Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April Genevieve Tucholke

from the Citizen, and after we ate, the four of us curled up on the blankets in the sand and watched the flames dance orange-yellow-red against the blue sea. 
    I had my own blanket, and River had his.We didn’t sit near each other and I didn’t even look at him. 
    Mostly. 
    River was lying on his back, knees bent, his pretty, bare feet tucked halfway into the sand. He must have felt me staring at him, because he turned his head and winked at me, slow and casual, as if he knew that I was beginning to distrust him a bit,and he wanted to show me he didn’t all that much care. 
    There was something about sleeping next to a person that was . . . dangerous. More dangerous than sleeping with a person, maybe. Not that I would know. But being next to River, in the same bed, and waking up beside him, did bad things to my mind. I felt as if I knew him already. Like how I knew Sunshine, and Luke, and my parents. Like how I knew Freddie. 
    But I didn’t.At all.And that knowing feeling,based on nothing, was dangerous. And, I felt, not quite sane. 
    “So Violet, get this.” 
    Sunshine was all tucked up next to my brother, her elbow on his thigh, her hand on the bottle of wine, her long dark hair touching the sand. 
    “Get what?” I asked as I shoved her arm off Luke’s leg. 
    “I had a dream last night. A dream about a giraffe.” 
    I took the bottle out of Sunshine’s hand and set it behind my back. It was almost gone.“A giraffe?” 
    “Yeah, this giraffe that I was friends with.You see, this giraffe had a party, and I helped her clean up afterward. I never dream about giraffes. Do little kids even dream about giraffes? But here’s where it gets interesting. I read the front page of the Portland paper at the café and it said some giraffe at some zoo died yesterday. And I just realized that it probably means something. Don’t you think that it means something? I think it means something.” 
    Sunshine was drunk. She would never have talked about her dreams otherwise. Sunshine hated illogical things, like dreams and fairy tales and Salvador Dalí. 
    “Sunshine, you’re drunk,” I said. 
    She raised her eyebrows.“Didn’t you hear,Violet? Boys like drunk girls.” At this, Sunshine turned over on her side in the sand, lifted her arm, and let it fall in a gentle arc onto her hip.Then she wiggled.Just a little bit.Just in the exact right spot. 
    Sunshine continued to amaze me with her ability to draw attention to what she considered her most interesting parts. Without seeming to try. 
    Luke stood up, reached around me, and took the port bottle. “That’s right, Sunshine. We do like drunk girls. What do you think, River? I bet you’ve had a few drunk girls in your time. Less fuss, I say.” My brother paused and took a swig from the bottle. “Women are always making it so hard for us men to get the one thing nature intended for us to have. It’s such a shame.” 
    So Luke was at it again. I thought he might give up the man-love talk with River, but the wine had brought it back. River shook his head at Luke’s comment and kind of laughed. Sometimes my brother said things that were so, well, wrong, in so many ways, it was impossible to do anything but laugh. 
    Luke grinned at River and drank down the last of the port in one long gulp. He reached his arm back and threw the empty bottle into the bumping, grinding waves of the sea. 
    “Luke,what the hell did you do that for?”I gestured at the water. “The bottle will break and someone will walk along the beach and cut their feet.” 
    “Shut up,Vi.No one but us even knows about this spot.” 
    “I can’t believe you think throwing a bottle at the ocean makes you look cool.It’s so dumb,I don’t even have words to describe how dumb it is. It’s speech-sucking dumb.” 
    “Stop squabbling,siblings.”Sunshine put her hands on the sand and pushed herself to her feet.“The fire’s almost out and the wind is picking up. Let’s go back.