Page 43 of A Sea of Unspoken Things

I hadn’t even blinked as I pulled up the sleeve of my shirt and dragged my arm across the broken glass. It was an impulse. A deep-rooted instinct in me, like I had no choice in the matter. It was up to me to protect my brother. To save him from everything, even himself. And the only thing that had given me pause, had made my trembling hand hesitate, was that look on Micah’s face. He stared at me through the shattered windshield, like it was a terrifying thing to watch, and Iremember feeling like I was looking in a mirror. ThatMicahwas that mirror. It was a moment that marked a change in him. After so long of everything revolving around Johnny and whether Johnny was okay, Micah suddenly became the only person in the world who seemed to be worried aboutme.

It didn’t really hit me until the fire truck arrived. Until they were pulling the man from the car in the ditch. I remember staring at the linoleum floor, barely feeling it as the doctor stitched up the cut on my arm, and Timothy Branson’s voice was a faraway sound in the room.

Micah and I met eyes over the paper-lined tray of sutures as Branson told me that the man driving the other car had been drinking. He was a logger from out of town, on his way home from The Penny. His legs were broken, but he would live, and according to Branson, we’d all been lucky that night. No one but me and Micah ever knew that Johnny was even there.

I pulled down the sleeve of my sweater, covering the scar. Then I turned my phone over to hide the screen, in an attempt to ignore it.

There was a reply from Josie waiting for me when I got back to Six Rivers, and she’d offered to meet me in Fort Bragg. In my mind, I was still trying to draw a line from the voice I’d heard out in the gorge to her. It had sounded almost like it was underwater. Drowned and buried, but it was there. I could still hear it, like a ghost I’d woken in the gorge. If Micah was right and the backpack belonged to Autumn, maybe there was no real reason to believe that Josie was there that day. But I didn’t know if I was ready to consider that Johnny had really been out there with that girl. Just thinking about where that possibility could lead stoked a heavy sense of dread in me.

I made the walk to town by myself, and when I got to Main Street, it wasn’t the sleepy downtown I’d seen in the days before. Cars were parked in every space available along the shops, engines running and a few stereos playing. There were people everywhere, meandering along the sidewalks and huddled up beneath the awnings, with theblue and white team colors painting everything from car windows to letterman jackets to ball caps. It was a scene I’d witnessed many times growing up in Six Rivers. The team was caravanning to a game.

A banner that readGo Cougarswas strung up between the two light posts, and a man with a clipboard was standing in front of the market, caught up in conversation with several people who were gathered around.

Walking into the crowd was like stepping back in time. The picture of me in the diner had been taken on a day just like this one, when we’d come to see the team off before a game in Crescent City. It was the last one they played with Griffin. When they went to state a few weeks later, it was without him.

I stepped off the curb, finding an opening in the crowd toward the market. When I went inside, the smell of soil and floor cleaner stirred in the air with the scent of winter, making it still feel like I was in a time machine. I picked up one of the baskets stacked at the crowded entrance, eyes roaming the narrow aisles stockpiled with groceries and a limited number of household goods you couldn’t find anywhere else in town. George Harvey, the man who’d worked behind the counter since I was a kid, was even posted at the register.

A few teenagers were in line with sodas in hand, and one of the store’s patrons clapped them on the back as they passed with agood luckmurmured. When one of the kids glanced back toward the door, I realized it was Ben, Sadie’s son. He didn’t notice me, giving the mana half-conscious but polite nod before he went out the door. As I watched him go, I couldn’t help but search for another trace of Johnny.

I filled my basket with a few things to hold me over for the next couple of days, and being ignored in the midst of the commotion felt good. The list of dreaded reunions I had to make was dwindling now, and ripping off that Band-Aid had been the hardest part of coming back. Now, I found myself counting down the days until I left, and the feelings that accompanied that idea were becoming more confusing. Mostly because every single one of them led back to Micah.

I wasn’t surprised that he was keeping his distance, but if I was going to get to the bottom of my questions about Autumn, I needed him. What happened at the gorge between us had made that more complicated.

When I made it to the register, George was waiting to scoop my half-dozen eggs from the basket. “Was wondering when you’d wanderin.”

“I was wondering if you’d remember me.” I smiled, a little embarrassed as I took out the rest of the items for him to ring up.

“Oh, I remember you, James Golden.”

His tone implied that the name brought with it a number of memories, and I wondered which they were. We’d been in the market almost every day after school, and half the time, Johnny was swiping something from the shelf. I didn’t know if George really didn’t know, or if at some point he’d just decided to pretend not to.

I eyed the small jar on the counter that Ben had dropped his change into, stiffening when I read the wrinkled laminated sign taped to its front:Griffin Walker Scholarship Fund.

There was an old faded photo of Griffin in his soccer uniform above the words, and several folded bills and coins had been stuffed inside.

I looked away, sending my eyes to the store window as George punched the register keys, totaling up the items by hand. The number of people outside on the street had already multiplied twice over.

“Game this weekend?” I asked.

“Yep. The boys are off to Whitehorn.”

“The whole town still comes out to see them off?”

“There’s always a decent showing. A lot of them still go along, too. Should be pretty dead around here this weekend.”

“Are you going?”

He huffed. “Of course! Last one of the season!”

“Glad I came in then.”

He finished packing up the groceries, propping the head of lettuce on top so that the tender leaves could stick out beneath my arm.

“You be sure to winterize that cabin, now. Those pipes won’t stand a chance when the freeze comes in a couple of days.” He waited for me to nod in answer before he ran my credit card and pushed the filled tote back to me with a smile. “You have a good one.”

“You too.”

The door to the street opened again as a woman came in and I caught it before it could close, recognizing a face farther up the sidewalk. Amelia Travis was dressed in blue and white, the hood of her team hoodie untucked from her U.S. Forest Service jacket. She stood on the curb with a steaming paper cup in hand, and after a few seconds of indecision, I made my way toward her.

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