Where It All Began (Phoenix Falls Series)

River and I climb up onto the hay bale, one of the last that we had in storage from last year’s harvest, and we wiggle backwards onto the flat top so that our feet dangle above the dirt. She’s taken a shine to my baby goat because of the heart-shaped patch on its furry butt, so she’s holding it under her arm like a nineteenth century farm girl.

She grinds her ass into the straw to try and find a more comfortable position.

“It’s so scratchy,” she says, tugging down the hem of her dress, trying to salvage the backs of her thighs.

“We should tuck our knees up,” I suggest. God forbid another splinter.

River laughs and I turn to look at her because I’m not sure what I just missed. When she sees me staring she gestures to the field in front of us, where Kaleb is doing the most impressively neat and efficient hay cutting of his whole entire life.

“I don’t want to flash your brother,” she whispers, giggling, and her eyes dart over to the barn where Tate is. I think what she really doesn’t want is for her fiancé to turn my brother into puree, which all things considered is very thoughtful of her.

I’m certain that River has no idea how hard Kaleb’s been crushing on her since high school. In fact, I think that she simply sees him as an extension of me, therefore labelling him as some sort of sexless extraterrestrial.

I nod in understanding and dust the flyaway hay off the backs of my legs.

I’m wearing a pair of denim shorts so I’m not at risk of flashing Kaleb thank God. I hitch my knees up under my chin and River lies backwards on the bale, stroking the goat’s knee tuft.

“How’s college?” I ask, and my tummy hums nervously. Now that I’m a dropout I’m a little insecure about how she’ll think of me.

She puts my mind at rest.

“It sucks ass,” she replies, her face dead serious. “If you aren’t training to be an astronaut or something then there’s literally no reason to be there. Plus, whether I like it or not, we’re living in the twenty-first century, and even I can admit that it has some perks. You know how brilliant it is to be self-employed? How quickly you can set something up for yourself online? When I was working with Mitch and he showed me his accounts I almost had an asthma attack. In, like, a good way. He’s literally rolling in it, and the best part about it is that he loves what he does.”

I contemplate that, feeling a little better. “I think we’re both too small to be astronauts,” I say.

She nods in agreement.

Then I ask, “So why don’t you drop out? I’m not suggesting that you should, but if you wanted to…”

She twists her lips to the side, mulling. “My mom, partially. Even though she moved to a different teaching post at a school across the country I can still feel that… that need to impress her with this thing that she always wanted for me. And,” she scrunches up her nose, laughing slightly. “Then there’s Tate and Mitch of course.”

A shocked laugh bubbles out of me and she gives me a wry smile.

“Mitch too?” I ask. “What’s it to him?”

I knew that Mitch kind of took a surrogate father role in River’s life but I wasn’t sure how invested he really was.

“He’s, uhh…” She twists her face up, half amused, half embarrassed, as she tries to force the words out of her mouth. “I mean, they’re both… they’re…” She swallows. “They’re kind of paying some of my tuition.”

My mouth drops to the floor. “What?!” I screech.

Even the goat bleats in amazement.

River squirms on the bale and her skin heats up under the midday sun.

“Don’t hate me?” she says, still smiling nervously. “It’s just that because Tate didn’t want or need to go to college… and Mitch had been building up a kind of college fund for him…”

There’s a shy, guilty look sparkling behind her eyes. It’s not necessary. I’m thoroughly impressed.

She drops her voice to a whisper, as if she’s guarding a secret. “I know it’s unorthodox, Kit, and really unusual, but… they like supporting me. Tate and his dad are so strong, and kind, and they like looking after me. And that’s so nice for me, considering that…”

Her sentence trails off and she reclines her arms above her head. Her giant engagement ring casts blinding refractions across the straw.

She doesn’t need to say anything else though because I know what she was going to say.

She’s never had a father figure before. It’s good that she’s finally being spoiled.

“Are you gonna show me then?” she asks suddenly, an excited look on her face as she tilts her head my way.

Oh God. I know exactly what she’s talking about.

I turn away from her, lifting my chin up, and I say nonchalantly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She gives me a prod in the ribs and I squirm like a little bug.

“Ow!” I call out, but I laugh with her anyway.

“If you’re going to be singing in front of the whole town then practicing with me is a good starting point,” she says diplomatically.

Annoyingly she is correct.

I haven’t sung in front of anyone except River really ever, and even that was years and years ago.

Huffed, I confiscate the goat from her. I pick it up under its belly and then hoist it into my lap, much to its absolute dismay. It thumps into my crotch and then lets out a painful warble.

River laughs. “You can’t be worse than her.”

I raise my eyebrows as if to say you never know and then add, “He’s a boy, by the way.”

Instantly she’s squealing and I swear that Tate strides into my peripheral, checking that everything is actually okay.

Whippedamundo.

“Eww, why didn’t you tell me?!” River sits upright, mortified, and shuffles to the farthest edge of the bale.

I start laughing but then, due to the look of horror on River’s face, I set the goat down on the ground away from us, letting it curl up contentedly in the shady spot.

I take the little tube of candy scented hand sanitizer from my front pocket and pass it to River. She proceeds to squirt out half the bottle.

For a girl with a male fiancé she really does hate men – human or not, she does not discriminate.

Eager to distract her from whatever memory was just triggered I say, “Okay, I’ll sing for you, but I have to be quiet. I don’t want him to hear.”

River looks up from her hands, which are now rubbing excess sanitizer into her legs. “You don’t want who to hear?”

I swallow, then mouth Madden.

She narrows her eyes. “Why? ’Cause he’s a loser?”

I laugh. “No, not because he’s…” I slide my eyes over to her wherein she’s looking pretty pleased with herself. “It’s just… because he’s in a band – even worse, he’s in a band with my brother – I don’t want him to think that my interest in music came from, you know, his interest in music.”

I cringe at the thought of it alone, but River’s demeanour softens completely.

“Kit,” she says, her voice consoling. “I mean this in the nicest possible way but… that is totally fucking bonkers.”

She twists onto her side, the straw making a scratchy sound as she props her chin into her palm, her elbow scraping across the hay.

“Madden doesn’t own music. Just because he’s interested in something doesn’t mean that you can’t be interested in it too. Besides,” she concludes, her eyes tightening even further. “For all you know, his interest in music, his desire to be in a band, all of that may have stemmed from you.”

I shake my head. “He doesn’t know that I like music. He doesn’t know that I can sing.”

She turns her head to look out at Kaleb, the dull whir of the machine loud in the summer air. “That’s not exactly what I meant,” she murmurs, her look contemplative. “I was thinking more about why he may have wanted to join-”

She stops herself short and turns to look at me again.

“Never mind. Anyway,” she continues, jerking her thumb over to the tractor-pull. “That thing’s so loud even I’ll be barely able to hear you. Which song are you gonna do?”

I scrunch up my nose, unable to hide my smile. I pull out my phone so that I can search up the song. “I’ll be playing Kaleb’s Fender whilst I’m singing so I wanted to do something… sweet. Something that won’t make people’s ears bleed,” I admit, laughing nervously.

She peers over my shoulder to inspect my screen.

“You could never,” she says. Then she reads the name of the song that I’ve typed in. “Oh,” she hums, moving her hand next to mine so that she can scroll through the lyrics on the search engine. “Oh Kit, I love it.”

“Really?” I ask, feeling a little apprehensive. “It’s not exactly your taste.”

She scoffs and then throws herself back down onto the hay bale, her curls splaying all around her.

“You know, Madden said something similar to me when I came in. It’s weird to me to think that y’all assume that I’m so dark all of the time – I mean, maybe I was when I was seventeen but I’ve grown a lot since then. Now,” she says, spreading her arms wide as if to embrace the beaming sun. “Now I just want the light.”

She arches her body, luxuriating in the warmth, and then turns onto her side again so that I have her full attention.

“Okay,” she whispers, tapping her finger against the song title on my screen and giving me an encouraging secretive smile. “Show me whatcha got.”