Barefoot

A short story first published on Wattpad in 2019

It rained hard through the night, but I didn’t notice. I was dreaming about a girl I liked. Her name was Dawn. She was going out with a guy named Larry.

We’d had kind of a thing a few years ago, but we were just kids then. It didn’t really count. I took it seriously though and kept nursing that crush like it was a matter of loyalty. I knew we’d get married someday, and I wanted to be able to say I never wavered in my devotion. I felt like my feelings were obvious, but it’s quite possible she had no idea.

In the dream, Dawn and Larry were sitting together, talking and laughing like a happy couple. This was the first day in a new class, and I was surprised to see them. Dawn glanced over at me a couple of times but basically pretended I wasn’t there. Except after a while, she excused herself to go to the restroom and paused for just a second to look me directly in the eyes. I could feel a severity in that look, and a sort of desperation.

I was about to get up and follow her into the hall when my alarm went off and woke me up.

It was still raining as I got ready for school that morning, but it cleared up before it was time to leave. The water in our ditch wasn’t quite overflowing, and the level started sinking as it rushed downhill. I waited for the bus a good half hour before joyfully concluding that school was out for the day. I told my mom and hopped on my bike to go celebrate with my friend Josh down the street.

My neighborhood was essentially a one-mile loop of narrow, trailer-home-lined road dropped into a thick pine forest. As I rode down the hill to Josh’s house, the road kept curving to the right, so I couldn’t see very far ahead. My tires hit water as I went around a bend, and I was too excited by the novelty of it to see the danger. Before I knew it, I was holding onto my bike with one hand and treading water with the other to keep afloat in the rushing flood.

After a few long seconds, I let go of the bike so I could grab onto the luggage rack of a submerged van. The current was pulling at me hard, trying to send me into the woods where a large whirlpool was waiting. I pulled myself on top of the van and sat there, soaked and stunned. Across what used to be the street, Josh and his family were stranded on their roof. All we could do was wave at each other.

I had a few trees around me, so after a while I decided to try for land. I left my shoes on top of the van and swam against the current from one tree to the next until the water was shallow enough to wade through.

As I walked back up the hill toward home in my bare feet, I realized something: I could have died that morning. Easily. And if I had, Dawn would never know that I loved her. Yes, love; that’s what it was. Maybe I was still just a dumb kid, but I loved her with everything I had, so why call it anything else?

I’ve got to tell her, I knew for certain. No more waiting.