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His arm is heavy across my shoulder, and I snap my hanging mouth shut, hot and flustered for a moment at looking like a twat who’s never seen this much nature. I mean, I didn’t, not as a city kid with no transport, and for a fleeting moment, I wonder if the family of that Polish boy ever stood in this spot and had the same reaction.
I see woods in the distance, but I hear gunfire. See some kind of kestrel hover at eye level, then plunge, only I hear the crump of bombs dropping like I last saw crayoned by kids across the Channel.
I’m suddenly homesick, which is stupid when I don’t have one.
Or maybe it’s guilt.
I should be there with them. Make sure they all have life vests.
Hayden’s arm tightens around me. He doesn’t speak. He’s strong and silent while I have a moment, then he leads me through the gap in the wall, and we follow a path towards the sound of burbling.
“Wait,” I say for the second time in as many minutes, this time at the bank of a river. “He drew a picture of a pool, not this.”
“Trust me?” Hayden extends a hand.
I take it without hesitating.
I also go underwater when he jumps from the bank, still holding my hand. He comes up whooping. I do too, and fuck me, it’s cold. Then we’re off on a wild and wet helter-skelter ride down the hillside.
“It’s called wild swimming these days,” he gasps. “I grew up doing it. Nothing beats it.” His fingers thread so tightly with mine there’s no escaping, but that’s fine by me. It means I get to hear him over the rush. “I can take or leave surfing.” He tugs me out of the way of a rock. “It’s okay, but I leave the tourists to catch waves. This is more my speed.”
I wouldn’t have pegged him as an adrenaline junkie, but there’s his smile again, a brilliant spark showing someone in their element that I’ve caught glimpses of in his clearing with the kids. I wish I’d seen him in his soccer days. I bet he looked like this while playing—while leaping to make the kind of save he does next.
Hayden pulls me away from more rocks, and we have to stand to wade around them. He’s breathless, but so am I. I’m also over that homesick feeling—whichwasguilt, I accept now that this river has washed it away.
It has also cracked open something I didn’t realise had been closed off in Hayden. He’s so fucking chatty, I wonder what else he’s held back.
He shakes water from his hair, glistening droplets beading in that short beard, no sign left of the tiredness he arrived with. “Plus, I don’t need to spend any cash to do this. Decent surfboards are expensive.” He climbs onto another obstacle—this time a fallen tree that he balances on like it’s a longboard, his arms extended. One of his hands is still linked with mine, and when he tugs, I join him up there. I also wish I had my phone with me to capture his expression when I slip.
He grabs me and won’t let go, an image of determination. I settle for being in this moment with him, and for listening to him sound like a winner instead of defeated when he says, “Used to come up here with Dad before I got scouted.”
He jumps again, and so what if I risk bumps and bruises by jumping right beside him? They’ll be worth it to hear what spills out after he threads our fingers again. “He promised me a trip up here for every goal I saved in under-eleven matches.”
“So you saved plenty?”
“So fucking many.”
I love his laugh. It’s magic. And loud. Not even the rush of water can drown it out as we tumble and splash, as we wade anddive, and as he only lets go of my hand to climb boulders, and makes it look easy. I brace both arms against a huge one, winded and catching my breath.
If someone took a photo or drew me, I bet I’d look just like that kid drawn by my mentor.
Would I even be here if I hadn’t seen someone just like me on a journey in a story?
I hope to fuck he never felt guilty for taking the time to draw it.
I find more strength then—strength to soak up as much of this as I can in case what I draw later does the same for a kid who needs to see that water can be fun instead of frightening. That traffickers don’t get to steal that from them. I also find more breath. Enough to laugh when I clamber to the top of that boulder and get to push Hayden into the deep pool of water behind it. My cackle rings out until he grabs my ankle.
Then I’m falling.
For him.
He’s so physical. Hayden powers after me in a game of chase, a seal slicing through the water behind me. A shark snapping at my heels as I splash. A bearded merman with slicked-back hair who I end up kissing for so long that I risk drowning.
Hayden’s breath is hot and panting, his nose freezing, his smile amazing when we break off. The water carries me away, plunging me downhill, while an eddy traps him.
I spin, fighting that tumbling water, and fuck me, it’s an effort, but I wade uphill against this torrent and pull him out of the whirlpool that trapped him.
I slip next, and he grabs me.
