The plop of a frog hopping into the stagnant river echoed between Adrianna and Daryl. Adrianna watched the sun set over the water, making the fantastical shimmer of the river grow dull. Lightning bugs were starting to emerge from hiding, and the crickets and frogs picked up singing where the birds left off. She held her breath as she hesitated to say anything, afraid the wrong words might come out. He used to be so easy to talk to.
“Why don’t we ever come here anymore?” she asked after a stent of silence.
Daryl shrugged; his eyes lazily focused on a dragonfly skimming the top of the water.
Adrianna fidgeted her hands and looked everywhere except at Daryl. “Remember when we caught five frogs in one day? We should come back here tomorrow and try to beat our record.”
A disgusted look crossed Daryl’s face as he threw his stone into the water. It skipped once, enough to disturb the congregating mosquitos. “That was so long ago,” he said.
“This was our place. We would come here to get away from everybody,” Adrianna said slowly. She smiled as the memory came back to mind. “You called me your tadpole.”
Daryl smirked as he picked up a flat stone from the ground. “Yea,” he said flatly. Heat started to rise through her body as her nerves tensed, but she continued to convince herself nothing was wrong.
She turned toward Daryl and placed her hand on his forearm, eager for attention. “And then we found all of those tadpoles! I ran home and got a jar, then they lived on my porch for a couple weeks. We watched them lose their tails and grow some legs.” Her eyes were far away as her expression fell slightly, “None of them survived to be a frog though.”
“I told you they would die if we took them away from the river,” Daryl said, skipping another stone. Adrianna slid her hand off his arm and watched as the stone held onto the top layer of water. It was as if the tighter the stone gripped, the bigger the ripple it made. Eventually, it gave up and let go, sinking to the bottom.
“Frogs are dirty anyway,” he said, breaking the momentary silence.
Adrianna frowned, “Are you saying you don’t want to catch frogs with me tomorrow?”
“Not really,” Daryl said with a laugh.
Her heart sank at his reply, but she was eager to save the conversation. “But you used to love it,” she pleaded.
“Yeah, years ago. Then I learned how dirty they are,” he replied.
She swallowed to push back the emotions rising in her throat.
“I told Mark I’d meet him at the steak house, I should get going,” he stood up and looked her in the eye for the first time in thirty minutes.
“So soon?” she asked helplessly as she looked up at him.
“We’ve been here for an hour now, what more is there to do?”
Arianna struggled to find the perfect words to get him to stay just a minute longer. She could persuade him with something more interesting than frog catching. What would he want? Something more mature? Her mind wasn’t quick enough.
“I’ll see you later,” he said and turned away.
As the array of new emotions welled-up in her, she fought to push them back. Wonderful memories played in her mind: counting tadpoles, running through the river with their dogs, getting stuck in mud up to their knees (and laughing when they had to leave the river without their shoes). The memories would never happen again.
After a long moment, as the last minutes of sunlight were fading away, she walked towards the river. She almost lost her footing on the moss-covered rocks before she made it to a small, stagnant pool of water. Adrianna strained her eyes in the dark to see multiple tadpoles, barely the size of a pea, swimming in their temporary home. Once the tadpoles sprout legs, they’ll need to leave the puddle to survive.
They’ll need to become frogs.
