Laura Miller - By Way of Accident

“Yeah, watch what you’re thinkin’ then.”

I watch him pick up a rock and skip it across the pond. Tim has always been good at skippin’ rocks. He could skip a rock across a football field if he wanted to.

“Is it weird?” he asks.

I take a swig, set my bottle down and cast my line out onto the pond. “Is what weird?”

“I don’t know — likin’ two people at the same time?”

“What?” I ask. I think my face matches the shape of a question mark.

“Well, you like Brooke and you like Amy.”

I just chew on his words for a second before shakin’ my head. “It’s not like that.”

“What do mean?” he asks.

“I mean it’s never gonna happen with Brooke, so I don’t think of her that way anymore.”

He shoots me a disbelieving look. Hell, I know it’s a lie, but maybe if I tell myself it enough, I’ll believe it someday.

He picks up another rock and goes to skip it but then stops. “You stop lookin’ for her?”

I force out a sigh. I came here to relax. Now, I’ve got Dr. Phil grillin’ me all of a sudden.

“I don’t know… I think I just figured she stopped lookin’ for me.”

He studies me for a second longer, then winds his arm back and sends the rock jumpin’ onto the pond. It skips four times and then sinks.

“I liked her,” he says.

My eyes dart to his.

“I mean, she was cool,” he goes on. “Kind of scary — with those eyes and all, but she was cool. And hotter than hell…”

“Thoughts — Keep ‘em in your head,” I warn him sternly.

He starts to crack a smile, and I just shake my head and try to hold back my own smile. “Yeah, well, Amy’s pretty cool too,” I say.

I catch him noddin’ his head. “Yeah,” he agrees, halfheartedly. I don’t really have the patience to ask him why he doesn’t like Amy as much as he liked Brooke, but I have a feelin’ I’m gonna find out anyway as I watch his face turn into a mess of wrinkles and thoughts.

“There was just somethin’ about her…and you.”

“What do you mean me ?” I ask.

“I don’t know. It was only a couple months, but I could hardly stand you those months. You were just so damn happy.”

“Okay, Dr. Phil, I’m cuttin’ you off.”

“What? I’m just sayin’,” he whines.

“What? I’m not happy now?” I ask. I already know the answer to that. I am happy — just not that kind of happy.

Tim shrugs his shoulders. “It was just different, I guess.” He looks over at me. “Amy’s pretty cool too, though.”

“Yeah,” I say, noddin’. “She is.”

And then we both return our eyes to the water and neither of us says another word about Amy or Brooke or anything, for that matter. We just sit there and fish and keep our thoughts to ourselves — just like Grandpa taught us to do.

Senior Year of High School

“River, my dress is purple, so you need to get a purple bow tie to go with your tux.”

I suck in a lazy breath and then audibly force it out. I’m scared to ask her if she’s really sure this time. She’s gone back and forth between dress colors at least a half dozen times now. I keep an eye on her, just in case — just in case she changes her mind again. But she just stares back at me, not even battin’ an eye. I guess purple it is.

There’s a lot that goes into this whole prom thing. I thought just havin’ a date was all you needed. Now, I’ve got to make sure I’m dressed like freakin’ Barney. And I suppose if I had wanted to avoid the bullshit altogether, I could have went stag to prom. I could have followed Grant and told Amy I’m wearin’ jeans and a tuxedo tee shirt. That would have done it. That would have made me dateless real fast. Grant says his jeans and tee shirt are his way of “defying tradition.” But the hell with tradition, I just don’t want to end up lookin’ like some damn purple dinosaur. But I guess there’s no turnin’ the clock back now. Somehow, I’ve got to make Barney look good, among other things.

Amy’s already told me I’ve got to make dinner reservations and meet her and her friends somewhere beforehand to take pictures for God only knows what. It’s not like we’re gettin’ married. What in the hell do we need pictures for? Hell, Amy’s had this thing so planned out since sophomore year that I never even got the chance to ask her to the damn thing. All of a sudden, she just came to me with a picture of her dress — well, one of the half dozen choices, anyway — and said how “cute” we’re gonna look together. After that, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do, so I just ended up never askin’ her. But I guess that’s how it’s been with Amy and me. We’ve been together ever since that day she asked me to the movies with her brother and his girlfriend. Or maybe it was the day I told her I’d walk with her to class our very first day of high school. I don’t even know for sure. We were voted cutest couple in last year’s yearbook. Amy was excited. I was too, I guess. It’s not like I’m gonna get Most Likely to Succeed or Class Clown or anything like that. I’m pretty sure those will go to Jana Winstead, the valedictorian and the one who’s bound to cure cancer someday, and Cory Hall, who’s just about the opposite of Jana Winstead and who just recently put the high school up for sale on Craigslist as a senior prank. He even threw the freshmen in for free. Principal Teddy — yes, like a teddy bear — was alerted of the sale, and Cory was immediately forced to take the listing down and then sent straight to Teddy’s office. But when Ol’ Teddy asked Cory why he had only asked $32.54 for the whole school, Cory sat up straight and calmly said that it would cover the cost plus tax.

“Of what?” Teddy asked.

“Of the chair in the detention room I wore out these last four years. I mean, there’s springs comin’ out of it and whatnot.”

The story goes that Principal Teddy laughed so hard he was snortin’. Needless to say, Cory got off scot-free, and most would say, rightfully so. But anyway, back to my point: Amy was excited about the recognition in the yearbook, so I was too.

Me and Amy are kind of like peanut butter and jelly, I guess you could say. We’re different. But we work pretty well together, I guess. She likes things a certain way, while I don’t mind jumpin’ in with all my clothes on every now and then. Amy’s pretty much got a set way of thinkin’. And I guess I did too, originally. Maybe that’s why I get her. I grew up thinkin’ that A leads to B, and there’s only one way to get there. I thought that because I just assumed that’s what everyone around me thought. That’s how I was taught anyway. There’s one road to town. The creek runs one way. The birds fly south in the winter and north in the summer — every summer. There’s a certain rhythm to life. You take what’s set out in front of ya. You eat the food — burnt or not. And I used to think that’s just how it was. But my grandpa changed that about me. All those years of keepin’ his thoughts to himself, and it was in his last days that I saw him in a different light. I guess I figured that if my straight-laced grandpa could be a dreamer, I could too. And of course there was somebody else during that time who helped me to see the world a little differently too. But I guess that was years ago and yesterday, and either way, it’s old news now.

“River!”

I look over at Amy. She’s starin’ at me like she’s just about to lose her patience.

“I’ve been calling your name.”

“Sorry,” I say, tryin’ to shake off my thoughts.