“Sorry, what did you say?” Christian said, returning to the present.
“You okay?” Silas asked. “You seem somewhere else today.”
Christian hesitated, kicking the dirt under his feet before saying, “I was going to wait until after class to tell you…”
“What is it?” Silas asked.
“This is probably going to be my last class for a while,” Christian said.
“What? Why?” Silas asked carefully, hoping the problem was something he could solve. Archery could be an expensive sport especially as one advanced, but there were ways to mitigate cost. If the problem was time, they could dial back on the number of lessons per month, or maybe cut the duration of sessions. And if it was—
“I’m going to be a father,” Christian said, a bashful smile and red-stained cheeks transforming his face.
Silas’s racing thoughts halted. “Wow! Shit. Congratulations.”
“Yeah, it’s a surprise. Didn’t expect it,” Christian said with an airy laugh. “But I want to do the right thing and financially contribute and stuff.”
“No, yeah, I get it, man,” Silas said and went in for a hug.
“I’m sure I’ll pick it back up sooner rather than later,” Christian said, grabbing his bow. “And of course you’ll still be here, so...”
And as Christian found a spot at the shooting line, he was unaware that he’d already hit a mark.
Of course you’ll still be here.
Why the sentiment bothered him so much, he couldn’t say, but it echoed in his head like a bell tolling for the rest of the workday, on his drive home, as he made dinner, and while he scrolled through pictures of Raven.
* * *
“Ride’s almost here,” Gwen said to Raven, who was leaning against a street sign pole fighting the effects of the liquor she’d imbibed throughout the night in the building behind them.
Bass-heavy music filtered past the doors of the club and the two bouncers standing guard, but any appeal it had had hours ago was lost in the face of nausea.
“Okay, let’s go. He’s here,” Gwen said as she looped her arm through Raven’s and helped her to the Uber that had pulled up to the curb in front of them.
The backseat of the car smelled faintly of air freshener-masked vomit and sweat, but Raven no longer felt like she was bobbing across water, so she didn’t care. She slumped against the seat as Gwen exchanged pleasantries with the driver.
“You’re a good friend, and I love you,” Raven told Gwen when the vehicle started moving through the downtown core of their city.
“I love you too, babe,” Gwen said as she fixed Raven’s wind-tousled hair.
Her friend wasn’t the clubbing type of person. She’d have rather been at home on the couch reading, but she’d come out for Raven.
“You okay?” Gwen asked after several minutes, and Raven turned away from the hazy city lights outside her window to look at her concerned friend’s face.
“I still feel really sad about Silas, and I hate it.”
Raven could usually bounce back from heartbreak after a good cry session, a night out, and a week of meditation.
But she’d done all of that and she was still discovering the depths of her hurt nearly a month after leaving Cedar Lake. It was as if she’d left a beach thinking she’d dusted off all the sand on her person, only to find more hiding in the folds of her clothes hours later.
“You made a connection, and it’s not weird that you’re grieving the loss of it,” Gwen said.
“Sure, but I keep wondering why this time feels different than all the other times,” Raven said, “and I think it’s because subconsciously, sometimes consciously, I’ve always picked the worst guys to avoid real heartbreak.”
She couldn’t feel heartbroken for too long if the people she chose were awful or half-committed because she was already anticipating the end. It allowed her to prepare and ultimately brush off the hurt quickly. No lingering sand.
“So Silas is a good guy you fell for,” her friend said.
