Breathlessly, she tumbled down the muddy slope, wondering how her well-worn running shoes were still gripping the ground. It was simply gravity, she mused. This was the closest the suburban teenager ever came to pure nature, and she ignored the chain-link fence that paraded its "private property: no trespassing" sign on the other side of the river.

  She landed with a soft thud on that packed earth at the bottom of the hill, wincing as her strained hip flexor momentarily collapsed. Erynne slowly lowered herself to the ground, sitting on the dirt and hardly caring about the fate of her light pink shorts.

  The forest was tranquil and undisturbed. Watching the brook dance flirtatiously over the smooth, cool stones made Erynne feel like an intruder of sorts. This innocent espionage never failed to render her insignificant, yet simultaneously vital. She was a part of something bigger than herself, perhaps unwanted by the dancing brook and the stately stones and the chain-link fence, but an important aspect nonetheless, for what was beauty without eyes to see it?

  Picking up a pebble from the river, Erynne let the accompanying water drip through her fingers until only the placidly still pebble remained in her outstretched palm. She waited to cry, but the steady gurgle of the stream, panned out in front of her, seemed to accomplish the tears all on its own. Water has energy, her mother always told her. Erynne dipped her hands in the stream and splashed the crystal clear liquid on her sweaty face.

  "Where are we going?" a tall boy asked, his voice cracking in its confusion. He was led by a girl with long brown hair and the sparkle of pre-teen love in her blue-grey eyes. She laughed, pulling him along the trail, her long, spindly fingers interlocked in his strong, secure hand. She led him down the hill to the muddy banks of the river.

  "Look," she commanded, taking his shoulders and shoving him to the best vantage point. He paused and looked around.

  "This is kind of pretty," he admitted grudgingly. He loved it; she could tell. He slowly removed his gaze from the river, eyes coming to rest on the top of her head. Vaguely conscious of being stared at, she pivoted and he placed his strong hands awkwardly over her hips, like a child learning to walk for the first time. Their eyes closed as their lips met. The stream and the birds and the wing sang along with two human hearts, a resounding melody of exhilaration and naivety...

  Erynee sighed and tossed the pebble back into the brook. She marveled at the way the current ran through it with a purposeful air, as if it knew precisely where it was going, yet it did not mind taking its time to get there. She longed to sleep here forever, shielded from the world by steep banks and chain-link fences.

  She leaned against him as the pair, now high school sophomores, sat on a bumpy tree root and ate peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Her wavy hair cascaded down his chest as she chewed thoughtfully, head resting on his shoulder and peanut butter securely affixed to the roof of her mouth. He was quiet, and she tentatively moved in closer. He kissed the top of her head, and she felt her hair softly push down on her skin.

  "Have you ever thought about the concept of negative infinity?" he asked thoughtfully.

  Unsure of whether to laugh or not, she sat up and met his hazel eyes. "You mean outside of math class?"

  "Yes. Think about it. Positive infinity extends forever upwards, always growing bigger. That much is comprehendible. We see positive infinity every day, when we gaze at the stars or breathe in the sweetest of oxygen; but negative infinity...now that's a whole different concept."

  Her brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

  "Positive infinity is a florescent red balloon slipping form a child's grasp and soaring into the sky. Negative infinity is the ground opening up and swallowing the child whole. Negative infinity is his mother's arms reaching out to save him, yet being unable to reach him. It's the darkness permeating the very core of the earth, a blackness so intense that our minds can not wrap themselves around it. I haven't believed in God for years, but I believe in infinity. The way I see it, people become light or darkness. They fly or fall forever, never simply suspended in midair."

  She humored him. "How do you know whether you'll fly or fall?"

  He rubbed the toe of his white sneaker in the mud, kicking a pebble down the bank and watching it land in the water with a soft flutter, scowling at the clouds. "Random chance, darling. It's all probability."

  They sat in numb contemplation for what seemed like hours, with the brook whispering its secrets in a language they would never understand, the sun peeking at them through the treetops, and the taste of peanut butter still fresh on their silent tongues.

  The digits on her stopwatch whirled by, changing even faster than her world. She sat with an intense stillness, as if she would hear a resounding echo of a voice from long ago at any moment, pulling her back to the days when it all made sense. The light of the sun numbed Erynne's memory, soothing her like strong hands intertwined with her long, spindly fingers, soothing her like rain. She waited and waited, silent as the stones in the water, hearing only the softly spilling secrets of the brook, with a phantom taste of peanut butter and bananas that she could not quite place.

  She laid on her bed and wondered where he was, mentally cursing her mother for grounding her just before the weekend of Sean's party. He was still going, she knew. He would only whine if she asked him to stay home and watch movies with her. She sighed and began to methodically throw a stuffed bear at the ceiling, catching it on the way down only to toss it up again, hearing the satisfying bump of the button nose meeting the plaster ceiling. She had warned him not to drink too much, but she knew him well enough to know that her wishes were going to be the farthest thing from his mind. Her mind collapsed into an uneasy sleep, a state of stressful half-consciousness, and when she woke up to her mother's hugs and the local newspaper shoved in her face the next morning, the sheets were soaked with sweat and the pillow with tears.

  Erynne picked up a twig and carved a name into the soft ground. Cody would have wanted to be there, she knew. She couldn't be angry at him, though he had hurt her. The corner of a newspaper clipping stuck out of the pocket of her grass-stained running shorts, and she held it in her hands, mentally repeating the headline that had changed her life. "CARLTON HIGH SCHOOL MOURNS LOSS OF STUDENT", it boldly declared. That girl, the one who glued her eyes to the floor whenever she and Erynne were alone in a school hallway, had survived, and her presence in the car that night was hardly mentioned. Staring back at her, in a simple black and white school photograph, was a face Erynne knew so well. Her fingertip traced the silhouette mechanically, up his neck, around his features, over his ears, and back down again. Her hands, damp from the river, obscured the text, as if the river were shedding tears of its own.

  "No matter what happens," he said in a hushed voice, hands on her hipbones and forehead pressed firmly into hers. "You will always have a place in my heart as my first love." She shivered, a chill running through her that had nothing to do with the thin-strapped dress she wore that Homecoming evening, nor the breeze that blew through the oak trees stationed like subtle sentinels outside the gym door.

  The newspaper clipping and the tattered notebook paper made their way back into the light pink pockets of her running shorts. The twig lay dormant, abandoned, on the water's edge beside the name it had just helped to preserve. She scrambled up the muddy bank, regaining her footing on the top and peering down the steep pathway for one last look at the water lapping over the stones. In time, she knew, the skies would rain down, the brook would overflow, and the name would fade into obscurity, absorbed by the power of the water. Cody would become part of the current, perhaps finding himself at last, somewhere in the depths of negative infinity.