Cicada Year

The cicadas started screaming the day after they dropped him off.

They hadn’t even pulled back onto the highway before the noise hit, a dense, buzzing, everywhere. Like the earth was trying to talk but didn’t know how to speak.

It was the first time Eli had seen these particular ‘family friends’ in years. The last time, he’d still been short and soft-spoken and easy to confuse for one of the girls. Now he was taller than Aunt Marla, voice dipped into the uncomfortable middle-space between boy and man. That should’ve helped. It didn’t.

His mother hadn’t come with him. She’d handed his bag to him at the gate, hugged him too long, and whispered,

“Just get through it, okay?” before slipping back into the car like she was ashamed. Maybe afraid.

Aunt Marla had smiled tight.

“Well, you’re taller than I remember.” Uncle Doug hadn’t looked up from the grill. It was going to be that kind of summer.

The house smelled like lemon cleaner and something vaguely fried. There were patriotic decorations left over from the Fourth, little flags in every planter and a wreath on the door that spelled ‘FREEDOM’ in red, white, and blue felt. Eli followed the smell of dinner into the kitchen and tried not to flinch when he saw the crucifix above the fridge.

His room was the guest room. No posters. A patchy quilt with a bald eagle on it. A Bible on the nightstand. The only thing that made it feel like someone had thought of him was a little stack of books beside the bed. YA novels with dust jackets, half-peeled, as if they’d been pulled from a donation bin. He was grateful anyway.

Dinner that night was chicken and green beans and no one said anything. Except Caleb.

Caleb was fifteen. One year younger, but broader across the chest, with a tan that came from time outside, not a bottle. He had freckles, arms lined with sweat, and a voice that cracked when he laughed. The sound didn’t come often, but when it happened, it made Eli’s heart ache in a way he didn’t have words for yet.

Caleb was the one who passed him the salt without asking. The one who asked what kind of music he liked. The one who didn’t stare too long, but long enough.

“We’ll be working the orchard in the mornings,” Uncle Doug said. “Then you boys can do what you want in the afternoons. Long as it’s not video games or gettin’ in trouble.” To this, Caleb only grinned,

“Heard, sir.” Eli tried to smile, too. It didn’t reach.

That night, he lay on top of the sheets, half-naked in the heat, and listened to the cicadas screaming like they were being born and dying all at once. The sound crawled under the window, into his ears, into his ribs. It was relentless. Like everything inside him was vibrating to match.

The door creaked. A breath. Then, Caleb’s voice, low and soft.

“You good?” Eli startled upright.

“Yeah. Just hot.” Caleb stepped into the doorway, backlit by the hall light, hair curling damp at his neck.

“The cicadas get louder before they go quiet,” he said. “Just means they’re close to done.” Eli nodded, though he didn’t understand.

“How long do they stay?”

“Seventeen years underground, then a few weeks up here. Then they die.” He said it like it was just a fact. Just biology. But it hit Eli in the gut. “Night,” Caleb said, and he left before Eli could answer.

Alone again, Eli stared at the ceiling and wondered what it would be like to stay buried for seventeen years and then emerge, only to find nothing had changed at all.

-

The orchard felt older than it should have been.

Rows of gnarled trees arched toward the sun, heavy with fruit not quite ripe. The air buzzed with more cicadas, but they were joined by bees, flies and the low thrum of humidity pressing on Eli like a second skin. Everything stuck. The air. The sweat. The silence.

Caleb worked like it meant something.

He moved through the trees with quiet precision, climbing branches like he belonged. Eli watched him from the grass below, fingers stained with sap and soil. When he wasn’t looking, Eli stared openly. When he was, Eli stared harder.

They didn’t talk about what happened. Not the thing back home. Not why he was here. Not the note that got passed around and made its way to the principal’s office. Not the way his mom cried in the car afterward.

Caleb didn’t ask. And that felt like mercy.

Instead they talked about dumb things. Music. Movies. Their shared hatred for small-town gas stations.

“You ever see a kid eat nachos outta a styrofoam bowl while barefoot on hot asphalt?” Caleb had asked, deadpan. “Changed me, spiritually I mean.” Eli had laughed so hard he choked.

Afternoons were for showers and sitting still. Aunt Marla didn’t like the boys watching TV for long, so they’d sit on the porch with cheap lemonade, listening to the cicadas scream from the trees. Uncle Dough left them alone as long as they stayed quiet and looked like they were thinking about Jesus or hard work or nothing at all.

There was a rhythm to it. Work. Sweat. Laugh. Pretend.

And Eli could almost forget how it felt to flinch every time someone looked at him too long.

Almost.

One night, after dinner, Aunt Marla pulled him aside. The sun was setting. Her voice was soft.

“I know things’ve been…confusing for you,” she said, folding a towel like it might save her. “We’re praying. Not just for change. But for peace. You know?” Eli only nodded. She touched his arm like he might crumble. “I just want you to know this home is a safe place. For you. And for Caleb. So we expect you to act…respectfully. With boundaries.”

The word hung in the air like smoke.

“I didn’t –” Eli started, but she shook her head.

“I’m not accusing. I’m reminding.” He said nothing.

That night, Eli couldn’t sleep. The air was thicker than usual. He threw off his sheet, laying there in the heat and silence, feeling his pulse everywhere. Louder and louder. A floorboard creaked. Then another.

The hallway glowed faintly, and Caleb appeared in the doorway again, barefoot, backlit. Eli didn’t move.

“You awake?” Caleb whispered. A nod. “Come on then.” Eli followed him without question.

They didn’t speak as they crept out the back door and across the yard, over the grass and under the dark branches that rattled with night wind and insect hum. They didn’t stop until they reached the edge of the orchard, where the trees thinned and the stars broke free overhead.

Caleb lay down on the ground like it was nothing. Eli did the same, body rigid, heart feral in his chest. They stared up at the sky. The cicadas howled.

“I hate this place,” Caleb said finally. Eli breathed out,

“Me too.” They didn’t say anything else. Just let the night sit with them, thick and endless. Let the heat press into the earth. Let the stillness buzz between their arms. Not quite touching.

But almost.

-

The next morning, Caleb wouldn’t meet his eyes.

He handed Eli a bucket and walked ahead into the trees like nothing had happened. Like they hadn’t laid in the orchard breathing the same sky. Like Eli hadn’t imagined, hoped really, their arms might brush. That he might say ‘stay longer’ or even ‘I know’.

Eli said nothing, either. He couldn’t afford to be wrong. But everything felt off. The air was meaner. The sun angrier. The cicadas shrieked louder than ever, a noise so constant it made Eli’s teeth ache. He dropped a peach. It split on the ground like a wound. Caleb didn’t look back.

That night, Aunt Marla hosted a prayer circle. Four women in pastel cardigans gathered in the living room while the boys were sent to sit out back with lemonade and a Bible between them, as if proximity to scripture might straighten something out.

They sat in silence, watching the porch light flicker.

“I didn’t tell her nothing,” Caleb said suddenly.

“What?” Eli blinked.

“My mom,” Caleb clarified. “About last night. About you.” Eli stared down at the condensation on his glass.

“There’s nothing to tell.” A pause.

“Right.” The quiet wasn’t peaceful now. It was barbed. And hot. Always hot. Sweat crept down Eli’s spine and he didn’t wipe it away.

Inside the voices rose in song, soft harmonies about mercy and fire and forgiveness. Eli knew the words. He had grown up inside them. He had sung along once, hard and bright, hoping faith could cure what hadn’t even been named yet.

“I’m not mad,” Eli said finally, even though he was. Not at Caleb. At everything. At how fast kindness curdled. At how silence could feel like betrayal.

“I know,” Caleb said. But he didn’t sound sure. When the prayer circle ended, Aunt Marla offered them cookies and talked about the great beauty of struggle. Eli took two, ate neither.

Later, in bed, he imagined slicing his chest open and letting the heat pour out. He imagined his body like a cicada shell, something to be shed, left behind on a tree branch, brittle and emptied.

He imagined kissing Caleb. Just once. Not with want. With grief. Like an apology for how heavy it all was.

-

The next afternoon, it finally rained. Thunder cracked the heat in two, and the sky collapsed in wet sheets. Eli stood on the porch with his arms bare, letting the wind slap his face. The cicadas kept screaming.

Caleb stepped outside, blinking like he hadn’t seen real weather in years,

“You’re gonna get soaked.” Eli didn’t move. A beat passed. Then Caleb walked down the steps and into the storm. He didn’t touch Eli. Just stood beside him, skin steaming with heat and rain. The world went blurry with water and noise.

“I think I hear them dying,” Caleb said.

“What?’

“The cicadas. It’s louder before it ends.” Eli swallowed,

“Good.” Caleb looked at him sideways,

“You don’t mean that.”

Eli turned. Their faces were inches apart,

“Then tell me what I mean,” he said. For a second, he thought Caleb would say it. Then the rain got harder. Caleb blinked and stepped back.

“We should go in,” he said. “We’ll catch something.” Eli nodded. But he didn’t move. He stayed out there long after Caleb disappeared, soaked to the skin, fists clenched, listening to the scream of dying insects and thinking.

They only ever get a few weeks. That’s all they get. And they scream through every second of it.

-

By the last week of July, the cicadas began to fall.

They littered the porch steps and driveway, curled like question marks. Their shells clung to trees and fences, empty and amber, split straight down the back.

Eli picked one up. Held it in his palm. It was so light he almost couldn’t feel it.

“Gross,” Caleb muttered behind him. “Don’t bring it inside.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“You were thinking about it.” Eli set the shell down on the windowsill like a prayer,

“I just wanted to look at it.” Caleb shrugged, then disappeared into the house. The door swung behind him, not quite slamming.

The air was a little clearer now. The heat less angry. But the silence had grown heavier, like it knew summer was ending and wanted to take up as much space as possible before it went.

They didn’t go back to the orchard. Uncle Doug said the trees needed rest. That the soil had to settle before the second harvest. Eli understood. So did his body. He felt scraped out. Hollow.

The night before he left, Eli packed slowly. His fingers paused over the book Caleb had loaned him. ‘A dumb one’, Caleb had said, ‘but it gets good near the end.’ Eli hadn’t finished it. He wasn’t sure if he would.

Dinner was quieter than usual. Aunt Marla said grace for too long. Uncle Doug mentioned something about traffic and weather. Caleb didn’t speak. Afterwards, as Eli stood in the kitchen rinsing plates, Caleb touched his wrist. Just a flick, a blink, and said,

“Come on.” They walked without speaking to the edge of the orchard, where the trees thinned and the stars blinked like they’d forgotten their names. The same spot. The same grass. This time, Caleb lay closer.

“You’re really leaving?” he asked. Eli nodded. “I mean, yeah,” Caleb said quickly. “I know. I just…” He trailed off.

The cicadas were nearly gone. Their song had thinned to a rattle. A breath.

“I wanted this to be different,” Caleb said. Eli didn’t ask what he meant. Because he already knew. “I don’t hate you,” Caleb added, quiet. “Just so you know.”

Eli looked at him. At the space between them that used to be full of what-ifs.

“I know,” Eli said. Caleb rolled onto his back and stared at the sky like it might answer something.

“They were only up here for a few weeks, right?” Caleb asked. Eli nodded. “Seventeen years underground,” Caleb whispered. “For that.”

“They made it count,” Eli said.

They didn’t say goodbye.

-

The next morning, Eli’s mother honked from the driveway, and he carried his bag to the car without looking back. Aunt Marla hugged him briefly. Uncle Doug nodded. Caleb stayed inside.

The cicadas were silent. As they pulled onto the highway, Eli rolled down the window. Wind roared in, hot and dry, but something in him had cracked open.

In his pocket, the cicada shell rattled gently, weightless and hollow.

He closed his hand around it.

And held on.