I'd Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them Read Online Free PDF Page B

Her mind spins, but comfortably, and she searches for a response that makes sense. He should have told her weeks, months ago—only a month’s warning after two years together?
    Some of her classmates already celebrate their near-future plans to leave Chester for faraway towns and universities, a course she hasn’t pursued, and she knows couples who have promised to stay together when one half leaves, but long distance rarely ends well—it just ends. In the forty seconds she’s had to process the news, she’s decided that if Wintric asks, she’ll stay together, will, if he asks, maybe even go with him, but everything is too new, there’s no expectation, only a calmness, this unanticipated reaction to his announcement.
    She walks to the shore and the lake recedes down her body and the mud at her feet hardens to pebbles. Her skin throbs with a recovering sunburn and the soft air evaporates the moisture away. She poses in front of Wintric’s lifted Ford, low beams at her back, disappointed that she can’t recall all the words to the song playing. After a minute the rocks dig at her bare feet so she steps onto a nearby stump.
    She calls out over the stereo, “How much is the bonus?”
    Wintric has stayed in the water, letting her go about her business. He’s witnessed her productions before, and is a little surprised there aren’t any tears. He swims in to where he can touch and revels in the sight of Kristen’s moonlit body, her constant, unabashed confidence.
    â€œThirty thousand.”
    â€œYou’re going to the war.”
    â€œIs there anything else?”
    Something swims between his legs and he grabs his genitals. He isn’t sure of all the details of his enlistment, about what he’ll be asked to sacrifice, but he knows the posts are nowhere near this place, that the travel will take him away from these pine-filled valleys that cut him off from what he calls “civilization.” There are other lakes in the world like the one he stands in. He would struggle to name any, but he’s sure there are cities with lakes right in the middle of them, and when you’re done swimming you walk a block to your apartment or to other city things that await your call, and the sun shines warmer. He wants more than a taste, he wants to stay, and not in Chico or Redding or Red Bluff. Farther. He longs for strangers surrounding him, people who don’t know about his family’s crumbling house or his father’s bad back or his repeating sixth grade. He needs the separation, even if it means aiming a weapon for real.
    Wintric watches Kristen balance on the stump. He’s sure she will never leave this place. Once when he asked her about her fantasy vacation, she said she’d always wanted to drive through the massive redwood over near the coast. She wasn’t sure of the tree’s exact location, only that she’d seen photos of cars halfway through the trunk. It was so close by, her dream getaway, he had to laugh. She argued that people come from all over the world to drive through that tree. “If you’re from Japan or France, driving through the tree is a big deal. Why can’t it be a big deal for me?” He knew she was right, and he thought about how the only thing interesting about travel was that it’s away from where you are.
    Kristen turns around, faces the low beams, and Wintric studies her silhouette, her lean shoulders, the lines of her slightly spread thighs up to their intersection. Her hips have filled out, and Wintric pictures his hands there.
    Wintric hobbles out of the lake and strides to her. Her skin smells like fish, and he smells his own arm and it’s the same. His face comes to her stomach and he kisses her belly button. She sways her hips and he places his hands on them and listens to her singing.
    They decided early never to say “I love you” to each other. Even so, Kristen is all he has