And Brandon stayed in Snakebite because he didn’t know how to do anything but remain. He remained like a stone stuck to the bottom of a lake. Currents washed over him, rolling him haplessly against the muck, but never to shore. Never to the sun. It was easy this way. He imagined how simple it might be to walk into the trees and disappear. He would be a pinprick of disruption, and then he would be gone.
His loneliness was a darkness. It spread over him like shadows at dusk. He felt it under the earth, under his skin, wrapped delicately around his bones. Snakebite held him in place.
Because no matter what time unleashed on Snakebite, it would never change.
Until Alejo Ortiz came home.
2001
For the first time in years, it was raining in Snakebite.
Brandon squared his hips and kicked another log onto the industrial saw, smearing a mix of sweat and rain across his brow. While most of the other men in the yard shuffled to the shed to mingle and sort wood, Brandon kept running the saw. He preferred working, even in the rain.
He preferred working alone.
His parents had long since made good on their promise to get out of this place. They’d sold the store to a local—Gus Harrison—who’d reopened it as a pub. Brandon spent most nights tucked into a booth at the back of the Chokecherry. He pictured the old kayaks his father had nailed to the walls, now replaced by football jerseys and stuffed fish. The building had changed faces, but it was all the same.
That was Snakebite; they painted over it, but it never changed.
His parents had superficially offered to bring him along, but Brandon had decided to stay. He could only picture himself here. The dark, shadowed feeling that crept under his skin like ink blots on paper told him that this was where he needed to stay.
If he was going to be lost, he might as well be lost in Snakebite.
Barton Lumber fell quiet, pulling Brandon back to reality.
Through the dust and the rain, Brandon could just make out the person who’d shocked the others into silence. The man stood just outside the woodshed dressed in an oversize sweater, straight-legged jeans, and a deep green parka. His hair was longer than Brandon remembered, tied in a low ponytail that ended just between his shoulder blades. He wiped the rain from his face and tenderly pulled a bundle of papers from under his sweater.
The yard foreman approached Alejo cautiously and snatched the papers from his hands. Behind him, a handful of men stifled laughter. The foreman gave the papers a cursory look—not long enough to read even the first page—then shoved them back into Alejo’s chest.
Brandon didn’t need to hear to understand what’d just happened.
For a moment, Alejo stared at the group of men, all facing him like they hoped he’d retaliate. Like they hoped he’d make a scene. But he didn’t. Alejo’s shoulders slumped. He pocketed his papers and trudged out of the yard, away from the men, into the rain.
Brandon’s heart came alive with a strange fear. For a reason he couldn’t pinpoint, it was like he knew Alejo. It wasn’t as though their brief talk in the diner had made them friends, but in the blur of his memories, Alejo stuck out. Brandon was different from the rest of Snakebite, a fact he was painfully aware of. He was different in a way that went deeper than being awkward, being poor, being quiet. He was different in a way Snakebite would never allow. But something told him Alejo might understand.
He left the saw and scrambled down the ramp, through the muck, and farther into the rain. Outside Barton Lumber’s domineering wood fence, Alejo paused in the parking lot and stared up at the sky, letting thick drops of rain coat his face.
“Hey,” Brandon called. “Hey, I’m sorry about that. They shouldn’t have … well, I don’t know what they said. But I’m sorry.”
Alejo turned and cupped a hand over his brow, blinking away the rain. He was just how Brandon remembered. He cleared his throat and said, “I appreciate it.”