The Spillway Kids

Chapter One

He sat next to her on the edge of the spillway.

            “Hi,” She said, looking at him sitting on his skateboard. His friends were all down in the spillway, doing tricks or just cruising around on their boards. Her friends were sitting on the other side of the bridge, not across from them, but to the right of them, so they could look through the wood bars of the bridge’s railings and giggle at and talk about various boys.

            It might make sense to explain some of this. The spillway was an area of concrete built by whoever created the boy and the girl’s neighborhood, to hold any overflowing water in case it rained or the lake flooded, or any scenario where there might be an influx of water. It had a wooden bridge that spanned the two sides of the neighborhood – they were the same neighborhood, but one was on one side of the lake, and the other was on the other side. Kids from different sides of the neighborhood didn’t really see each other much – this isn’t to say there was a rivalry such as an East side/West side one, if they took a liking to each other they would still be friends, they just didn’t happen to see each other that often. The only two places that they would commonly see each other without planning it beforehand was at the pool or the spillway. The spillway was used, when it wasn’t full of water, as a skatepark of sorts, where anyone with a skateboard or a bike would come to ride it so they didn’t have to stay on the streets, under the prying eyes of adults.

            “Hey,” He said, looking over at her. She brushed her hair over her forehead and smoothed it against the back of her head and then looked back at him. She’d seen him around before, they both lived on the same side of the lake, and she’d talked to him. They’d hung out a few times, if you can say that twelve year olds “hang out.” No one is really sure when children make the transition from “playing” to “hanging out.” It could be a symptom of becoming a teenager, but this was a group of kids that made it clear that they didn’t play, they hung out. There was no chasing or screaming involved, they sat around and skated and talked and some of the boys and the girls flirted. It was, if looked in upon from outside, a group of kids who had grown up too fast. From the inside, though, they felt they were going at just the right pace, and whose place is it to say they were going too fast other than theirs?

            “What’s your name?” She asked. She had wanted to know for a while, but whenever she had finally worked up the courage to ask, he would be gone off with his other friends. She knew she’d heard them call his name before but she couldn’t really remember. Even if she could, it was an easy way to open up conversation.

            He ran his hand through his hair. “Ethan,” He said out into the air. He didn’t look at her, but she knew it was directed at her. He turned his head just slightly enough that she knew he was looking at her and raised an eyebrow.

            “Erin.” She said, also into the air. He nodded and turned his head forward again, and blew air out of his mouth, for no reason other than having something to do with his mouth. He looked down at his friends in the spillway, skating around. One of them saw him and called out his name and waved him down. Ethan sighed and stood up, but before he dropped into the spillway he turned to Erin.

            “Can I see your hand?” He asked, and she offered it to him. He fished around in his pocket and pulled out a pen, as it was a Friday, and wrote out a phone number. He looked up at her as he finished. “You have a cell, right?” She nodded, and he put the pen back in his pocket and dropped into the spillway. Erin stood up and went back on the other side of the bridge and her friends asked her what had happened. She said nothing and covered up her hand with her hoody so they wouldn’t see the phone number. They all looked through the bars of the bridge at the boys and sometimes, more often than a year ago, they would skate under the bridge and the girls would wave at them and talk to them. Ethan never did cross under the bridge, even though Erin secretly hoped he would. She would look over and catch him looking at her, but he would turn his head away  right as their eyes made contact and she would do the same and listen to her friends talk about school and television shows and everything. She only just learnt Ethan’s name, but she was sure she liked him.

            I use the term “like,” because I’m telling the story of two almost-teenagers, at least at this point. Twelve year olds don’t use the word “love” – it scares them. It’s too grown up. At twelve love is reserved for parents and family and inanimate things (e.g. “I love this book!” “I love that movie!”) “Liking” someone is an invention of suburban America, as are the teenage years. Whether it is a good development or not is up to you: I, and while we will never know who I am, believe that it allows children to experience having feelings for someone and knowing what heartbreak feels like without going all in and saying they love someone instantly. If Ethan and Erin had to commit to love and marriage instantly, they may have ended up very similarly to Romeo and Juliet.

            Eventually the sun started to set, and the kids started to trickle off in twos and threes. Eventually Ethan and his friends Josh and Tyler were left in the spillway, and Erin and her friend Jessica. They sat on their side of the bridge. Josh and Tyler had migrated over to that side of the spillway, and they would constantly look up at the girls and back down at their feet. Erin looked over  and Ethan was standing at the edge of the lake, skipping rocks. She got up and started walking over there, slowly stumbling down the slope into the spillway, and walked up next to him. She watched him throw rocks for a little bit, then picked one up and threw it. It plunked into the water.

            “You have to flick your wrist.” Ethan said, and he snapped a rock out onto the lake. It skipped three times before sinking under, and he picked up another. Erin did the same, and threw it, taking Ethan’s advice into account. Her rock skipped on the water once, but it started spinning oddly and sunk into the water a few feet later. “That’s better,” Ethan said. “I’m gonna go home. Do you wanna walk with me?”

            Erin nodded. Ethan grabbed his skateboard and walked across the spillway, to the side opposite where they were sitting earlier, and climbed out. Erin started to walk up but slipped. Ethan reached his hand out and she grabbed it, climbing out. They stood there with their hands together for a minute, before he slowly pulled away.