saturday. the sunless afternoon and stone-grey sky couldn’t keep tourists from clogging the pier’s concrete arteries.

that morning, jules discovered a whitehead above her lip and popped it. now, in her usual spot in the lighthouse shade, she examined the red splotch in the tackle-box compact. two years of slathered makeup and weekly showers, she thought, and NOW i get a pimple.

she snapped the hookless fishing line, eased into her chair, and scanned the motley faces of the hoard; mostly white, a few black, laughing or grinning or playfully sneering. some had freckles. some had moles. several were pink and peeling with white raccoon eyes from forgotten glasses. many looked like jules; pigtails, bangs, button noses and torn acne. but in the vast and varied sea of faces, no one looked like HIM.

jules ignored the pole wedged between her knees. she closed her eyes, slackened her neck and listened to the distant gulls and the calming bustle of a midsummer day.

she awoke minutes later to a peculiar gleam in the water at her feet. her blurry eyes flared the reflected light, so she rubbed them and winced at the crumpled paper ball dancing with the waves.

she used her net to snag the curio, then unfolded the sopping page. wet marker melted down her hand, but the drawing was still discernible. it was a crude sketch of a car overlooking a river.

the marker, the style, the anger; the discarded art was unmistakably HIS.

her heart was already playing a morbid game of red-rover with her ribs as she looked to her left and saw—through twenty feet of skipping families and tight fishing rods—the boy—HER boy—alone and sketching and sitting cross-legged in jeans and a torn tee and dyed-black hair at the water-lapped edge of their pier.

jules wanted to move but her limbs refused to take orders from an indecisive brain that churned and thumped like the colored visualizer on the boy’s bedroom wall. (maybe her legs knew better than her brain that there wasn’t a plan. or, if there was a plan, she had already forgotten it.)

if the boy discovered that “sarah” was alive, the pieces would fall into place. he would know what she did. but when the puzzle was complete, would he love JULES? or kill her?

before her senses could untangle themselves, another crumpled page bobbed by. again, she used the net to pluck it from the waves, then unfurled the soggy clump.

the sketch depicted a girl sitting straight up in an open casket. her eyes were open. her knobby hand clutched the lid. it was emma.

“interested in my drawings?”

jules couldn’t answer or turn. she watched the lake and felt gabe’s presence like a cold wet blanket draped across her shoulders.

his hand reached down and snatched the picture. 

she finally turned and bore herself into blue-grey eyes. she apologized in the split second of their connection; she apologized, reassured him, held him, loved him, took his hand and ran away with him... but they were only thoughts, and gabe looked away.

he didn’t recognize her.

jules stood. “i like the picture of the car better,” she said and cleared her throat. “very different subject matter.”

gabe crumpled the drawing, shoved it in his pocket and walked away.

jules scooped up her equipment—everything but the chair—and balanced the tottering gear while jogging to catch up. “how do you go from a car overlooking a river to a creepy girl in a casket?”

“it’s a coffin.”

jules had to double her pace to keep up. “is there a difference?”

“a ‘casket’ is just a glorified jewelry box, but the word ‘coffin’ has morbid connotations with vampires and graveyards so funeral directors re-appropriated the happier word.”

“never heard that before.”

gabe walked faster.

jules adjusted her backpack’s shoulder strap and awkwardly switched the net to the hand with the tackle box. “you didn’t answer my question.”

“the guy in the car is burning two charcoal grills. he drove to the river because it was peaceful, then died of carbon monoxide poisoning.”

“why do you draw that stuff?”

“boredom.”

“they’re disturbing, but they’re good.”

gabe didn’t reply.

the one-sided chat was unbearable. jules spun around with falling gear and blocked gabe’s path.

“what?”

she ignored the showy display of agitation and searched his face for any sign life or recognition or some facial tick that was indelibly GABE; a fleck of innocence in his eye or a half-assed grin to imply this dark metamorphosis was merely an act or façade; that the earring (and tongue ring?) and all-too-familiar air of hopeless melancholia was only a phase or a stage or a joke and not—NOT the result of a despicable girl, her maniacal boyfriend, and one savage night on this very pier.

“move, bitch.” his shoulder smacked hers as he pushed by.

“i just moved here,” she said, desperate. “i moved from the other side of michigan and i don’t know my way around town. do you know any good places for lunch?”

“tons.”

“any place you wanna take me?”

*  *  *

“got any critters i should know about?”

jules assumed “critters” was slang for STDs and replied softly, “no.”

when his pants were unzipped and hugging his knees, gabe took a final drag, held it, and offered the moist end of his blunt to jules.

she shook her head so he blotted the embers in a nightstand ashtray (and in a torrid flash of déjà vu, jules recognized the pastel handprint on the back of the white canvas desk chair.)

gabe released symmetrical curls of smoke from his nostrils and forced penetration between her splayed thighs.

she winced. she wanted him off. eventually, she lost the energy to care. 

her cigarette burn scraped the boy’s pec with every vicious thrust while the scar on her knee rubbed his pallid waist.

he’ll see the scars and he’ll stop, she thought.

he’ll see the scars and he’ll stop.

but he didn’t see the scars because he finished in two minutes and rolled off with his head turned and his mind everywhere but here. he sat on the edge of the bed and buckled his jeans.

“you didn’t even ask my name,” she said and drew thin covers over her body.

“what is it,” he asked.

“jules... can i ask yours?”

“shoot.”

she bit her lower lip hard enough to draw blood. “what’s your name?”

gabe pulled on his t-shirt and said, “john.” he gathered his wallet and phone from the nightstand and walked to the motel-room door. “sorry to fuck and run,” he said and twisted the knob. “welcome to grand harbor.”

*  *  *

later that evening in the soothing terracotta walls of HOME, jules sat like a wax sculpture on the countertop. her legs were tightly crossed and her right arm clutched her left shoulder to create a protective “V” down and up her torso.

rachel hummed an off-key variation of just call my name and hunkered at the bread rack with her clipboard and pen.

“my friend is suicidal,” jules said.

“you’re already making friends? that’s a good start.”

“i knew him before.”

“suicide is a selfish act. takes a narrow-minded fool to ignore life’s joys. did he make any threats?”

“i recognize the signs.”

“is he gay?”

“no. but he has reasons.”

rachel set her clipboard on the tile and stood. “tell him to get help.”

“that never works.”

she circled the counter and faced jules directly. “talk to his parents, sweetie.”

“his parents don’t care.” jules fought a tear but inadvertently brought a thick natural blush to her cheeks. “i hurt him once. i thought i could make things better, but now i’m so fricken confused.”

“oh, you precious girl...” the woman placed a hand on jules’ knee (rachel was a generous and warmhearted woman, but she often treated jules with delicate discretion as if the girl’s budding wings would deteriorate at the slightest touch of human hands. right now, jules needed a hug. she could barely admit to herself the ridiculous penchant, but it was true; she needed a hug and she didn’t know how to tell her only friend). “if this boy won’t get help, then you need to be the very best friend you know how to be.”

jules straightened her back and smacked away rachel’s hand. “good thinkin’, rach,” she said. “but i’m afraid ‘being a friend’ won’t be enough.”

*  *  *

the guilt struck ten minutes later as jules pulled the paisley covers to her chin. snapping at rachel was stupid, she thought... but she could apologize in the morning. 

tonight, she needed a plan.

jules decided to wait every day at the pier in her accidental disguise. she would force herself into gabe’s daily routine, seduce her way into the privacy of his bedroom, find that moment of recognition that she ached for... then she would tell the boy as much truth as he could handle. 

maybe he would be so happy to see her alive that he wouldn’t call the police. maybe he’d remember the joy they shared on the pier; the strange excitement of emma’s funeral; the kiss in the car. maybe he would pull himself from his depression. maybe he would let her back in.

whatever gabe does with the truth is out of my hands, she thought. but at least they’ll be clean.