Taken (Erin Bowman)

depths.
    “Really?”
    “Yeah, the red-tailed ones. My uncle and I used to see them here each year. Always returning, always the same pairs together. If the birds pick one mate for life, why can’t we?”
    I feel foolish for a moment. I spend hours in the woods every day and I’ve never noticed this in the hawks. Then again, I was never looking for it.
    “Maybe some animals mate for life and others don’t,” I say. “Maybe we’re not supposed to be like the birds.”
    “Maybe we are.”
    She looks so pretty, sitting there, twisting grass between her tan fingers. I wonder if we are the only people who wish this, who long to ignore the matchups and procedures and settle into something that feels right. There I go again, thinking with the feelings in my chest instead of using my head. If we were like the birds, we’d die out in a matter of decades, once all the men were gone. I still wish it were possible though, wish I were a bird and Emma were a bird and we could fly away without looking back.
    “You really are nothing like him,” Emma says. It pulls me from my thoughts and I find her staring at me, again with the same inquisitive look I can’t read. “Like Blaine,” she clarifies.
    “I know, I know. He’s kind and responsible, and I’m reckless. He thinks things through. I react.”
    “Yeah, I know, but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Maybe it’s good to just react, to not overthink everything. If we were wild and free, like the birds, you’d survive. Blaine probably wouldn’t. He’d be too worried with pleasing everyone and making everything fair.”
    “Sounds like I’m pretty selfish.”
    “No, that’s not what I meant.” She wrings her fingers anxiously. “I’m trying to say that I think doing what you feel can’t always be easy, but at least you’re being true to yourself.”
    “It’s okay, Emma, you don’t have to try to make me seem like a better person. You don’t have to justify why it’s all right to spend time with me.”
    “No, I’m not . . . ,” she says, frustration on her face. “Dammit, Gray, I’m trying to say I admire you for what you said about the slating, that I agree with you, that it’s not crazy to want to be like the birds, but above all, I’m trying to apologize for how I’ve judged you all these years. You’re different from Blaine but maybe not in a bad way. Maybe in a very good way, and I’m only seeing it for the first time.”
    She’s staring right into me with those eyes of hers, dark orbs as large as walnuts. Something in my chest surges. Suddenly it is very warm.
    “You want to go for a swim?” I ask, jumping from the rock. As much as I want to be near her, I need distance. It’s those words. What do they mean? Earlier today she despised me, thought me wicked for hitting Chalice, and now she admires me? All because I follow those feelings in my chest?
    “Swim?” she asks. “Right now? It’s not even that hot out.”
    “Suit yourself,” I say, tearing away from her and running down the flower-filled hillside. When I reach the edge of the lake, I turn back and can see Emma gazing down at me, perplexed. She’s probably still trying to figure out why her kind words sent me running.
    “You coming?” I yell back up the hill. She shrugs her shoulders and then hops from the rock.
    I pull off my boots and strip down to my drawers and am in the water before Emma is even halfway to the lake. The cold hits me savagely, biting at my lungs. It’s refreshing, though, and I feel like I can breathe again, Emma’s words falling aside as I kick into open water. I’m floating on my back, staring up at an impressive mass of clouds forming overhead, when something splashes beside me. I twist over and see Emma along the shore, tossing pebbles in my direction. She has waded in up to her shins, the hem of her white dress gathered in her arms.
    “Are you coming in or not?”
    She shakes her head. “It’s too cold.”
    “Wimp.”
    “Oh, please.”
    “Well, you are.” I swim in until I’m close enough to the shore to splash her with a well-placed kick. Water catches the front of her dress and her face goes wide with shock. It probably feels like ice to her.
    “Oh, you’re going to get it,” she shouts.
    “How? I’m already in.” I swim back toward the lake’s center.
    She’s fuming. She tugs her dress up over her shoulders and throws it aside before running and diving headlong into the water. She’s the better