We greeted each other with the standard bro hug, a pat-pat-pat on the back. I hopped in the Jeep, and soon we were cruising along the familiar roads.
“How’ve you been, man?” I asked. I was surprised how comforting it was to see such a familiar face.
“Really great, actually. I got my tech startup up and running, and we’ve finally crossed the threshold of our first year, so I think we’re doin’ really good.”
“Wow,” I said, my tone full of admiration.His own company?“Where’d you go to school again?”
“Rochester.” He meant Rochester Institute of Technology, one of the top 100 universities in the world.
“Damn...” I shoved his shoulder playfully. “I always knew you were the smart one!”
Bryan’s eyes never left the road, but he smiled a satisfied grin, and I knew my comment had hit home. I talked about California, my buddies at the firehouse, and training Echo as a search-and-rescue dog. It was amazing how seamlessly the conversation flowed, even after five years apart.
“And Gram and Pops, how are they?” I asked, referencing the wonderful grandparents who had raised Bryan when his mom took off.
Bryan paused, took a deep breath, and then said, barely audible: “We lost Gram a couple years back.”
My heart felt like it was in a freefall. Sweet Gram, the white-haired lady at the end of our block, always pulling us kids in for a break from our playtime with the promise of butterscotch cookies and freshly-made lemonade. It had never even occurred to me that Bryan might’ve lost one of the people who raised him.
“Wow, Bryan, man, I’m—I’m really sorry. That—must’ve been so hard.”
“Yeah,” he nodded, his eyes growing misty. “She was the greatest, ya know? Most days it still doesn’t even seem real. It’s like you don’t know what kind of hole you’ll have in your life until someone is gone.”
I nodded. I did know. I really did.
By the timewe reached the turnoff for the gorge, Bryan seemed to be almost back to himself, the sadness of the earlier topic shaken off. We parked in the lot and began walking along the paved trail. We hiked a bit, exploring the landscape around us. It struck me that only in Vermont had I experienced such varying shades of summer green, fitting in a state named for greenery and mountains. Suddenly we came upon our favorite hidden spot, where mossy rocks surrounded a surging waterfall that fed into a natural swimming hole. The gorge was exactly as I’d remembered it. The sky was the perfect shade of blue, accompanied by brushes of fluffy white clouds. We shed our shirts and shoes and jumped in, swimming freely through the clear water.
“So—firefighting, huh?” Bryan turned my way, shaking water droplets from his hair.
“Yeah. Seemed to fit, ya know?” I mused.
“Yeah. Yeah it does. I know the fire was... tough. Losing your house like that?—”
“Yeah. It’s a good gig.” I changed subjects. I usually avoided talking about the childhood event that had so defined my adolescence. Some days I still awoke from a deep slumber, fearing I smelled smoke and couldn’t see through the haze in front of me. Thankfully, those memories always cleared. “Anyway, any special lady caught your eye lately?”
He chuckled. “I thought you would’ve seen on Facebook.”
I shook my head.
“I’m with Nic.”
“Nic? Nicole Banks? That’s great, man. Wow.” Nicole Banks was another girl in our year, petite and feisty, but you couldn’tmeet a sweeter soul. Now that I thought about it, she was perfect for Bryan. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Me too, Cade. She’s amazing. How ‘bout you? Have you—have you talked to Brooke?” My teenage crush on Brooke was no secret from anyone who’d known us.
I looked away. “Nah. I don’t think... you know. I don’t think she’d want to hear from me. After... well. It’s been a long time.” I didn’t meet his eye for a beat.
“I think she would,” Bryan argued. “Maybe you’ll catch up at the reunion?”
“Maybe,” I agreed. I hopped out, climbing atop a rock and jumping off, my legs tucked into a cannonball the way I had when we were kids.
We swam for an hour or two. It was surprising how easy it was for us to talk about real things, not just the surface-level bullshit that I was always tossing back and forth with the guys at the station. Renewing this friendship almost made me miss home.
After our swim, Bryan drove us back to my parents’. “I’ll see you tonight, yeah?” he called as I got out of the Jeep. “I’ll save you a seat.”
The themefor the reunion was “A Night to Remember,” the same as our senior prom. My neighbor Val saw the invitation on my fridge one day when she dropped off Echo. She watched him for me whenever I had a 48 at the station. Val—a really cool chick with a bright magenta mohawk and multiple facial piercings—noted the blue and gold colors and told me that often the invites for these things matched the event’s color scheme. Hell if I knew, but it sounded right to me.
Tonight’s dress code called for formal wear, which I admittedly didn’t have much of these days. I did have one really well-tailored suit. Fittingly considering my new beachy lifestyle, my suit was a deep sand color, so I guessed that would work for the gold part. Underneath I wore a solid light blue fitted dress shirt. I didn’t know much about fashion—I mean, board shorts, a wetsuit, or fire station tees made up most of my daily wardrobe. But once this cute salesgirl in a store told me blue would bring out my eyes, and I had always liked how I looked in ocean blues and greens. I picked a patterned navy tie and solid navy pocket square, and I thought I looked pretty good, if I said so myself. I wore my only pair of dress shoes, brown wingtips, and used some pomade to tame my wavy hair. With a fresh shave, I was ready to go.
