THREE
Meredith
The oars splashing into the water sounds like summer to me.
This is the noise I hear whenever I picture the island.
Smooth, rhythmic, droplets from the wood falling into the lake between every stroke.
Dad said we couldn’t use a motor because Springy, the mythical lake monster I totally did not believe even a little bit was real, didn’t like the vibrations from motorboats.
Fine, there is a small possibility I bought into his existence and would leave snacks on the beach for him during the full moon. So what, you probably left cookies for Santa. I left yucky lake plants for Springy.
I need the stress relief only the sound of water dripping from oars can provide.
The cot at the police station was comfortable enough but I couldn’t sleep, not with all the noise.
It’s not often arsonists burn down a cottage and throw Molotov cocktails at the fireboat trying to put out the fire, not on Cedar Spring Lake.
This place is a madhouse with people from other divisions, reporters, constant dick measuring competitions over who has jurisdiction.
I had to get out of there. In all the hullabaloo, no one even noticed me slipping through the crowd. Hullabaloo, I need to commit that one to memory to pull out for Aspen when she gets back, we love surprising each other with random silly words.
When I was lying there, listening to strangers talk about my family’s camp, it didn’t seem quite so silly.
They’re more worried about what image this might cast on peaceful little Cedar Spring, as if someone didn’t just lose everything.
I get it, they care about their town, but shouldn’t someone care about us?
Someone other than Aspen’s firefighter, who’s driving her halfway across the state just to help us out.
Forgoing the charred ashes of the dock, I loop around to the beach on the backside of the island. Ugh, northside. I can hear my dad insisting there is no back or front. There is too, the side you see from the road is the front, or in this case from the pier in town.
I know Springy isn’t real, but just in case, I put the lake muck I saved from my oar on the flat rock where I always leave offerings.
Normally I put out food scraps for the animals that come in the night but out here on the island, there aren’t any night scavengers.
Mom and Dad hate it, the critter activity sets off the floodlights all night long, but I can’t just let gross food go to waste when someone out there gets excited for it.
You should hear the noises those raccoons make when they find food in the driveway.
My goal is to see what’s left of the cabin but I’m not ready yet. For now, this little pocket beach is the perfect place to hang out. I’m not sure if it really gets smaller every year or if it’s my perspective that changes, but it feels narrower than ever.
I hate feeling like this, it isn’t me. Brushing things off is my specialty. It’s just… the things I brush off aren’t usually this serious. We almost died last night, and now I don’t know what happens next. I miss the carefree version of me I was yesterday at this time.
The tiniest waves lapping at the sand disguise the footprints drawing closer until they’re directly beside me. My heart drops into my rectal cavity before looping back up to my throat, eww, that didn’t taste the best.
“This isn’t the witness waiting room.” It’s Officer Grumpy Pants, which allows my heart to return to its proper location.
“Is too! Where else would I be? Have you come with more stupid questions I don’t have the answers to?”
“Sorry about that,” he mutters sheepishly, dropping into the sand beside me. “I don’t usually interview victims. Hell, we don’t get many victims here. The whole repeated question thing, we use it to poke holes in people’s stories, get to the truth faster.”
“And what exactly do you think I’m lying about?”
“You’d be surprised the things people try to cover up.
Few years ago, we had a couple brothers renting out vacant cabins they didn’t even own.
Well, they used to use them to cook meth and god knows what else, they tried pinning it on the guests they rented the cabins to.
Basically, people do some fucked up shit and then do whatever they can to get away with it. ”
“That’s horrible. Did you catch them?”
“We did. Just like we’ll catch the guys who took your home from you. After our last conversation, I grilled that sonovabitch hard.”
“Did he crack?”
“Like an egg on a frying pan. Shell everywhere. It was messy.”
“Sounds like my omelets. We let Aspen do the cracking now, my eggs were always crunchy. Hers are too but only half as bad, we just add bacon bits, then you can’t tell what you’re crunching into.”
His laughter puts a smile on my face. It’s such a sweet sound, like it’s unfamiliar to his vocal cords, raw but real.
I don’t get the impression he uses it much.
The same way my voice sounds raspy when I haven’t said anything in a really long time, ya know, a minute or two.
Like when I’m brushing my teeth. Nope, not true, I usually shout something to Aspen and splatter the mirror with toothpaste.
I’m sure there’s two minute long stretches where I don’t speak.
“So if you got the jolly green giant to talk, what are you doing here in the witness waiting room with me?”
A soft chuckle rolls from his chest like a summer thunderstorm on the lake. “You do know this isn’t the room I left you in, right?”
“Not sure what you’re implying. I certainly didn’t sneak out of the station and commandeer a boat with my boobies.
Not like we’re a group of ragtag pirates, my boobies just helped me to convince a couple gentlemen to let me borrow their fishing boat.
And then row myself out to the island I almost died on.
Because if you’re implying that, you, sir, are insane. ”
“I’m sure you and your ragtag pirates can be very convincing. I get why you’re out here, Meredith. I should have been more sensitive. You lost a lot last night.”
“Me and my pirates forgive you, matey. So what are you doing out here, Officer Bressen?”
“Verifying a few things, making sure his story checks out. Some confessions are more about throwing us off the trail. You can call me Hollis, by the way.”
“Wow, first name basis? I’m honored. Anything I can do to see if the perp’s story checks out? Look at me using the lingo.”
He stares down at the sand between his knees, eyes still glimmering with a hint of laughter long after it’s left his lips. I can feel all the things he’s not willing to say but they’re hitting me like a tidal wave. I’m usually good at reading people but I can’t decipher any of it.
“You mind showing me around the cabin? Or what’s left of it,” he adds solemnly the moment he sees the pain wash over my face. “Maybe just the root cellar.”
“I can give you the grand tour,” I say, taking his outstretched hand to help me up.
It’s softer than I expected, but stronger, the kind of hand that could hold me as I dangle over a deep gorge after the rope bridge broke. This apple bottom I lug around with me isn’t exactly light. Every day’s leg day for me.
Should I have let go of his hand by now?
Probably. We’ve left the little beach and entered the woods.
It’s not like I need him to lead the way or protect me from the big bad roots out to trip me up.
Fine, not entirely true, I trip over invisible roots all the time. Holding his hand is probably necessary.
Besides, letting go of it now would seem weird.
I’m not even sure why I’m still holding on.
I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel nice.
Maybe Officer Grumpy’s not as bad as the picture I painted in my head.
His hand definitely isn’t. Or his smile.
That laugh. Those eyes that say so much more than his mouth lets on.
He still has stupid frat boy hair though, which I most certainly do not want to run my fingers through. The hand holding is quite enough. And perhaps a little overboard.
Hollis hasn’t let go either.
He could have dropped my hand at any point between here and the shore but he didn’t.
He doesn’t know how clumsy I am in the woods and that Aspen has to hold my hand the whole way to the cabin.
I fell one time. And then another ten or twenty times after, no need to overreact and childproof the forest. Not the whole thing at least, just the problem areas.
It’s decided, I will not be letting go. That’d be like asking someone’s name after the morning walk of shame. The moment already sailed by and it’d just be awkward at this stage on the overgrown path to the cabin.
We’ll hold hands until we get there, then I’m letting go.
I can pretend not to feel the sparks between our skin, it’s not that far of a walk.
It’s probably not even real sparks, it just has something to do with the heat and friction and a bunch of science words I probably would have learned had I finished college.
I know the one word that matters here, whether I want to admit it or not; chemistry.
There isn’t an ounce of it between us. I sure as hell am not feeling its tingle start in my palm and spread throughout my body. Not happening, not today, folks.
We’re almost there, then I can let go.
So why do I keep walking slower?