Page 42 of My Family

"Military planning," Ethan says. I laugh.

Someone slams into my back. Jack, arms wide, soaking wet, grabbing me in a bear hug that nearly takes us both down. "LIAM! DID YOU SEE ME? I GOT PATTERSON! I GOT HIM RIGHT IN THE FACE!"

"I saw, you lunatic," I say, shoving him off, but he just grabs me tighter, his chin on my shoulder, vibrating with joy.

"This is the best day of my life," he says, and he means it, but Jack very frequently has the best day of his life, even when it's only burgers for dinner, and I love that about him, and I envy it.

I pat his arm. "You've got mud in your ear."

"I don't care! I've got mud EVERYWHERE and I don't CARE!" He releases me, throws his arms up, and runs back toward the fray, screaming something about Batman and justice.

I watch him go, laughing. Ethan steps closer to me. We stand there for a minute, side by side. Kids are sliding through mud on their stomachs. Diaz has been fully conquered, he's sitting on the grass with his hands up in surrender while three kids spray him from different angles. Patterson is wringing out his shirt, shaking his head.

Miles appears at the edge of the courtyard. He's standing under the overhang by the gym entrance, dry, arms crossed, watching everything with that unreadable face of his. He hasn't moved into the chaos. He hasn't retreated, either. He's just there, observing.

Then Jack, wild, soaking, grinning, runs up to Miles and grabs his arm. Miles flinches, his whole body going rigid, but Jack doesn't let go. He's saying something, gesturing toward the yard, pulling at him. Miles shakes his head. Jack pulls harder. Miles looks at Jack's hand on his arm like it's a specimen he hasn't encountered before.

And then, slowly, Miles steps out from under the overhang.

Jack whoops and drags him into the open just as Griff reclaims the hose from the kids. The stream catches Miles across the shins and he freezes, his whole body going stiff as a board, his mouth open in probably the first stage of a complete system shutdown.

Then he looks down at his soaked pants, looks up at Griff, and says, "That was unnecessary."

Griff grins. "Consider it therapy."

Miles stands there, dripping, his posture now ruined by the water, his dark hair dripping into his eyes. Then, shocking us all, he bends down, scoops up a handful of mud, and hurls it at Jack.

It hits Jack square in the shoulder with a wet thwack.

Jack freezes. Miles stands there, hand still outstretched, his face looking like genuine horror at his own actions.

Then Jack grins, that feral, unhinged grin, and says, "Oh, you're dead."

What follows is the most chaotic mud fight I've ever witnessed, and I once saw a group of eight-year-olds destroy a birthday party over a water balloon dispute. Jack and Miles are slinging mud at each other. I watch Miles take a mud ball to the chest and stagger back, and then he motherfucking laughs. It's the first time I've heard Miles laugh since I met him. Maybe the first time anyone here has.

"Huh," Ethan says.

Jack tackles Miles into the mud, and they both go down in a heap. For a terrifying second, I think Miles is going to shut down, the physical contact, the unpredictability, all of it hitting every trigger he has. But Jack rolls off immediately, hands up, checking, and Miles just lies there in the mud, staring at the sky, chest heaving, that tiny almost-smile still on his face.

Jack offers his hand. Miles takes it. They stand up together, both absolutely filthy, and Jack claps him on the back, and Miles doesn't flinch.

The water fight winds down slowly with everyone too exhausted. Kids collapse on the grass. Someone starts a half-hearted splash war by the drainage grate and it fizzles out in thirty seconds. Griff coils the hose, whistling something that might be an old country song, and the guards start the slow process of herding everyone back inside.

The courtyard looks like a war zone. Mud everywhere. Grass torn up. A single shoe, nobody knows whose, sitting in the middle of a puddle.

I stand there, dripping, my shorts sagging with water weight, my skin covered in a fine layer of mud that's already drying in the sun, and I think: I want to remember this. I often have these moments where I think this will be a core memory, so I need to hold onto it. So I think very hard about it, trying to burn it into my memory. This is one of those moments I hope stays with me forever.

Jack appears at my side, plastered in mud, grinning so wide his face might split. "Dude," he says.

"Dude," I say back.

We look at each other and just start laughing again, for no reason.

Griff blows his whistle, the metal one he keeps around his neck, and calls out: "EVERYONE INSIDE. SHOWERS. NOW. YOU HAVE TWENTY MINUTES AND THEN I WANT THIS YARD CLEANED UP."

There's a collective groan, but nobody argues. We start filing in, a parade of soaked, filthy, grinning idiots, tracking mud through the corridors and not caring. The guards pretend to be annoyed, but I catch Diaz taking a selfie with his ruined uniform, and Patterson is helping one of the younger kids wring out his shirt.

In the shower block, it's chaos. Fifty guys crammed, everyone jostling for a showerhead, steam rising, the sound of water and voices bouncing off tile. Jack sings, badly, loudly, belting out "Bohemian Rhapsody" with the passion of a man who has never once hit a single note right in his life and doesn't seem to know or care, and three other guys join in, turning it into a full, terrible choir. Someone throws a bar of soap and it skids across the floor like a hockey puck, which makes kids start a hockey game with broomsticks and mops.