“I believed you,” James said from behind him. Only nine years old, he struggled to push through the bramble.
They had emerged on a small overhang above the lake. A single tree grew from the edge of the overhang, its branches like so many fingers yearning to touch the water. Hanging from one of the branches was a simple rope tied into a large knot at the end.
“What is it?” James asked.
“It’s a swing,” Derek said. “Me and my friends used to play on it all the time.”
“Why are you showing me?”
Derek paused. He turned and knelt next to his brother, who was much shorter than him. From this close, he could see the bruise on his cheek and the half-healed cut on his lip.
“Mom told me you got hit at school, James.”
James balled his hands into fists, sticking out his lip. “So what?”
“So I think we should spend more time together,” Derek said. “I’m your older brother. I’m supposed to protect you.”
James’s eyes started to water and he wiped at them angrily with his fists. “You can’t protect me.”
“Of course I can. I’m thirteen,” Derek said. “Look, I didn’t bring you here to cry. I brought you here to have some fun. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“So are you gonna jump or what?”
“What?” James said.
Derek nodded toward the swing. “You’ve got to swing off and jump into the lake. It’s so much fun.”
James broke into a grin. “Let’s do it.”
“Ah, not me,” Derek said. “I think I’m a little too big for it now. But listen, I’m gonna go down by the edge of the lake and watch. Make it cool.”
James stripped down to his underwear and walked to the edge of the overhang. He slowly inched toward the edge and peeked his head over. Straight below, rocks and reeds poked out of the lake.
“I’ll get hurt!” James shouted to Derek, who now stood several feet below on the left side of the lake.
“You just have to jump, swing out, then let go! You’ll land in the middle of the lake. You’ll be fine!” Derek yelled.
James nodded, stepping away from the edge. His stomach was as knotted as the rope, but he steeled himself. He couldn’t look weak in front of Derek.
He broke into a run, focusing on the rope. One step, two steps, and he jumped. His hand wrapped tightly around the rope.
There was an earsplitting crack and the branch broke. James screamed as he fell straight down toward the rocks, the rope wrapped around him and his feet above his head. Time seemed to slow as he watched the broken branch follow his descent. His heart hammered in his chest, and he closed his eyes, waiting for the pain.
Something slammed into his left side, and a moment later, his right side impacted hard with the ground. The air exploded from his lungs, leaving him wheezing. He opened his eyes.
Derek detached himself from James and rolled onto his side, panting. They were lying about ten feet from the rocks, in the safety of the dirt and reeds next to the lake.
“I... I... I almost died,” James said, tears welling in his eyes. “You saved me.”
“I sure did,” Derek panted, sitting up in the grass and smiling. “I told you I could protect you.”
“How... How did you jump so far?”
“What do you mean?”
James pointed to the other side of the lake, about twenty feet away. “You were there, and you somehow jumped all the way over here.”
Derek shrugged. “I had a running start, and I’ve always been a good jumper.”
James nodded as Derek helped him to his feet.
“Let’s get back home. Mom will be wondering where we went. And, James...” He held a hand up as he began to move. “How about we don’t tell Mom and Dad what happened, okay?”
“Okay.”
Chapter 5
Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp.
James groaned, reaching blindly for his phone to silence the alarm. Once the earsplitting noise ceased, he stared up at the ceiling, fighting the pull of sleep, wishing more than anything he could stay under the warm covers for just thirty more minutes.
But instead, he rolled out of bed and got ready for school. He ate breakfast, said goodbye to his mom, greeted Rocky in the driveway, and parted ways with him once they reached school. The same routine. Day after day after day. How did he and the other prisoners called his classmates survive the monotony?
Once again, James had art history first period. Half the class was there when he walked into the room. He settled into a desk in the back, sitting in a daze of fatigue as the bell rang and Mr. Zimmer entered the room, greeting the class with his usual unfunny remarks and quips before launching into a lecture on surrealism.
James tried to pay attention, but Mr. Zimmer’s droning voice passing over his tired brain like a light breeze. Instead, his mind wandered, a lost traveler in a sea of thoughts. He thought of the half-remembered dream from last night, of him and Derek as children. He thought of the party Rocky mentioned this weekend and wondered if he should go. He thought of Lucy Latiano, his old crush from freshman year, who Rocky said would be at the party. He thought of everything except art history.
Mr. Zimmer’s voice cut through James’s thoughts: “Bradley, please put away your phone.”
James glanced at Bradley Martin, who sat one row over and two desks up. Bradley jumped, his phone poorly hidden behind his textbook. He sheepishly put it back in his pocket.
“Thank you,” Mr. Zimmer said. “Anyways, surrealism was a response to the boundaries of rationalism...”
James was ready to sink back into his thoughts as Mr. Zimmer started writing something on the whiteboard, but movement from Bradley caught his eye. As James watched, Bradley reached into his pocket and took his phone back out, this time placing it on his leg and surreptitiously typing on it, his head still facing Mr. Zimmer. James thought he was being bold. Mr. Zimmer was known for
