Seven years earlier

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

The sound of Mrs. Lightly's grandfather clock carried down the hall. It didn't sound like the mere announcement of the passage of time, but rather a countdown towards something inevitable.

Tomorrow I would marry Rory. Rory, the handsome, sweet boy I had known since as long as I could remember. The nice brother. The one who did all the right things. I got the good Lightly. The one who was studious and ambitious. The responsible one. I was the luckiest girl in town, they all said. I loved him. I did. But then why was I up the night before my wedding, nursing a deep ache?

Cold feet was normal of course. It was just pre-wedding jitters.

After working out those last minute wedding details with my mother and sister, I spent the rest of my time with my cousins and a few girlfriends who arrived later that afternoon. Rory stayed with Bobby and his cousins and friends. After we were all tired from the day’s activities and the sun baking our skin, the boys and girls retreated to separate cabins. I should have been utterly exhausted, but after lying for what felt like an hour, I grew too restless. I tiptoed out of my room, barefoot in my thin white nightgown, and stepped out into the night air. A gentle breeze lifted my gown, making the warm night balmier than the temperature suggested. I planned on sitting at the dock to stare at the moon. Out here in the country, it looked so huge, almost like a painting. The sky was particularly clear on this night, and already I could see the sparkling silver glinting off the gentle ripples of the black waters. That's when I noticed a single light on in the boat house. It had an attic that had been converted to a small lounge room, with a beat-up couch and a couple of small tables. Just a place people could take a break from the water without walking all the way back to the houses.

I gravitated to the light, just like all the creatures do, my feet sinking into the cool earth with each step. I didn't know who was in there. I wasn't even sure if it would be appropriate seeing as my nightgown was not proper attire for most eyes. But my feet continued, marching me towards the light.

I crept up the creaky, narrow staircase.

“Who's there?” a voice called out. I knew who it was, and the dull ache grew sharper.

“It's me,” I called out, reaching the top of the staircase and crouching to pass the short threshold. Bobby was sitting on the couch shirtless, facing a circular window with views of the lake. He kept his back to me.

“Oh, hey.”

Next to him was a bottle of Jack, a quarter of the way through. “Really, Bobby? Jack? Have you been sober at all today?”

“I'll be fine tomorrow,” he scoffed.

“Yeah, I know. You better be.”

I plopped down behind him so that his back still faced me as he sat on the edge of the sofa. “Can't sleep?”

“No. You?”

“No.”

He had been his usual self earlier that day, flirting, jesting, being effortlessly fun. But now he was quiet. One of his fits.

“I'm surprised you haven't been like a fox in a chicken coop going after the hens in the girl's cabin,” I ribbed.

He looked at me out the corner of his eye before unscrewing the cap and taking a swig. “Nope.”

“Well, then is it because your brother is marrying your mortal enemy?” Usually I'd let him brood, sit there with him until he emerged from the quiet. But tonight, I needed to know why. Something in my gut pushed me to pry. Hints of that something escaped through our time in the woods. But they were so vague and fleeting, like a vapor, I wondered if I had imagined them or if they were amplified by the herb that had since faded from my system.

“Maybe,” he shrugged.

“Oh, I'm sorry are you being broody, Bobby?” I taunted in a baby voice, trying to get back to the safe, familiar, childlike way we related to one another.

“Shut up.” He shoved me halfheartedly with his shoulder.

“So when's Bobby Lightly going to get married? You have, what? Two years left in college after taking a year off. Meet anyone special?”

“Yeah, but she's off limits,” he said, uncharacteristically somber.

“Oh.” I was afraid to ask. It was the second time I heard him make such a comment that day, the first being in the woods when I told him he could have any girl. Not any girl, he said.

Sitting at an angle behind Bobby, he couldn't see my eyes wandering along his back. Tanned from summers in the sun, light freckles peppering shoulders that grew muscled over the past couple of years. His hair mussed up, brown with flecks of summer gold, always a little longer than Rory's. He smelled of the sun. Of his pillows when we used to take naps together or use them as weapons against each other. Of the lake and grass.

“You know, I don't hate you, Lil,” he confessed.

“I know,” I replied nonchalantly. “How could anyone?” I pouted, trying to make light of the tense tone he had taken.

“I take that back,” he added, taking another sip.

“Bobby, really, don't get too drunk.”

“I'm not even a little drunk, Lil.” Bobby did hold his liquor well and seemed unfazed, but it wasn't like him to drink alone like this and I wondered why.

“Hey, wanna go in the lake?” I perked up.

He turned to look at me slowly, a look of mischief in his eyes. We'd snuck down to the lake in the middle of the night hundreds of times, usually with Rory. The rules were always the same. No clothes. No lights. Just the moon.

“Yeah,” he nodded.

The Lightlys' land had two docks. One was further from the houses, and we used it for the late night dips. Bobby and I ran along the grass, shedding our garments and twirling them in the air as we approached the dock. We dropped our clothes and cannonballed in.

We hissed and hooted as our hot, sweaty skin acclimated to the cold lake water. We splashed. We spit water fountains at each other, and then we were quiet for a while, wading in the effervescent still of a moonlit lake.

I broke the silence. “I think this might be my most favorite place in the world.”

“You've hardly been anywhere, Lil,” Bobby scoffed.

“Well, I'm going to travel plenty once things settle, but I still think there will be no place like this. Even now, after graduating college, I think the happiest memories of your childhood are the happiest ever. I don't think you can reach that level as an adult.”

“That's awfully pessimistic.”

“No . . . I'm not saying you can't be happy as an adult. I just think it gets tainted. There's always something to think about. Something to worry about.”

“I guess, but I'm still gonna strive for it. I hope my happiest moment hasn't happened yet. Technically yours should be tomorrow.”

I couldn't even pretend that would be the case. Marrying Rory was a good thing. I was excited. But that sense of a dream coming true—no, it wasn't there. I kept telling myself as I got closer the feeling would happen as it became more real. Even that afternoon, as I answered last minute questions about the wedding, I hoped that nervous excitement that laid latent and would rise to the surface once the noise had settled. But here I was, hours away, surrounded by quiet, and that feeling that my heart would burst with joy hadn't come. In fact, something unsettling had surfaced.

“I'm going in,” I declared, avoiding Bobby's statement.

I pulled myself up, noticing the moon was unusually bright when I caught Bobby's eyes on my naked body. He looked away quickly and I pretended not to notice. And yet, I didn't have that icky feeling you should have when someone who seems like a sibling catches you nude. I liked that he wanted to see more than just a dark outline.

I hadn't messed with Bobby enough, and I seemed to be pulling him out of his funk, so after I slipped my gown over my wet body, I picked up his shorts.