It's funny, growing up. Funny 'ha ha' sometimes, funny 'queer' other. 'Funny' with that sad, hollow laugh occasionally. Childhood is never one thing. It's a process, one that feels like it'll never end…until it's over, and you wonder where all the time went.
Life felt very permanent at 13. I woke up, I went to school, I talked to my friends, I came home, I ate dinner, I went to sleep. My job back then was to find a way to break up the monotony. Now, I tend to spend my days trying to keep an even keel.
I don't miss being a child. But I do miss the innocence. Permanence is a luxury.
I'd made a slight mistake in my calculations thinking we could follow the train tracks all the way to the fridge. See, Castle Rock was located a couple miles north of the James River, just south of the York. And we had walked that couple miles. What I'd forgotten was the train tracks didn't cross the river straight away. They looped around east for a while, as the bridge they'd built was technically in another county.
"Well, shit," Selina cursed, hands on hips, standing just off the tracks to survey the river. "It'll take us hours to walk to the bridge."
"And Isis probably doesn't have hours," Pam pointed out, rather unhelpfully.
"Yeah, thanks, asshole."
Pam slinked back under her hat.
"We could cross here," I suggested, nodding towards the river. "It's not too wide there. Or deep, I don't think."
"But it moves fast, Harley," Bruce said.
"And?" I crossed my arms, a smile I didn't intend finding its way to my lips. "What are ya, a pussy?"
Harvey scoffed, Bruce's permanent hype man.
"No," Bruce told me, his stance more confident now. "But it's dangerous. I don't want anyone getting hurt."
Shrugging, I told him, "I'm not scared."
"Me neither," Selina agreed.
Pam and Harvey stayed silent.
We all stood there for a while, sizing up our obstacle. I was still running a little hot from my argument with Pam, so I just wanted to get going.
"Fine," Bruce finally decided. "But I go first."
"Sure."
"Whatever."
Selina and I accepted his terms, and we filed into line behind him. First Bruce, then Selina, then Harvey, then Pam. I waited a moment to join them, but eventually did, bringing up the rear.
The river was probably 50 feet across at this juncture, and yeah, not very deep. But it was fast. Bruce was right about that. I assumed that at its deepest point, the water would probably come up to our waists. Well, their waists. I was a big shorter, so…maybe my chest.
The closer we got to the river, the more nervous I got. But I couldn't turn back now. This had been my idea, and I'd just called Bruce Wayne a pussy. There was no way I could be the one to back out. Luckily, there was a rock that jutted out from the water at what was basically the center, so I could stop there for a minute if I needed a rest.
Just think of it in halves. All you gotta do is make it to the rock, then to the shore.
Bruce took his first, brave step forward, soaking one shoe and then the other. Selina grabbed onto his waist for balance and they began. Harvey took an apprehensive look back at Pam before starting out himself.
Pam didn't look back at me, and there was no way I was putting my hands around her waist. So she walked and I followed.
I could feel the water pulling at me feet, wanting to take my downstream, but I could also feel the rocks below me, and I focused on them. Focused on finding good footholds. As we got deeper, it became harder to keep myself upright, but I was determined, and at this point, only had about 10ft left until the mid-way rock. Pam climbed on top of it, and I was just behind her.
Maybe I got cocky. Maybe I let my anxiety go too early. Or maybe I just stepped on the wrong rock. Whatever the reason, I was suddenly not on my feet anymore. I was falling. Sliding. Slipping away downstream, the water dragging me under, away from my friends.
"Pam!" I managed to scream just before I was fully submerged.
She spun around, panicked, realizing I was no longer behind her.
I was under water, grabbing for anything on the river bottom strong enough to hold me. My hand brushed over a tree root and I grabbed it, holding onto it for dear life and thrusting my head above water.
When I resurfaced, Pam was still standing on the rock, and Bruce, Selina and Harvey had stopped dead in their tracks.
"Harley!" Pam shouted when she saw me. "There she is!" she told the others. "Harley, hold on!"
I was trying, but my arms also weren't strong enough to hold me above water for too long, not with the current pushing down on them. "Pammy!" I sobbed, choking on the fast-moving water. I remember just wanting to go home. "Pammy, help me!"
Bruce was now trying to fight the current back to the rock, but it seemed like he soon determined Selina wouldn't be able to stand without him, so he grabbed Harvey by the hand and yanked him forward, forcing Selina's hands on his hips and telling them to "Go!"
I had to dunk back under, but when I came up for air again, Pam was looking fearfully up at the sun.
"Pa—" I swallowed a mouthful of water. "—mm!"
"Fuck, fuck, FUCK!" she screamed, slamming her hands down on the rock in frustration. Then she tore her jacket open, rather than unbuttoning it, and tossed one sleeve into the water, holding onto the other one. "Grab on, Harley!"
I let myself be pulled back down underwater and took one shaking hand off the tree root, searching blindly for the cloth of the jacket.
I found it, and next thing I knew, I was being pulled through the water.
Bruce and Pam heaved one final time in tandem, and I was yanked onto the rock, the sun on my back feeling like God's gift.
"Harley!" Pam rushed forward, tears streaming down her face. She wrapped me up in her arms and pulled me onto her lap, cradling me there and rocking subtly back and forth. I started sobbing and she pressed my head to her shoulder. "Shhh…it's OK, you're safe, you're OK…" she kissed my hair and held me tighter.
Bruce was trying his best to take deep breaths beside us, I could hear him forcing a handle on himself, so I opened my eyes against Pam's shoulder, turning my head to look at him. He was ghostly pale, his chest heaving. He had been nearly as frightened as I was, and he hadn't even been in the water.
Slowly, I inched myself backwards, trying to create some distance between me and Pam so I could look at her. She was still wearing her hat, but from how red her cheeks, were you'd have thought she was sunburnt. Physical exertion wasn't really her thing.
I took her face in my hands and leaned forward to press a long, hard kiss to her cheek. "You saved me," I sniveled, without pulling my lips away.
"I love you, Harley," she told me. "I would never let you go."
But she had let something go, and we seemed to both realize it at the same time, because we turned all at once to look down river and watch her jacket bob further and further away from us.
She was wearing a long-sleeved shirt under her overalls, so not all was lost, but I could see the panic in her eyes.
I grabbed her face and forced her to look at me again. "Thank you."