Seeing Through the Mud

Lena and Jace had lived four doors apart on Oakhaven their whole lives.

The first fight was over a toy dump truck when they were five

“It’s mine, I found it first,” Jace had said, clutching it tight.

“You were picking your nose when I saw it,” Lena shot back, yanking it out of his hands.

He’d thrown a handful of dirt at her back, and she’d chased him all the way down the block, screaming. Even then, they had something in common neither understood yet—each of them fought for everything, because nothing was handed to them. By eight, the rivalry was in full swing.

“Bet you can’t get to the top of the fence before me,” Jace would say.

“Bet I can—and I won’t rip my pants doing it like you did last time,” Lena would fire back.

Neither of them mentioned that they climbed that fence to escape the fighting coming from their homes. Lena’s mom worked doubles at the diner and slept most of the day when she was home. Her stepdad was gone more often than not, but when he was there, his temper filled the house like cigarette smoke. Jace’s mom drank herself to sleep most nights, and his dad had left when he was two. On bad days, Jace ate crackers for dinner and hoped his mom wouldn’t notice the missing ones in the morning. The streets were their playground, but also their shield. At twelve, Lena won the school spelling bee.

“Nobody cares about words, you know,” Jace told her afterward.

“Sure they do. They’re how I tell you you’re a sore loser,” she said.

What she didn’t tell him was she studied in the bathroom at night, sitting on the floor with the door locked so she wouldn’t hear the fights in the living room. By seventeen, the rivalry had teeth. When they both wanted the summer job at the gas station, things got ugly.

“You bribed him, didn’t you?” Jace accused after she got hired.

“Yeah, with something you’ve never heard of—being on time,” Lena replied.

She didn’t tell him she needed the job to pay for her own school clothes because her mom “forgot” to set money aside. He didn’t tell her he needed it so he could buy food without relying on his mom’s grocery money, which usually went toward booze. Years later, not much had changed—except the stakes were higher. Both were scraping by, chasing the same scraps of day labor and hustles. Their rivalry was survival disguised as competition. The night the storm came, Oakhaven was drowning in rain. Lena was on her way home from the store when she saw a crowd gathering at the bridge. People were pointing, shouting over the roar of the river.

“Somebody’s in there!” a man yelled.

She followed their eyes—and froze.

“Jace?”

He was clinging to a broken plank, his face pale, the current threatening to drag him under. Before she thought, Lena dropped her groceries in the mud and charged into the freezing water.

“Jace! Hold on!” she yelled.

His head dipped under, panic flaring in her chest. She lunged, catching his shirt just as the current tried to rip him away.

“Got you—don’t you dare let go!” she gasped.

“I—can’t—” he choked, coughing up river water.

She hooked her arm around his chest.

“Kick, damn it! Kick!”

He obeyed, and together they staggered toward the bank. Her boots sank into the mud, her legs burning, but she kept pulling until they collapsed in the wet grass. Jace rolled onto his back, coughing hard.

“Thought—” cough—“you’d let me drown.”

“Don’t tempt me,” she said, but her hands were still gripping his shirt. Together they got up and staggered to a nearby church shelter which smelled of wet clothes and instant soup. Jace went over to the paramedic station and Lena sat on a folding chair, shivering. Soon the paramedic brought Jace over to where Lena sat.They didn’t speak at first. The heater hummed in the corner.

“I’ve spent my whole life trying to beat you,” he said finally.

Lena raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“Didn’t think you’d be the one to save me.”

She gave a small shrug. “Maybe we were never supposed to be on different teams.”

Jace got up and walked to different part of the shelter. Soon He came back with a chipped mug of coffee. “You looked cold,” he said, setting it in her hands.

“This isn’t some trick, is it?” Lena asked.

“Guess you’ll have to drink it to find out,” he said with a tired smirk.

She took a sip. “Not bad. I’m impressed—you didn’t spit in it.”

“Don’t push your luck,” he muttered, sitting close and pulling the blanket over them both. It was awkward at first—two people who’d spent years fighting, now pressed shoulder to shoulder. But after a minute, Lena leaned in just enough to feel his warmth. Together side by side they dozed off into dreamless sleep.

Three weeks had gone past and the river had calmed, but Oakhavenstill bore the scars—mud lines on buildings, debris piled at the curbs. Jace was repairing a broken fence when Lena walked by with her groceries

“That fence isn’t straight,” she called.

“It’s straight enough,” he shot back without looking up. “Not everything needs to be perfect, Lena.”

She smirked. “Good thing, or you’d be in trouble.”

He glanced over. “You offering to help, or just here to criticize?”

“Depends. You paying?”

“He grinned, shaking his head. “You’re impossible.”

She set the grocery bag down and grabbed a hammer from his toolbox. For a while, they worked in silence.

“You know,” Jace said finally, “growing up… I used to wish I lived anywhere but Oakhaven”

“Yeah,” Lena said softly, eyes on the nail she was driving in. “Me too.”

“But I figure now… maybe it wasn’t the place that made it so bad.”

She glanced at him. “No?”

“Nah. It was just… not having anyone to watch my back. And I think maybe I do now.”

Lena looked at him for a long moment, then gave a faint smile. “See you tomorrow, Jace.”

As she walked away, he caught himself grinning. For the first time in years, their story didn’t feel like a fight. It felt like something worth keeping.