2,100

The cot creaked under my weight, a tortured metal groan that echoed through the cramped, rotting shelter. I hadn't even bothered to take off my boots. The warmth inside the waystation—what little there was—felt like an illusion, something thin and brittle that would snap if I moved too quickly or breathed too hard. Outside, the wind screamed like it was mourning something. Or someone. Probably me, preemptively. The shelter smelled faintly of mildew and old copper, like forgotten blood and forgotten time, and every creak of the walls felt like the building was remembering how to fall apart. The floor beneath the cot sagged slightly, as though it too was tired of holding weight.

I lay still for a long time. Not quite asleep, not quite awake. Just staring up at the patchy ceiling, letting the static in my brain fizz out. My phone was still off. Her voice was gone. For now. That should have been a relief. It should have felt like freedom. Instead, it just made me hate the situation I’m in even more. It just made me remember how good things used to be.

My thoughts wandered. Slipped backward. Way backward. Back to a time before Seraphin, before bullets, before Her.

Back to the lake.

It had been summer. The kind of summer you don’t realize is perfect until you’ve grown old and jaded and the world has crumbled around you. The kind that hums with bees and rustling trees and possibilities. I was maybe nine. Ten at most. The sun was a golden fireball overhead, and everything smelled like sunblock, engine grease, and hot pine needles. That was the scent of real safety. Of childhood. Of everything that mattered condensed into one eternal afternoon.

"Gabe! Watch this!" my sister had shouted from the edge of the old dock, arms windmilling with theatrical flair as she prepared her most dramatic cannonball yet. She always had a sense for the spotlight. Even then, she moved like she expected the world to applaud.

I watched, wide-eyed and grinning, as she launched herself into the lake with all the grace of a flailing squirrel. Water exploded around her. I cheered like she’d just secured us eternal glory in some backyard Olympic event. Her victory grin when she surfaced was enormous, absurdly pleased with herself.

Our parents were down by the boat, unpacking a cooler. Dad was already shirtless and halfway to lobster-red, beer can dangling from his fingers. Mom had on those awful oversized sunglasses and a floppy hat that made her look like a movie star who’d stumbled out of the '70s. Music drifted from the crackly radio propped on the cooler—some old folk song about dusty roads and finding home. I remember thinking it sounded sad and beautiful at the same time. Even now, if I close my eyes hard enough, I can hear the dusty twang of that melody carried on the wind.

"Your turn, squirt!" my sister called, bobbing up and wiping water from her face with the dramatic flair of someone certain they were being watched. I could tell she was trying to make me nervous. And it worked. It always worked. I remember how her eyes sparkled, how her wet hair stuck to her forehead in curly tangles, and how she cupped water in her palms to splash at me, missing on purpose.

"I can totally beat that!" I shouted back, puffing my little chest out with all the indignation a younger brother can muster. I charged down the dock like I had something to prove—like the world needed to see.

I came up laughing, choking on lake water, and she grabbed my arm and pulled me close. Her freckles were like constellations, scattered wildly across her nose and cheeks. We clung to the inflatable raft, giggling like idiots, kicking lazily at the water while dragonflies skimmed past.

"We should live here forever," she said.

"We’d run out of snacks," I replied.

"We’d eat fish. And bark. And bugs. Like Bear Grylls!"

I wrinkled my nose. "You eat the bugs. I’ll stick to bark."

She dunked me. And then laughed like she'd just heard the best joke in the world. That kind of laugh that sticks with you. That makes you feel like you’re part of something sacred.

When we clambered back to shore, shivering and dripping, Dad handed us sodas that fizzed wildly when we cracked them open. Mom wrapped us in mismatched beach towels that smelled like the inside of the cabin—wood smoke, lavender, and the ghost of last summer’s sunscreen. We sat on the steps, sticky and sun-dazed, watching the light shift across the lake as the sky dimmed from gold to rose to violet. Even the air seemed to soften as the sun dipped behind the trees.

Later, after hot dogs cooked on wire hangers and marshmallows scorched to the edge of combustion, we lit sparklers and ran through the clearing behind the cabin, leaving burning trails in the dark. Fireflies joined in. For a few magic minutes, it felt like we could outshine the stars. We collapsed afterward, breathless, itchy, limbs tangled, whispering about aliens and monsters and what we’d do if we found treasure buried under the tree stump. The stars overhead blinked on, one by one, like they were watching us and smiling.

Everything was slow. Safe. Infinite. Even the mosquitoes couldn’t break the spell.

We slept on the screened porch that night, curled up in sleeping bags that smelled like the attic. I remember the hush of the forest and the occasional hoot of an owl, the sound of my sister’s even breathing next to me. We’d planned a midnight adventure but fell asleep before we could sneak out. In the morning, dew coated everything and made the world sparkle, like it had been gift-wrapped just for us. The pancakes Mom made the next day were a little burnt, but we devoured them like kings. We didn't know then that we were making the kind of memories that could keep a person alive. For a moment, I let myself believe that memory. Let it wrap around me like one of Mom’s hugs.

I closed my eyes on the cot and imagined the lake. The dock. The squish of mud between my toes. My sister’s laughter echoing across the water like it was trapped in time, waiting for me to come back. I could even feel the sunburn itching at my shoulders, the faint ghost of that summer still etched in my skin. I could feel the cold pop can in my hand, the way it had fizzed against my fingers, and how my sister kept elbowing me every time she saw a cloud shaped like a dinosaur. I remembered the way my parents looked at us, tired but content, and how the lake seemed to stretch on forever.

I remembered having fun. I remembered being happy.

Then the wind slammed into the shelter again, rattling the door like it wanted in. Like it remembered I didn’t belong in that memory anymore. I opened my eyes. Still here, still breathing, still moving.

One day closer to the goddamn cabin. One memory farther from home.