By Ryan Peed
When the pastor plunges you in that river, and you think you see God behind your eyelids, do not open your eyes. It is only the sun slicing through a cloud of sediment and fish excrement, and you will spend the day trying to flush it all out.
When you’re unable to get out of vacation Bible school, and, on the first night, the cabin leader pairs you with the other quiet four-eyed kid for a wrestling tournament, and you have him, your elbow on his throat, one knee on each wrist, the cabin will hush as red saliva leaks from his mouth; the world will still as he looks up at you, croaking, pleading. Press harder. It’s a trap. Don’t let up until he taps.
On the first day of Rite of Passage, the classroom will erupt after you raise your hand and ask for the prompt. Do not turn around. You will see him: the boy sitting alone, not laughing. Let it be after he befriends someone else, shows you he is no different from the laughing boys, even as he lifts his splayed notebook and mechanical pencil at you, smiling kindly at your shared stupidity. Do not smile back. He will think you are safe and claim the open seat beside you. He will invite you over to play Mortal Kombat. He will hug you longer than anyone else does when Grandma dies. He will take off his clothes and leave them on your bedroom floor.
He will out you to the teacher, and the teacher will tell the pastor, and the pastor will tell your parents, and your parents will take you to the pastor’s office after school on a Thursday. God has a plan for you, the pastor will say as he draws you terribly on a yellow legal notepad. The ‘X’ representing the sin in your heart. The arrows extending beyond the page.
Face forward. And, in the cabin, break that kid’s neck.
A day will come when nobody remembers you. You will exist on a marble slab, cracked and radioactive, in typography you’ve forgotten how to read. You will forget your death day. You will forget your birthday. You will forget your name.
You will remember pressing his cotton into your face, pretending they were purposefully left behind, ruining them with the smell of your breath. Abandoned clothes, write of passage—careless, stupid.
His memory will thrum in the curves of your name.
Under the Texas sun, your name will slowly fade.
Don’t break that kid’s neck. When the cabin quiets, tap the floor and release him. Forfeits are losses, technically. But this won’t feel like a loss.
Eventually, you will regret everything. Even your regrets.
Turn around and see him: Ralph Lauren polo, yellow braces, acne wildfire. Feel your body crimson. You’re only human, despite what you believe. He will betray you. He’s only a boy. A careless, stupid boy. Kiss him anyway. You’re stupid, too.
Underlying your despair will always be a pulsing, pointless longing. It won’t make sense; you will convince yourself he’s the reason you want to die. You’re wrong. Try to understand: your desire is not your shame. In love, there are only innocent perpetrators and blameless victims. Be very patient. You may realize your innocence in another boy’s caught glance. It may even be his.
If it’s really what you want, fine. A note for the letter: request the plot two left of ROMERO in the cemetery’s back-left quadrant. In a few centuries, a sturdy oak will shield your headstone from the rain and hail and ash and solar rays unrefined by an ozone. At your emptiest, you will dream of a slate wiped clean. But when the overcast clears over your bleached-to-nothing stone, you will not be ready.
Ryan Peed is a fiction writer from Kyle, Texas. He is a recipient of the Inprint Brown Foundation Fellowship and holds a degree in Exercise and Sports Science from Texas State University. An MFA candidate at the University of Houston, his other fiction appears or is forthcoming in Southeast Review, Jet Fuel Review, and Cutleaf Journal.
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