If you head downstream, there’s a waterfall that empties into a natural pool so deep that no one has found the bottom yet, which means it’s perfect for practicing the fanciest of dives and biggest of cannonballs. But it was also a great place to lazily float in large, gentle circles.

It terrified my mom.

My family moved into a house older than both of them when I was a little kid, just before Aaron’s fifth birthday, just in time for him to start at a new kindergarten. The local development had sold its last house, and it was full of young parents and their kids. Growing up together off the creek meant we spent our summers racing down the twig-littered hill, tearing up cheap flip-flops on the gravel road, and discarding them before spending the next few hours turning us into pruney old men and women with “too much pep in our step” as my dad would say when we turned up back home, still dripping river water and soaking the knockoff Turkish rug.

My mom didn’t allow me to go unsupervised until I was “ready.” It didn’t matter that I was a rising star on the swim team. It didn’t matter that I’d been swimming competitively since I was six. “Ready” was fourteen. And not a day earlier.

Of course, that meant I had to wait several months after I finally turned fourteen. That’s what I got for being a December baby.

It was April before Mom deemed Meadow Creek to be “open” for our family. I’d barely shimmied into my swim trunks before I burst from the front door and bolted to the creek.

I ignored the sting of cracking twigs on my soles, and the sharp confetti of shattered leaves between my toes. I’d forgotten my shoes.

My lungs had to play catch-up by the time I got there. At least I remembered my inhaler, even if it was covered in palm sweat, giving me a salt-tinged puff of relief.

A booming war cry echoed overhead, reverberating through the lush canopies that only let teasing rays of sunlight trickle through. I looked up and saw my brother Aaron bouncing on a tree branch, hooting and hollering like a baboon. He winked at me before attempting a dive that failed majestically into a nerve-crunching belly flop.

“I touched the bottom!” he called as he resurfaced, his curly black hair pancaked against his forehead.

“Liar!” I shouted. The ripples around Aaron rolled and contorted as he swam to the far bank, joining our neighbor Brittni and her friends as they “sunbathed” in the shade, in frilly pastel bikinis that wouldn’t hold up to a proper cannonball.

I scrambled up the tree, unable to ignore the grating of bark on my palms and heels. It was large grit sandpaper that didn’t want me to succeed. Too bad! No amount of shallow scrapes would keep me grounded for long.

The branch was maybe twelve feet in the air – and paled in comparison to the monstrous three-story waterfall that everyone else used – but was still high enough to make the girls on the other side of the creek look like ants. Or maybe beetles. They were my subjects and I was the king; my immature ass obviously deserved the crown, even if I wasn’t brave enough to jump from the rocky top. Kings can still be wusses.

It was then I saw her, “sunbathing” just behind Brittni in a yellow bikini. Her hair was blazing strings of poinsettias in a sea of ferns and ivy. I ached to get closer to her, to see if she’d be covered in freckles like my ginger cousin who looked like a slab of sunburnt granite every summer, to see the “angel kisses” my mom insisted I call them.

Gravity decided to assist and I fell from the branch, completely missing the creek and landing with an unenthusiastic thump on the moist, muddy roots with a thick squelch. Aaron laughed at me as Brittni, the redhead, and their friends freaked out. They started yelling at him and ordered him to check on me. He begrudgingly left Brittni’s side and berated me when all I suffered were a few superficial scratches, two bruised knees, and a sprained ankle. He said I was dead meat for ruining his time with Brittni.

But the best part – that made any amount of pain or any number of death threats worthwhile – was that the other girl felt pity on me. She followed Aaron over in order to fawn over me.

River. Her name was River.

And I got her phone number. I didn’t even need to ask; she wrote it on my arm in deep red lip gloss. It smelled like Dad’s favorite cherry ice cream and cotton candy that you’d buy from the dollar store. I couldn’t limp home fast enough. I needed to write her number down before it wore off.

Mom refused to let me move from the couch for several days, making me her prisoner. She stuck my foot up on a pillow and kept a rotation of frozen peas and reminded me every time that stuff like that is why she hated the creek. I told her that she wouldn’t hate it so much if she wasn’t a nurse. Mom just sighed and handed me the remote.

But she kept her promise and let me go back, so long as Aaron tagged along. Sorta. Until we got to Brittni’s house, where he’d disappear inside.

The limp stuck with me for a few days, and I sure did milk it. River escorted me to and from the creek. Mom wasn’t sure what to make of her at first. River was new to the area; she’d moved in with her aunt, uncle, and three cousins in order to get into a better school district. Mom thought it was sneaky and underhanded. Dad thought it was a smart move.

River would hold my hand as I hobbled down the hill and across the back roads. She would squeeze it – sending small jolts of electricity through my veins, shooting my heart out a canon and into the stratosphere where it joined astronauts as they spun weightless in space – as we paused to cross the road, the brilliant waves of her hair bouncing as she made sure to look both ways. I probably would’ve walked into traffic if she hadn’t nearly dislocated my shoulder a time or two, yanking me backwards off the summer-baked asphalt, and back to reality from my ‘80s styled daydream, full of haze and blurs and exaggerated sparkles.

She’d let go of my hand when we got to the creek so she could splash about with her cousins. I’d rest on the rock and hold my hands close to me. River was still close by, even when she was so far; my hands smelled of her cocoa butter lotion. I didn’t want to swim anymore.

After a while, River would join me on the rock. When we were alone, we’d lie down and snuggle. The first time, I thought I was going to vomit up my hot dog and fill up her frizzy, humidity hating hair with ketchup and bile. She somehow knew just how I felt and took my hand in hers, braiding our fingers together like the fishtails she plaited onto her cousins. River held our hands over her chest, right where her necklace lay, the one her parents had bought her during their last family vacation. It was the symbol for a willow, her Celtic astrological tree.

I could feel her chest rise and fall. I could feel her heartbeat beneath the backside of my knuckles as she gripped my fingers tight.

I loved being River’s big spoon so I could stare at the freckles that covered her back. There was one that looked like Texas, if you squinted just right, or if you were kind of groggy after an accidental nap.

I memorized the unique constellations scattered across her.

The first day I got my brace removed, we raced to the creek. River won. There was no contest in the end. I was bent in half, heaving, as if inhaling dirt would save me, while she chuckled and pried my fingers open, forcing my inhaler into my fist.

Grocery shopping was one of my favorite things to do with her. She was sixteen, and her aunt gave her unlimited access to the car if she did some errands to “pay” for it. River would stress over unit prices and coupons. She didn’t need to worry about money but insisted she wanted to learn like my mom. The way River’s eyes narrowed in concentration, the way one side of her mouth would sneer as her nose wrinkled, the way she would twist a ring she found at Goodwill that was too big around her thumb… Serious. Stoic. Stunning. And completely unlike my mom who knew the store and the deals better than the French tips she repainted every other Saturday.

Then the pièce de résistance: the kiss on the cheek I got afterwards as thanks for bagging the groceries while she paid and for managing to get everything inside in one trip. Two, if she had to buy toilet paper. River liked to call me her strongman, wondering when I’d get committed to the gym and win bodybuilding contests. “I’m only committed to you,” I’d tell her every single time.

And yet, I got a part time job as a pizza delivery driver just for her, for our dates, and for my savings.

My friends wanted cars by the time they graduated. I just wanted to afford the diamond ring River deserved. I knew by our first kiss at the end of that first summer that I wanted to be with her forever. I couldn’t imagine a future without my love by my side.

Meadow Creek was “our place.” We spent nearly every summer night beside it, beside each other, tracing each other’s premature promises of laugh lines, worry wrinkles, and crow’s feet.

Watching her slowly age and turn into an adult felt like a privilege I didn’t deserve, that should’ve been reserved for someone better than a kid who lived in a double-wide down the street and clipped coupons with his mom on Sunday mornings after church.

River went away to college during my junior year. She wanted to become a pharmacist so she could work alongside her uncle at the local drugstore. I got a second job as a dishwasher. I needed to save more.

That winter was spent cold and lonely, wishing for the warmth of her arms around my shoulders, or the tickle of her breath on my neck when she teased me about spiders and ants crawling up my backside.

Seeing her the first Saturday of every month was like seeing her at the creek all over again: stunned into silence by the shock of fire and the soft radiance that she commanded with it. That was, of course, until she slipped her elbow under mine, and we went off to midnight bowling.

Saturdays were never enough. She became an absolutely vile woman that distracted my mind during every math class and gave my asthma a run for its money during gym class.

My mom let me borrow the car a couple of times, and I drove the three hours to visit River, just to have brunch with her, and chew on some fresh bacon while she complained about biochem and how much she hated the sound that petri dishes made when she accidentally stepped on them, which apparently happened more than once.

River came home that freshman summer with a dog she found by the dumpster outside Walmart. She named him Pete. He loved swimming just as much as we loved sitting beside each other, listening to the creek bubble and whisper through the forest.

The only thing Pete loved nearly as much as his mom and swimming was gifts. Like the deer leg that was missing half its skin and muscle. At least the little brown bunny was still alive, just covered in slobber and shivering out of shock. River found a wildlife sanctuary by the time we made it to the car, with the baby bunny tucked inside her bikini top.

“I have to keep it warm!” she giggled with one of its ears flopping out like a fuzzy boutonniere.

The sanctuary called us a week later, letting us know the bunny had passed away. River spent the night slowly crawling her way through a gallon of butter pecan ice cream.

A week after my graduation – a couple weeks shy of our three-year anniversary – we spent a completely normal evening beside the creek, surrounded by all our friends, including the also-visiting Aaron. He took Pete for a walk and came back with the little mutt wearing an even smaller pastel pink backpack that almost glowed in the early sunset. Pete ran up to River and wiggled so hard we thought his butt might fall off, all while covering River in overexaggerated “I missed you” kisses.

“What’s this?” she chuckled, messing with the zipper, half hidden in some dainty lace. There was a little white box hidden inside. River pulled it out, looking up at Aaron. “What’s this?” she repeated as she opened it, exposing a lab-grown two carat cushion cut engagement ring that her cousins and Brittni helped me pick out.

I was on my knee beside her. I asked her to marry me.

River never actually said yes. She was too busy crying and kissing me, trying to rip my hair out as she tangled her fingers through it in the most intense embrace we’d had. I hadn’t tasted anything as sweet as River’s salty tears of unrestrained joy.

That weekend was the summer fair. She showed off the ring to every vendor, bouncing around as she tried to win every white teddy bear. River had already decided to make them centerpieces, covered in pink roses and white lilies. There wasn’t much winning that night, but she wasn’t deterred. There was always the state fair. And if nothing else, she’d just give in and buy the rest.

She’d have plenty of time to win the rest, since we decided to wait until I graduated from college. Our plans didn’t work out the way we wanted; I dropped out of college and took over the family business after Dad retired and Aaron shattered his knee. Construction wouldn’t’ve been friendly to him.

River and I spent years adjusting our finances to get the company out of the hole Dad somehow managed to dig it into. We almost sold the damned thing instead. But Dad’s pride – and my own – kept it barely alive until we hit the jackpot of contracts: we won the bid on a high-end gated community. The company built every house. Every million-dollar McMansion got our stamp of approval. Dad’s little construction company doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled in size as the multimillion-dollar contracts kept coming in.

We finally got to sit down and plan the wedding out, nearly a decade later than planned. Pink roses, yellow ribbons. Bridesmaids in ethereal purple-grey strapless gowns, their hairs pinned up in gentle curls, with pink and yellow flowers braided in until they looked like fairies.

River had too many white bears by then and donated the rest to a local children’s hospital, where she soon spent every other weekend after getting Pete his therapy dog certification.

It was a week before our wedding when we went back to the creek. River and I hadn’t been in over a year. We missed it. We missed the simplicity long before bills and fertility issues and Pete’s passing, his life stolen from us by a city bus.

We were home, visiting our families, putting the finishing touches on our venue – my parents’ backyard. River triple checked the number of white folding chairs my dad stored in the basement. And quadruple checked that her dress was in one piece in the spare bedroom.

We met with the florist one more time, making sure that Pete had his own memorial bouquet on the welcome table full of snapdragons and marigolds, accented by the used tennis balls that River couldn’t bring herself to part with.

The sun was setting at the end of our last day as an unmarried couple, lighting the waterfall on fire. It matched River’s hair. I knelt beside her and proposed to her for the billionth time, making sure she hadn’t changed her mind on me in twenty years. Her voice rang through the trees like bells during Christmas mass as she assured me – for the billionth time – that the answer was yes.

After a quick pat on the head, River left me behind to climb the waterfall and jump into the watering hole “like old times.” Her thirty-fifth birthday was just around the corner, and she’d been scared about old age and being an old mom. “Like old times.” Like when she didn’t have the aches of early onset arthritis. Or the gurgling of IBS. Or the thin lines of anxiety-born silver hair that framed her face and glittered in the patio light as we watched the wild rabbits sneak across our yard.

River bounced like Aaron did before taking a leap of faith. She tried a double flip, like when she was captain on her college’s diving team. The second rotation was never completed. She overshot.

River bounced on a rock. A crack resonated through the forest, followed by my unearthly scream as her poinsettias and carnations disappeared into the sapphire-encrusted void.

I begged. Pleaded.

But the creek took my River away.