Something Blue 2

I pop into first gear, let the clutch fly, and tear a wheelie into the wet mucky ground, then point the nose for home. But then, instead of taking the right fork and heading for the gate, I cut left and ride until the trail ends and I’m on the grass, uncut and holding me up well despite the rain, and I’m rolling through the back acres, cutting around the farm and the barn. Keeping distant. I know my Dad can hear the engine torquing up.

I bang the clutch in and jackrabbit upshift with my left foot, and I know he could see my headlight rushing through the woods. But I think it’s late enough that he’s sleeping, and I just don’t care to go home yet. I need something. Besides, there’s nothing he can do now. He’ll never be able to do anything about it ever again.

Hanging branches brush my head, messing up my hair, and something that wasn’t here before the rain could be at head level, and then I’ll die. My skull split open. Wind makes my eyes tear up and my ears cold. My right hand is throttle-back as far as it’ll go. Top speed. Headlong into darkness barely dispelled by the headlight.

Where the Hell am I going?

I only realize when I go sideways along the stone-wall marking the end of the farm and then right at the dip where it isn’t anymore. He came and took the stone. Sold it. I don’t even know what for. It’s still here in my memory. I’m going to the Hill.

Top speed.

 

I make it in five minutes, slipping in the muddy sides of Pine Hill, and then I’m at the top, and I cut the engine and let myself shudder with the knowledge of what I’ve done and been doing, still wet, cold from the speed and the water, my skin probably almost bone white but invisible in the dark.

“Took your time.”

Her voice. Stabs me in the chest the way it did last year, when I met her at the rehearsal dinner. Now he lies there like a corpse and probably knows what we’re about to do. More than I do, anyway.

I key the ignition to the left, turning the headlight back on.

She’s sitting on a blanket and leaning against the big Crown Rock, the one that comes all the way up the inside of the hill. The spine of the whole Island. Her red-gold hair is straight, strands fine and dancing so softly in the air. The denim jacket is hiding her body from my eyes, but that doesn’t matter. I know it. I’m feeling it from here. Her shoes are resting near her head.

“It was the rain.”

“Dafyd…what is it with you and storms?”

 

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