Chapter One

“I’ll never forget you, Darren.”

After discarding her dying cigarette, she tucked her hands into the pockets of her jacket and, scanning the ground beneath her feet, started a slow walk across the bridge in the suddenly piercingly cold autumn air.

I watched helplessly as the world beyond the bridge in either direction faded into nothing, and then the rickety wood beneath my feet slowly dissolved until I was left falling, falling, falling…

Late summer had quickly turned to autumn, and October brought with it an extra chill in the air, unnoticed by happy children skipping across piles of discarded leaves in their warm, embracing coats and hats. The leaves were crushed and torn to bits under the children’s boots, and I watched from my bedroom window, on the fifth floor of the building, as as they went to devastate puddles in the same fashion.

I had been torn from sleep when the falling sensation in my dream ended with a cold, hard crunch on the unforgiving ground. The painful tingling feeling in my legs left me standing by the window with a small bottle in my hand, desperately trying to calm down and get back to bed, but soon enough it was too late for that, as it dawned on me that all these children were skipping down the street on their way to school. I would be late yet again.

As usual I dragged myself past the mirror, trying halfheartedly to fix the crashing wave of dark brown hair on my head and not bothering to shave for at least the third time that week.

I walked into homeroom twenty minutes late and was met by a sea of curious stares from my classmates. The entire room fell silent as I tried to weave a lame excuse, but our teacher brushed me off with an unsympathetic wave of his hand. I shot him a quick grin and wandered to the back of the room.

Kelley had an empty seat beside him and a smile full of braces waiting for me in the far corner of the room. “You didn’t miss much,” he said, but then added, “hot new guy,” and pointed across the room to an angsty-looking guy with long, curly blond hair in a swirling mess around his head.

Kelley bit his pierced lip and stared at the new guy longingly. Shoving a curtain of dyed-black hair out of his face, he smile shyly. “He keeps looking over here. Do you think he’s into me?” he asked, trying desperately to avoid eye contact with the guy across the room.

“Nah,” I replied instantly. Kelley smirked and punched me in the arm, choosing to stay silent and pay attention for the rest of the class period.

But I had my second class with the new guy, too, who revealed his name to be Tyler when he sat down at the desk right beside me. I stared out at the empty room around us, that was only gradually filling with students, and sighed. Maybe he was into Kelley. Extending my hand weakly, I said, “Darren.” His firm handshake caught me off-guard, and I couldn’t help but watch as he got settled in.

As other students streamed in and populated the room, I watched him dig through his disaster zone of a backpack until he finally found a notebook and pencil. The class started crawl by as planned, and I got ready for a nap, but Tyler quickly turned away from the notes he was taking and asked me, “Can I see your schedule?”

I shook my head. “Memorized.”

He half-smiled and slid his schedule, a simple gridded piece of printer paper, across the desk where I could see it. I sighed again as I confirmed that nearly every one of his classes matched mine. He grinned, and I returned an unenthusiastic smirk. His cheerful expression quickly faded, and our conversations were dry.

Managing to lose Tyler at lunch, I went off and found Kelley at our usual spot in the corner of the yard. “Hungry?” he asked, offering me a protein bar. I shook my head and zipped up my sweatshirt against the stinging October wind. “You talk to the new guy?” he asked, most of his attention focused on Tyler, who wandered wistfully across the yard.

Tyler spotted me and waved, and when I threw on a fake smile and waved back, he began to walk towards us. “Yeah, it’s Tyler something,” I said, taking a quick sip from the small silver flask in my coat pocket while Kelley pulled down on his thin black t-shirt, tightening it around his chest.

Just as Tyler opened his mouth to say hello, I interrupted, “Aren’t your nips cold, Kel?”

Kelley wiggled his eyebrows in response, and Tyler looked like he was trying to decide whether to laugh or run for his life. They began to have some sort of awkward conversation in the background, Kelley flirting and Tyler uncomfortably going along with it, while I watched leaves flutter delicately from the trees.

They drifted and danced about in the wind for some time, but then they sank quietly to the ground where they were swept away and collected with all the other fallen leaves, never to float again.

I was dragged back into the conversation when Kelley socked me in the arm and asked, “We doing anything after school, man?” His voice was relaxed, but his eyes were desperate. Tyler looked at me with the same eagerness in his eyes.

“Not really. We were just gonna cuddle on your couch and watch Netflix, but we can do that any time,” I said with a smirk and tried to focus back on the falling leaves. Kelley frantically reassured Tyler that we didn’t actually have plans.

Tyler wore his smile cautiously and rubbed the back of his neck for an awkwardly long time before speaking. “Cool. Do you guys, maybe, I dunno, want to hang out?”

I would have said no, but Kelley was quick to commit us to a day of hanging out with the new guy, and I, with nothing better to do, accepted it. I faded in and out of their conversation; Tyler was definitely more interesting with Kelley than with me. He had that effect on people.

When the conversation began to drift further and further from me, I left them in order to casually find my way back across the yard and into the least popular of all the boys’ restrooms. It was far from the lunch area, with cracked ceilings and stall doors hanging off their hinges⸺or just missing entirely. Inside I met with a sleazy blond guy who called himself Legend and traded me five cigarettes for a condom every other day.

Legend tucked the condom into one of his many pockets and then dropped the cigarettes into my hand. “Nice doin’ business with ya’, Derrick.”

“Darren.”

“Darrell. Sorry, man.” He grinned and made a slow, satisfied walk back out the bear-up bathroom door. The moment he was gone, I slipped into the only stall with a closing door and hopped onto the toilet tank, opening the small window by the ceiling and settling in for a quick smoke.

While I sat there in my own little slice of heaven, the rest of lunch just passed me by like a summer breeze. It felt more like a dream than reality. In fact, I could have sworn I heard Kenna’s voice, clear as day. “I miss you, Darren.”

“I miss you, too,” I mumbled, floating in and out of a daze. “But you’re happy now…wherever you are.”

“No.”

My head shot up, and her face was there in front of me. She held my cheeks in her gentle hands and leaned in so our noses were nearly touching. I breathed slowly, my eyes completely fixed to hers.

But like the gentlest, most promising summer breeze, this dream was harshly interrupted by a single falling leaf. It fluttered through the window and sliced between us, landing in a pile of soggy toilet paper crowded around the drain on the floor. Just like that, my moment of peace was gone.

That afternoon was the beginning of a disaster. It must have been my fault, for not saying no when I should have. Or maybe Kelley started it all, the moment he set his sights on Tyler.

We all sat together on a bench in Miller Park, doing nothing in particular, and Tyler chose a lull in conversation to ask, “So, is it just the two of you?”

I looked at Kelley, and he looked at me. I absentmindedly ripped a dry, brown leaf in half with my foot as our eyes met, and he nodded. He said, “Yeah, Darren and I don’t exactly attract friends.” After a pause, he changed his mind. “Well, Darren doesn’t.”

I smirked because it was true.

Tyler nodded, grinning, with excitement in his eyes. “You know, you might need someone to protect you. This is a dangerous world we’re living in. You need a family.”

“I have a sister,” Kelley said quietly, ripping the leaf out from under my foot and holding it between us, squished beneath his sneaker.

“So do I. But you should come meet my friends. I really think you’d like them.” Tyler stared at the leaf I had  ripped up and then glanced at the piece of it that Kelley still had under his show. “And they would like you guys, too.”

Kelley met his gaze and brought his foot down on the leaf, crushing it into a hundred tiny pieces. “Yeah, okay. Do you want to hang out this weekend?”

“Yeah. Meet me here.”

The silence surrounded us once again. I glanced at the leaves on the ground one last time before pulling my legs up onto the bench and hugging them against my chest, resting my chin on my knees. The cold air held my face with a crisp, icy grip, washing into my lungs and back out again as a little puff of steam.

The old bridge that stood neglected over the creek seemed to beckon me. I hadn’t visited it, or even so much as looked at it, since Kenna disappeared. Our main hangout now seemed so foreign.

I thought of the baby ducks that paddled down the creek beneath us every summer afternoon and the fireflies that danced around us every night. Then I thought of the creek frozen over and the bridge sitting with a thin carpet of snow and the quiet morning air clutching the park in its frosted stillness.

“What’s up with him?” a voice echoed, from somewhere far away. I was drawn back to the present day of grass and soggy leaves and a slight promise of summertime still in the air. Tyler was staring at me blankly, and I realized he was asking about me.

Kelley was quick to explain, “He used to hand out on that bridge all the time with his girlfriend.”

I didn’t shout out my signature She wasn’t my girlfriend! but instead just shrugged it off and stared up at the hazy, grey sky. Kelley bit his lip and studied me cautiously. With any luck it would rain, and I could get back in my car and leave this whole day behind. We didn’t need a new friend. We didn’t need this “family.” But even though Kelley and I had been best friends since the third grade, if I wanted to stay close to him, I figured I didn’t really have a choice.

Tyler kept talking about his friends, and Kelley gradually turned his attention from me and watched Tyler, with a stupid smile on his face. I was snapped out of their world, however, when I looked up to see Kenna standing in front of me, unimpressed. I, on the other hand, was filled with an unbelievable rush that left me practically floating.

She interrupted my wandering thoughts, clearly displeased. “Girlfriend?” she asked, crossing her arms.

“It doesn’t matter,” I muttered, looking down at the ground.

I felt her glare as she continued. “You wanted it to be like that, didn’t you?”

I kept staring at the ground, and her voice grew louder.

“Look at me, Darren. Look at me.”

I did, but she had changed. Her cheeks seemed hollow, and her once beautiful brown eyes seemed dull and sunken. The spark of life I’d always admired in her face had faded and was gone, and so was the girl I once knew. My numb joy was replaced by blind fury.

“No!” I practically shouted. Her questioning expression turned to one of shock, and she disappeared like the blink of an eye. I was left hugging my knees tight to my chest, breathing deep, ragged breaths, and begging her to come back, just for a moment, even as that twisted apparition.

The chilly air burned my lungs and tore at my insides. The soggy leaves in the spot where she had stood seemed to have been uninterrupted by her feet.

My heart slowly calmed to its usual rhythm, and my breathing returned to normal. It was only then that I noticed Tyler and Kelley staring at me, looks of horror and concern plastered on their faces.

When Kelley saw that I was okay, he sat out and released a long breath through his teeth, the warmth clutching the air in a thin jet of steam. Tyler looked a bit scared to be near me and scooted a little down the bench away from me.

I blushed terribly and cursed to myself. After a few moments of deathly awkward silence, a fat raindrop shot down from the sky and exploded on the tip of my nose. Relieved, I shot Kelley a look that signaled him to jump up and say, “Well, this has been fun, but it’s getting late. You need a ride, Ty?” he asked, winking.

Tyler shrugged. “I can walk from here,” he said nonchalantly.

“Great. See you tomorrow.”

Kelley grabbed my arm, and I stood up. We started a brisk walk to my car and both jumped in, slamming the doors and buckling our seatbelts in record time. Tyler was still watching us from the park bench, so Kelley waved goodbye as I started the engine.

Once we were about a block away from the park, Kelley stared at me for a moment, then asked, “Are you okay?”

I shrugged, keeping my eyes fixed to the road in front of me. He was silent for a long time but spoke again just as we passed the “Bluefish City Limits” sign and were picking up speed.

“You saw her again.”

My fists clenched around the steering wheel, and I pushed harder on the gas. The flat landscape rushed past us on either side, but soon the ground turned rocky, and the car began a steep descent up a mountain on the outskirts of town, and I had to press the gas pedal almost to the floor to keep up with the speed limit. The engine roared.

Pine trees and rocky outcrops gave way to noble rows of redwoods, reaching hundreds of feet into the sky. The road leveled out, and I gradually released the gas pedal. Kelley sighed and rolled down the window.

The usual buzz of insects disappeared at that altitude; a seventh grade science teacher once mentioned that this had something to do with the poisonous bark of the redwood tree. That was the class I’d met Kenna in. Frustrated, I searched for something else to think about. This trip had always been more comforting when I took her.

“Darren, where are we going?”

Kelley’s expression had changed from bored to concerned. He’d probably never been so far from town. I put down my window and breathed the cool, piney mountain air. Kelley rolled his eyes and watched the tall, slender tree trunks fly past the window.

At some point I realized that driving to my and Kenna’s special place in the forest wasn’t going to make anything about that day better, especially because she wasn’t even going to be there. I took a deep breath and pulled over, listening to the familiar sound of gravel crunching under the tires of my car as they rolled to a stop.

“Nowhere. We’re not going anywhere. Sorry.”

Kelley sighed and, at first, didn’t look at me, but when he did he grinned. “It’s cool, man.” He looked back out the window and scanned the landscape, his eyes fixing on a small, quivering light in the distance. “What’s that?”

I’d never paid much attention to the drive up the mountain. Somehow there had always been something else to get lost in. I peered down the winding mountain road, but there were too many turns and too much distance to quite know what we were looking at.

Kelley glanced at me, and I started the car.

The road began to narrow and the sky grew dark. Wind screamed past the windows as dusk settled on the horizon, and the last gasp of sunlight disappeared as we pulled up to a cozy redwood cabin with a huge wooden sign that said “Rocky Mountain Pass 24-Hour Diner.”

Kelley met my curious gaze and asked, “Have you ever been up this far?”

I shook my head and scanned the scene. The cabin was well-lit from within, but it was set so far out of the way of any civilization that there was no way it was a sustainable business. Not even truckers took the Rocky Mountain Pass highway because the frequent turns in the road and ever-changing altitude quickly becomes perilous to a heavy vehicle.

The cabin looked so warm and inviting, and yet something about the place sent a shiver down my spine. I started the enging again, and we peeled out of the parking lot.

The darkness outside the window made the drive seem even more endless than it really was. My headlights dimly lit the scene in front of us, but the dark, winding road was straight out of a heavy metal music video.

It dawned on me that I was much further up the mountain than I had ever been before, and in the dark, the drive to the apartment building we both lived in took twice as long as usual.

Once I had delivered Kelley to his family’s apartment and was left standing in the empty hallway alone, the inexplicable terror I’d felt outside the diner sunk in again.

I crossed the hall to my front door and took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, finally deciding to just go out on the fire escape and smoke. It would be better not to go inside until I was sure my father was passed out on the couch. That could, of course, take hours.

Author's Note

2nd Draft - Thanks so much for reading. Any feedback would be great.