The Girl

by K Larsen

“I’m going to be—” And vomit, acidic and hot, launches from my mouth. Luckily, I roll to my side just in time, missing our little blanket bed completely. I swear I hear Dallas whisper gross under his breath, but before I can sit up to assess next steps, the blanket—with me still on it—is being dragged away from the offending throw-up. I pop the cap off a bottle of water conveniently on the blanket next to me, take a monumental swig then crawl to the edge of the blanket and spit it into the sand. Dallas, is already at our ‘old’ site, kicking sand over the vomit and I have this incredibly profound but bizarre feeling that I was born to love him. That can’t be normal, thinking that in the wake of puke. But it strikes hard and deep and feels like the kind of epiphany that leaves a little scar on your soul.

  He takes me to a convenience store just outside of town, and buys me a sports drink, a breakfast sandwich and a bag of chips and tells me to consume it all. That it will help my hangover. I can’t help but side-eye him because my stomach definitely does not agree with his plan, but he pushes and I acquiesce. We take our gas station spoils back to the beach and spend our morning being lazy in the sand under the sun, our bodies in constant contact in some way. Fingers laced, legs pressed against each other, shoulders bumped, fingers running through hair, feet playing footsie. I never want the touching to end. I never want to wake up to a day where he isn’t touching me in some way all day long.

  “Do you still want to go north?” He asks as we’re folding up the beach sheet.

  I pause, wondering why he’s asked that until last night's slow dance crashes to the forefront of my mind. A strange wave of panic or perhaps shame makes my face flush pink. Dallas takes note, stops what he’s doing and threads his arms around my waist.

  “Whatever you admitted to last night was honest, City. Don’t let the sober you discredit your drunk admission. If you want to go, we’ll go, but like I said, you can’t clam up like this. You have to tell me all the things that pop into your head when you feel them.”

  S.W.O.O.N.—can that even be an emotion and not simply a concept? If someone can swoon hard enough to feel faint, it’s me right now. Maybe it’s the hangover making my knees weak—I’d like to blame it for something—but I know this feeling Dallas causes too well now.

  “Sometimes you really throw me off my game,” I tell him, while pushing his hair back from his face.

  He makes a face at me and tightens his arms around me. “You don’t have game Charlotte. Never did.” Laughter, unrestrained and loud, dances out of him; and although I feign annoyance at the mock insult, he’s right. I wiggle out of his hold and giggle at his shaking shoulders, his heaving chest, as he laughs. Until my giggle morphs into a full-bellied laugh alongside his.

  By the time we’ve been on the road for a solid hour with the windows all the way down, I start to feel like myself again. The hangover has left me, and I thank God for that. What a crappy way to wake up. Why do people do it so often?

  The radio is up. The sun is starting to go down. A hodgepodge of strip malls, run down row houses and drive-thrus roll by as if on a conveyor belt, and the fleeting thought that it’s a long way back from sixteen flits through my mind as I stare out the window. What I’m volunteering to do, what I’m subjecting him to experience with me… is a lot. Maybe too much. Dallas tells me everything will be all right as if he can sense my unease. But is that it? It almost feels like anticipation—like excitement.

  A neon sign blinks in bright purple on a single-story building with a hip roof: Tattoos.

  I suck in a loud breath.

  “We should get tattoos,” I blurt out. His eyes catch the light. A smirk. His palm spreads wide on my thigh. I crave his touch even when he’s touching me. “I want something for us. To remember all of this.”

  “Eve will slaughter me if I bring you home with a permanent reminder of this trip.”

  I smack Dallas’s thigh. “Stop the car! I’m serious.”

  Dallas pulls into the strip mall parking lot, throws the truck in park and looks at me. “City, you don’t just get a tattoo on a whim. It’s a forever kind of thing.”

  “Well, thank you, Captain Obvious. You know, I’m actually quite intelligent and understand how things work.”

  Dallas scrubs his face and sighs. “I wasn’t being a jerk.”

  I blow out a breath and tuck my arbitrary teenage hormones away for a moment. “I know. Sorry. I...just...I really do want one.”

  Dallas throws serious shade my way with a side-eyed glare, but doesn’t protest.

  “Let’s grab something to eat. If you still want one by the time we’re done...” he closes his eyes, tilts his face to the ceiling of the cab and does the sign of the cross, “I’ll take you to get one—God help me.”

  “Not just me. I want us to get them. You too.” I bite my bottom lip and wait for his reaction.

  His head slowly turns. Eyes catch mine, and hold steady for long moments.

  “I feel like I have the entire world in the palm of my hand right now, and I, all I wanna do is make you happy. So fine, I’ll do it.”

  23

  Charlotte

  We grab slices of pizza and bottles of water down the street and take our spoils to the park across the street. There are geese in a muddy-colored pond with a cracked fountain in the middle that no longer sprays water. Dallas chucks pieces of crust down toward the bank of the pond and the geese squawk and honk, their beaks pecking each other for a piece of that hard, day-old crust.

  “You shouldn’t feed them,” I say. Dallas gives me that try-and-stop-me look before tossing another bit of crust to them. “They’re mean! Geese are mean. They bite. I’m warning you. Stop feeding them before they attack.”

  “I’m not worried about a goose attacking me. The odds seem low.”

  I laugh, stand and back away from him. “If you’re going to keep feeding them, I’ll wait over here.” I hand him the crust from my pizza and retreat to a tree a safe distance away to watch.

  When it happens, I notice the chain of events before Dallas does. It reminds me of my Nana’s and summers on the ocean. I can’t help but take pleasure in the event, even though I remember it’s scary. Geese are not small little things. Not up close anyway. Dallas throws a piece, and while three geese crowd and fight over it, a fourth spots Dallas and starts waddling to him.

  “City! Look! I bet I can get him to eat from my hand,” Dallas says.

  The goose begins to move faster when it sees Dallas holding a piece of food in his hand. When it is too close for comfort, charging right at him with no signs of slowing down to nicely nibble from his hand Dallas jumps to his feet. The other three geese are now following suit and running up the small embankment. I bite my lip and stifle a laugh. Dallas shouts, “Whoa, buddy.” His voice higher than usual. He tosses the piece of crust away from him, but the goose is hell-bent on the large piece in his hand.

  “Hey! No!” Dallas commands. He does this little dance of sorts, staying out of the goose’s path. The goose reaches him, and the rest plays out almost in slow motion. I am laughing so hard I cannot breathe and trying to yell the word run.

  The goose lunges. Dallas tries to scramble away, abandoning the last of the crust with one epic throw. The goose does not give a shit. It keeps chasing Dallas. Dallas screams—like a child. High pitched and scared. The goose juts his neck forward and bites the back of Dallas’s calf. He squeals. My hands are on my knees, I’m doubled over, out of breath, eyes watering at the scene. Big strong Dallas Baribeau squeaking like a five-year-old girl and running zigzag around the park trying to lose… a goose.

  “Stop moving!” I yell to him. “Stop running and face it!”

  “Are you nuts?” Dallas huffs, coming toward me.

  I stand up, make myself as calm as possible and stare down the goose tailing him.

  “Hide behind that tree,” I tell Dallas.

  He jogs past me and I step into the line of sight, standing with shoulders squared, as calm as I can muster in the moment, while Dallas disapp
ears behind the tree. The goose slows, still making angry sounds. He—or maybe she—circles me twice before giving up and walking away.

  “What the hell? Are you a goose whisperer or some shit?”

  I burst out laughing again. “I told you not to feed them. Geese are evil. Does your leg hurt?”

  He glances at his calf and frowns. “I don’t think it broke skin, but yeah—it hurts.”

  “They usually leave quite a bruise. You’re lucky it was only your calf.”

  He sits down so he can inspect his leg. “You could have warned me.”

  My face morphs into sheer surprise. “I did.”

  I sit down next to him. Dallas begins laughing—deep, soulful laughs. The contagious kind. We fall to our backs in the grass and laugh as he recounts the sheer terror he felt. We laugh so hard tears stream down our faces.

  As our laughter dies out, we walk hand in hand across the street toward the neon tattoo sign.

  “You’re sure you really want one?” he asks, outside the tattoo shop door. “There’s still time to back out.”

  I nod. “I’m certain.”

  Dallas takes me by the shoulders. “This is a permanent reminder of us. The tattoos will be like little promises. Swear that what we have will never fall apart or go away.” There is something in his eyes that makes my heart race, in a way that scares me. He puts a hand over my heart and his lips against my forehead. The mood, the scene between us, feels like foreshadowing—for what, I don’t know or understand—I just feel it. “Swear it to me, City.” His lips move across my forehead.

  “I swear,” I breathe.

  And I do.

  “I love you, Charlotte.” The four words sear my heart; his lips delicately etching the intention into my soul. Scarring me. Branding me his. I nearly collapse under the weight of them. Under the profound meaning and responsibility they carry to me. And I hope to him.

  “I love you too,” I whisper, because I’m unable to keep my voice steady any louder.

  “Let’s go get tattoos,” he says.

  Dallas lied and said he was my brother and also my guardian. He showed them an I.D. that said he is newly twenty-one. A fake one I didn’t realize he had. I should have though, when he bought the alcohol for his flask. I suppose it’s a good thing he did, because I hadn’t really stopped to consider that to get a tattoo you had to be eighteen.

  I picked the tattoos from a book, and then took a slight liberty with the design to make them ours.

  Dallas gets his tattoo on the inside of his right arm—a nautical compass with the word “City” woven into the lines. I get the same on the inside of my right thigh, minus the ‘City.’ They are neither small nor large, sort of a proportionally medium for the space they inhabit and each took no more than an hour and a half to complete. Dallas went first and endured my constant questioning of the pain level. Does it hurt? How ‘bout now? On a scale of one to ten, how bad is it? And then, when it was my turn, he held my hand the entire time. It wasn’t as bad as I expected but it was uncomfortable.

  Dallas pays the long-haired artist the money we owe and we’re out the door with instructions on how to keep it clean so it will properly heal. At the truck, Dallas opens my door and asks, “Okay. Spill it. Why the compass?”

  I grin at him as I slide into my seat. “They’re for guidance. I like the idea that the nautical style reminds me of the ocean and stars and finding your way. And it sums up our road trip so far too.” I grab his tee shirt and pull him to me until our lips meet. “That, and, I don’t feel lost with you,” I say against his mouth. I can feel his lips smiling against mine.

  When he pulls away, I’m breathless with a perma-smile pasted on my face. Dallas shuts my door, rounds the hood of the truck and climbs in before cranking the key, which sends the engine rumbling to life.

  24

  Charlotte

  Every highway, every back road, every mile of the last week feels like it has been leading up to this moment right now. It wasn’t of course. I had no intention to do this at the start, or did I? From the very first moment in the truck when Dallas asked me left or right? Did I realize right was north? Did I subconsciously choose a direction that at the very least, would give me the opportunity, the proximity to do this if I desired it? I guess I can’t know. But there is a word for that; parapraxis. I practice the word silently, let it roll around my tongue and mouth as we drive.

  It is dusk when we roll into Pocketville. The town seems to have shrunk since I was here last. Or maybe, I’ve grown larger. A heaviness settles in, constricting my lungs as we drive down the main drag. Like any hallowed ground, the secrets here are buried deep.

  “Tell me something fucked up,” I say.

  Dallas turns down the radio and glances at me. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, I think. Just talk. Tell me something dark. Something no one knows. Something as messed up as my stomach feels right now,” I say.

  “We don’t have to do this, City.”

  “I know. I’m not ready to back out yet.”

  “Fine. A dark, depressing secret, eh? Let’s see. I remember being really little but feeling big and my Mom telling me about adult things that she shouldn’t have. I was too young to understand what she was saying, but I knew what she was saying needed somewhere to go so I let her talk to me. I let my ears collect the big horrible burdens she furtively needed to unload. Now of course, I know she was talking about how depressed she was, how heroin and other things helped her feel better. How she was sorry that she was a letdown to me. But the weirdest part is, even though I knew she wasn’t the best Mom, it didn’t entirely matter to me. I still loved her. Still wanted to be a good boy for her. And our world—it mattered to me. Even after all the times I was taken away. She always smiled. Always told me she’d come for me soon, and to behave.” Dallas blows out a long breath. “That’s actually how I knew the last time that she wasn’t coming back for me. Her eyes were wrong—all wrong—and she didn’t smile or tell me to behave. I could feel it in my bones that she was giving up.”

  I want to say something but the words jam up in my throat, so I grab his hand and squeeze it instead of speaking.

  “Your turn, City. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “My stomach aches and memories are starting to creep in. Like a leaky faucet. Drip by drip. Except, I’m worried they could drown me.”

  “Memories only hurt if you give them the power to do so. Tell me your memory. Say it out loud. Take away its power,” Dallas says quietly.

  Tears fall from my eyes as I realize what’s happening, but I make no audible noise as Nora motions me to follow her. We pass through the living room and stop and listen. There is no movement from the bedroom. Floorboards creak under our weight. Holding my breath, Nora takes a final step toward the front door with my hand clutched too tight in hers. We shouldn’t do this. We have to. This is dangerous. Adrenaline courses through me.

  The winter air whips around us as Nora holds up Holden’s truck keys. I don’t know how she managed to get them. The air seems to go thin around us.

  “Run!” She hisses. Every muscle tenses in my body as we sprint for the truck. My socks are wet with snow. I slip and slide but we make it to the truck. Jumping inside the cab, I cry out as I slam my door shut. The sound seems impossibly loud and seems to paralyze Nora with fear.

  “Nora, go!” I screech. My terror is palpable, and snaps Nora from her inactive state. It takes three turns, but finally the engine turns over. There is no going back now. In the breaking dawn light, I realize if we are caught it will be death.

  Freezing rain pelts the windshield, and it’s been too long since Nora has driven. She’s clumsy and stalls out twice after the bridge. We do not speak, but I clutch Nora’s thigh.

  “Hold on tight,” Nora barks at the first gate. We’re going too fast. I whine and squeeze my eyes shut as she plows through the gate. The impact hurts my body, but it is nothing compared to the exhilaration I feel.

  It is not long to the
next gate, and she rams us through it as well. The truck skids and slips; it feels like we’re losing control. The lonely access road is not far ahead. It is hard to see where to turn onto it. The road to the cabin is not plowed, and the snow and sleet coat everything that surrounds us.

  “I love you,” Nora breathes. I cry, unable to control my emotions, but squeeze her thigh in lieu of words. We drive for too long. It feels too long. Everything is white. The road appears suddenly, plowed but not recently. Nora curses and yanks the wheel to the right to turn onto it. We slide and fishtail. A scream tears from my chest. Nora yanks the wheel back the other way, but it is too late. The truck hurdles toward the tree line.

  “Hang on!” Nora screams.

  “That was it, then everything went black. We crashed. There was glass and metal and that horrible smell of plastic burning everywhere.”

  We’re pulled off the main road, but I don’t recall Dallas parking.

  “Holy shit, Charlotte,” he blows out in a rush.

  “That was the night we escaped. Or...” I look out the window, my stomach hollow and my mind lost in thought.

  “Or what?” he asks. My skin prickles with electricity under his touch. I glance at the spot where Dallas’s hand is spread wide on my thigh and smile.

  “Or the night Nora escaped. Not me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We crashed. The excitement I felt was inexplicable as I came to. Like hysteria. I remember shoving my emotions back, until they were as small as possible and blinking stars away until I could see Nora. I begged her not to leave me alone out there, but she only laid there in the broken glass and metal of the truck. A stiff wind whistled through the pines and kicked up dead leaves. I whined her name and jostled her, but she didn’t wake up. I did it again, praying for a different result. Guilt ate at me for lying to her, but the threat of what Holden would do to me if I told her the truth, was enough to keep me quiet. There was a crunching in the snow near me. I can vividly hear it. I turned my head too fast and a wave of dizziness sucker-punched me. I clutched Nora’s shirt and tugged at it urgently. ‘Wake up. Wake up.’ The terror I felt consumed me. I felt wild and feral and off-kilter.” I swallow past the lump in my throat as Dallas urges me silently to slide across the bench seat under his arm. He tucks me into his side and holds tight.