The Brightest Star in a Constellation

26: The Truth About the Blog

☽ Peter ☽

The moss is damp under my hands, streaking droplets on my sleeve. The water sliding between my fingers is a metallic grey, unlike the transparent surface of the stream in front of me. The sound of the forest—the leaves swishing, the wind gusting—is one of the sole sensory experiences that I don't hate.

I take a sip of water to cure my parched throat and return to the task at hand. During my first few sessions with Suzanna, she instructed me to make a boat. A simple piece of wood will do, she told me, as long as it floats. You can give it as much or as little thought as you want. You can paint it, if that makes it easier. Give it a name, and a pair of sails. The important part is to let it symbolize your feelings, and then to let them go.

Dad gave me the driftwood. He said nothing about it; he didn't give me the usual spiel about what real men do. (Throwing me into the pool to teach me how to swim is called flooding in psychology, and it may be the technique he would use, but I would drown, and I think he understands that.)

It doesn't mean that I don't feel a tad silly, holding a deformed piece of driftwood shaped like an L, or maybe a V, if I hold it at an angle. But I set it on the stream nevertheless, and I watch it as it floats across the rocks, transported by the bubbling arctic blue, absorbing my worries and fading from view.

It would take a lot of trees for me to feel relieved; endless hectares of clear-cut that I would have to send out into the North Atlantic ocean, doomed to drift forever.

I pick up my glass and trudge back to the cabin. Taking my seat on the couch with my parents, my mother squeezes me on the shoulder. "Want to put another log on the fire?"

☆ ☽ ☆

Throughout the week, I catch sight of Claire from afar. Most of the time, she's accompanied by a group of girls that I recall seeing at the soccer game. What strikes me as odd, though, is that she isn't with Evan.

He's suspiciously absent in the hallways and has seemingly left his usual lunchtime spot empty. Claire leaves it that way—on purpose, it seems—a blank spot where she assumes Evan will arrive.

But he doesn't, and by the time Thursday rolls around, I can guess that he won't show up.

Nicole comes barrelling into the club room first, draping her hands around me. She says, "I have good news."

"You passed your English test?" The final word is strained as she grapples her hands around my neck, almost unthinkingly.

She grins, dropping her iron grip to spin around the circle of desks. "What? Oh, yeah, that was today. But that's not good news. I still don't know what a preposition is. My news is that I applied to the University of Toronto!"

"What do you mean, you don't know what a preposition is?" I ask teasingly. "Seriously though, I'm proud of you, for someone who used to say you would never apply because universities should reach out to the students if they want anyone to come."

"I still think that's the smartest idea I've ever come up with," she replies.

I glance back at the timetable in front of me. I've planned out the club events for the next few weeks, a task that Evan was meant to help me with.