The Edge of Things

I didn’t plan to go back to the quarry.

I just... ended up there.

Feet on autopilot, backpack slung half-open, sketchbook wedged between a crumpled sandwich and an unopened soda can. I hadn’t eaten lunch. Hadn’t wanted to. Not after the looks in the hallway. Not after the way Tyler Crane kept popping up like a warning.

The walk out past the edge of town felt quieter today. The bugs weren’t as loud. The heat pressed down, but the air smelt cleaner. Like rain had washed some of the rot off Pinegate’s skin.

I didn’t expect to see him.

But when I stepped past the trees and the quarry opened up in front of me, he was there.

Sitting on the ledge.

Same spot I’d climbed out of days ago, like he’d claimed it since.

Eli had his knees pulled up, arms resting over them. His head was down, like maybe he didn’t hear me. Like maybe he wasn’t there to be seen.

I almost turned around.

Almost.

But something in his posture stopped me. Not just tired. Not just quiet.

He looked... alone.

Not the dramatic kind. Not the loud kind.

The kind of alone you don’t show unless you think nobody’s watching.

So I kept walking.

Gravel shifted under my boots. A twig snapped.

He didn’t move.

Didn’t flinch.

Just said, “Do you always walk this loudly?”

His voice wasn’t sharp this time. No challenge. Just soft.

Like maybe he hadn’t wanted to be alone, either.

I didn’t answer him.

Just dropped my bag a few feet away and lowered myself onto the ledge, careful not to sit too close. The rock was warm from the sun, rough beneath my palms.

We sat like that for a while.

Not talking.

Not moving.

Just breathing in the same stretch of quiet air, looking out at the water like it might eventually speak for us.

Eli tossed a pebble into the quarry. It landed without much splash, barely a ripple. He watched the circles fade before throwing another.

“Still looks like the end of the world out here,” he said.

I nodded. “The part right before it caves in.”

He smiled at that. Just a little.

“You ever wonder what’s at the bottom?” he asked.

“Not really.”

“Liar.”

I glanced at him. He wasn’t looking at me. Just at the water. Like maybe it held something he didn’t want to admit.

“Old tyres, probably,” I said.

“Ghosts”, he replied.

“Of what?”

He shrugged. “People who stayed too long.”

The breeze moved across the surface, just enough to scatter the sun.

I leaned back on my hands, legs stretched in front of me. “What are you listening to lately?” I asked to change the subject.

Eli blinked, then pulled a cassette tape from his jacket pocket. “Lucinda Williams”, he said. “She’s pissed off in a way that makes sense.”

I huffed a quiet laugh. “Didn’t peg you for country.”

“It’s not a country,” he said. “It’s grief with a guitar.”

That shut me up for a second.

He threw another pebble.

And for a minute, we weren’t preacher’s son and miner’s boy, weren’t rumour or risk.

We were just two kids, sitting at the edge of something.

“You finish the worksheet?” I asked, eyes still on the water.

Eli didn’t answer right away.

Then: “Yeah.”

I nodded, like that was what I’d come to ask.

It wasn’t.

“You?” he said, glancing sideways.

“Mostly.” That was a lie. I hadn’t touched it since class. Couldn’t remember where I’d even put it.

We went quiet again.

The kind of quiet that feels like it’s pressing in on your skin, waiting for someone to flinch.

“You don’t have to keep pretending it’s about school,” he said.

His voice wasn’t sharp. Just... tired. Like he didn’t want to do the work of pretending anymore.

I looked over at him. He was picking at a thread on his jeans, pulling it loose, letting the fray get longer.

“I’m not pretending,” I said.

“You are.”

I let that sit.

Didn’t argue.

Because he wasn’t wrong.

“You didn’t come out here to talk about Faulkner,” he added.

“Neither did you.”

He looked up and met my eyes.

And for a second, we just stared at each other.

Not angry.

Not afraid.

Just... seeing.

Something in my chest twitched. Like a string being pulled tight.

“We’re not going to talk about it, are we?” I asked quietly.

Eli blinked slowly. “Talk about what?”

He didn’t mean it as a game.

He meant it as a dare.

I looked away.

“I guess not,” I muttered.

Eli leaned forward, elbows on his knees, head bowed like he was thinking too hard or trying not to.

The wind tugged at the edge of his sleeve.

"You know," he said after a long minute, “when I left Pinegate... I thought the feelings would go too.”

He didn’t look at me when he said it.

I didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe.

“New town, new school, new church... new mask,” he continued. “People didn’t ask as many questions if you said all the right things in all the right ways.”

He paused, picked up a small chunk of gravel, rolled it between his fingers.

“But it doesn’t really go away. You just get better at pretending it’s not there.”

I didn’t say anything.

Not yet.

He tossed the gravel into the water. It didn’t skip. Just dropped, straight down. Gone.

“When I came back, I told myself it was temporary,” he said. “Just until my dad figures out what to do with me. Just until the noise in my head calms down.”

He finally looked at me.

“And then you were there.”

My heart kicked hard against my ribs.

Not in a romantic way.

Not even a hopeful way.

Just in that oh, shit, this is real way.

Eli didn’t wait for me to say anything.

He didn’t need to.

He’d already said enough.

We didn’t move.

Not for a long time.

The wind stirred the tops of the trees. Somewhere off in the woods, a bird called out once, then went quiet. The quarry water stretched in front of us, still and black and bottomless.

Eli pulled his sleeves down over his wrists and rested his chin on his arms.

I sat with my knees drawn up, fingers dug into the fabric of my jeans.

The silence wasn’t heavy this time.

It wasn’t tight.

It just... was.

It filled the space between us without choking it.

I didn’t know what to say. Not because I didn’t want to—because anything I could’ve said would’ve felt too small.

So I didn’t.

I just stayed.

Eli didn’t look at me again. But he didn’t stand up orwalk away.

And neither did I.

The quarry didn’t need us to speak. It just held the weight of what we couldn’t say.

And maybe that was enough—for now.

Just sitting there, side by side.

Waiting for nothing.

But still there.

Still breathing.

Still staying.