’s because of me.
I was so focused on protecting myself—on managing expectations and not getting attached and not losing sight of reality—that it never occurred to me I might have the power to hurt him.
“Where are you playing next year?”
I don’t follow baseball, and I’ve spent years trying to tune out any mention of Caleb. But I know he’s a big deal. Know he should have announced his college choice a while ago and that he hasn’t is a source of speculation.
If he’s surprised by the random question, he doesn’t show it. “I haven’t committed anywhere yet.”
“You-you haven’t? Weren’t you supposed to, a while ago.”
“Yeah, I was.”
“Why haven’t you then? You want to play in college, right?”
“Yeah. I wanna play.”
“You got offers…right?”
He exhales, one corner of his mouth turning up reluctantly. “If you’d ever come to a game, you wouldn’t have to ask me that.”
My fingers twine anxiously as I chew on the inside of my cheek. It never occurred to me to go to one of Caleb’s games. I figured he wanted to relegate any association with me to the periphery of his life. But Caleb has never acted ashamed of me. Those insecurities are all me.