Free Flings by Justin Taylor Page B

took a big bite. “Bitch,” he said.
    â€œOoooh,” said Brianne. “You said a swear.”
    â€œTrue. But that’s gonna stay our little secret because otherwise you might never get snack again ever, which wouldn’t be too fun—right?” Brianne nodded, her eyes already wet. He surveyed the crowd of small faces looking up at us. “That goes for all you bitches,” he said.
    That night I dreamed that I was swimming at the Adelmans’ like old times but Alana was there, too, only she was her real age but me and Isaac were young again. Jake wasn’t around. It was dark out and the pool light was bright as the moon—a moon at the bottom of the pool. I saw Isaac standing on the top step at the shallow end. “Let’s see who—” I said, but didn’t finish because I heard that my voice wasn’t mine; it was Jake’s voice, and I realized then that I was Jake, or part of me was, that when he had died a spark of his soul had joined with mine so I carried him with me, and so did Isaac, and so we had these strange sparks in us that could never be absorbed or expelled. Alana dove deep into the water, all the way to the bottom of the pool where she swam in tight circles, going faster, a dark form outlined in churning brightness, which was the last thing I saw before I woke up with a seizing pressure in my lungs like I’d stayed underwater too long or slept with a stone on my chest.
    It was a quarter to six, dishwater light trickling through my blinds, and I could have gone back to sleep for another half hour, maybe forty-five minutes if I’d wanted to. But I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to go back to that other world for anything. Instead I closed my eyes and slipped my hand into my boxers and thought about Alana and the things we’d done under the road. I thought about the way she’d smelled—lavender soap and pennies—and the sweat under her tits and the impatience with which she’d guided my hand into the slick hot hair between her legs. True to her word, we hadn’t gone all the way, but she let me touch her and also did things to me nobody had ever done before, except for Isaac, which the more I thought about it somehow seemed like it shouldn’t count, though I knew that it did. And what would Alana say if she ever found out that I’d used to be friends with him, that I’d feigned ignorance about Jake’s existence and death? Was Alana the reason he was in our group, as she thought, or had the pairing been about both of us—or just me? Mrs. Adelman wanting to rekindle an old friendship—a “positive influence” is probably how she would have phrased it—or maybe it had somehow been Isaac’s idea? And what about me? I wasn’t . . . whatever, obviously, because I’d hooked up with Alana and only in general ever usually thought about girls, but then what about what Isaac and I had done? I had hardly thought about him and what we used to do since it had happened, but now all that buried stuff was coming unearthed.
    I reached around for something to wipe up with, then decided to get into the shower. It was full light outside and time to start my day.
    â€œHey, bro,” Isaac said. “Don’t you think that braces are bullshit? Like they’re this giant scam Doc Mizzum’s running on us?”
    We were at a picnic table in a thickish copse of oak, our usual spot, well off the main path and away from the road. We were sitting on the table with our feet on the bench. My teeth had come in straight—straight enough, my mom had said—so I had never had braces, and therefore hadn’t given them much thought other than to count them as one more thing that everyone else but me had in common with each other.
    â€œWhen do they come off?” I asked.
    â€œHe says the end of the year, maybe.”
    â€œNice,” I said. “You can ride that