Smoke clung to the cold air like it clung to my lungs. Exhale. The wind off the river was chilled. The crispy fallen leaves crackled behind me. I faced the sound. Tyson was wearing his bright orange jacket.

“You going hunting?” I asked.

He laughed. “It’s the only jacket I got.”

“Puff?”

He grabbed the cigarette and pulled off it. “Where’s JP?”

“Thought he’d come with you,” I said.

Tyson looked out at the water.

“What, you want to swim?” I asked.

He looked at me like I was stupid and then pointed with the cigarette to his feet. “I’m not getting my new shoes wet.”

“You know you’re going to ruin those shoes before today’s over.”

“Nah.” He blew smoke. “My mom will kill me.”

“Whatever you say.” I took the cigarette and turned back toward the river. “So when’s JP getting here?”

Tyson looked at me, startled, and then he laughed. “Oh yeah, he said head down to the spot and he’d meet us there.”

“So if I didn’t ask, then we’d be waiting here for no one?” I poked him in the chest. “I’m telling JP you forgot what he said. He’s going to go after you during battle.”

“He’s going to go after me no matter what.”

Tyson followed me into the deep woods, bending and twisting through tree limbs. “Well, now he’s going to go after you even harder.”

We had spots all over the Island. Dry spots. Wet spots. Lonely, unvisited spots. Where we were going had been someone else’s spot years ago: a rope swing hung from a high branch off a tree that had an old rotting tree house in it. Nothing grew within fifty feet of there.

When we arrived, JP was on the rope swing, one foot stuck in the knothole, the other dangling. The tree branch bent and creaked under his weight.

“I been waiting long enough,” JP said.

I pulled another cigarette from my pocket and lit it. “Tyson said you’re too heavy to be on that.”

“What?” JP struggled to free his foot from the knothole.

“No I didn’t,” Tyson said.

I said it again. “Tyson said you were too heavy to be on that.”

“Heavy? You wait, Tyson. I got a heavy fucking stick coming your way.”

Tyson’s voice cracked. “I didn’t say that!”

“Don’t matter if you said it or not.” JP freed his foot. “What matters is it was said. And you’re done for.” We walked closer and JP met us. He then plunged two fingers into Tyson’s chest and laughed. “Just messing with you. Let me get a puff, David.”

I handed it to him. In between drags JP watched Tyson. JP kept shaking his head.

“What?” Tyson said.