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Jack, ever the conscientious objector, had no talent for, or interest in, learning to fight The day a robin broke its neck crashing into the cabin’s screen door, it was Jack who’d insisted we give it a proper burial When , Jack took one look at the blood on the fish’s mouth and refused to touch the rod

It’s a what opposites ere But soiving If I was the muscle, Jack was the heart

A figure darts across the road—a dark-haired boy in board shorts, thin as a beanpole, and pale as snow

Jack

I slam on the brakes

The seatbelt cuts into n for far partway into the bar ditch on the side of the road

“What the fuck,” IClydesdale My truck’s dash lights up, dinging a with all kinds of notifications inforone down

Yeah, no fucking kidding

I switch off the engine, unhook my seatbelt and climb out of the truck

The Tennessee heat wraps around me like a damp beach towel as I survey the road I squint into the trees, lit up by ot me killed

“Hey,” I call out “That stunt you pulled was really fucking stupid You could’ve killed us both”

I get no answer

Sweat drips down e of the boy sprinting across the road Obviously, it wasn’t Jack But for soot to be the cocktail of guilt and rocket fuel s that aren’t there Not to mention the very real memories of all the summers Jack and I spent out here as a kid

And who could forget the green-eyed girl fros I don’t want to remember?

I head back towardin the direction I just caine, I hear another soft voice at my ear