Photo by Šárka Jonášová on Unsplash

The single chant that haunted me the first few weeks of summer was, “Push her in! Push her in!”

Never had I been so frightened of being at the docks. All the summers before had been peaceful but not this one. With the new boy in town, I believed my summer would be one of always looking over my shoulder. I was pushed into the water by those same boys so many times that I grew tired of being there.

So I made a plan. If the new boy was going to mess with me all summer, then I was going to make sure he got his fair share. My parents had a set of handcuffs and I knew where they were. I’m uncertain as to why they would have handcuffs, and I still haven’t figured that one out.

I was down at the docks getting ready to go swimming when the boys started chanting, “Push her in! Push her in!”

I had just laid my towel and snacks on the dock when I sensed the new boy behind me. As he reached to push me, I locked hands with him and was able to put one handcuff on his wrist and the other on mine as we fell into the water. We both scrambled as we reached for the surface.

“What the fuck?” screamed the new boy.

I smirked as I yelled back, “You have been causing me nothing but trouble this summer. So, I was under the impression you might enjoy being on the receiving end.”

“Where’s the key?” he yelled.

“I’m not telling you,” I said smiling.

He started pulling me out of the water, but I kept resisting. “We are stuck together so you need to treat me with respect, because I’m not going anywhere.”

Finally, we made it out of the water and fumbled to get dressed. He said “I have to go home to eat.”

I looked at him and said, “Let’s go, I’m starving.”

He shook his head as he said, “This is going to be a long day isn’t it?”

I looked at him and replied with a smile, “Maybe if we hang out for a while you will realize I’m actually a nice person, and we could be friends and not enemies.

As we walked to his house, he started to get nervous. “I think you should take these handcuffs off because my dad is going to be angry.”

We climbed the stairs and when he opened the door. I could hear his dad yelling and screaming at his mom. He pulled me back and asked, “Can we eat at your place?”

So that is where we headed and on the way there I inquired, “Is he always like that?”

“No, he is usually worse. I don’t think he would find it funny that we are handcuffed together.”

We walked the rest of the way in silence. We entered the kitchen just as my mom was pulling cookies out of the oven. She said, “Hi” to both of us and that is when she noticed the handcuffs and inquired, “Where did you get those?”

“I found them in your closet,” I replied.

“Stay here, I will be right back.” She came back with the key and unlocked the handcuffs as the boy looked at me with uncertainty.

“I sure hope you don’t get in trouble,” he replied.

“I don’t think I will. She seems more embarrassed than anything.”

The boy replied, “My dad would have tanned my ass if I did something like that.”

“Well, I’m glad your parents aren’t mine.”

He nodded. We ended up spending the next hour eating cookies and talking. Then he went home.

The next day, when I was at the docks, the boys once again started chanting, “Push her in! Push her in!” and that is when the new boy intervened and said, “No more pushing anyone into the water because this summer is about the friendships we make here at the docks, so let’s just swim.”

— Nicole Barden 6/26/2021

Originally published in Illumination on Medium