Page 39 of A Summer to Save Us

I sleep restlessly. I dream of Chester attacking me, then turning into Jack, and when I wake up, I’m drenched in sweat and full of panic-tinged, scarlet images. It takes me a while to realize that I’m not in the Davenport mansion.

“Everything is fine, Tucks. It was only a dream.” River sits on the edge of the bed and pushes my damp hair back.

He’s still wearing the black shirt and looks at me seriously, as if he wants to see inside me.

Maybe he’s afraid that his behavior yesterday might have frightened me so much that his attempt to save me will fail.

“We have to go,” he says after a moment.

“I have no idea when Buddy Miller will show up and ask awkward questions. Tom left earlier—maybe he was afraid he’d get in trouble for the gun. ”

Confused, I glance at the clock above the door, which, luckily, remained intact during River’s freakout. It’s eight o’clock in the evening, and almost dark outside.

I have to concentrate to follow his words. Tom is gone? I didn’t even thank him.

“This Miller guy will wake up from his delirium soon, and then all hell will probably break loose.”

How long has it been since I showered? One hour? I merely wanted to rest for a bit afterward, but obviously fell asleep.

River stands. “I don’t want to worry you, but I’m afraid those bastards might come back.

If Miller is John’s old man...and his brother is the police chief.

.. then John and his buddy might have a free pass in this town.

I don’t know how it runs here. And if they find out Tom left, and I don’t have access to a gun. ..”

I understand what he’s trying to tell me and pull myself away from the blanket. Still wearing my jeans and a black turtleneck sweater of River’s, I hastily slip on my flip-flops.

“I already dismantled the slackline, and everything’s packed.”

Blinking, I glance around and notice the backpack is bulging on the floor.

He’s also picked up the shards from the vase and returned the table and bedside table to their original places.

I rub my forehead in surprise. It’s unbelievable that only a few hours ago, he didn’t want to wake up.

In general, he suddenly appears to have twice as much energy as any normal mortal.

“What is it?”

I feel his eyes on me and force a smile to my lips even if I don’t feel like it. His explosions left their mark: a smashed chair lies in the corner, and in one spot, there’s a gigantic hole in the wooden paneling.

My smile fades. Everything about his behavior confuses me, and I can’t help the sinking feeling in my stomach.

He calmed me down earlier with his beautiful words, but I was also completely confused.

He said he was terrified and angry, but that’s not why you trash motel rooms. He also tore up the pad and broke the pencil.

I only ever leave shards behind .

Are his friends still looking for him?

“Kansas?”

My name sounds foreign because I’ve gotten so used to Tucks.

River clears his throat. “I guess I owe you an explanation for all this.” He gestures vaguely around the room.

I spot a shard on the floor he must have missed while cleaning and pick it up, placing it on the table. Basically, he doesn’t owe me anything. Still, I want to know everything. I stare at him, and for a few seconds, that gentle silence floats between us again.

“I certainly didn’t mean to scare you.”

River runs a hand through his hair, seemingly unsettled for the first time, and that look awakens a hundred longings despite the chaos of emotions inside me.

I nod to him. That’s okay , I try to signal to him, then form with my fingers. OK.

He shakes his head impatiently. “Nothing that scares you can ever be okay, understand?”

OK.

Now he laughs, which makes his face light up. “Seriously. We’ll talk—in your way and mine—but right now we need to get out of here.” He glances at the door. “Earlier, I was in the old barn behind the reception area and stole Miller’s bike.”

Looks like we don’t have to walk.

“I just wanted you to know.”

He stole Chester’s Porsche, drinks while driving, and most likely does drugs.

Lately, he’s been trashing motel rooms, too.

But, and this is becoming increasingly clear, no matter what he does, he would never hurt me.

He looks after me, protects me. Because of me, he took on guys who were bigger than him in height and mass.

Why am I acting like this simply because he destroyed some furniture?

Didn’t Arizona once throw her math book at me?

I shrug my shoulders indifferently. OK .

We drive until I’m no longer afraid that those two guys might intercept us somewhere.

Besides, we’re using dirt roads parallel to the highway.

Under a sky full of twinkling stars, we set up camp for the night in an orchard next to a field.

River brought along a sheet, which he spreads out as a base while I dig the sleeping bag out of the backpack and pad our bed with clothes.

Later, we lie next to each other, staring at the sky as River shows me the individual stars that make up the Swan. “The Swan is one of the brightest constellations in the summer sky.” He points to a star nebula in the south. “And there’s the Crane, but you can only see the Y... see?”

My jaw is throbbing, and I’m incredibly tired. I nod anyway, my gaze lost in the night sky. All my muscles hurt, but I can’t tell if it’s from sitting on the back of the motorcycle or from the attack.

“Tomorrow, we’ll stop at the Craters of the Moon. It’s only a short detour to Las Vegas, and your mom’s opening is in about two weeks. Did you know that the astronauts trained there as part of the Apollo program?”

He doesn’t expect an answer because he continues to stare at the sky.

“I always wanted to be an astronaut. Far from Earth. To be weightless, drifting into something endless and eternal.”

I’m completely surprised. I can imagine River as many things: a film star, a race car driver, or even a bomb disposal expert. But not a spaceman in a suit and helmet.

“But then I learned that stars can die, too. They’re like us, Tucks. They’re born, they burn out, and they die.” I feel him looking at me and turn my head in his direction. Then, he looks back up at the sky. “A star should be eternal, don’t you think?”

I nod again, but he doesn’t see it. The wind plays with his hair, which shines ghostly bright in the dark night. “Maybe the sky is just a graveyard, and all the lights we see have long since gone out.”

Space is a graveyard for stars, I think. With Arizona, that would definitely have made it onto the strange page in my Kansas’s Strange & Beautiful Words: A Collection.

“Star-shimmer-night,” River says suddenly, turning his face toward me again. His cheekbone shimmers in an indefinable color because of a bruise there, but the swelling on his lip has gone down a bit.

Star-fall , I shape with my hands.

“Star-cradle.”

Star-longing .

He looks up again, and I do the same, at the milky white flickering of thousands of lights that may be graves. “Starry-night-eternal.”

We’re silent, and the word stretches so far that it seems to reach the arc of stars above us.

“A night like this would be perfect,” River says hoarsely.

For what? I think, a shiver rising within me. To kiss me again?

“You’re not going to leave me hanging at the end of the summer, are you?”

His words seem to fall from heaven.

Starry-night-eternal .

I look over at him carefully. He looks at me again, his hair like a wild fan around his head, starlight glittering in the deep night blue of his eyes.

Naturally, I know what he means—the real reason we’re traveling together.

A dark feeling spreads within me, as if I’ve been suppressing something unpleasant for a long time.

We’re not just River and Tucks running away together.

We’re dying companions. Our trip has a purpose, and it’s not just going to Las Vegas or fulfilling my list. Well, most likely.

I slowly shake my head and grab his fingers under the sleeping bag.

Of course not, it’s supposed to convey. And in this moment, I truly believe it.

No matter what he’s missing, no matter his mood, I follow him wherever he goes because I never want to be without him again.

Not one day. He is my shield that protects me from the world.

No, he is more. He’s my world. And if he is my world, I don’t need a shield.

I already had these thoughts when we were at the river.

He is simply everything. The answer to every question.

As he squeezes my hand, the sparkle in his eyes deepens, and I think that nothing so perfect should ever die.

“Maybe there’s glitter, baby,” he says quietly. “Maybe there’s music and poetry there.” He smiles.

Maybe there’s nothing at all. Or everything.

At that moment, he looks again like a beautiful angel of death who has seen beyond the shadows. Seductive and dark. Would I still fly with him if he wanted to?

The next day, we do a makeshift wash in the restroom of a run-down burger joint. My face looks bad. My jaw isn’t very swollen, but its coloring is similar to River’s cheekbone, and part of my upper lip looks like it’s been injected with Botox. Maybe that’s why River doesn’t kiss me.

After freshening up, we each have three cheeseburgers and fries for breakfast, down a liter of cola, and treat ourselves to an apple turnover for dessert.

Later, River stops at a hardware store in Arco and signals me to wait at checkout. When he approaches after paying, he has a charging cable and a black thing in his hand that looks a bit like my brother’s electronic car key.

“So,” he says resolutely, standing close to me, just as he did when he untied and retied my leash. I smell his scent of herbs, leather, and forest, and everything in me longs for his closeness and our caresses by the river. At that moment, all I want is for him to kiss me and never stop.

River shakes his head as if reading my mind. “Since you can’t protect yourself, someone else has to do it for you. Especially when I...” He trails off, looking at me strangely. When I sleep , I finish his sentence in my head.

I feel him click something to my jeans.

Automatically, I lean back a little, looking down, and see the black thing dangling from my belt loop, attached by a carabiner.

Perplexed, I raise my arm.

“This is an acoustic signal generator. If you can’t scream... all you have to do is pull this stick out here, and that thing will make a hell of a racket. The battery is already unlocked.”

I swallow, my eyes welling up. Because he thought of something like this. Because he makes me feel valued and worth protecting. Unlike my dad. Dad should have bought this for me.

Furtively, I wipe my eyes. River is smiling, but behind it is a forlornness that keeps eluding me.

Then, as if to distract us both, he suddenly pulls the stick out of the pendant, and a deafening shrill fills my eardrums. Too loud! I quickly cover my ears. River laughs, and everyone turns toward us. He swiftly replaces the pin back into the housing, and the noise stops.

“Sorry, an accident,” he calls out in the direction of the information desk, where a burly security guard is looking over at us. The man nods at me.

I smile uneasily.

“Hey!” River grabs my shoulders and holds me at arm’s length in front of him. We look at each other, and the hey vibrates through my senses. It blows over my skin like a gentle breeze and flies through my mind like dandelion umbrellas. Hey!

“I bought you something else.” He slides his hands delicately from my shoulders and pulls something out of his pants pocket.

It’s a small, beautiful silver notebook with a penholder and a gold ballpoint pen.

With a solemn smile, he places it in my hand.

“For all the things you can’t say. For everything you want to ask me. For all your beautiful words.”

His words break something inside me, and the tears I was just able to hold back roll down my cheeks unhindered.

Sometimes, I don’t understand anything. He talks about death and starry-night-eternal and not wanting any other promises last night.

But then, why did he say he had to save me?

And why this signal generator? If everything will be over soon anyway, why all this?

Why is he so caring? Why does he want to fulfill my Big Five so badly if he wants to unreservedly die?

Surely, he could do that now. Why is he giving me the book when all the words we write in it will soon be in the past, lost somewhere in a ravine between the fir trees, earth, and sky at the foot of the Lost Arrow Spire?

“Hey, Tucks. Everything’s okay.” River wipes away my tears with his thumbs and frames my face with his hands.

No, nothing is okay, and yet everything is okay if you just stay with me!

I swallow and look at him. His blond hair contrasts so starkly with the black of his shirt.

Everything about him is so confusing, so mysterious.

So heavy and so light. His confidently curved lips, his unfathomable eyes, his vulnerability that I can only imagine but that shines through every gesture.

Why does he want to die?

I have to ask him that. As soon as possible.

I place one hand on his chest while clutching the book with the other, and he pulls me into his arms as if kisses were the answer.

His lips are rough and hot, his tongue infinitely cool, but the kiss is like the last one on the river—dark night and dreamy blue.

I lose myself. My heart is on fire. He makes me as sad as he makes me happy, and I have no idea what he’s looking for in this kiss, what he’s missing in it.

When he backs away at some point, his cool breath breaks on my forehead. I realize that a few older women are watching us. “We’re lucky,” River whispers down to me.

I look at him, confused.

“We’re lucky we’re not in Iowa.”

He twirls my hair. “Kissing that lasts longer than five minutes is forbidden there.”

He did it again. Something that moves him is erased with a casual remark. Something bizarre, meant to detract from him. But it’s there. I see it more and more clearly with each passing hour, and it awakens a terrible fear in me.

The fear that one day he will slip away from me. The fear of losing him to something he can’t tell me about. The fear that I will let him down despite my promise.

Why do you want to jump? I write in the book and hold it out to him.

I promised , he writes back. A long time ago.