Free Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

it’s tied to cracks so loud that it sounds like a big bone popping.
    â€œOh, shit!” Marquise yells, and then he’s letting go of the rope, but it is too late, because it’s all falling on Big Henry’s head. I am laughing so hard my ribs hurt, but when Manny surfaces like a jumping fish next to me, popping up out of the water like the best kind of prize, I stop. The laugh turns to a scratch in my throat.
    â€œWhat’s up, Esch?” Manny’s looking at Big Henry and Marquise struggling with the branch in the water, Randall swimming over to help. He talks to me out the side of his face. Skeet is still scrubbing his skin off, not watching us. Manny dives under the water and comes up on my right, still staying far enough away from me that I can’t reach out and touch him.
    â€œNothing.” I swallow the words.
    â€œYou was scared to take off your clothes in front of us?” Manny is grinning, but he’s not looking at me, and he’s swimming in slow circles so he’s orbiting me like the moon. Or the sun.
    It’s a little noise that comes out of my throat then.
    â€œScared to let everybody see what you look like?”
    I shake my head.
    â€œIt ain’t that bad,” he says.
    â€œNot bad?” I breathe, and I am ashamed because I am repeating what he says.
    â€œSomething like that.” He jams a finger into his ear and then shakes his head so fast water comes flying off him like a dog. His bottom lip is pink and full, while his top is a shy line. I have dreamed about kissing him. Around three years ago, I saw him having sex with a girl. He and Randall had talked her into coming back to the Pit with them when Daddy was out, and I heard them all laughing when they passed underneath the window. I followed them into the woods. When they got to the pit, Manny grabbed her butt and rubbed her stomach the way a man pets a dog’s side, and then the girl laid down for him. He was on top of her, moving his hand up and down in between her legs, and then he kissed that girl. Twice, three times. He opened his mouth so wide for her, licked her like he was tasting her, like she was cane sugar sweet. He was eating her. I wonder when he stopped kissing girls like that, or if he just doesn’t want to kiss me. Now he circles, half looking at me, half looking at Big Henry and Marquise. He grabs my hand and pulls it toward him, wraps my fingers around his dick.
    â€œNot too bad,” he says. I want to know what it feels like, so I reach out under the water to touch his chest, his nipples the size of red grapes. They are much softer than that. The skin in the seams of his muscles is the color of Sugar Daddy caramel candy. Manny pulls away. “What are you doing?” His dick slides out of my hand, hot in the cool water: then gone.
    â€œI just wanted—”
    â€œEsch.” Manny says it like he’s disappointed, like he doesn’t know who this girl who reached out to touch him is. His profile is sharp, and it shines like a polished penny in the fire. His bottom lip thins when he smiles. “You crazy?”
    My hand is still tingling from where he grabbed it and pulled it toward him.
    â€œNo.” I meant to say his name; this is what comes out instead.
    â€œNaw, Esch.” He kneads the water, pushing himself up and kicking away from me. “You know it ain’t like that,” he says, and the pain comes all at once, like a sudden deluge.
    Manny swims to Randall, who is walking up to the shore, pulling on his clothes. Manny’s back is a shut door. His shoulders are beautiful. I imagine myself on his back now, him swimming me across the deep water, carrying me to solid ground. How the other Manny would turn to kiss me in the water, to eat my air. How he would hold my hand on land instead of wrapping it around his dick underwater. When I tell him about my secret, will he turn to me? I push out all my breath and sink, my head hot.