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“If I drown doing this, just let me go. Today has been mortifying.”
Lucas belted a laugh. “You’ll be fine. If we did it as kids, we’ll be okay now.”
And they were. She dove in after him and she could see him underwater as she followed him under the heavy stream of the waterfall. Sunlight was streaming through the water, lighting up his skin with highlights and shadows as he swam gracefully under the falls.
She wasn’t as graceful, but it was okay. He didn’t look back until they were almost near the surface on the other side, so he missed most of her struggle.
When she broke the surface, she inhaled deeply and he was right there, pulling her toward the huge dark rocks in the cavern on the other side of the falls. “Stay here,” he told her, and while she allowed her eyes to adjust to the dim lighting, he disappeared and returned shortly with an old, neon-blue flashlight. He was beating it against his palm trying to get it to light.
“That battery is long-dead,” she pointed out.
He let off a soft rumble that perked up all her instincts. His gorilla was probably monstrous now that he was all grown up and a full silverback.
“Can you see at all?” he asked.
“Umm, I can actually see everything,” she admitted. “Can’t swim worth a damn, but I can see everything.”
A grin commandeered his face. “Good. This way.” He grabbed her hand like it was nothing and pulled her up on the big rocks, then led her to a narrow passageway. When he came to a stop on the name-wall, she could see the confusion in his eyes. He traced his name he’d carved into the stone, and then traced a few of the others. Vyr. Captain. Darah. Cadence. Harper. Wyatt. “It used to be only my name here.”
“You started a trend,” she said softly.
He scanned the flat rock face. “Where’s yours?”
She clasped her hands and grew silent. She didn’t want to say.
He looked down at her and asked, “Why did you never sign the wall? It looks like everyone did.”
Jenna cleared her throat and plastered a smile on her face. “I never hung out with the crowd when they were signing the wall.”
“You never put your name on here?” he asked again, like he knew she was dancing around answers.
With a sigh, she told him, “I did sign it, just not here.”
He stared at her for a few seconds and then asked, “Where?”
“You want to go back now? I’ll race you for real this time.”
“Where, Jenna?” he asked, his voice infused with such seriousness.
She pursed her lips and gestured to a narrow passageway. With a frown, he made his way to the very back of the cavern, and there, behind a thin rock wall, her name was carved.
Jenna Brown.
And she watched the light die in his eyes when he read the name carved beneath hers.
Gunner.
“Why aren’t these names with the others?” he asked low.
“You have history with Gunner that I don’t share. You both have scars from each other, but I don’t have those.”
“Why, Jenna?”
She sank down, rested her back against the smooth rock wall. “Talking about Gunner makes you angry.”
The echoing sound of him cracking his knuckles filled the small cavern, and then he waited in silence until she spoke again. “I wasn’t invited along when all the kids were having fun, and that was the culture when I got older too. I am just…I don’t fit in, you know? I tried, but I just am not the right shape. I’m not like the others. I can’t talk easily, I can’t connect with people easily, I’m just…different. I got left on the beach when everyone was having their name-carving day. They all took off, and I wasn’t as good at swimming. I tried to follow, but they made it across the river so fast, and no one even looked back to check on me, you know? I watched them. It wasn’t their fault, I was just freaking invisible sometimes. And sometimes I liked that and was comfortable with it, and sometimes I didn’t like it. I was standing on the beach, tearing up because I just felt left behind and it wasn’t just that one time. It was always, but it’s not their fault. It’s really not. They have their own pace and I’m just…slow. I’m just slow, Lucas. I left. Gunner found me in the woods behind our trailer park crying like a little baby, and he got mad at everyone for leaving me out, and he fought like…four people that night. In the middle of the night, he came and knocked on my front door. Not even my window. He didn’t try and sneak me out. He knocked on my parents’ front door and told them he was taking me to the cavern to write my name and for whatever reason, they said okay. And that’s what we did. We wrote our names. On the outside. It didn’t feel right to sneak in there and put my name by everyone else’s. And then Gunner took me back home and he never mentioned that day again. It happened the year after you left. He still had his mind then.”
Lucas’s face had remained unreadable the entire time she was telling him about that memory, but a few seconds after she was finished talking, he thawed. He uncrossed his arms and sat down beside her. “Your knees are bleeding,” he said.
