Arms stretched out wide, I greet the coolness of the breeze. I let it rush across my skin in an embrace.
Welcome home.
The sharp sound of a throat clearing pulls me from my quiet, startling me enough to make me turn in search of the sound.
He watches me with a tilted head of interest. Curiosity shines from his light-colored eyes. Hair covered by a backward cap, he forces a dark eyebrow to lift slowly.
A glitch in my perfect picture. An error, not able to be erased.
“You’re on my rock,” I announce rudely, staring at the boy—who doesn’t look much older than me—perched upon the wide rock on the bank of the river.
My rock.
The one place I come to sit and breathe at.
The boy stands, dusting the back of his jeans as he searches around the large rock, bending his ridiculous height to sweep his eyes over it thoroughly.
“What are you doing?”
Pausing, he stands at full height, well above the normal range of a teenage boy. “Looking for your name.”
I feel my eyebrows pinch together.
“You said it was your rock,” he explains as he steps closer, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his pants. “I was just looking for proof of property.”
I let my frown grow.
“Of course, I don’t own the rock,” I bite out, crossing my arms over my chest defensively. “But this is my place. I’ve been coming here for months, and I’ve never seen you here before.”
He nods, not quite looking at me. “I just moved here. Today actually. I was out exploring and found this place.”
He looks pleased to be here. Content to be surrounded by everything and nothing all at once.
“Aren’t you too young to be exploring the woods by yourself?”
“Aren’t you?” he retorts, meeting my eyes.
“I’m fifteen.”
“Me too,” he announces triumphantly, a smirk tipping at the corner of his thick lips.
I blink.
He doesn’t.
“Well…” I clear my throat. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but we can’t both have the same spot, and I was here first. Finders keepers, and all that.”
He tips his head side to side. “Technically, I was here first.”
“Today,” I snap, stepping forward without agenda. “Today, you were here first.”
“Way I see it”—he sighs, unfazed by my panic—“it’s all that really matters. The moment.”
“Just find a new spot,” I argue, my head tipped back to look at his face, the plea in my voice embarrassing.
He smiles at me. “Nah.” He moves closer again until we’re toe to toe. His eyes track over my face in a curiosity he can’t contain. “I think I like this one.”
I stand still, his elbow brushing my upper arm as he walks past me.
“Name’s Brooks.” He stops, not turning around. “Might beat you here tomorrow, friend.”
I huff, moving toward my rock without watching him leave.
“Name’s Brooks,” I mimic after I’m confident he’s gone. “Who even introduces themselves like that?” I ask the river.
I sit for a moment, disquiet settling around me. He’s disturbed my space. He’s made it feel less like mine and more of anyone else’s.
Standing, I search around, kicking away twigs and leaves with my toe. Picking up a gray stone, I rub the pad of my thumb across it, testing its sharpness. Satisfied it’s jagged enough to do what I need it to, I lean over the large stone Brooks had attempted to steal.
My hand aches with the pressure I use to engrave my words.
Smiling at my handiwork, I turn, skipping the stone along the river and watching it bounce three times before sinking.
Order restored, I sit upon my throne, arms wrapped around my knees. The damp moss of the stone tickles the pad of my feet, and I wiggle my toes in welcome, working my hardest to ignore the niggling sensation that Brooks has completely thrown my order into disarray.
BROOKS
Age 15
Property of Henley Wright.
I stare at her scrawl etched into the stone as a smile pulls across my lips. It’s deep, I’ll give her that. She put some serious elbow grease into making it visible—for my benefit of course. No one else has dared to step foot into her spot, or so she says.
What a pompous brat.
She’s like an old lady trapped in the body of a fifteen-year-old girl. The permanent scowl on her face, the know-it-all way she spoke.
She was strange.
Clothes that screamed money, but barefoot in the forest?
A pretty face but the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen.
Confident but an obvious loner.
I shrug, my eyes dragging along the ground in search of a stone big enough to outdo her scrawl.
Beneath her chicken scratch, I rush the sharp stone back and forth, carving an ampersand before printing my own name into the property deed of the stupid rock.
It’s lame. I’m lame. But I just moved here, and I’d welcome any distraction to my life right now. Messing with a loudmouth snob works right into that need.
Lying on the rock, I stare up at the canopy of trees.
Lake Geneva.
I sigh in acceptance.
If I’d kicked up a big enough stink, they wouldn’t have moved me here. They would’ve uprooted Gran and moved her to Colorado. That would’ve made me a special brand of asshat, though. Forcing my dying grandmother to displace her life completely and move a thousand miles away to be taken care of. Away from everything she knows and loves.
“You clearly can’t read.”
I open an eye and find Henley Wright standing over me, hands on her tiny hips, scowling down at me with a ferocity that seems out of place on her meager frame.
I roll away from her briefly so she can see the rock in full.
“I can read fine, Henley. Nice to meet you, by the way.”
Reading my addition to the stone, she growls, adding a little foot stomp in and breaking a bunch of twigs through her tantrum.
“What is wrong with you?” she groans.
“Nothing’s wrong with me,” I answer calmly. “I was enjoying some peace and quiet and reflecting on the recent upheaval in my life when you disrupted me.”
She
