Rock the Boat

We were out in the middle of the lake, floating in a small white row boat that had once belonged to my best guy friend Lane’s grandfather. It was a couple of hours after noon in late August in a town of summer houses so small that none of them had street addresses and the reference landmark was the fishing store.

Lane and I had lived next door to each other every summer since we were little kids. With no other children in the area, we’d become good friends. We spent summers swimming in the lake and playing sports on the front lawn until we were old enough to work, and then we’d started a yard work business together.

Even though we only saw each other over those three months, we kept in touch during the school year with long chains of emails and weekly phone calls. He was one of my best friends in the world.

Then suddenly the thought of marrying him didn’t freak me out. But it wasn’t like I’d ever tell him how I felt.

Lane had rowed us out to far past where I could see the bottom and I’d jumped in first, taunting him until he jumped in after me. Back in the boat now, we were lying on the benches and drying off in the seeping yellow light of the sun.

“What’s my favorite color?” he asked.

It was a game we’d been playing. A “how well do you know me” sort of game. He’d started it when he said that I probably knew him best out of everyone in the world. That thought rose goose bumps on my arms.

“Easy,” I told him. “Dark blue. Ask me a good one now.”

“How many times have I failed a test?”

“Once in seventh grade, on geography. How about now I name all the girls you’ve ever had a crush on?” I teased.

“Please don’t,” he groaned. I could hear him smiling. “Where do I want to be in ten years?”

“You want to be married with kids, living on the outskirts of a city, but not too far away from the center of things,” I recited.

Without warning, he pulled himself up on his bench and stood with his feet spread widely. Gently, he began to tip his weight back and forth, rocking the boat.

I sat up as fast as I could and gripped the seat for stability.

“Lane, stop,” I demanded.

He grinned wolfishly and started rocking more violently.

“Lane,” I repeated warningly. “Lane, we’re going to tip over.” I couldn’t keep the panic from my voice.

He didn’t listen.

I didn’t wait for the flip. I shoved myself to the edge and dove off into the cold, opaque water.

The shove of my feet as I propelled myself away must have offset the balance even more, because when I surfaced again the white boat was belly-up and Lane popped up next to it.

“I told you so,” I taunted.

He ignored me and swam over to the boat. Grabbing on, he tried to clamor up the side but slid right back off.

“Hey, weren’t our lunches in there?” I asked.

We’d packed ourselves sandwiches and sodas to eat out in the boat.

“Soda cans float,” Lane said, plucking a red can from the water and holding it up to me.

My look was deadpan. “Yum.”

Suddenly, Lane’s head disappeared under the water.

“Hey,” I protested weakly to no one.

I waited, and finally he popped back up again. “Come in here,” he said, then ducked under again.

I followed him down to the bubble of air created by the upside-down floating white boat. The sunlight was all cut out, but what the water absorbed lit us up enough to see. We treaded water and stared at each other.

“Where are you going to be in ten years?” he asked me abruptly.

I considered my potential answers. What could I be? Where could I to be? Out of everything I could be a teacher, I could be a painter, I could be anywhere in the world. But where did I want to be.

“Right here,” I answered finally.

“Good answer,” Lane murmured, refusing to pull his green eyes away from mine.

He reached for my hand and took it, pulling it out of the water andtugging on each finger. Then he pressed his palm to mine.

“Look at that,” he said.

I looked, and I saw that his skin was tanner than mine and that his fingernails were shorter.

“What?” I asked.

“Our hands- look how they fit. They’re the same size.”

His eyes remained trained on our hands and I knew I had to say something now. I had to tell him everything I felt about him now or I’d never be able to.

“Lane?” I said softly.

“Yeah Leigh?”

“I… I wanted to tell you something.” He didn’t say anything, but he started to tap his pointer finger quickly against mine. I continued meekly. “I… Well, um. I… I really… I’m glad we decided to come out here today,” I said. His finger stopped tapping suddenly.

So it wasn’t exactly what I meant to tell him, but I couldn’t do it. The moment came and I chickened out. Why ruin this? It I told him I loved him, he’d probably never want to speak to me again, and we were having such a good day together. Why ruin everything just because I couldn’t keep my feelings to myself?

I sighed.

We treaded water and held our palms still pressed together in our little bubble, remaining in comfortable silence for what felt like an eternity.

“Hey Leigh?”

“Hm?”

“I love you too.”

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A/N: I'm pretty happy with this story, but I'd still like some good critisism of it to make it better. I'm trying to get this published in a book of short stories, so any advice you can give me as far as improvement on this particular story would be really great and I would love you forever.

catching polaris