Arrows by Melissa Gorzelanczyk

the bottom of the hill behind the café, inviting me to escape. I walked toward it with heavy steps, unzipping my sweatshirt as if freeing shackles, following the sound, feeling dizzy. My eyes watered from the sunlight. They stung. I could leave Jen’s words at the river, pushing them out and down and gone.

    Over the years, the dam had become a canvas for angst-ridden teens. Foam streaked the edges of the bank. I felt like spray-painting my own thoughts on the concrete, thinking Jen is a bitch would fit in perfectly between Love sucks and the anarchy symbol.
    Her words stuck to me like paint.
    I really thought you were going to do it this time. You know, go to New York.
    No one understood love. If they did, they’d realize Danny and I had to stay together. Yes, I loved New York, and I loved dancing, but the desire to stay with him was always stronger. So strong I didn’t understand it. Sometimes nothing I felt made sense.
    But he was stupid, my boyfriend, inviting her to a party. I squeezed the locket around my neck, the one he’d given me, and pulled. The chain wasn’t hard to break, a moment of the metal digging into my neck. I threw the necklace as hard as I could into the river, the gold reflecting the sun.
    A second later, I ran into the water, skimming the river bottom. I lost my balance and fell forward, catching myself on a sharp rock. Blood oozed from the cut. Stupid. Stupid. I cried out and sucked the end of my finger.
    “Are you okay?”
    Aaryn stood on the bank, the sun highlighting every detail of him. His olive-toned skin. Black hair and short sideburns that angled an inch below each earlobe.
    “No.” A chill raced up my arm. “I lost my necklace.” And then I grimaced, feeling embarrassed. My shoulders sagged.

    “I think it landed over here.” He stepped in ahead of me, dipped into the current and held out my necklace, water rolling down his hand. “Found it.”
    “Oh! Thank you.” Water sloshed as I fumbled to take it and the locket nearly fell again, but his reflexes were good. He cupped my hand from underneath. We stood like that for a few seconds, his palm supporting mine, slippery with river but warm to the touch. Up close he had blue eyes, and there was a slight crease at each corner when he smiled. A dark freckle, one spot, marked the right corner.
    His hand fell away.
    “I can’t believe you found it,” I said. The river churned around our feet. Downstream the tan water turned blinding white as the sun hit it. “How are you, by the way? Danny told me about the lake. That must have been so scary.”
    Aaryn trudged to the bank. “I’m fine.” He stared at the long grass, which was matted by our footsteps. “Totally fine.”
    “I’m glad you’re both okay.”
    He held out his hand. I took it, and he drew me up the hill a couple of steps.
    “Hey, did Danny come over last night? On your anniversary?”
    “Oh, it got to be too late.” I waved my hand. “I was writing a report, so it worked out fine.”
    “Sorry,” Aaryn said. “He…should have stopped by.”
    My eyebrow raised. “ You’re sorry?” I shook my head and tried to make my laugh sound real. “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”
    “I just feel bad that he was with me when he could have been with you. Should have been.”

    “Why did you lie to me?” My voice came out in a rush.
    “Lie to you?”
    “You said you invited Jen to the party.”
    “Oh.” He shifted from one foot to the other.
    “Danny was the one who invited her, wasn’t he?”
    “I honestly don’t know. I found them together. You just seemed so upset, and then you said it was your anniversary the next day, and—I don’t know.”
    “So you thought lying would make me feel better?”
    “It’s hard to explain.”
    Pine trees grew along the riverbank, hundreds of them. I was tired of seeing the same kind of trees. Aaryn reached for the necklace in my hand. The chain itself hadn’t broken, though the clasp was stuck wide open.