Seemingly overnight, he became a different person. Guarded, defensive, brooding. And, perhaps most hurtful of all, completely uninterested in being my best friend. I was never able to figure out what triggered the change in him, or why he was so determined not to let me in on the secret. I suppose the answer was staring me in the face. I just didn’t want to acknowledge it.
He might’ve been my best friend… but I was no longer his.
It shouldn’t have come as such a surprise. After all, I’d spent a solid chunk of my teenage years worried he’d tire of me at some point. That my introverted inclinations would ultimately bore him — especially once he began to ascend the social pyramid at Exeter Academy during our senior year.
Why would he want to hang out with boring old me when half the varsity cheerleaders were lining up to date him?
Even if Archer hadn’t intentionally pulled away, our friendship would’ve changed eventually. At separate colleges, leading separate lives, we would’ve drifted apart naturally, as so many high school friends do, finding ourselves with scarcely anything in common by the first Thanksgiving recess of freshman year.
But bracing for a schism and living through one are different beasts entirely. I’d be lying if I said I was not left reeling by the sharp sting of his rejection last summer. I’d be lying again if I said twelve months of space somehow supplied me with closure.
The sad truth is, I’ve spent a year pushing down the pain instead of healing it, burying my grief beneath the weight of a new relationship instead of working through it properly. And now, like a fool, I find myself disintegrating all over again; the loss bubbling up from the deep like a volcano gone temporarily dormant.
How pathetic is that?
One afternoon in Archer’s presence, and I’m slammed right back to where I started, heart ripped to shreds like the letter he left when he ended our friendship. Unable to think straight with my head so clouded by him.
Questions I still lack answers to tug at me with vicious fingers.
What could’ve happened last summer to change him so completely?
Were those scars I saw on the hand he was so quick to hide away?
Which pieces of this infuriating puzzle am I still missing?
After the events of today, it has become abundantly clear to me that I do not know the whole story of Archer Reyes. My thoughts scatter into a million fragments, then reform into implausible shapes. In the darkness, I begin to wonder ridiculous things. To postulate improbable scenarios, if only to fill in the gaps in our story. Anything to explain why he’s here, working a summer job so outside his skill set I can hardly wrap my head around it.
Unless…
It’s not a summer job at all.
It’s just…
A job.
My eyes widen in the darkness as the possibility bounces inside my skull, a ping-pong ball of chaos, upending the ground beneath my feet. Questions come at me so fast, I can barely keep track of them all.
What if, for some reason, Archer never went away to school?
What if he’s not playing baseball at all?
What if, however crazy it seems, he’s become a full-time lobsterman?
I try to dismiss these strange inklings as no more than the delirious effects of an overtired mind. But, once considered, they are not so easily brushed aside. With each passing hour, I become more determined to follow the threads of suspicion braiding together inside my chest into a tight knot that threatens to block my airway. I become equally aware that, after hours of tossing and turning in vain, nodding off to a peaceful sleep is an unattainable impossibility.
Throwing on a pair of yoga pants and a sports bra, I slide my feet into rubber sandals and head downstairs. The house is empty, the silence absolute. I cross the kitchen and slip out the back door, onto the terrace. The night air is thick with humidity. It’s nearly dawn. On the eastern horizon, the sky is tinged with the faintest shades of pink and yellow, the first fingertips of sunrise creeping into focus.
I don’t dwell on my own intentions as I walk down the sloping lawn toward the cove. My heart gives a great pang when I look out over the dock, barren and useless in Cupid’s absence. The heart-pangs only intensify as I turn my back on the sea and head toward the stone building hanging halfway out over the water. Sucking in a sharp breath, I grasp the door handle and push my way into the boathouse before I can talk myself out of it. The door shuts behind me with a creak that vibrates my bones.
My pulse pounds in time to each footfall on the paneled flooring as I walk deeper into the dim space. There, at the interior slip, sits my father’s navy blue Hinckley picnic boat. She gleams with a fresh coat of paint, even in the low light. The mere sight of her triggers a series of memories, flashing rapid-fire across my mind: Archer and me, tangled together in the berth, exploring with greedy fingers and love-starved lips that fateful night last summer.
Prom night.
The night that changed everything.
But I am not here to reminisce on things that make my soul ache. I am not here for the boy who took my virginity, with his vacillating intentions and abrupt changes of attitude. I am here for the version of him I’d rather remember. The boy I grew up with. My fiercest protector, my closest ally. My best friend.
My Archer.
The climb up the ladder is longer than I recalled. The rungs are coated with dust beneath my grip. No one has been up here in over a year, that much is evident. At the top, I hunch-walk my way to the rafters’ edge, ducking my head to avoid the sloped roof, dodging around obstacles whose locations I memorized by heart long ago. I’m barely breathing as I step into the small cleared area of the loft so often frequented by Archer and me during our childhood.
Our spot.
I lower myself to the floor and swing my legs over the edge of the rafters. The sun has now made its presence known in full, brightening the sky to a dozen shades of pastel, like watercolors on an artist’s palette. A single shaft of light shoots through the window pane, illuminating a plank on the wall beside me. There, carved into the wood by two twelve year olds with a stolen pocket knife, are two sets of initials.
AR + JV
I trace the roughly gouged edges with the tip of one finger. Tears gather behind my eyes as I think about those two kids, pressed shoulder to shoulder, giggling as they left their lopsided mark with the tip of the blade. Innocent fools with their whole lives still ahead of them. Not yet damaged by the world and all those who inhabit it.
Back then, we were certain of absolutely nothing — nothing, except the most important thing of all: that no matter where our paths led, we would be there together at the finish line. Through thick and thin. Inseparable until the end of time.
AR + JV
4EVR
I sit there for a long while, tears dripping down my cheeks in silence as the sun slowly cants higher into the sky. The beam of light eventually moves away from the carved letters, shifting sideways across the floor.
Letting us fade once more into the shadows.
SIXTEEN
archer
I wake ungodly early the morning after the storm. My body is conditioned to rising before dawn even when I’m dead tired. I walk my usual route to the harbor, more out of habit than anything. There’s no real reason for it — with the Ebenezer shattered to bits by the Atlantic and Tommy embracing his early retirement, I’m staring down the long road of unemployment.