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“But you did.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Impulse. Feeling bold. Wanting to prove something,” Tripp admitted. “The darts were in a bucket in the shed at the edge of the yard. We went in there for the sprinkler. It was hot and the town pool was closed. They were renovating it, a fancy word for making it part of an indoor complex only people with the kind of disposable income we didn’t have could be a member of. No membership, and it was six dollars a day to get in, twelve if Winter and I went together.”
“What was it before they made it part of the complex?” Zakk asked.
“A dollar.”
“Damn, that’s a hell of a jump.”
“No shit. With everything Dad and our sisters were already doing for us, music lessons, instruments, how could we ask them for more? Water was water. Wasn’t going to cost anyone twelve bucks for us to run the sprinkler for a little while, so we got it out. John, that was our friend, he lived across the street. He saw the darts and asked what they were for, and Winter, with all the enthusiasm that is Winter, told him all about it, including how we’d played the weekend before and how our dad and uncle had told him he caught on fast, like what else is new?”
Tripp could feel his shoulders getting tense. Zakk must have felt it too because he slid around behind him and rubbed them gently.
“Relax and tell the story,” Zakk encouraged gently.
Exhaling, he tried to breathe out the tension in his body, that little mental voice in the back of his head piping up to remind him that it wasn’t Winter’s fault that he was good at certain things. Especially when Tripp knew what the trade-off was. Winter had struggled with book learning. Reading in particular had been a source of real frustration for him. For the first time in a long time, Tripp allowed himself to remember Winter’s tears as he held another failed test in his hands and brokenly asked why he was too stupid to learn any of it.
“I wanted to prove that I could play too,” Tripp said softly. “Winter reminded me that we were told not to touch them. Our uncle hard warned us how dangerous they could be, but I wanted to show Winter that I was just as good.”
Pausing, Tripp realized he’d lied, just a little.
“No, I wanted to prove it to myself. So we got the darts out and set up the target circles. They make them with rounded off ends the size of a baseball now, did ya know that? Wish they’d had them back then. John’s dart didn’t stick into the ground all the way, it was wobbling, but a really good toss. He didn’t want to lose that if it fell over, so he ran out there to get it. I was already so frustrated, this was our third game and I’d come in last both times. John was a natural at it, just like Winter, so I whipped the dart down there anyway, hoping to scare the hell out of him.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah…” Pinching the bridge of his nose, Tripp tried not to picture what happened next, but as it always did, images of blood, the echo of his friend’s screams, they were all embedded in his mind.
“When I realized it was going to hit him I yelledlook out. I shouldn’t have yelled. Maybe he’d have gotten it in the shoulder or arm or something. All I could picture in the moment was it going through his head, so I yelled. And he looked up.”
Tripp’s mouth felt dry, his throat threatening to close, while his lips felt chapped as hell. Licking them didn’t provide any relief, so his words, when he choked them out, sounded wizened and hoarse.
“It took his eye out and gouged a deep gash beneath it. I did that. Me. One stupid impulse. One moment of not giving a shit. In the mornings I lie in bed thinking things over a million times before I move. I overthink everything. I plan things half to death. By the time I get around to actually doing something, there’s no joy in it. Being out here today was the first time I remember being happy in a very long time.”
“I’m glad.”
“Me too, but you know what I’m more glad for?”
“What.
“That I got to do it with you.”
Chapter 18
Lay your worries at my feet
Zakk hadn’t walked away disgusted. He hadn’t looked at him differently. He hadn’t even asked questions about John or why the dirt rags had never gotten hold of that particular tidbit. He’d just held Tripp’s hand as they aimlessly cruised the property, a sign guiding them back to the quarry where they could hunt for rocks.
He still hadn’t found his tiger’s eye, but several pieces of quartz, a geode and several other interesting stones had already found their way into his collection. The best part though was watching Zakk start his own collection, each careful cleaning of their finds revealing sparkles of color. Zakk had even hinted that the bones of a song based on their rockhounding was beginning to take shape in his mind. He wouldn’t share any of them with him though, at least, not yet.
Tonight though, music echoed off the canyon walls, the bonfire glowed a bright orange around them and Winter and Dez sat on one side of it, treating them to acoustic versions of some of their favorite songs. Having everyone, even James, singing along was a blast. Woodsmoke and weed perfumed the air. Dez had a joint bobbing on his lower lip, the cherry glowing every now and again as he sucked a drag off it.
You could barely see Riley peeking over Dez’s shoulder, most of him molded to the back of the man. Whatever had been going on between them at the start of the trip looked to have been worked out. Resting his chin on the top of Zakk’s head, he hugged him from behind, rocking with him to the beat of the music.
“Is that supposed to be a marshmallow or a lump of coal?” Tavis called out, kicking off a round of laughter as James withdrew his stick from the flames, the smoldering remains of blackened sugar on the other end.
