Meet Me at the Lake

Will and I sat on the end of my bed in my apartment, facing each other. It was almost three a.m. “I mentioned I went through a rebellious phase in high school,” I said, and Will nodded. “It was bad. It started after I found these old diaries of my mom’s—one was written the summer she got pregnant with me.”

I tilted my head to the ceiling, the back of my nose tingling. It was stupid that this still upset me so much.

“I used to think Peter was my dad.” I shut my eyes briefly. “I mean, I knew he wasn’t, but deep down I guess I hoped he was. Until I read the diary, I pretended. I wished so hard.” I could feel Will’s eyes on me, and I swiped a tear from my cheek. “My mom didn’t talk about him—my biological father. I knew he’d worked at the resort for a summer, but that was about it.” I glanced at Will, embarrassed. “I know it would have been messed up for them to keep something like that from me, but it wasn’t rational, you know? Whitney and I were really into CSI for a while, and I had this whole fantasy that DNA analysis would show he was my real dad. We can be so similar, Peter and me.”

I spent almost as much time with him as I did with Mom and my grandparents. It was Peter who came to my soccer games when Mom couldn’t. Peter who was around the day after school when I got my first period. Peter who taught me how to drive, who taught me the art of the perfect mix CD. Whenever I was sarcastic, Mom complained I’d been spending too much time with Peter. “Even when I got older, I held on to the hope that Mom and Peter would sit me down and tell me the truth.”

I felt Will’s hand close over mine. I’d been scratching again.

“Anyway, Peter’s not my dad. It’s some guy named Eric who’d been a lifeguard at the resort. It was all there in the diary. How he and Mom dated, how they were in love, how he left when he found out she was pregnant. I was so mad.” I blew out a shaky breath, and Will squeezed my hand.

“Long story short, I made my mom reach out to Eric. He had a wife and kids, and he didn’t want them knowing about me. He didn’t want to meet me, either. Refused to even speak with me on the phone. I didn’t take it well. I drank. A lot. I blacked out a bunch. I made some bad decisions with guys,” I added quickly. “I cut classes, got kicked off the soccer team, and I, uh, stole a tractor.”

“You what?” Will asked.

“Stole a tractor.” I told him the entire tale—about the party and the dare that led to me buck naked and “driving” a tractor on Trevor Currie’s farm. Trevor said his parents wouldn’t be home for hours. He must have started the thing. There’s no way I could have done it on my own. I don’t remember much except sobering up in the police cruiser beneath a flannel jacket. Will listened, his gaze fixed to the side of my face. He didn’t flinch once.

“That was the breaking point for Whitney. We got into a big fight. She told me she couldn’t be my friend if I kept putting myself at risk—and I said that was fine, because she’d been a shitty friend since she’d started dating Cam. She stopped speaking to me, but I kept partying. One night, I invited a few random people over while Mom was working. There’s a sunroom off the back of the house—we were drinking in there. Eventually I passed out in the bathroom—they think I hit my head on the sink because the smoke didn’t wake me up.” I had a concussion and a goose egg on my forehead when I woke in the hospital.

“The smoke?”

I looked down at Will’s hand over mine, then up at him. His eyes were wide. “There was a small fire. I don’t know if it was one of my cigarette butts that started it or someone else’s. Someone called the lodge when they saw the smoke. My mom went straight into the house to find me—and Peter in after her. They broke open the bathroom door.” I closed my eyes again. “The fire destroyed the sunroom, but we were all so lucky to make it out alive.”

I remember waking up in the hospital with the most intense headache and burning in my throat. Mom was sitting beside the bed, a bandage covering the burn on her right arm, her face puffy and crimson. It looked like she’d swum in chlorine with her eyes open for hours. I’d never seen her look so ravaged.

I let out a deep breath, and Will put his arm around my shoulder, pulling me against his side. We stayed like that for several minutes, not talking.

“My mom saved my life—I owe her everything,” I said. “That’s why I didn’t argue when she suggested I apply to business school and hop on the Brookbanks career track.” Will leaned back to look at me. “I basically blew up my life, and my mom helped me pick up the pieces. It wasn’t like I had a better idea. You’re an artist, but I have no clue what I’d do if I wasn’t going to work at the resort. I don’t have a ten-year plan.”

Will cradled my face in his palms and said, very slowly, “Ten-year plans are bullshit.”

I laughed. After all that, it wasn’t the reaction I’d expected.

“I mean it,” he said, dropping his hands. “As if anyone knows where they’ll be or who they’ll be in ten years.”

“I guess, but I also want some kind of a plan. I envy you. You’ve got your life all figured out. I have no clue.”

Will thought about this for a moment. “But you know you don’t want to move back home?”

“Yeah. I know that,” I agreed, reluctantly.

“And you know you don’t want to run the resort?”

“Yeah,” I said, watching the candlelight sway in his eyes.

“Your mom may have saved your life, but it’s still your life, Fern.”

We stared at each other for a long time.

“So you know where you don’t see yourself,” Will finally said.

He picked up his sketchbook and pencil and opened to a blank page near the back of the book. I watched him write fern’s one-year plan at the top. And then:

1. I WON’T BE WORKING AT BROOKBANKS RESORT.

2. I WILL NOT BE LIVING IN MUSKOKA.

“A one-year plan?” I asked.

“One year seems more realistic than ten, don’t you think? And you said you wanted a plan.” He pointed to the page. “Let’s make one.”

I looked at the paper again. He wrote in capital letters, a distinct kind of printing that was like its own font. There was something about seeing the words in black and white that felt radical, like by writing them down, an alternate future had become possible.

“Huh,” I said. “That’s actually pretty smart. But you have to do one, too.” I reached for the book. “What would be on yours?” I asked, writing will’s one-year plan on the opposite page.

“That’s easy.” He leaned back onto his hands. “I’ll be broke.”

I scoffed. “Your plan is to be broke?”

“Kind of. I’m serious about my art. I’m not going to take some boring office job and wear a tie so I can have a nice apartment. Art isn’t a hobby for me. It’s all or nothing. With the murals and maybe a part-time gig, I think I’ll be able to make rent and spend the rest of my time working on Roommates.”

“So . . .” I wrote:

1. I WON’T BE WORKING IN AN OFFICE (NO TIES ALLOWED).

2. KIND OF BROKE.

3. I WON’T TREAT ART LIKE A HOBBY.

I showed Will the page.

“That works,” he said. “The ultimate would be if Roommates were running in a paper.”

“Got it.” I added Roommates to the list.

“Perfect,” Will said. “What else should go on yours?”

I stared down at the page. “The only other thing I know for sure is that I want to be in Toronto.” Will took the pencil and added it to the list. “Beyond that, I don’t really know,” I said.

“That’s okay.” Will held the pencil between his teeth, making a humming noise. “What about: In one year, adjust the plan as necessary.”

“Sure,” I said. I collapsed back on the bed, staring at the crack in the ceiling as Will finished writing. He set the book on the table.

“I can’t imagine why you’re tired,” he said, then blew out all the candles except for the one in the jar beside my bed and sprawled out next to me on his back.

“Is this okay?” he whispered.

“Yeah,” I said through another yawn. “It’s fine.”

My throat was dry from talking, but there was one thing I wanted to know. “Earlier today, when I told you I went to business school, you said you wouldn’t have guessed that. What would you have guessed?”

“I don’t know. An English major maybe. I thought you might have been writing poetry in that journal.”

“I’m not that interesting.”

“You’re more interesting.”

The words lay between us, sweet and ripe.

I looked down at our hands resting beside each other on the bed, then back to him. I inched my fingers closer until they touched his.

“I wish I cared about something the way you care about art,” I said after a moment.

“You will,” he said, wrapping his pinkie around mine. “You just need time to find it.”

Every nerve ending in my body sprinted toward my little finger. I was sure Will could hear the drum of my heart.

“I don’t want my mom to hate me,” I whispered.

He squeezed my pinkie. “She won’t. Trust me, okay?”

“Okay.” I blinked up at the ceiling, trying to keep my eyes open. “I trust you.”

We stayed like that until my eyelids grew heavy and the candle snuffed itself out.