Mrs. Sasaki walks around the corner of the portable and I know she’s trying to catch me smoking. I turn my back to her, but she walks around in front of me to tap her watch before heading back to the classroom. The bell sounds and I peek around the portable. The parking lot is quiet and everyone is in their classes. I can hear the sound of hundreds of pencils scratching.
CARS WHOOSH ABOVE ON the overpass as Elgin pedals hard up the steep part of the trail that leads to Mosquito Creek. I’m perched on the back of his bike, one hand on his shoulder for balance. The sweat collecting on his T-shirt forms a wet band down the curve of his back and two others under his arms. He stops by a natural pool deep enough to swim in and we strip down to our underwear. The leafy trees glow pale green in the heat and the evergreens look dry enough to ignite, like one misplaced cigarette butt could send the whole forest up in flames. In the distance I can still hear the cars speeding along the highway. My gaze floats up to the big pine trees and I think about how from far away the forest looks perfect, like every tree has been chosen for its spot on the mountain, but up close it’s messier. There are rotten logs with hornets’ nests and thick, sticky spiderwebs and dried pine needles stuck to everything. Kate and I used to come here when we were younger and I wonder if she’s the one who first brought Elgin here. “I like this spot,” I say, slipping into the pool, pretending I’ve never been here before.
“My mom and I used to pick blackberries under the highway,” Elgin says, jumping into the water. “They always tasted like gasoline.”
“That’s disgusting.” I float on my back, let Elgin slip his fingers through mine and pull me around the pool. “Why’d you eat them?”
“They were there,” he says, releasing me and ducking underwater beneath my body, coming up the other side and spraying water droplets over me. “I kind of like the taste,” he says. “I’ll go pick you some.”
“No, thanks.” I close my eyes. He traces my body with his fingertips. The mushrooms we took at his house start to kick in, every sensation multiplying.
“You should stay over tonight,” he says, his lips brushing my ear underwater, sending shivers over my scalp, down my spine to my fingertips.
“I don’t think your Mom will like that.”
“Who gives a shit?”
“She doesn’t like me.” For some reason this makes me laugh, maybe it’s the mushrooms. The evergreens dip down and I stretch my arms up trying to touch them.
“What do you tell your parents?”
“That I’m at Kate’s.” The water feels like oil over my skin, colours itself pink and then back to green. “My shrooms are really working,” I say, rubbing my hands over my face, staring wide-eyed at Elgin.
“Really? I don’t feel anything. Maybe I need more.” He wades over to his pile of clothes and pulls the baggie of mushrooms out of the pocket, eating another stem. “They still think you’re friends?”
“With Kate?” I’m playing with my cheeks, hollowing them with my fingertips. “My parents don’t know anything.”
We climb out of the water and sit on a flat rock across from each other, legs crossed, knees touching, transfixed, like it’s hard to break eye contact. “If it’s any consolation,” Elgin says, “my mom hated Kate too.”
“Sure, that makes me feel better.”
“She called her a tramp.” Elgin laughs at the word. “Who says that? She assumed we were sleeping together.”
“You were.” I reach out and touch Elgin’s nose.
“Is that what Kate told you?” He kisses the tip of my finger.
“What do you mean?” I peer up into Elgin’s face.
“Hey,” he shrugs, “it’s not like I didn’t want it to happen.”
“Why are you telling me this right now?” I hop off the rock back into the water and paddle a circle in the pool. “I’m so fucking high.”
“You asked,” Elgin says, kicking water at me. “Is it a big deal?”
“She lied.” I swim up and pull Elgin back into the water, wrapping my legs around him.
“To who?” He pushes the wet hair out of my face.
“To everyone.”
“Did she?”
“Jesus,” I say. “I don’t know.”
A fat, angry horsefly circles the water, weaving between us. I swat at it, but it keeps coming back. It buzzes near my face and I throw myself under the water, my legs still wrapped around Elgin’s waist. The iciness electrifies my skull, but I try and stay under as long as I possibly can, until the air presses against the walls of my chest and I start to get dizzy. The water is a shattered mirror and I can see Elgin, a million pieces of him, swatting and splashing at the bug. He stops and the mirror fuses. I glimpse something, more of a feeling than a sight, as he stares through the water at me. His hand reaches in and pulls me to the surface, the air burning my lungs. The horsefly dives at our faces as we climb up the rocks and grab our bundles of clothes. Elgin races down the trail like there’s a cougar chasing us. I trip after him, twigs and rocks digging into the bottoms of my feet, the buzz filling my ears. We run down a hill and Elgin stops suddenly, wrestling me into his arms. He holds me close to him and covers my mouth. “What?” I say, muffled by his hand.
“Listen.” The forest flutters around us in a gentle breeze, cool over my wet skin. There’s nothing: no buzz, no horsefly. Elgin takes his hand off of my mouth and kisses me, his tongue warm and heavy. When we pass back under the highway, I pick a blackberry off the bush. Elgin was right — they taste like exhaust, but there’s a sweetness in them too.
ELGIN BIKES ALONG THE highway on the way back to the house. Each car that passes brings a wave of hot air on my bare legs. He pulls over onto the grass shoulder, says, “I have to take a piss.” I turn my back while he climbs into the brush along the side of the highway. A car honks as it drives by and my eyes follow unwillingly. Before I know what’s happening, Elgin races out of the bushes and onto the highway. He jumps up on the meridian and pretends to surf, like the cars are ocean waves or sharks or something. “Are you stupid?” I yell, across the stream of traffic. “Come on,” Elgin shouts back. He motions with his arms and almost loses balance. Something makes me think that if I am standing with him he won’t fall. Cars blare their horns and people shout out their windows, you idiot, get off the road, you’re going to kill someone. Their angry faces burst past in hot flashes. I wait for a break in the traffic and run across the highway. Elgin holds out his hands and helps me up onto the divider. “You’re really stupid.” I hold my arms out like a tightrope walker. Elgin takes my hands and we balance, grinning at each other.
“I love you,” I say, letting the words lose themselves in the traffic. The cars whip past us, sending gusts of warm air through my wet hair. It’s not how I imagined, not like flying at all.
PAUL’S TEACHING US SEX ED and whenever he says the word vagina I blush and hate myself. Most of our grade ten class is sitting on the gymnasium floor watching a slideshow with diagrams of deformed genitalia. Paul clicks through the pictures listing the STD that caused the damage — scabies, syphilis, gonorrhea. When a grotesquely swollen scrotum appears on the projection screen, some guy in the back row shouts blue balls and everyone starts laughing. Rana’s sitting beside me scribbling notes on my arm. She doesn’t seem to care that, from wrist to elbow, the only thing we’ve discussed is her hair, which now has pink streaks. Over the summer her parents separated and sold their house next to Mosquito Creek; her father moved back to Lebanon and Rana and her mother moved into a condo on the waterfront with a view of the city. The separation means Rana can get away with a lot more than usual right now (which is still hardly anything), but when she saw her mother crying at the kitchen sink this morning she decided she would wash the dye out tonight. I make tiny little braids with the streaks in the meantime. It keeps her from writing anything else on my arm.