17. The Bonfire
The Bonfire
Maren hears the locker room door slam shut.
She has been sitting at her desk keeping track of how many times the door opened and closed, and if her count is right, that was the last swimmer leaving evening practice.
She grabs her keys and calls into the boy’s locker room to make sure it is clear.
No one answers. She reaches inside and feels along the cool tile for the light switch.
On the other side of her office, she pushes open the door to the girls’ locker room.
The familiar scent hits immediately. Conditioners, lotions, perfume.
Tween girls trying so hard to smell good that every scent fights every other one.
It is like walking through the perfume counter at the mall.
The sharp sweetness sits hard in her gut as she walks through.
She picks up a couple of wet towels and a pair of goggles, which she will toss into the lost and found.
She almost never has to do this much cleanup in the boys’ locker room. The girls keep her busy nightly. They would forget their own heads if they were not already attached. Maren never remembers being like this. She always knew where her things were and where the backups were, just in case.
Back in her office, she drops the goggles on the desk. Her laptop sits in the corner, lid open, screen black. She swears she can feel judgment radiating from it. She mouths “I’m sorry” at it as she bends down for her backpack, noticeably lighter now, and picks up her keys.
She steps out of the office door and pauses.
The pool is still. Not a ripple. The flat surface reflects her shape back at her.
She takes a deep breath, letting the locker room smell clear from her lungs until all she can smell is chlorine, that familiar home smell.
She looks at her reflection once more and rolls her shoulders back, standing a little straighter.
“Okay,” she says to no one. “Let’s do this.”
She tosses her keys into the air, catches them, and heads out to her car.
The sun is just beginning to set when she reaches the parking lot. Everything is bathed in pink and gold light. The warmth is still there, but a soft breeze slides through the air and reminds her to double-check that she grabbed a hoodie.
She digs around in the backseat until her hand finds the familiar soft cotton of her favorite hoodie.
She pulls it free, shakes it once, and tosses the Tar Heel blue shirt onto her passenger seat.
The smell of laundry detergent and something faintly like the lake clings to it.
She must have worn it the last time she stopped by the beach after practice.
The thought makes her stomach flutter in a way she tries to ignore.
She slides into the driver’s seat and starts the car.
The engine hums to life. For a moment, she does not put it in reverse.
She just sits there, hands on the wheel, watching the last swimmer climb into their parent’s car and drive away.
The parking lot always empties quickly after summer evening practices.
Everyone rushed home to barbecues and sleepovers.
Maren remembers that being her favorite part of the summer season.
No homework. No bedtimes. Just friends and the pool.
She knows she should be going home, eating dinner, and heading to bed.
Instead, she is going to a bonfire with people she has not seen in years. People she swam with, laughed with, argued with. People who knew her before she knew anything about herself.
People who also know Reese.
Her fingers tighten around the steering wheel before she forces them to loosen. Exhale one, two, three, four.
“Relax,” she mutters. “It is just a fire and a bunch of friends. Not a big deal.”
But her heart does a little uneven skip at the word friends, like it knows better.
She reverses out of the spot and pulls onto the road.
The drive toward the lake is short, not even ten minutes, but it feels longer tonight.
The sky fades into deeper hues of blue and purple as the sun dips lower, streaks of gold catching on the tops of the trees.
The air through the cracked window smells like warm dirt and freshly cut summer grass.
Her chest loosens a little as she crosses over the train tracks on the way out of town.
By the time she pulls into the parking lot at the state park, the sky has settled into a soft, quiet dusk.
The small gravel lot at Upper Beach is already dotted with cars she recognizes.
Old teammates. People from her graduating class.
A couple of parents who always showed up early to volunteer, even when they were not needed.
She kills the engine and sits for a second, letting the weight of the day drain out of her. Voices drift toward her from down the slope. Laughter. Someone shouting something half-teasing, half-heartfelt. The crackle of the bonfire carries on the breeze, along with the faint scent of wood smoke.
Maren pulls her hoodie on and steps into the cooling air. She shuts the car door gently, like the sound might break the calm she has managed to build around herself.
She pulls down the bottom of her hoodie, making sure the hem sits straight.
Then she starts down the path toward the firelight, the lake waiting beside it like an old friend, an old memory.
The path curves downward, the sand squeaking under her feet as she makes her way toward the glow.
The lake stretches out in front of her, dark and familiar, but the chatter ahead feels louder with every step.
She adjusts the blanket tucked under her arm, trying to fold it tighter so it does not slip.
She is still a few yards away when she hears her name.
“Maren? Oh my god, MAREN!”
Jules is the first to spot her. She is already halfway up from her camp chair, waving an arm like a flag. Ava stands beside her, smiling, both lit gold by the fire.
Maren tries to smile back, but the blanket shifts, sliding down her forearm. She reaches for it just as Jules closes the distance and leans in for a hug. The timing is terrible. Maren ends up half-hugging, half-wrestling the blanket into place, trying not to drop the thing entirely.
“Sorry,” she says as Jules squeezes her just a touch too tight. “I brought…stuff.”
Jules laughs into her shoulder. “Maren, you brought a blanket, not a suitcase. Come here.”
Ava steps in next, gentler, giving her a quick squeeze before stepping back to a more comfortable distance. Maren pauses, grateful for that tiny bit of mindfulness and kindness.
Someone behind them shouts hello. Someone else whistles. More faces turn, smiling.
It is too much all at once, too loud, too bright, but also warm in a way she did not know she had missed. She pulls the blanket up more securely in her arms and forces her shoulders back down away from her ears.
“Come sit with us,” Ava says, already gesturing toward a spot near the logs.
Maren nods silently and follows, heart steadying in small, careful beats.
Maren settles on a log with Ava and two old friends they used to swim relays with.
Someone hands her a can of pop. Ava leans in to tell her a story about a guy on her master’s team who was so busy trying to flirt with her at a meet that he forgot to pull his goggles down and dove in with them still on his forehead.
Across the fire, one of the boys from the class below her pulls out a guitar. A ripple of excitement goes around the circle. He tunes a few strings while people shout requests at him.
Maren feels relaxed, just a little bit. The fire crackles. The night air settles cool against her cheeks. Ava bumps her knee in a friendly way.
Then someone calls out a song request.
At first, Maren thinks she misheard it. The guitar kid pauses too, startled, then laughs.
“Oh, come on,” he says. “Really?”
“Yes, really. Play I Kissed a Girl. You know you know it.”
Maren’s whole body goes still.
She knows that voice.
Every version of that voice.
From age twelve until now.
She turns toward the sound.
Reese is standing on the far side of the fire, a red Solo cup in one hand, her hair pulled back messily like she ran her hands through it too many times. She is grinning, head tipped back slightly, confident and warm in a way Maren has never been able to forget.
The guitar guy rolls his eyes but starts strumming the opening chords anyway. A few people cheer. Someone whoops loudly.
Reese looks delighted. Of course she requested this song. Of course she did.
Ava leans closer to Maren, voice low.
“She showed up like twenty minutes ago.”
Maren nods, trying not to look like her heart is punching against her ribs in an attempt to escape.
Across the fire, Reese finally notices her.
Her grin softens.
Her eyes catch the firelight and go warm.
She lifts her chin in a tiny, quiet hello.
Maren lifts her hand in return, barely a wave. Her fingers feel too stiff.
The guitar launches into the chorus, off-key in the best way. People sing loudly and terribly.
Reese mouths the lyrics across the fire like a joke, like a memory, like a dare.
Maren feels the moment hit her square in the chest.
Not painful.
But known.
So, known.
She looks down at the blanket in her lap, trying to steady the rush of heat to her face.
Ava nudges her again.
“You, okay?”
Maren nods.
She is not.
She is completely not okay.
But she is here.
And Reese is here.
And the night stretches wide open in front of them.
Maren turns her body back to the conversation Ava and Jules are having about their new apartments, graduating college, and moving on with their lives.
They have both decided to stay down in Bloomington and start their lives down there.
They encourage Maren to come down and visit, knowing that she won’t ever do it, but being invited still feels nice.
Maren does her best to try and carry on the conversation, but out of the corner of her eyes, all she sees is Reese, dancing next to the fire with a couple of the divers.
Her laughter rings like a bell through the air, and it is the only thing that Maren can hear.
She stands up, gently brushing the sand from her legs, and excuses herself from her friends. Telling them, she is just going to go down to the water to feel how cold it is. She starts to walk towards the water.
Jules calls after her, “Be careful out there, Captain, I hear there are sharks in the water.”
Maren shakes her head and laughs, not even bothering to turn around. She just raises her hand above her head, playfully flipping her friends off.
She is about halfway down to the water when she hears it. The voice she will never forget.
“Where are you off to, co-captain?”
Maren turns to find Reese jogging towards her. She gets down to Maren, slightly out of breath, and leans into Maren, tapping their shoulders together.
“God, we are the old people now, aren’t we? I forgot that running on sand was just evil.”
“Speak for yourself, Callahan. I could still out-swim more than half of them up there at the fire.” Maren giggles a little too loudly and quickly turns back to face the water.
Reese falls into step beside her, matching her pace like it is the easiest thing in the world. The lake spreads out in front of them, dark blue and calm, the surface catching the last bit of gold from the fire behind them.
“Do you remember,” Reese says, nudging her with her shoulder, “when Coach made us do that awful sunrise practice, and you swore you were going to quit the team?”
Maren snorts. “I was fourteen. We were freshmen. And in my defense, it was five in the morning. No child should be awake early enough to be somewhere at five.”
Reese laughs. “You showed up with a protein bar, a full thermos of coffee, and a printed workout plan you made for yourself. I should have known then you were destined to coach.”
Maren wrinkles her nose. “One, my coffee was something like eighty percent creamer. And two, you showed up ten minutes late with your hair wet from a shower. You knew you were getting into the pool. Why did you even shower?”
“Well, I had to wake up somehow,” Reese says.
“And you made the whole pool area smell like your melon hair conditioner for the next three hours.”
Reese grins. “And everyone loved it.”
Maren shakes her head, but her smile is real. The lake breeze slips between them, cool and soft. Their footsteps scrape quietly through the sand.
A few moments pass, gentle and easy. The noise from the fire fades behind them, replaced by the quiet lap of waves.
Reese toes the edge of the water. “Bet you five bucks it is freezing.”
Maren raises an eyebrow. “Bet you ten you complain first.”
Reese gasps dramatically. “Excuse you. I am a finely trained aquatic professional.”
“Who used to tell people there were sharks in the freshwater lake,” Maren shoots back.
Reese laughs, and Maren does too, a soft sound that feels like it has been trapped inside her for years. She steps beside Reese, close enough that she can feel the warmth radiating from her arm.
For a moment, they just stand there, looking out at the lake. The reflection of the fire dances on the black surface. The sky deepens into true night, stars just starting to prick through.
“It looks the same,” Reese says quietly. “The lake. The beach. All of it.”
“Yeah,” Maren answers. “It does.”
Reese’s voice lifts again, lighter this time. “And you still walk like you are counting your steps.”
Maren elbows her. “I do not.”
“You absolutely do.” Reese wiggles her eyebrows. “It is adorable.”
Maren turns her face toward the water, so Reese cannot see her blush.
The waves roll in, small and steady, brushing over the sand.
For now, everything stays simple.
Warm.
Stupid.
Familiar.
Like stepping into an old rhythm without thinking about it.
Something shifts in the air between them, light as a tide pulling in.
Not a question yet.
Not an answer.
Just the beginning of something opening.
Behind them, Ava’s voice carries down the sand.
“Hey! You two coming back? They’re breaking out the s’mores!”
Reese laughs, soft and close. Maren feels the sound more than she hears it.
She pulls in a quiet breath, steadying herself, then turns back toward the glow of the fire.
“Guess we should,” she says.
Reese bumps her shoulder again. “Yeah. Come on.”
They start walking together, footprints trailing behind them in the sand, the night settling warm and wide around them.