The Girl

by K Larsen

  “You’re safe, babe.” His voice grounds me. It keeps the recollection just that—a memory.

  I inhale a steady breath and continue. “She didn’t move. I tried to wiggle from the wreckage. I hurt everywhere. A boot landed in front of my hand and I remember my eyes feeling like they had bugged out. When I looked up, I wanted to die, Dallas. I’d never in my life wished for anything as fervently as I wished I would spontaneously die right then. Holden reached down for me. The sound that followed was like the sky being torn in two. It ended with a soul-deep scream that could rattle bones. His eyes darkened into those black vacant orbs; his scowl more intense than I’d ever witnessed as he yanked me from the totaled truck. It was my scream.”

  Recounting the memory out loud gives it a power over me that hurts physically, but simultaneously makes me feel lighter. I stay tucked under Dallas’s wing, breathing in and out. Counting backward from ten, silently, over and over, until Dallas’s grip on me loosens. I hadn’t realized he was squeezing so tightly until he relaxes and my lungs are able to fill with air easily. I don’t think he knew either.

  “Shit, did I hurt you?” he asks, worry in his tone.

  I shake my head and sit up, stretching. “I didn’t notice.”

  “Charlotte, I’m all for making or finding peace with our pasts but to relive yours seems bigger and scarier now that we’re here, ready to go. Are you certain this is a good idea?”

  I nod. “I’m sure. I don’t think I can do it on my own though. And there’s no one else who would do this for me or with me, Dallas. You’re the only one who’s willing. The only one I trust completely enough who didn’t live through it—who isn’t haunted by it personally—who can be my compass through it.”

  The last of the day slides down the side of the building we’re parked in front of, casting the world in shadows. Fitting.

  “Okay. Where to?” he asks.

  “Find a place to park and sleep for the night. We can’t start now, plus we need some camping supplies, so we’ll have to grab them first thing in the morning.”

  “How much money do you have left?” he asks. “I spent the rest of mine on our tattoos.”

  I pull my purse off the floorboard, unzip it and pull out the wad of cash. I count it twice to be sure.

  “We have two hundred thirty-one dollars and change.”

  “Let’s put a hundred aside for gas to get home.” I smile, and hand him one hundred. That was good thinking on his part, I hadn’t considered gas money for the trip back. “So that leaves one hundred thirty-one.”

  “I’ll need eighty for supplies.”

  “Eighty?!” he coughs.

  “There’s nothing up there, Baribeau. Just four walls and nature. We need a fire starter, food, a water purifier. Things like that. We probably can’t make it to the cabin in one day’s hike either. So we might want a tiny tent or tarp to sleep under.”

  I can’t decipher the emotion in Dallas’s eyes but it looks like a mix of sorrow and pride. He shouldn’t feel either. I don’t. No, at the moment, I’m filled with a calm sense of purpose and determination.

  “Are you hungry? We should get something cheap to eat.”

  “Sure. Let’s find a Wendy’s. We can lay out in the back, enjoy the view and eat gross food together.”

  Dallas leans across the seat and plants a sloppy kiss on me. A plethora of something winged takes flight in my belly, and I swear if I looked down, I’d be able to see my stomach fluttering with movement. There’s something about Dallas’s DNA that reacts with mine, causing the most pleasurable sensations.

  25

  Charlotte

  Owls hoot in the early dawn. It’s eerie and wakes me. It used to happen at the cabin too. I’d pull the blankets over my head and plug my ears until I could fall asleep again, and in the morning Holden and I would shuffle sleepy-eyed and messy-haired from bed and I’d make us eggs for breakfast. We’d eat in silence—too tired for conversation. I push him from my brain. Back, you black-eyed beast, and tuck myself into Dallas’s side to focus on the way his chest rises and falls, the sound of his breath steadily leaving and entering his body, until I drift back to sleep.

  Dallas is wide awake staring at me when my eyes tentatively crack open. Behind his head, the mountain peaks, a ring of clouds and haze obscuring the tip. Green, every variation of it, paints the lower half, sloping and bleeding color and trees right up to the very spot we’re parked in. If I didn’t know what happened in these hills and mountains I’d think I’d died and gone to heaven. There are few things naturally more stunning which can evoke the sensation of occhiolism than the mountains or ocean.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking,” Dallas says.

  A smile creeps across my face. “How beautiful the view is, and how small and insignificant we are compared to that—” I gesture to the mountain scene before us. “We get so wrapped up in our own lives. But look,” I say, sitting up. “That is so much bigger than we are. It houses so much more life. It makes it hard to want to focus on my own self-centeredness.”

  “You’re probably the least self-centered person I know, City.”

  I shrug. “Maybe, but honestly, the world is vast and full of all this… natural wonder and here we are harping on our past traumas like they’re the big deal in this life.”

  Dallas nods and stares out at the mountain.

  “What were the good times like up there? You said it wasn’t all bad. So, tell me something good.”

  “Nora and I played games in the woods: hide and seek, I spy. She made me flower crowns and I’d pretend I was a princess. Some days we’d sit on the log bridge over the river and she’d make up stories to tell me. I loved her stories. We’d lay in my bed in the evening, whispering stories to each other after she had read to me.” I shrug. “There are things I miss too. Things were different up there; we had fresh milk and eggs; I picked veggies from the garden and cured and cooked fresh game meat that Holden hunted.”

  “And how long did those kinds of good days last?”

  I turn to him. “It’s hard to say. For every good hour there was a bad one. Some days weren’t good in their entirety. It was more like, good moments laced throughout uncertain days. Like my birthday. It was good but also bad. It couldn’t simply be just one or the other.”

  “What happened on your birthday?” he asks.

  “Nothing really. Let me see if I can explain it.” Dallas and I sit cross-legged facing each other. His hands on my knees. “I remember I tamped down feelings of dread as I tiptoed around the cabin that morning. For a little while, things had been okay. Safe even. Nora made it that way. She kept me sort of out of Holden’s path for the most part. I still wanted to leave, I still needed to know if Eve was alive, but there were moments of laughter and fun.

  “The birthday candle was still on the table. ‘Your birthday should be a big deal.’ That’s what Nora told me. ‘We should celebrate.’ It had been years since anyone had celebrated my birthday and the idea elated me but also made me nervous. It was bad to draw attention to yourself. Nora made the candle just for me. It was a rainbow of all the half-used candles in the cabin melted together. Holden and Nora sang as she carried a small homemade cake to the table.

  “‘Make a wish,’ she urged. Her eyes crinkled with anticipation and it had filled me up with a hopeful feeling. I wished Nora would take me from this place. Silently, I wished she’d bring me back to the real world. I closed my eyes and breathed deep before blowing the candle out. Nora clapped with excitement and my insides tingled with momentary joy, but as I looked around the cabin, noting the dirty floors and cracked dishes, I tried to smile back but faltered. The walls were dusty. A big bucket of water sat on the kitchen counter. The cabin smelled stale. The three of us had lived that way for months. Pretending we belonged there. Together. Me for so much longer than Nora. I needed Nora to snap out of it. It was like her brain cracked and she’d made up this alternate universe where we were a happy, loving family. But I needed Nora sane. I needed
her because she was my only chance to escape. So, while the cake and the candle were so important and gave me fleeting hope and joy, it was all mixed with that awful sense of dread that hid in the shadows constantly.”

  “I get that. When I think about my mom, I feel that way. Every happy memory I can dredge up is accompanied by a feeling of unease because I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. I knew, even when I was really little, that the happy times weren’t really meant to be. That with those moments came the inevitable shit moments that wiped out all the good.”

  I lean forward and wrap my arms around Dallas’s neck and snuggle him. There is so much that he understands, and so much that he doesn’t, but those bits don’t make me feel like an outcast with him. Maybe because unless you live through something, you can’t ever fully comprehend what it was like through stories and memories. It’s still just your perception of the memory based on the person who’s telling it.

  Dallas tilts his head, his lips graze my neck, causing a shiver of pleasure rippling through my body.

  He pulls away. “I’m starving.”

  “How long have you been up?” I ask, noting that he looks a little spent. His eyes seem weighted, a slight sag under them, but maybe that’s just me projecting my trepidation onto him.

  He shrugs. “Before the sun. Ready to eat and grab supplies?”

  “Let’s do this,” I answer.

  26

  Dallas

  My bones feel tired. Sleep lurked just outside the threshold of consciousness and refused to come any closer. I should have forced myself back to sleep, instead I watched the sun, slowly gathering its power, emerge above the tree line. It was beautiful and peaceful in a way I’m not used to. That, and City, sleeping next to me.

  She is the most stunning creature I’ve encountered in life. Sometimes I think I could stare at her all day if allowed. I try to memorize her features. The color of her hair and the way it floats around her shoulders. Her eyes; overly expressive. Those lips, plump and naturally tinted light pink—the softness of them. I don’t want to miss any minor detail about her. I want to learn it all—know it all.

  Her hair shifts in the wind, alive, as we head into the small camping store. I’ve never been camping. My skin prickles as I think about all the secrets that live here in this sleepy-looking town. On our way across the parking lot, she tells me her sister stayed here in town—lived here for over a year, trying to figure out how the hell to get back to the spot she’d escaped. She worked tirelessly with local law enforcement. She couldn’t remember the forest trails the way Charlotte does. Everything looked different in the winter.

  Living with that kind of daily panic, fear and regret would drive me crazier than I already am. It makes me want to call Eve. To let her know that we’re okay. To apologize for impulsively whisking Charlotte away without permission. For my euphoria-induced carelessness. And Ray. Ray, by now, has moved from pure rage to worry, and I never wanted to cause him worry. He’s a good man, a good foster parent, and someone who genuinely cares about my well-being even though I’m not worthy of it. I hate days like this. I'm stuck somewhere between climbing up, and a free fall back down; and it's not a happy middle ground, it's like both are warring for control. Two separate entities raging, and me left trying to guess which one will win.

  “You okay in a tarp lean-to? The tents are a little pricey.” Charlotte’s voice breaks my train of thought. We lock eyes and I swear she can see right through me.

  “Are you alright?” She asks.

  I force a grin. “Absolutely.” Click. My brain makes a little noise. I think lies are like scars on your soul. You can’t live with them. You have to cleanse yourself of them or suffer the lingering consequences. The lie is small and white and from a pure place. I can and will keep it just as I’ve promised to keep Charlotte’s.

  Her smile lights up her whole face. “Okay, I think this is it.” She holds up the basket for me to inspect.

  There are a handful of protein bars, a tarp, something I assume is a fire starter, a water bottle with a filter that claims to purify water, a pack of instant coffee, two headlamps, one small pot, bug spray, a small battery-operated lantern and batteries. I nod at her like I approve, even though honestly, I have no idea if we’re missing something important.

  “Great, I’ll check out. Do you want to scoot across the street to the grocery store and grab some oranges and apples? Maybe a box of Goldfish too?”

  “Whatever the lady wants.”

  Charlotte giggles and hands me a ten dollar bill. I kiss the inside of her wrist before taking the bill and revel in the way she blushes from the contact.

  At the truck, she grabs the backpack, and empties it out. I sit on the tailgate as she lays the essentials out and silently works out how to pack them.

  She picks up one of the cans of soup I bought and grins. “Good call, and nice thinking on the pull tab tops. Those will be good for dinners.” She stuffs them into the bottom of the backpack first. Next the larger items descending in size and weight until the bag barely zips.

  “Here let me,” I offer as she makes a disgruntled groan trying to get the zipper closed. She huffs and shoves the pack toward me. I pull out the tarp and zip the bag.

  “But,” she starts. I cut her off.

  “Gimmie a second.”

  I unfold the tarp until it’s folded in half the long way, then roll it tightly around the outside of the closest sleeping bag. I secure it with two of the bungee cords in the truck bed.

  “Ta da! Now the sleeping bag is waterproof too.”

  Charlotte scoots over to me and throws her arms around my neck. “Genius,” she says, before pressing her rosy warm lips to mine. I could let everything else in the world fade away when we kiss. All my troubles, responsibilities and even time—all gone—for the way those lips make my insides flip.

  I pull back to catch my breath and City nuzzles her nose in the spot where my neck and collarbone meet. Every woman should do that to their man. It makes me fucking crazy.

  “Let’s get going. I want to try and get halfway there before we lose the light,” she says.

  “Whatever the lady wants,” I say.

  “You should really stop saying that. What if I want something crazy someday?” She rests her forehead against mine.

  I shrug. “What if you do?”

  “You can’t just do whatever I say,” she scolds mockingly, as she pulls back.

  “I can. It’s my prerogative.”

  Charlotte slides off the tailgate wearing a mischievous smirk. “I’m going to figure out a way to make you regret your ‘whatever the lady wants’ phrase.”

  I smack her ass as she walks past me causing her to yelp. “I look forward to that day.”

  I watch as she hops in the truck laughing. The day I can’t make her laugh is the day I set her free. Nothing is more gorgeous than Charlotte laughing. Everything about her becomes animated. Her hair blows around, her eyes squint, the sound is soulful, her shoulders creep up and down. Her whole body is happy with her when she’s laughing, and it makes me wish I could siphon some of it out and IV it into me. Cure the darkness with her light.

  I turn the key, cranking the truck to life. Charlotte scoots across the bench seat until our arms are touching.

  “Which way?”

  “I think right. It was the road that went past that white warehouse over there.”

  “Let’s do this.” I turn my blinker on, check for traffic, then pull out onto the road.

  We’ve been driving on a sad, bumpy two lane road for twenty minutes, when City jabs her arm in front of me with determination toward a long forgotten dirt road that kind of limps like a soggy noodle from the tree line toward the breakdown lane.

  “Here! Stop the truck!” she shouts. I slam on the brakes, pulling across the other lane and into the dirt past the breakdown shoulder. A little cloud of dust kicks up in the rearview as we skid to a stop. I put the truck in park and peer up at the mountain through the windshield
.

  “Here? That looks like an old—really old—logging road that leads to nowhere.”

  Charlotte lets out a nervous giggle. “It is. But it definitely leads somewhere… just not somewhere normal people want to go.”

  27

  Charlotte

  Stand next to me. Close,” I say, and hand Dallas the camera. There are only a handful of pictures left to take, and I want to mark this moment now that we’re here. Dallas wraps an arm around me and holds the camera at arm’s length. Our packs are stuffed and we’re ready to start the hike.

  “One, two...” he snaps the picture before I get to three and I’m certain my mouth was still moving—not smiling for the picture. I pinch his side and he yelps through his laughter.

  At the base of the mountain, the mouth of the no longer used dirt road—a trail, really—I am overcome with emotions. Little movie-like memories loop in my brain, feasting on the ghosts of past terrors.

  Lifting my head, he tips the glass to my lips. “Drink, little one.” I groan and turn my head away. “Drink or I will make you.” At this, my eyes open. I look up at him and bring two fingers to his neck and hold them there.

  “I want to die,” I say, and drop my hand.

  Anger rushes through Holden so quickly that his face turns a deep shade of red. “You wouldn’t do that to her! You will live because she loved you.”