Chokecherry

an excerpt

True joined us in the sunroom before Mickey finished his first cigarette. He stood in the doorway for a moment before sitting down in one of the rusted chrome chairs alongside Mickey.

‘Ava,’ he said. ‘Good to finally meet you. I kept asking Mickey, how come he never brought you around. Glad you came to join us at the cottage. Hope you found the place okay.’

The cottage was hunched on the outskirts of a community so small it was years ago amalgamated, absorbed by other townships. The location missed by maps. We’d been lost, trying to find our way here, Mickey and I, and we’d argued forty kilometers down Highway 3 before disappearing into cold, mutual silence. It had been early afternoon by the time we finally parked in the gravel driveway. The cottage was empty, then, his brothers gone into town. I hope they stay away, Mickey had said, lying on the damp carpet as I half-heartedly unpacked my bag.

True wore his jeans low on his hips, a white tank top tight over his body, lean where Mickey was skinny. Looked around with the same eyes as his brother, only blue, unclouded by the grey in Mickey’s gaze. A demigod of gruesome needs. For the first time I saw him with all his brothers, Dustin and Cody and Mickey, and the hierarchy was clear. Always this little distance; indifferent as a prince. A cut above the sweat and mess of Cody and Dustin and even Mickey’s lives.

When Nadie came down the road, pulling along another girl by the hand, you could hear them far off through the dark before they tumbled through the sunroom’s screen door, laughing, talking back and forth, cutting and pasting words at the end and over each other’s sentences I can’t believe I said that she said what do you mean and I said I don’t, I don’t give a –

And now they stopped, exchanged quick and secret glances.