DESI
The first legof our trip hadn’t gone as I’d hoped. In fact, it was the exact opposite. Scout was having trouble dealing with the truth.
I was losing her already.
But I refused to let it happen. This summer, I was going to show her the glorious life she could have with me if she stayed… forever.
I was still trying to find the words to explain what I needed her to do to accomplish that.
I was worse than a normal hitman. I didn’t just kill bad guys. I convinced good girls to kill themselves.
I drove north. Petoskey, Michigan, was almost six hours away, and Scout and I felt every single minute of them in my car.
We rotated through all my tapes and stopped for bathroom breaks and snacks, but by the time we reached the scenic, almost storybook-looking town, we were exhausted.
“Why don’t we just rest today and start up tomorrow?” I offered.
She stood by the car outside, taking in the light lake breeze drifting in as I went inside and booked our room.
“What’s there to do here?” she asked.
“Petoskey? I don’t know. I can ask the hotel clerk.”
We went inside and did just that.
“There’s tons of restaurants and landmarks. But my favorite thing to do is go look for stones.” The clerk said when we asked.
“Stones?” Scout cocked her head.
“Petoskey stones.” The clerk leaned over his desk and snatched up a rock with circle designs all over it. “It’s our state rock. Go down to Lake Michigan Beach. Wear shoes, though, it’ll bruise your feet. There’s millions of rocks. Just dip them in water and it will reveal what they are.”
I turned to Scout. “What do you think?”
“Sounds fun. Let’s go.”
The clerk gave us directions and after we put all of our things in the room, we took off toward the beach.
“Are we sure this is the right place? No one’s here.” Scout frowned as we parked and started over a small bridge.
“I’m not entirely sure,” I admitted. The bridge ended, and a small path had signs telling us to keep going.
“Why does everything look like it’s still the 1950s?”
“I kind of like it. It’s like, this town has been saved by the modern world. It’s frozen in time.”
“Hopefully, not the people too,” she muttered.
“What do you mean?”
Would it be so bad to be frozen in time?
“Like, with views, you know. Segregation and all that? My friends and their families had to deal with that. Probably my parents too.”
She was right. I was surrounded by so much protection, so much… privilege.
We reached some trees and passed through them, finding the lake.
“Where’s the sand?” Scout asked.
