2. Neavh

"Wake up, sleepyhead."

I blink my eyes open as the truck's engine shuts off and silence fills the air. The early evening light is muted by the thick forest surrounding the car.

"We're here," my cousin, David, announces from the driver's seat.

I look out through the windshield at the sight of his small, single-storey house with a tin roof. Even though it's been almost four years since the last time I was here, I can still hear the sound of raindrops pinging off the tin like I've only been away for a few days.

"Damn," I mutter as I rub the sleep from my eyes, my voice hoarse. "Did I really sleep the whole drive?"

The last thing I remember was stopping for food just outside Victoria, which is almost four hours away.

"Yeah, and you snored too," David teases.

I roll my eyes. "I do not snore."

"Suuuure you don't," he says with a chuckle before sliding off his seat belt. "Come on. I have something to show you before we go inside."

He hops out of the truck and shuts the door behind him, but I stay where I am as I take a few deep breaths while I process my surroundings.

I'm back.

My decision to return—although ‘decision' doesn't feel quite accurate when it was my only option—felt like an abstract concept right up until this moment. When I was getting on the plane in Australia, the reality of living on Vancouver Island again still felt like something I could deal with later, like a ‘Future Neavh' problem I didn't need to think too hard about.

Even when I spotted David waiting for me in the terminal, jet black hair done up in his signature top knot and a huge smile on his face, I couldn't quite believe I'd really come back to River's Bend.

I wrap my arms around my stomach and take another deep breath. Even inside the truck, the air is laced with the damp, earthy scent of a west coast forest. The woods don't smell like this out east. There's something wild in the air here, something young and untamed yet ancient and wise weaving its way between the fir branches.

It's that smell more than anything that forces me to slam straight into the reality of being here again, back where it all happened.

Back where it started.

Back where I left.

"Neavh!"

David raps his knuckles against the windshield, making me jerk in my seat.

"You okay?" he asks, his concerned voice muffled by the thick glass.

I bob my head and force myself to unclip my seatbelt. I jump out of the truck and then hoist the bulky sixty-liter backpack holding everything I own off the middle seat before slipping it over my shoulders. My muscles, already aching from the thirty-six hours of travel and subsequent sleep deprivation it took to get here, protest against the weight, but I take it in stride and shuffle over to where David is waiting in front of the truck's hood.

"Ta da!" he says once I've stepped up beside him, stretching both arms out to indicate a large blue tarp covering something at the top of the gravel driveway.

I squint at the lumpy shape and wonder if I'm supposed to be able to tell what this is.

"Um…cool?"

David chuckles. "I need the truck available for work at the bar, and there's no way in hell I'd let you drive my motorcycle even if you did have a license for it, but you'll need a ride to get around town all summer."

He steps over to the tarp and starts fiddling with some straps keeping it in place.

"So this is a little something I picked up for you," he announces, grabbing one edge of the tarp in preparation for a dramatic reveal.

A rush of gratitude that's probably heightened by exhaustion fills my chest and makes the corners of my eyes prick with heat. I'm not a crier, but I haven't seen David in almost four years. After avoiding contact with my parents for the whole year I spent backpacking Australia, the overwhelm of being back in Canada, back with someone who knows me—really knows me—has my knees shaking with more than just sleep deprivation.

Then the tarp drops to the ground.

"David, what the actual fuck?"

He gives me a sheepish grin and pats the hood of the monstrosity beside him. "Beggars can't be choosers. Meet your sweet new whip, Neavh."

"My whip?"

I blink a few times, like the vehicle in front of me might transform into something I can actually process, but no. Every time I open my eyes, there it is.

"David, is that…is that a Spongebob Squarepants golf cart?"

He nods. "It is indeed."

I open and close my mouth a few times, but there are no words for this situation. All I manage is a wheezy, "Why?"

David laughs again. "Since you've so spontaneously shown up to impose on my hospitality, this is the only thing I could scrounge up on short notice."

I know he's teasing about the whole ‘imposing' thing, but since I did kind of fling myself on him, I bite back a sarcastic reply and settle for asking, "How exactly does one scrounge up something like…like this?"

I try to avoid the pull of Spongebob's vapid, haunting gaze, but I can't resist glancing at his painted features before shuddering and looking back up at David.

"Someone put an ad up for it on the bar's message board," he answers. "This old couple in Ucluelet sold off their summer house. The husband had this in the shed for when his grandkids came to visit, but the new owners didn't want to keep it."

I can't help muttering, "Gee, I wonder why."

David chuckles. "Hey, what did I say? Beggars can't be choosers. They were giving this thing away for free to anyone who'd come pick it up, so I went and got it with the truck."

I step closer and scan the inside of the cart. There's moss growing on one of the poles that supports the roof, and the edge of the driver's seat looks like it's been chewed by a dog. Some of the yellow paint above Spongebob's face is flaking off.

I press my lips together to keep from saying anything. David laughs again.

"You can get it cleaned up tomorrow," he tells me. "It runs. That's the important part."

"Is it even legal to drive this thing on the road?"

He lifts his eyebrows. "Wow. Neavh Beaudoin is showing regard for the law?"

I roll my eyes in answer, but the amount of times he's caught me smoking a joint outside of family gatherings and kept his mouth shut about it keeps my sarcasm in check.

He reaches up to scratch the back of his neck before continuing. "To answer your question, it is technically illegal to drive this on a public road, but we're in River's Bend. I can't even remember the last time I saw a cop out here, and it's not like you'll be driving anywhere other than into town. You'll be fine. Just don't take it on the highway, okay? Your mom would kill me if—"

He cuts himself off mid-sentence, wincing as he sucks in a sharp breath.

I don't wince.

I don't freeze.

I don't do anything except shrug off the weight of the unspoken words left hanging in the air. In the eight years since my brother's car accident, I've gotten used to people foisting their awkward, heavy silences onto me. My parents made sure of that.

"Yeah, cool, got it," I say. "Uh, thank you. This thing is truly hideous and is probably going to give me nightmares for the rest of the summer, but thank you. Thank you for…everything."

He watches me with an expression I can't read, his deep brown eyes scanning my face, before he steps over and pulls me into a hug. I lift my arms to push him away and tell him to stop being so cheesy, but the second I'm smooshed against his chest, my hands drop back to my sides. My knees wobble, and I lean my whole weight against him as the exhaustion of the past thirty-six hours seems to crash over me all at once.

I don't have the strength to protest when he slides my backpack off my shoulders and carries it into the house. I follow after him, stumbling on my feet, and flop onto the saggy green sofa inside as soon as I've kicked my shoes off.

David's decor hasn't changed at all. The combined kitchen, dining, and living room has minimal furniture, most of it the rustic and worn-out type of stuff you'd expect to find in a bachelor pad in the middle of the forest. He's even got the same hideous stained glass pendant lamp that the house came with hanging over the dining table, even though he kept saying he was going to replace it the last time I was here.

I'm trying very hard not to think about the last time I was here, but that's easier said than done when this whole place looks like a time capsule of that summer. Each second I spend in this room has my skin crawling with reminders of the past.

I do my best to focus on answering David's questions about Australia as he whips up a quick spaghetti dinner, grateful that he hasn't mentioned anything about that summer himself.

"So they were really going to deport you?" he asks as he brings our plates over to the couch, both of us choosing to eat with the spaghetti balanced on our laps instead of heading for the dining table.

I chuckle. "It sounds way more dramatic when you put it like that. I just didn't want to risk it. Better to fly back to Canada while I still had some money."

Due to a series of unfortunate events, the extension for my Australian temporary work visa had a high chance of falling through, and I didn't have enough money left to stay there and wait for it to get sorted out. I barely had enough for a flight out of the country, so I chose to head to the one place I could crash for free while I decide on my next move.

I know my parents probably would have let me come home to Montreal if I'd really needed it, but that's not an option I'm willing to consider.

That's never going to be an option I'm willing to consider.

David shakes his head and laughs. "You and your crazy adventures around the globe. I can't believe you've been on the road for almost four whole years. It's really flown by."

I swallow a mouthful of spaghetti past the lump that forms in my throat.

"Yeah," I say. "It has."

He doesn't miss the somber note in my voice. Setting his fork down, he reaches over and squeezes my shoulder.

"Hey," he says. "I'm glad you called me. I know things at home with your parents are…tough. You're always welcome here. You know that, right?

The stupid urge to start sniffling hits me all over again.

"I know things didn't, um, end the best when you were last here," he continues. "I mean, for you and Clo—"

"Don't."

My voice sounds way too harsh. The last thing he deserves is me snapping at him when he's literally saved my ass, but if I hear her name, I'm going to lose it.

I thought it wouldn't be a big deal. I thought I could handle it, but I haven't even been back on this island for a whole day, and I'm already realizing how fucking na?ve I was to think the past wouldn't matter anymore. Even this damn couch is making me think of all the times I sat here next to her.

"I'm sorry," I mumble. "I just…I can't deal with that right now."

He gives my shoulder another squeeze. "It's okay."

It's not, but I let those words convince me enough to get through the next couple hours before the exhaustion hits full-force and I find myself collapsing into the twin bed in David's spare room before the clock has even hit 7PM.

It's the same bed.

That's the last thing I think as I pull the sheets up to my chin, too tired to even get up and close the curtains against the light of the early evening.

It's the same bed I slept in that whole summer—the same bed I'd sneak out of to go meet her in the middle of the night, the same bed I'd crawl back into just as the sun was coming up, with the taste of her still on my lips and the smell of her still lingering on my skin.

It's the same bed where I dreamt of Clover Rivers all summer long.