boat for short motherfuckers?
the lake is so quiet that audrey can hear the chirp of every insect, the call of every bird, the sound of her own heart palpitating in her chest. her eyes are squeezed shut so she doesn't have to see how far out in the water she is, but that just makes it worse - each wave that rocks her little rowboat could be someone with a mask and a knife coming up underneath it, tipping it over, dragging her below the surface.
"closing your eyes makes it worse," trish calls, across the water.
"yeah, i kind of noticed," audrey says flatly.
still. she opens her eyes. there are only three of them left on the lake, now; shigeo got his exit a full thirty minutes of mindful meditation ago, and shadow got his soon after. audrey's pretty sure shadow just fell asleep in his paddleboat, but the car must have counted it as enough rest and relaxation for the door to appear.
so it's her, it's trish, and it's al, who technically has a door on his boat already, but volunteered to stay behind until the others did too. maybe he wasn't expecting it to be so hard for them to relax, but he doesn't seem to mind having more time to fish with the improvised rod he put together back on the shore.
audrey sighs and drags her hands down her face. she can feel her genre butting up against the premise of this car, her danger sense pinging off of something she knows isn't there, and it's like bees in her brain. so maybe, actually, fuck the premise. maybe the way she gets through this isn't by being quiet and alone.
"when's the last time you were on a boat?" she asks aloud.
"oh," trish says. she's aimlessly paddling her paddleboat - pink, naturally - around in circles, sending ripples through the water. "in italy, when we split off from fugo. i don't remember a lot of it. i was dying."
audrey silently adds this to her mental catalog of insane trish anecdotes. she's not sure what reply she was expecting but - sure, italy. venice has waterways, right? that makes some kind of sense.
"you were dying?" al asks.
"my dad," trish says, which is all the elaboration she needs to give, because they've all seen her dad firsthand.
"i think the last time i was on a boat was when teacher took on me and brother as her students," al offers - maybe to cut the awkwardness, god bless him. "she stranded us on an island for a month."
"hey," audrey says. "what?"
"that's where i learned to fish," he adds cheerfully, every bit as skilled as trish at not elaborating on the anecdotes he shares from his home world. it's just harder to get annoyed at him for it.
"what about you?" trish asks.
audrey looks to her, squinting against the sun. "what?"
"when were you on a boat last?"
"oh. uh." she has to think about it. "i dunno. lakewood has...a fucked up lake. like, 'a murderer got shot by the cops there' fucked up. kids only go out there on a dare, or to fuck with each other."
the last time she was at the lake was at that party where noah almost drowned, she's pretty sure. audrey grimaces, tries once again to put the idea of outstretched hands under the water, ready to grab her ankles, out of mind.
"trish," she says aloud, grasping for something else to think about. "tell me a story that isn't about a time you almost died."
"i blew up a plane, once," trish says immediately, then pauses, hums to herself. "i think i almost died during that, actually. so - disqualified?"
"uh, no, fuck that. tell me about the plane you blew up," audrey says. it's true that the story might not meet her criteria but once, just once, she wants to hear the full story behind something outlandish that trish has so casually dropped into a conversation.
trish looks taken off guard; there's a beat of silence before she starts to actually tell the story, her voice low and careful, her eyebrows furrowed as she draws on the memory. audrey uses one oar to rotate her boat so she's facing trish, a little closer than before, then closes her eyes again and listens. it's easier to tune out the insects and the birds this time, easier to ignore the waves that rock the boat.
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Bunjy, did you go to school in a prison or something?
pretty much, the yard was entirely blacktop asphalt with some halfhearted Foursquare grids spraypainted on and a single basketball hoop, and they let all the gradeschool classes out at once to fend for themselves...
also if you tried to climb on the 20-foot fence, you got yelled at :(
I kind of thought this was normal? but looking at the other replies on that post, it, uh, seems like this may very much not be the case...
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