11. Two Broken Birds #3
Gus worked in the woodshop all day that Monday to distract himself.
He toiled away on the chairs for a pine table, attempting extreme focus, as his dad finished up the intricate scrollwork behind him.
Only by using his hands again to create something was Gus able to return to a small sense of normalcy—to what he understood.
Keeping active was enough to quiet his brain.
After finishing up sawing a flurry of planks to level them and drilling small holes in each, Gus reached to switch out the bit on the drill press.
It slipped and clanked to the floor. Gus flinched halfway to picking it up as memories flooded back to him of Bridger dropping this piece the same way back when he first showed him the shop.
No! Gus chided himself. Stop thinking about Bridger.
Gus forced his mind to clear and pushed on to the next task. Cleaning up his station, he collected together the scraps of wood beneath his machine and hoisted them into his arms. He turned toward their furnace to burn the scraps. Gus no longer needed them.
Gus inhaled a sharp breath of pain. One of the jagged ends of wood caught the tip of his left hand’s ring finger. It drew blood.
Fuck!
Gus dropped the armful of wood. The planks slammed to the ground in a deafening cacophony. A cloud of scattered sawdust burst up around him.
Dan looked up to say something but held his tongue for a moment, sensing Gus’s frustration.
“Careful there. You okay? Don’t slice a finger off,” Dan joked.
“I’m fine,” Gus replied curtly.
Dan harrumphed. “Where’s Bridger? Haven’t seen him around for a while.”
“I don’t know,” Gus replied.
“You guys seemed like good friends,” Dan said cautiously.
“Yeah, well. Whatever.”
“Something go wrong with making the skateboards?” Dan asked, puzzled.
“No, I—”
Memories of Gus’s best and worst moments with Bridger swirled in his brain like a tornado.
The first night meeting under the streetlamps.
Skating together, falling over, laughing.
Building boards in the shop.
Watching the home movies of Mom.
Sleeping so close they could have touched.
The bonfire.
Drawing birds at the lake.
Their fights.
…The kiss.
Gus shook his head to silence it all. He sighed. Gus had no idea how to explain what happened to his father.
He won’t get it. Any of it.
“I’m just not someone who can keep his friends,” Gus confessed quietly.
Dan’s shoulders dropped in worry.
Dejected and stuck in his own head, Gus walked out of the shop to head back to the cabin. Dan stepped forward to follow but stopped himself, unsure of how to help.
~
Under the evening’s amber sky, Bridger skated increasingly fast down a random street far from his house, aimless and upset.
He was stressed, distracted. Things had been so different lately—the tense conversation with Max, choosing to cut out Gus, so many of the skate guys still pestering him about getting their homemade skateboards.
Bridger didn’t know how to deal with so much at once.
Shit… What am I even doing? What did I get myself into?
Skating always cleared Bridger’s mind, but he was rarely ever by himself on his board. It was other people that distracted him from his own thoughts. Today, though, Bridger needed time alone.
Bridger floated on his dark flamed skateboard up and down rural roads with the Montana mountains in the far distance. The faster he sped, the more his mind emptied.
Yet an anger remained, and he didn’t know why.
I’m an idiot, Bridger badgered himself, skating fast around a bend. I never asked for this mess.
Flashbacks of his conversations with Gus at the bonfire and at the secret lake came to him.
Why did I tell him all those things?
Bridger shook his head violently to shoo the memories away. He winced with heavy regret and kicked off to skate even faster. Soon Bridger approached a steep downward hill. And of all things, he smiled.
Perfect. Bridger spread his wingspan wide and closed his eyes. Here we go.
Bridger careened down the hill, basking in the familiar rush of the wind zipping by his face.
The airy, dangerous freedom of going so fast. Of flying.
This danger felt normal to him. The adrenaline was better than guilt, better than confusion.
He craved it. Relished it. He Swooped his arms like one of Gus’s birds.
Gus would hate this.
A haze of memories descended over Bridger’s mind. Moments of touch, the almost-kiss, that first electrifying make-out…
But Max’s angry words broke through.
“We’re the same, me and you.”
NO! FUCK YOU! Bridger jerked to the side to escape the memory, to escape what Max thought he knew about him. We’re NOT the same!
Gus’s calming face appeared back in his mind, but it was too late. Bridger swerved, wobbled, and fell hard off his board. He rolled a few paces down the hill. The flesh of his right arm ripped as he scraped the rocky road.
Bridger yelped. Fuck! Shit!
On the ground, Bridger gritted his teeth against the pain. He inspected the damage. A large scrape up his arm’s side leaked blood down to his elbow.
He cursed angrily, clutching his bloody arm, and kicked his board away.
The skateboard rolled far from him as he sat—broken, tired, and ashamed—on the ground.
After leaving the woodshop and ending his distracted workday, Gus entered his bedroom and slinked onto his mattress, teary-eyed and full of regret.
His whole body was sore. He stewed there, wishing he could melt into his bed.
Gus grunted and turned onto his side. This whole summer had become a waste of time.
He hadn’t practiced his sketching in days, he’d saved up barely any money for college from working with Dad, he’d spent so much time learning to skateboard for a friendship he didn’t even have anymore.
I’m not myself. Bridger distracted me.
I gotta move on.
Gus sighed.
But… I miss him.
Just last week, Gus was flying higher than his favorite sparrows. He’d had it all. He and Bridger had worked so hard. On his skating lessons, on their carpentry, on their friendship…
Were we actually friends? More than that?
Was he just using me?