How We Were | ✔️ (Complete)

14. When Layla Met Peyton

"You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I was thirteen years old when I met Peyton Bishop. He was fifteen, and was drowning in Devil's Lake.

It had been another swelteringly hot summer night, not too long after I moved to town. My mom had brought a man home in the middle of the night, had woken me up, and told me to get lost. Faced with the choice of sitting in the kitchen and listening to the sounds of their drunken sex or leaving, I left.

With my daddy's worn Stetson on my head and his flashlight hanging from my wrist, I rode my bike to Devil's Lake. It was an unusually bright night. The sky was clear of clouds, and the moon had been a Supermoon, one of the biggest of that year. It seemed larger and closer to earth, almost as if I could reach out, take it between my hands and draw it down into the atmosphere. I hummed and pedaled alongside it, feeling a little lonely and a little magical, imagining myself to look a little like that scene from E.T., for any creatures in the night that might be watching.

After a quick swim to cool off, I'd dressed and lay on the dirt. I'd stared at the sky and missed my daddy.

He came sailing across the stars, just a silhouette back lit against the moon. Startled, I sat up, and heard him splash into the water. With my eyes, I traced his trajectory and figured that he'd jumped from the canyons above.

That was insane. Maybe God really did protect fools and drunks, because the jumper missed the rocky floor of the canyons (which would have instantly turned him into human goo) by a matter of feet.

Not wanting to be seen, I'd flicked my flashlight off, scampered up, and quietly made my way back to my bike. Grandma Danner, devoutly catholic, had taught me to be wary of men and all their sins as soon as I'd started to show signs of developing breasts and hips.

I was hopping up on the bike when I realized that something was off. I'd glanced over my shoulder at the water. The moonlight illuminated the surface of the water and I saw the ripples from his landing, but the diver hadn't surfaced. I'd held my breath and waited, my anxiety growing with every passing second.

A thousand cicadas sang their eerie songs, the cacophony grating and unpleasant on my nerves until finally, finally, I saw him. Not a man, but just a boy. He surfaced violently with a great gasp for air. He shook the water from his hair, reminding me of Outlaw, my daddy's Great Pyrenees. I'd dropped the bike and slipped behind a tree before he could see me.

The boy remained treading water in the center of the lake for a few minutes. Then he turned and started doing laps - he was a good swimmer, his strokes strong and certain. Back and forth he went, then back and forth again, never coming closer than fifty feet to the shore. Curious, I'd watched him from my hiding spot.

I frowned as I watched him tire, his strokes becoming less and less certain, then grow even slower, to sluggish. I'd watched, confused, until he was floundering. It took me a few minutes to react, and by the time I'd jumped into the water after him, he'd gone under.