Wintertide: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

stopped waiting for her to get in and
walked around to the driver’s side. She finally joined me, and I rubbed my
hands together and breathed on them for a moment before I put the car in
reverse.
    "Did you two have a
fight?"
    "No. We just didn't keep in
touch. There's no specific reason.”
    She wasn't buying that. "Well,
I would think that such good friends would try to make an effort to call each
other occasionally. It makes me wonder if we would ever talk if I didn't
always call you."
    I rolled my eyes at her, realizing
how much I did that and making a mental note to curtail it. "That's
ridiculous. Of course we would."
    She exhaled loudly and turned her
attention to the Christmas lights that adorned the small homes we passed. Bright
points of red and green reflected off the glass. I knew my mother didn't
believe me, but I was telling the truth. There wasn't one incident I could
point to as causing the dissolution of our friendship. Although, Eddie did have
something to do with it. I'd always felt a certain wonderment for Eddie, but Seth
absolutely idolized him. Seth would follow him blindly in any scheme he cooked
up. Toward the end, I often begged off, citing some poor excuse that they
surely saw right through.

four
     
    There was one thing about Eddie
that both excited and scared me. He had no boundaries. My entire life existed
within boundaries. But Eddie had no concept of society’s constraints. He drove an
old, rusted, black Camaro that he’d rescued from the junkyard and restored
himself. One of his favorite games was traversing the perilously dark and windy
roads of South Seaport in his car, late at night, at dangerously high speeds,
without the benefit of headlights. Seth would sit in the passenger seat
cheering loudly while I gripped the cushions in back and tried not to look
terrified.
    The first time I ever went to the
sea cliff was with Eddie. During the years I was in high school, the sea cliff
became infamous. There was a section of South Seaport that the town had
originally sectioned off for a park. The astute elected officials in charge of
the project didn't seem to think that the dangerous cliffs which made up the
southern boundary would be a problem. They simply erected a chain link fence
and called it a day. But the parents of the children who were to play in this
park protested and forced the project to be moved to another safer location. Nothing
was ever done with this land, but the fence remained, as did the stigma of
danger. It didn't take long for the thrill seekers, mainly teenagers desperate
for excitement, to begin climbing the fence and venturing far too close to the
edge of the drop.
    The cliff actually had a secondary
ledge, about six feet down. You could lower yourself onto that ledge and get a
good view of the sharp rocks and the white foam of the crashing waves below. Soon
the good citizens of South Seaport caught word of this daring ritual, and the
local paper printed a story about the sea cliff, stating that a person would
probably have to die before the town placed a proper boundary there.
    Eddie was drawn to that place as though
it were Shangri-La. The woods across from my house were quickly abandoned and
nearly every weekend was spent drunkenly climbing the fence and jumping down
onto that secondary ledge at the sea cliff. I always scooted myself back
against the wall of the cliff side, but not Eddie. He'd lean over the edge,
dropping bottles, listening for the sound of breaking glass. He could convince Seth
to teeter along the edge with him, but I never went out that far. I endured
many evenings of name calling. But even falling down drunk, I could never make
myself go out to the edge. Not until one Saturday night.
    It was this one night in particular
when Eddie seemed completely out of control. His father had laid into him that
afternoon when he got home from school for forgetting to rake the yard. His
face was swollen and bruised. In retaliation, Eddie had stolen his