3. Neavh

When I wake up in the morning, it takes me a few seconds of blinking and looking around to remember I'm in the spare room at David's house. Judging by the silvery grey light just starting to bloom outside the window, it can't be much later than dawn.

The seventies-style wood paneling is still the same as the last time I was here, and so are the old framed Yu-Gi-Oh! posters leaning against one of the walls. David is too embarrassed to actually hang them up but too attached to get rid of them.

My giant backpack is leaning against the simple wooden wardrobe, a few random items of clothing scattered on the floor from when I dug out some pajamas last night. I slide out of bed and change into a hoodie and some denim shorts before padding out to the bathroom.

I find my phone sitting on the edge of the counter where I must have left it in my sleep-deprived state last night. I wince when I turn the screen on and see it's only seven in the morning, but when I consider I was dead asleep by 7PM last night, I'm less horrified by the early hour.

David's bedroom door is still shut and probably will be for several more hours, given he runs on a bar manager's clock. I do my best to stay quiet as I go through my morning routine in the tiny bathroom filled with outdated turquoise and tangerine tiles.

I remember me and Clover teasing David about how hideous those tiles are every time she was over here. She and I ended up at David's house pretty much every rainy afternoon that summer, sitting pressed side by side on the couch with our hands creeping towards each other under a pile of blankets, an eighties romcom that we'd inevitably forget to pay attention to playing on the TV.

I catch sight of my face in the bathroom mirror, framed by those ugly tiles, and notice how pale I've gone. My stomach churns, and I feel a cold sweat prick the back of my neck.

I thought it would be easier than this. I thought I could handle it.

It's been four years. I knew Clover for less than three months. We were just teenagers then, still kids who hadn't done or seen shit. We were bound to fuck up.

I was bound to fuck up. When I look back on those days, it feels like all I did was fuck things up.

And that's all you do now.

The voice that speaks in my head sounds raspy and raw. I wince and shake my head, the ends of my hair brushing along my jaw as I try to expel all the thoughts I don't want to deal with. I finish brushing my teeth as fast as I can and then burst out of the bathroom before heading for the front door.

This house feels way too small all of a sudden.

As I'm reaching for the handle, I spot a bright yellow figurine hanging off the key hook beside the door. The sight stops me in my tracks.

I completely forgot there's a Spongebob Squarepants golf cart sitting in the driveway.

I snort as I grab the coordinated key chain off the hook and then head outside. The cool morning air makes goose bumps rise on the bare skin of my legs, and I instantly regret putting shorts on. A year in Australia has me underestimating the Canadian temperatures, even in May.

I don't bother going back in for pants. Being outside has helped ease some of the tightening in my chest, but it's not enough. I need to move.

Before I even realize what I'm doing, I've hopped into the driver's seat of the obnoxiously yellow golf cart. The plastic is all scuffed and scratchy under my bare thighs, and the seat is cold enough to have me yelping, but that doesn't stop me from turning the key in the ignition.

Nothing happens.

I jiggle the key and make sure I've turned it all the way. The motor stays silent.

I scan the controls in front of me and realize I have no idea how to drive a golf cart.

It seems like it should be simple: all I can see is a steering wheel and a slot for the key. After a little more investigation, I find a knob for shifting between reverse, forwards, and neutral, but besides the gas and brake pedals by my feet, there's nothing else to indicate why the engine isn't on.

"What the hell?" I mutter as I try the key a few more times.

David said this thing worked. He didn't say it worked well, but I know he wouldn't have brought it all the way here if he wasn't sure it runs.

I bounce my foot on the gas pedal in impatience and then shriek when the engine sputters in response. I try again, more cautious this time, and the engine revs before the cart starts inching forwards.

"Okay," I say, my voice shaky as I grip the steering wheel. "We have movement."

My nerves fade as I continue rolling down to the end of the gravel driveway. I loosen my white-knuckled hold on the wheel and realize I'm grinning.

"I'm driving a golf cart!" I call out to the empty forest around me. "Voilà, motherfuckers!"

I guide the cart onto the winding dirt road that leads past a couple other houses scattered throughout the woods. I dodge the puddles as best I can, swerving like a maniac and picking up more speed as my confidence grows. It's not so different from driving the four-wheelers they had out on the farm I worked on in Australia. I get so caught up in the adrenaline rush that before I know it, I've driven all the way into River's Bend.

I glide to a stop at the edge of the highway that cuts through the center of town. ‘Town' is an overstatement; aside from the bar David manages, there are only about four other businesses on the main street. They're all shut this early in the morning. As I scan the dark windows, I feel like I'm the only person left in the world after an apocalypse.

I inch the golf cart onto the cracked asphalt of the highway. I consider driving over to the bar, but just the shape of the building is enough to have me fighting off the sensation of suffocating. It's too familiar. The whole damn town is too familiar.

Maybe it was na?ve of me, but I figured things must have changed in four years. Nothing stays exactly the same for that long—not people, and certainly not places, but River's Bend has proved me wrong. It wouldn't surprise me if some of the pebbles on the edge of the highway hadn't budged an inch since all the times I walked my drunk, eighteen year-old ass home along this road, clutching Clover's arm as we swayed together.

I rev the engine, sweeping the cart in a wide arc and turning my back to the town as I gun it up the highway. I'm not even sure where I'm going, and David's stern warning to stay off the highway rings in my head, but I can't go back to his place, and I can't sit around in town. I have to keep moving. I have to keep going somewhere, or the weight of what a huge fucking mistake it was to come back to Vancouver Island is going to slam down on my chest so hard I might never get up off the ground again.

I've been driving for at least ten minutes by the time my lungs feel like they can fill up all the way again. The golf cart doesn't exactly have a four-hundred horsepower engine, but I'm going fast enough that I need to put all my focus on steering around the bends of the puddle-dotted highway.

I'm concentrating so hard on the road I end up driving straight to the one spot on this whole island I shouldn't go.

The sign for the Riverview Café and Kitchen comes into view first. The crooked little building with a screened-in porch and a brick chimney billowing grey smoke sits at the end of a small gravel parking lot.

The place hasn't changed at all. Even Trish's station wagon looks exactly the same where it's parked next to the shop. Just a little farther up the road, I can make out the shape of the large wooden sign carved with the words Three Rivers Campground.

My stomach does a back flip, my spine jerking like I've been electrocuted. My grip on the steering wheel goes slack.

"Fuck!"

My shriek is drowned out by the screech of the tires as I hit a slippery patch in the road.

The golf cart zigs and zags, spinning out towards the edge of the road. I scream again before regaining control of the wheel to save myself from flying off into the forest.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I chant, my voice shaky as bile rises in my throat.

My whole body is shaking. My knees knock together. My teeth chatter hard enough to reverberate through my skull, and it's all I can do to fight off the dots forming at the edges of my vision as I guide the golf cart towards the only safe place to pull over: Riverview's parking lot.

By the time I roll to a stop a few meters away from the shop, I'm convinced I'm going to puke.

It's been years since I've freaked out this bad in a car. Hell, I'm not even technically in a car, but the sound of the screeching tires plays over and over in my head, embellished with an imaginary cacophony of crunching metal and blood-curdling screams.

Before my brother died, I didn't know it was possible to be haunted by an accident you weren't even there to witness, but my brain has done a horrifyingly good job at filling in the blanks.

I cut the engine and take a shuddering breath before hopping down onto the gravel, one hand pressed to my stomach as I prepare to sprint for the closest bushes so I can puke.

Then I spot something that stops me in my tracks.

I blink a few times, squinting at the figure standing across the lot while I fight to make sense of what I'm seeing.

It's a person—or at least, I think it's a person. At first, I wonder if I'm looking at the swamp equivalent of a scarecrow, because there's no way someone would just be standing in the middle of a huge puddle all covered in mud and leaves at barely eight in the morning, but then I realize their shoulders are moving up and down with the rhythm of their breath.

I jump back in surprise when the person lifts a hand to wipe a streak of mud out of their eyes. It's only after their arm drops back to their side that I realize they're staring at me just as intently as I'm staring at them.

My stomach recognizes her before I do. A cold sweat breaks out on the back of my neck, an acrid taste climbing up the back of my throat.

She takes a couple steps forward, getting close enough for me to see the thundercloud of an expression on her face, and when she speaks, there's no way to mistake her for anyone else.

"What the hell are you doing here, Neavh?" Clover asks.

That's when I start vomiting.

I hunch over right there in the middle of the parking lot, palms braced against my knees as the disgusting retching noises I'm making echo through the empty clearing. It's been so long since I ate dinner last night that I'm only dry-heaving and coughing up nasty globs of spit, which might be a comfort if this was happening anywhere other than at Clover's literal feet.

I groan as the retching finally comes to an end, trailing off into a coughing fit that leaves me gasping for breath. Even once I'm sure the moment has passed, I stay hunched over with my head lolling, gaze fixed to the dirt.

Staring at my own spit globs makes me wonder if I'm going to puke again, but the alternative is straightening up and facing Clover.

My panting fills the silence, along with some twittering birds in the trees who don't seem to have been bothered by my near-collision and subsequent vomiting session at all.

As far as I can tell, Clover hasn't moved. I tilt my head up enough to catch sight of the mud-splattered tips of her rubber boots standing a couple meters away from me.

Ever since the moment I decided to call David and ask to spend the summer here, I'd been avoiding the thought of what I'd say to Clover Rivers when I saw her again. I even tried to convince myself I might not see her at all, that she'd be spending the summer working on a school project or starting her first job after graduating. I pushed off any contemplation of what facing her again might look like, but even if I had spent the past few weeks obsessively parsing out every possible situation that could result in me bumping into her, I don't think I could have come up with this.

What do you say to the girl you ghosted after rolling up to her driveway four years later in a Spongebob Squarepants golf cart and projectile vomiting all over the ground?

"Do you need help?"

Clover's question surprises me enough that I jerk my head up. I'm convinced I misheard her, but the worried lines between her eyebrows and the way she's hovering on the balls of her feet make it clear she's actually concerned.

She was always the kind of person who'd check in on you, the kind of person looking out for anyone suffering—even if the suffering in question was a stray earthworm that needed to be moved off the road. I saw her do her savior routine on at least fifty different insects that summer. Any time you thought you'd lost Clover while out on a hike or walking around town, odds were she'd dropped to the ground a few minutes back to save a bug.

It was one of my favourite things about her.

"I'm fine," I rasp, my voice raw and my heart pounding so loud I can barely hear myself speak.

She's close enough that I see her jaw tense as her hands ball into fists at her sides.

The longer I look at her, the more dizzying the collision of the past and the present becomes. She looks different and the same all at once. Same burnished copper hair, but longer. Same hazel eyes flecked with gold, but harder. Older.

Angrier.

I left before I ever had to see her anger.

"You sure?" she asks, the words terse.

I grab onto the side of the golf cart to steady myself as I nod, unable to say anything else.

"Okay. Then get the hell out of here."

She turns on her heel and heads for the café without another word.

I stand there clutching the cart, my eyes tracking her every move.

She doesn't look back, not once. Not even when she opens the door and slams it shut behind her.