Page 15

Not that it matters anymore. Humans are indecisive, they’re flighty, and they lie. I’ll never have the opportunity to try, even if I change my mind.

I catch a glimmer of a swing set in the distance and head that way. I don’t wait for Lyric. If she still wants to get to know me after that blunt confession, I’d be astonished. I reach for the rubber-coated swing when I feel a hand scrape my back. Turning around to sit down, I see Lyric positioning herself on the swing to the left of me. Neither swing dips with our weight, and I begin to panic when I realize that we haven’t left a single footprint in the sand either.

I try not to focus on it too much. If I pretend I don’t see the inescapable flaws of this date, maybe she won’t be able to either. I heave myself backward and kick my feet off the ground. I pump my legs and I feel like I’m flying.

When I look over at Lyr, I catch her staring at me. The expression on her face is unreadable, and it makes me tense. I go to say something to break through the uncomfortable silence, and she begins to swing.

Now I’m the one who’s staring. Her hair whips along the sides of her face as she rhythmically soars through the air. I’m captivated by her until I see a group of twenty-somethings approaching. They’re boisterous as they trudge through the sand with their drinks, towels, and billowing Bogg bags. God, those things are so ugly.

It isn’t until they start pointing in our direction that I want to leave. I worry about getting Lyr out of here before she finds out the truth. I feel guilty for not telling her, but I don’t know the circumstances of her death and I don’t want to be the one responsible for whatever happens when she learns about her position.

“Bro!” I hear one of the group members yell. “Look at the swings, dude.”

Lyr immediately thinks he’s talking about her, and I guess in a roundabout way, he is, but it makes my stomach drop when I see the reaction on her face. Her eyebrows draw together and she frowns, her bottom lip trembling. I reach for her hand, and she pulls away from me, breaking into a sprint back the way we came.

Chasing after her, I reach the conclusion that Lyr is sensitive like a newly scabbed cut on a person’s body, constantly weeping and unhealed.

Reaching for her fingers, the tips of mine skim hers, startling her and causing her to shriek. I swiftly place myself in front of her, blocking her movement. Every time I try to look at her, she looks the other way or pretends to look around me. She refuses to make eye contact, and after a while I grow agitated.

I search for her eyes anyway, and when she continues to dodge me, I turn around and walk away. This woman is a brat, so I’m going to treat her like one. Any minute she’ll come running and beg me to hold on.

I won’t because I tame brats; they don’t tame me.

I smirk to myself and mumble under my breath, “Five… four… three… two,” I inhale deeply, “… and one...”

“Atticus!” I can hear Lyric jogging my way, and I continue forward.

“Wait, please.”

The moment she catches up to me, I can see her out of the corner of my eye. I take this opportunity to drop my shoulder back and bump into her. I feel like I’m watching it in slow motion as her eyes grow wide in shock and she screams. The way I shoulder-check her sends her stumbling over her own feet like a baby giraffe in heels before dramatically flopping into the water.

If I weren’t already dead, she’d kill me.

With fury in her eyes, she rises from the lake. She hasn’t noticed yet that she isn’t wet. As the group plays frisbee a little ways down the lake, their screeching redirects our attention toward them. A couple of them listen attentively to the others pointing our way. Goddammit.

Lyric’s not a thin woman, and I’m concerned that she thinks she’s being gawked at.

“I’m sorry, can I help you?”

Lyr yells over the sounds of the birds in the trees, along with the loud crashing of the water.

One of the young women throws the frisbee, and a man who looks like a linebacker jets our way, his eyes on his target.

Lyr continues to yell, “I said hey! Excuse me!”

She moves to lunge forward and shrieks when she realizes that the man and the frisbee aren’t stopping and they’re about to run into her.

I yell over her, “Lyr!”

She looks back at me with raised and furrowed brows, and I can see the tension and fear in her eyes, almost like she’s pleading for me to come save her; but I can’t–not without disrupting The Veil.

She winces, jerking back right as the man jumps into the air and latches onto the frisbee before it soars right through Lyr and lands on our invisible pile of shoes. She opens her eyes, and shock is apparent on her face.

“Oh, my God. Oh, my God. He didn’t touch me.”

She pats her body down, making sure she’s still whole.

“What just happened? Why didn’t I feel him?”