Page 73 of Main Event

“I don’t know how to stop either,” I admit. “Mack knew it. That’s why he kicked me out. I thought if I worked hard enough, I could force everything into place. Camp. The fight. The investigation. You. Me. All of it.”

“You can’t.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

I look toward the shore, toward the oak tree I climbed as a kid because I thought height meant courage. “I’m learning.”

Her thumb moves over my knuckles.

We stand there with lake water around us and sun on our faces, and I understand what Mack meant in a way I couldn’t have understood in the gym. You can’t remember who you are by hitting something harder. Sometimes you have to go somewhere that knew you before you learned to make fists.

“I used to jump off what was left of that dock,” I say, nodding toward the old posts.

Andi looks. “That dock?”

“It had more boards then.”

“I would hope so.”

“My dad told me not to.”

“Naturally, you listened.”

“Eventually.”

“How many jumps did eventually take?”

“Three.”

She laughs softly. “Of course it did.”

“He wasn’t even mad the third time. He just told me if I was going to be stupid, I needed to tuck my elbows so I didn’t break something important.”

“That sounds like practical parenting.”

“It was. Terrifying, but practical.”

“Were you happy here?”

I think about it. The answer matters. “Yeah,” I say. “I think I was. Not all the time. But here? Yes. Here I could be nobody for a while.”

“You were never nobody.”

“To the fish, I was.”

She smiles. “To the fish, you were probably loud.”

“Accurate.”

We stay in until the cold starts to win. Then we climb out, dripping and laughing again when my shirt clings to me and Andi wrings water from the hem of hers with an expression of grave betrayal.

I grab towels from the truck because I did plan that much. She wraps one around herself and sits under the oak on the blanket. I sit beside her, close enough that our shoulders touch, and open the bag of peaches.

They’re warm from the sun. I hand her one. She takes a bite and closes her eyes.

“Mr. Hanley was right.”