Free I’ll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios

us.
    “You’ve changed,” I said.
    He snorted. “No shit.”
    I gently pushed him on the shoulder. “Shut up. You know what I mean.”
    “Yeah.”
    His voice was soft, and it made me think of that moment when he was in his uniform
     and I kissed him on the cheek. Maybe he’d started changing even before he’d lost his
     leg. Maybe I hadn’t bothered to notice.
    I don’t know how long we floated on the water, the only sounds our breath and the
     pool water gushing in and out of its drains. I wondered what he was thinking about
     and why I cared so much. I wondered if I pitied him and if that was why I’d said yes
     to swimming in creamy moonlight.
    But I didn’t want to be anywhere else.
    “Blake said you’re moving to San Francisco,” he said.
    “Hmm” was all I said.
    My throat had suddenly closed up, like San Francisco was Mom, like the two had become
     so attached that I didn’t know how to break them apart. All I could think was, Please don’t let me be stuck here forever , and I didn’t know if I was praying or just talking to myself.
    “Was that a yes or a no?” he asked.
    “It’s an I-don’t-feel-like-talking-about-it.”
    “Not even to a one-legged dude? I promise I’ll keep your secret.”
    “Not even to a one-legged dude. Maybe to an armless one.” I turned my head a little,
     let my lips turn up. “You have too many limbs. Sorry.”
    Josh laughed and pushed his body down, standing in the water by moving his arms in
     slow circles as he looked at me. I put my eyes back on the sky.
    “I think it’s cool,” he said, after a little while. “You know, that you want to go
     to college and stuff. Full scholarship, right?”
    I nodded.
    “What do you want to study?”
    “Art. I want to…”
    “What?” He was looking at me like he really wanted to know.
    I shifted so that we were eye to eye. “I was thinking that I could work in an art
     museum someday. Or teach art, like a class about Impressionism at a college or something?
     But at night I could work on my collages. I’m also thinking about paper sculpture.”
     I tilted my head back, stared down the stars. “It’s stupid.”
    He kept looking at me. “That’s not stupid.” When I didn’t answer, he moved a little
     closer. “It’s not a crime to get out. Even if … even if it doesn’t go the way you
     thought it would.”
    “Maybe,” I whispered. I took a breath, cleared my throat. “I’m turning into a prune.”
    I showed him my wrinkled fingertips, then slipped underwater, swimming to the shallow
     end. When my hands collided with the stairs, I broke the surface and climbed out.
    “Shit,” I said. Water pooled at my feet and I looked at the glass door to the lobby,
     wondering if a towel was worth Amy talking my ear off for the next hour.
    “What?” he asked.
    “No towels.”
    “You can use my shirt.”
    Too late, I realized that I was standing there dripping wet in nothing but my bra
     and underwear. I instinctively covered my chest and backed away from the pool.
    “Nice panties,” he said.
    “Turn around,” I snapped.
    He raised his hands in the air and flipped onto his back. “You need to learn how to
     take a compliment. Besides,” he added, “I’ve seen a lot less on a girl, believe me.”
    “Yes, Josh, everyone in Creek View is well aware of your sexcapades.”
    He snickered. “ Sexcapades . I like it.”
    I stomped over to the chair where he’d thrown his shirt and dried off as best I could.
     I slipped on my dress and pulled off my soaked undergarments, balling them up in my
     hand so Josh wouldn’t make another comment about my lack of clothing. The wind gusted
     through the palms and the fronds rubbed together like crumpled tissue paper. It carried
     the scent of manure and gasoline and the orchard behind the fence. It blew under the
     thin material of my dress, and I shivered when it slipped over my skin. I envied its
     reckless abandon, the way it touched without fear.
    A train was