Breakheart Hill

the stairs toward my car with a bundle of schoolbooks in her arms, all youth and energy, with most of the journey still before her. But at other times, I will see her as she might have become, older and wiser, her hair threaded with gray, her character shaped by a deeper and longer experience of life, moving more slowly toward me, opening her arms, rich and beautiful in the fullness of her womanhood. Then I see her not as she might have become but as she was left that day on Breakheart Hill. I see the devastation that was done to her, see her as Luke did before he raced up the hill for help. I see her blood glistening on my hands as it glistened on his trousers. But I do not dash away as he did. For I know, as Luke could not have known, that there is no help for her, no way to mend her wounds. And so I do the only thing I can. I kneel down beside her, gather her broken life into my arms, and say her name.

“KELLI,” I SAID, “WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS?”

We were sitting in the little basement office late one afternoon only a week or so after we started working together on the Wildcat. She was at her desk, a small wooden one that had been pushed up against the room’s back wall.

I handed her the paper. “It’s one of those gossip things Allison used to put in every issue,” I added. “June Compton gave it to me this morning.”

Kelli took it from me, brought it under the lamp on her desk and read it out loud. “Trouble in paradise. Be on the lookout for a breakup.” She looked at me. “Who’s it about?”

I shrugged. “Some Turtle Grove couple,” I said. “That’s all June knows about, the people out there.”

I was right, as it turned out, and no more than fifteen minutes later Mary Diehl appeared at the door of the basement office. She was wearing a navy blue blouse and a black skirt, and thrown into silhouette by the light from the corridor she looked like a charred figure, motionless and silent until Kelli finally looked up from her desk and caught her standing there.

“Hi, Kelli,” Mary said softly. Her eyes swept over to me. “Hi, Ben. Ya’ll working on the Wildcat?”

“Yes,” I said.

Mary struggled to smile, clinging to that iron charm her mother had taught her to maintain in all circumstances. “Well, I just wanted to ask if June Compton gave you something to put in it.”

“Yeah, she did,” I answered.

“Well, do you think you could give it to me, Ben?” Mary asked. She glanced self-consciously at Kelli, then back to me. “It’s sort of personal, and I don’t want it put in the Wildcat.”

For some reason, I hesitated. Perhaps because I wanted, no matter how briefly, to feel a certain delicious power over Mary Diehl, who, under other circumstances, would hardly have noticed me at all. “Well, I’d like to give it to you, Mary, but I should probably read it first.”

“I wish you wouldn’t, Ben.” Mary’s voice trembled slightly. “It’s private, you know?”

“I know, Mary,” I said. “But as the editor of the paper I have to …”

I heard Kelli’s chair scrape against the cement floor, then saw her body sweep past my desk.

“Here it is, Mary,” she said, handing her the paper. “June gave it to Ben this morning. We haven’t even had a chance to read it yet.”

Mary snapped the paper from Kelli’s hand with an almost frantic motion. “It’s nothing bad, really,” she explained hastily. “But June’s just such a busybody, you know, and—” She stopped, her voice suddenly less tense, relief sweeping into her face. “Well, anyway, thanks for giving it back,” she said. She folded the paper, sunk it into the pocket of her skirt and stepped back into the corridor, now suddenly herself again, fully a girl from Turtle Grove, all her grace and poise regained.

“Bye,” she said, then vanished.

Once Mary had gone, I tried to make light of the whole thing. “That breakup stuff must have been about her and Todd. They must be having trouble.”

Kelli had already returned to her desk, but she looked up at me pointedly, her eyes cold and stern. “You should have given it to her right away,” she said.

“What do you mean?” I asked, though I already knew.

“You made her beg, Ben,” Kelli said. “Why did you do that?”

I had no answer for her. “You’re right,” I admitted. “I should have just given the paper back to her.”

Kelli watched me evenly, her face so grave it appeared almost stony. Her eyes were nearly motionless, two black pools, but I could sense her mind moving rapidly behind them, remembering, evaluating, coming to judgment.

For a moment I feared she might never speak to me again, but suddenly the severity broke, and she smiled. “It must be nice though,” she said almost airily.

“Nice?” I asked, now completely thrown off by the abrupt change in her attitude. “What must be nice?”

“To love someone like that,” Kelli answered. “The way Mary loves Todd.” She smiled quietly. “To feel desperate about losing someone.”

It seemed the right moment to make a cautious inquiry. “Have you ever felt that way about anybody?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No. But I hope I do someday.”

I started to say something else, but she turned away, returning to her work, closing off any further discussion.

For the next hour we worked silently. Then suddenly she demanded, “Would you have run it?”

So much time had passed that I didn’t know what she was referring to. “Run what?”

“That note June gave you. Would you have put it in the Wildcat?”

I turned to face her. “I don’t know. I might have.” I shrugged. “But I hope that if I had run it, I would have been disappointed in myself later. That’s the worst thing you can do, right? To disappoint yourself.” I looked at her quietly for a moment, then added, “Or disappoint someone else. Someone you admire. That’s the worst thing, don’t you think?”

Kelli shook her head. “No, the worst thing is for someone you love to disappoint you,” she said with a sudden, unexpected vehemence. “That’s what’s really bad.” Her eyes narrowed, and I could see an odd tumult in them, though it was also clear that the cause of it was not something Kelli wanted to reveal. She glanced away quickly, then turned back to me, her eyes calm again. “Anyway, I’m glad we gave June’s note back to Mary,” she said.

“Me, too,” I said.

We closed the office a few minutes later, then strolled out to the parking lot. Kelli did not have a car, and so on the days we worked late, I drove her home to Collier. It was dark when we reached her house, and outside the car I could hear the whistle of a chill fall wind.

“Better wrap up,” I said, nodding toward the checked scarf that now dangled loosely from Kelli’s throat.

She looked at me oddly, as if surprised by my care. “Yes, I will,” she murmured. Then she leaned forward, reached over and took my hand. “Thanks, Ben.”

It was a small gesture of affection, nothing more, and yet I can still recall the tingling sense of her flesh on mine, the way it seemed to linger on my skin long after she’d drawn away her hand. And I know that with every day that passed from that moment on, my longing for her steadily increased, along with the troubling sense of my own physical awkwardness and lack of experience, my “virginity” no longer merely a vaguely regrettable and embarrassing fact in my mind, but a subtle accusation of unmanliness and inadequacy, the first seed of my self- loathing.

But that was something Kelli could not have known, and so, as the days passed, she continued to act toward me as any young girl might, casually touching me from time to time, no doubt thinking me as harmless as I thought myself, but by each touch turning up the heat one small degree.

Feeling that heat, but unable to act upon it, I began to construct my mask and hide behind it. I gave her no indication that she was becoming anything more to me than a friend. I made small talk with her and occasional jokes. I gave her quick tips on southern speech and sometimes made fun of her northern accent. From time to time, I would even talk about some other girl, making up feelings that I did not have, pretending to desires that were far more commonplace and manageable than those I had actually begun to feel.

Because of that, our conversations on those rides to her house during the next few weeks continued to be