“After everything,” he said. “To leave my side.”
“You don’t have to tell me! I know. If I could take it back…” Caleb sighed in frustration. He could not coax forgiveness from others like August could; he was no charmer. “Would it be so hard? To just say the words? To let it go?”
“Let it go?”
August drew his hand back again, but before he could bring it forward, Caleb tackled him. It was not an act of defense but rather the eruption of everything he’d carried on those long days spent returning home, the bottled-up ponderings and the haunting torment of his regret. As he mounted August and held him down, his friend bucked against him to no avail. Caleb kept repeating the words, forgive me, forgive me, which became so pathetic that after a time August’s body unclenched and went limp, his anger replaced with what could only be pity. But when Caleb let up, August slipped out from under him, reversed their positions, and, with a vacant stare, pinned him to the grass, his weight heavy and final.
He put a hand against Caleb’s throat.
“Are you done?” he said.
The grip grew firmer, and Caleb held out for only a moment before nodding. August released him, collapsing to the grass beside his friend, both of them too spent to do anything but breathe, their chests falling and rising, the mosquitoes hovering in the wake of their commotion. It was the same way they had dealt with such matters as children, and it felt right to begin patching up their differences by turning back to their past selves, to fists and slaps and grunts—base punishment, the most ancient of remedies.
“You told your father, didn’t you?” Caleb said, still gathering his breath. “About what I did.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“I wish you hadn’t.” Caleb raised himself on his elbows. “And my father?”
“Just that you went down. Honorably.”
August, lying on his back, stared into the sky, his blond locks just long enough to conceal his eyes.
With this confirmed, to his relief, Caleb scanned the catalog of thoughts he wished to speak on, but his brain was too scattered to put them in order. Nothing new in that. Even in school, years ago, there had scarcely been a night during which he hadn’t shored up an endless string of topics to share with August, the long hours made restless by not only the distance separating them but also the anxiety over what he might forget. The following morning they would meet in class and Caleb would be forced to play calm, to conceal the irresistible stream of conversation that awaited his friend’s approval or condemnation, excitement or uninterest. Yet the greatest pleasure came whenever August turned to him first. I was thinking of something last night, he would say, with such aplomb that Caleb, knowing the torment he’d put himself through in wanting to say the same words, grew jealous—an emotion which nevertheless failed to match his happiness that they’d both been thinking of each other, and that each was the other’s first outlet for all that came to mind. Lying there next to the pond, Caleb thought it best, now as then, not to appear overzealous; he would discuss the simple things and build slowly, casually.
But it was August who spoke first.
“I don’t imagine my father told you. When he was dressing you down.”
In the pause that followed, Caleb felt something coming that he did not wish to hear.
“Why he held the gala, I mean. Why he was so happy.”
“He raised money,” Caleb said. “That usually seems to bring him happiness.”
“Well, yes, but only partially,” August said. It was true his father had been given the contracts for the rebuilding work, and the money raised would go toward that cause, but that wasn’t why he was celebrating.
“I’m listening,” Caleb said.
“It was an announcement. He wanted to share the news with the whole town so I couldn’t squirm out of it. A rather mean ploy, really.”
“August.”
“They chose for me that Natasha girl. The Beddenfelds’ daughter.”
August was smirking with some detached amusement, like a joke was being played.
“And what?” Caleb said, incredulous. “You…？”
“She’s fine. A bit dull, but it will make life easier. It had to be someone, I suppose. I’ve come around on it.”
Caleb’s back arched, his body tensing against his will. He had no right, of course: to consider this a betrayal; to think that his friend was somehow getting revenge upon him for his transgression. He raised his hand as if he were holding a champagne glass and feigned a smile.