Kasie West - On the Fence

“When?”

“Right now.”

“No, but thanks for asking.”

“Thanks for nothing.”

“It’s ten o’clock. If I go run right now I’ll be up all night.”

If I don’t go run right now, I will be. “Please, Gage. I’d love you forever.”

“Hmmm, I’m pretty sure I already have that one locked down, but maybe a different bribe would work. Like showing me whatever that is.” He pointed to the picture on my desk.

No. Way. “Yeah, not going to happen. I don’t need to go running after all.” I tucked the picture into my desk drawer.

“Huh. Really? Now it is my goal in life to find out what you’re hiding.”

“That’s a pretty lame goal.”

“True. But I have this tingly feeling right here”—he pointed to his heart—“that it will be worth it.”

“Get out of here before I have to kick your butt.”

On his way out he grabbed hold of my ponytail, pulling both me and my chair backward, then lowered the chair gently to the ground.

“You’re an idiot,” I said, staring up at him from my new position on my back.

Rain pounded my window. Red rain. So hard that a single crack formed at the top of the glass and slowly splintered down in a sharp line. I watched it, the white line splitting my window into equal parts. And then suddenly it shattered, sending glass spraying into my bedroom.

I sat up with a start.

If I could control my subconscious mind, I would never ever dream. There had to be some way to solve this problem. Hypnosis or something. Maybe just a treadmill. What were the odds my dad would buy me one of those?

Downstairs, I made some hot chocolate and turned on the laptop. I Googled dream interpretation and searched for the word rain. There was always rain in my dream. I read: Falling rain is a metaphor for tears, crying, or sadness. Yeah, whatever. I couldn’t remember the last time I cried. I looked up recurring dreams.

Dreams are messages, things our minds want us to learn. Recurring dreams can be really important messages. They often come in the form of nightmares. Recurring dreams could represent a real-life problem that hasn’t been dealt with or resolved. Overcoming or resolving that problem could help one move past the recurring dream.

I read the paragraph again. What credentials did a stupid online dream interpreter have anyway? I could make up garbage like this. Closing the laptop, I moved to the back door and looked over at Braden’s house. It was two a.m.; there was no way he was up again. It would be completely selfish to text him. I knew this, and yet I got my phone and stared at his name for a long time.

I put the phone down, deciding against it, and went outside. His bedroom window was dark. The whole house was dark. Maybe he’d come out on his own like he did the first time. That wouldn’t be selfish of me. I craned my neck to see if his father’s car sat in his driveway.

Wait.

I was hoping his dad would come home drunk and drive Braden outside? That was more selfish than if I just texted him.

“Sorry,” I whispered. “I hope he never comes home that way again.” I placed my palm on the fence as if I had somehow just sent that message to Braden. Then I sat down on the dirt. It felt warm between my fingers. “I dream about my mom,” I said to the moon. “How is it possible to miss someone I never knew?”

If Braden were out here, what would be my match? What did he dream about? Leaving this place? He was a year older than I was, like Gage. He’d be a senior this year. And then what? I knew in my heart he’d be gone as soon as he turned in his graduation robes. With a home life like his, what did he have to stay for? My heart sank with that thought. I hoped his friendship with our family, with Gage . . . with me, might keep him here.

“I know how to play,” I said, shaking Braden’s hand off my arm. “Don’t be all condescending with me.”

“I’m just trying to help your technique, Charlie.”

“I’m sorry, did you become a professional disc golf instructor and forgot to tell any of us?”

He grunted. “You’re so stubborn.”

“If I had asked for help, I would accept your help.”

Jerom joined in. “That’s the issue—you never ask for help.”

“Because I don’t need help. Now back up before I whack you all in the head with this.”

Braden took a large, deliberate step back.

I analyzed the positions of the trees around us, hoping I didn’t hit any of them and prove him right. Nature had provided plenty of obstacles in this park. A dog to our left barked and then ran past us chasing a tennis ball; its owner let out a whistle.

I shook off the distractions, stood up straighter, then threw the Frisbee. It landed within five feet of the basket. Way closer than where Braden’s sat at least ten feet from mine. “So there.”

He rolled his eyes like he wished Fate had taught me a lesson right then and he was frustrated it didn’t. Maybe he should open his eyes and see that Fate might’ve been trying to teach him a lesson.

Gage and Braden exchanged a look, and based on Gage’s sly smile, I knew they had secretly agreed on some form of punishment for my behavior.

“I’m up,” Gage said. He started to throw when Nathan stopped him.

“Your foot is over your marker.”

We all looked down at his foot, which was several inches past where his marker indicated it should be. “Nathan, don’t be anal,” Gage said.

“Fine, if you want to cheat, that’s on you.”

Gage growled and inched his foot back. He chucked his Frisbee. It careened into a bush off to the right. Nathan laughed.

“You got in my head, Nathan.”

“You let me in, sucker.”

Gage tromped off to find his Frisbee. When he came out of the bush, leaves all over his shirt, he held up his own tie-dyed Frisbee and an additional bright red one. “I found a lost soul.”

“The owner’s info should be on the back,” Jerom said.

Gage turned it over. “Lookie here. This Frisbee belongs to a Miss Lauren Fletcher.”

“A girl who plays disc golf?” Jerom said. “That’s hot.”

Gage curled his lip. “I don’t know. A girl who plays disc golf? She’s probably a dog. Some aggressive, burly thing.”

The guys laughed, not seeming to realize I was standing right there . . . playing disc golf. Maybe that’s how they saw me. Maybe that’s how most guys saw me.

Nathan grabbed the disc from Gage and shoved it in his equipment bag. “The least we can do is return her Frisbee.”

“Be my guest,” Gage said.

It wasn’t until close to the end of the course that I knew what Braden and Gage had secretly agreed to earlier. As we passed a muddy pond that tried to pretend it was a scenic lake, Braden grabbed me by my arms and Gage took hold of my feet. I kicked and struggled, but they held tight.

“You see, Jerom,” Braden said, “let me teach you the proper way to throw someone into a body of water.”

“I’ve always wondered if my technique was a little off,” he said, rubbing the patch of scruffy hair he had grown out on his chin. “Please share ways I can improve.”

“Well, first,” Gage piped up, and I managed to get a leg free and kick him in the chest. He gasped, but grabbed my leg again. “You swing them. Like so.” I moved from side to side in a big, arching swing.

“Okay, yes, I see.”

“We’re going to get kicked off the course if you throw her in,” Nathan said.

“Yes, listen to Nathan, please,” I begged. The cattails that filled the pond loomed in my peripheral vision on every downward swing.

Gage laughed. “Who’s going to kick us out? The park police?”

“Then,” Braden continued, “right when your subject reaches the height of the swing, you let go.” And they did just that. I landed with a smack in the shallow water, crushing cattails beneath me. A couple of ducks took flight and I let myself sink into the muddy water that the summer sun had turned into a warm swamp. It oozed between my fingers as I pushed myself off the bottom.

“You two are excellent teachers,” Jerom said. “Thank you for imparting your knowledge to me.”

I stood, large globs of mud splatting back to their home. “Who needs a spa treatment when I have disc golf mud therapy?” I ran a hand from my shoulder to my wrist, scraping off more mud, and then did the same on the other arm. When I exited I went straight for Gage, ready to give him a big hug. He knew that game and took off running. In my pursuit of Gage, I managed to catch Braden off guard by doubling back. I wrapped my arms around him from behind. “Whose car did we drive today?” I said, my cheek pressed against his back. “Oh, that’s right. I call shotgun.” I felt him groan.

“Your trunk is pretty big,” Nathan spoke up.

I gasped and let go of Braden. “Nathan!”

His cheeks colored. “I wasn’t serious.”

I smiled. As if he needed to clarify that. Gage came slinking back, keeping a good distance between us.

The players on the course behind us laughed as they took in the scene, then asked, “Uh, can we play through?”

“Yes,” I said, water still squishing between my toes as I walked. “Feel free. We’re leaving.”

“Leaving?” Braden said, faking incredulity. “But we only have two holes left. Come on, Charlie, we can’t stop now.”

I knew he was making fun of me and what I had done to Dave a few weeks ago in football, when he got the call about his grandma. The veiled rebuke stung. “Okay, let’s keep playing.”

“I was just kidding.” He put his arm around my shoulder.

I shrugged it off. “No, I want to play. You’re right, we’re almost done.”

“But you have mud dropping out of your shorts,” Braden said. “And the image isn’t a good one.”

“Shut up. Who’s up?” I asked as the players now ahead of us finished the hole. I picked up a Frisbee and marched to the throwing point.

At the car when we were finished, Braden opened the trunk.

“Don’t be a jerk,” I said. “I’m not getting in there.”

He shot me angry eyes and pulled out a blanket. “I was just getting something for you to sit on.” He handed me the blanket.

“Oh. Thanks.” I took it and wrapped it around my entire backside. “Sorry.” I shouldn’t have called him a jerk, even playfully. I knew that word bugged him.

The guys piled into the car, but Jerom stopped me, nodding his head toward where Braden sat in the driver’s seat. “How hard is it to let a guy feel useful every once in a while?”

“What?”

“Would it have killed you to listen to his pointers back there?”

I looked at Braden, then back to Jerom. Why would Braden need to feel useful? Had something made him feel un-useful? Was something going on with him that he’d talked to Jerom, the “really good listener,” about? A surge of jealousy that Jerom might know something about Braden that I didn’t coursed through me. “Yes. It might’ve killed me.”

He rolled his eyes and headed for the passenger seat.

When I got to work the next Tuesday, Linda’s face was beaming with a smile of giddy anticipation.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Go change and I’ll tell you when you get done.”

She probably thought it was weird that I brought my work clothes in my backpack and came in wearing my sloppy T-shirts. But I still cared more about what my brothers thought than what she did. And I didn’t live in my mind . . . or whatever she had said. I lived in a house full of guys who loved to make fun of me. I walked out after changing and looked at her expectantly.

“Okay, close your eyes,” she said.

Playing along, I closed my eyes.

“Ready? Open them.”

I did, and she held up a check for a hundred and fifteen dollars. It was made out to me. “What’s this?”

“Your cut of the makeup session we did the other day.”

I took the check and stared at the number. And here I thought I was going to tell Linda I didn’t want to do it anymore. But if I could make over a hundred bucks just sitting there, I could handle it. It meant I’d be able to pay off my dad quicker.

“We did so well, we’re going to hold at least two more classes and see how it goes.” She pulled a flyer out from under the cupboard and handed it to me. On the upper right-hand corner of the flyer was a picture of me in full makeup.

“Whoa. What’s that?”

“Your picture. I thought you were okay with it. It’s the one we took the other day.”