The Girl

by K Larsen

  “When you’re with me, I will.”

  Tears stream down Eve’s face. “Don’t do this, Nora,” she whispers.

  Nora walks to her quickly and envelopes her in a hug. Time seems to slow, grinding to a halt. Do not go to him. Not like this.

  He presses the knife hard enough into my neck that blood seeps from the spot. No. No, no, no.

  “Hurry up, Nora.” His voice sounds deadly.

  Nora starts to move. NO. No. Not like this.

  One step.

  Two.

  Three.

  Holden releases me, and I sprint past Nora— into my sister’s arms. A small cry of joy erupts from me as Eve and I connect.

  Holden’s fingers wrap around Nora’s neck and squeeze like a python, slowly suffocating its prey. Eve’s hand is jammed in the open junk drawer. I faintly hear sirens blaring in the distance. Is this how it ends? I can’t live without Nora. She is my everything. Eve pulls out a pistol and shock courses through me. Where did she get that?

  Holden laughs as Eve cocks the gun and takes aim. Her hand is unsteady, given the macabre scene before her.

  Do it, Nora mouths to her. Eve shakes her head.

  “Careful, Eve, you might miss and hit Nora.” Holden’s voice is warm and deep and easy.

  Nora’s fingers claw at his hands, which only serves to make him squeeze more. She kicks her legs. What are you waiting for, I think. Shoot him.

  “Go ahead, Eve. Shoot,” Holden says. “I have died a thousand times, Eve. I am not scared of death!” Holden laughs. It is not the laugh of a man capable of love. “You can’t, can you?” he says.

  A tear rolls down Nora’s cheek.

  “Fuck you!” Eve yells. “Fuck you!”

  I scream. Nora claws at his fingers around her neck and her body goes limp in his hands. Panic seeps into my bloodstream. The crack of the gun startles me. The bullet to Holden’s bicep makes him stumble and lose his grip on Nora. She drops to the floor in a heap. I blink and look at Eve. Her murderous glare is focused on Holden. She pulls the trigger again and his shoulder jolts backward. Blood pools near Nora’s right arm. Eve shot Nora. Agony rips through me.

  “Nora,” Holden breathes. “My Nora.”

  “Do not talk to her!” I scream, and begin to lunge toward him.

  Eve uses one arm to try and tuck me behind her. Holden drops to his knees. Nora is still unmoving. Holden takes her face in his hands. He bends down and presses his lips to hers and I want to vomit. The contents of my stomach lurches into my throat. He cannot do this to her.

  My breathing is rough and loud. I turn to Eve and grab the pistol from her. She yanks it back but her adrenaline is no match for my rage.

  “No, Lotte!” Eve’s voice is frantic and terrified. Holden looks up from Nora into the barrel of the gun in my hands. His eyes flash dark. Those black holes in his head.

  Conjuring all the hate and horror he put me through, I pull the trigger. My ears ring at the sound as his head is jarred backward. A grin takes root on my face. Seeing him hurt is strangely therapeutic. I squeeze the trigger again and watch as his head whips backward followed by his limp body.

  You will never have any of us again.

  Dallas and I sit together in silence until the last of the memories of Holden melt into the flames, and the cabin is no more than a smoldering pile of rubble. My head on his shoulder, his arm around my waist—both entranced by the dying flames.

  I no longer feel inhibited by memories or harsh forgotten words. I am liberated. It occurs to me that healing isn’t what I once thought it was. I thought it meant the wound or experience closed up, disappeared, like it never happened. And I feared that mine wasn’t capable of healing. But it doesn't mean your trauma didn't exist. It means your trauma no longer has power over you. I have never felt so much liberty before. There is a kind of indescribable magic in seeing the ashes of this place scatter in the breeze.

  36

  Charlotte

  The sun is hidden behind the tree line, as dusk takes hold of the day. We’re only a few minutes past Slay Rock. Not as far as I’d hoped before the light goes for the day. Something is dragging Dallas down and I’m hoping it isn’t the weight of my past. Stopping, I pull out my headlamp and clip the band to the outside of my pack. I fan the hem of my shirt out from my waist, unsticking it from my skin. The air flow makes my sweat feel cold and a shiver races the length of my spine.

  “What’s up?” Dallas asks.

  “It’ll be dark in a bit, we’ll need the headlamps for the last leg of the trip. Do you want me to grab yours?”

  Dallas half-smiles at me and nods before turning his back to me. “It’s in the bigger outside pocket.”

  Now that we both have our headlamps readily available, I hoist my bag back on. “You’ve been quiet,” I say.

  “So have you.”

  “I guess.”

  “How much further till we find a place to camp?” Dallas brushes the sweat from his brows and hooks his thumbs through the straps of his pack before arching his back in a cat-like stretch.

  “Probably another forty minutes.”

  Dallas groans. “I’m wiped, City. Can’t we just camp someplace closer and wake up earlier tomorrow?”

  “Come on, big guy, let’s just see how far we get tonight.” I suck in a deep breath and trudge forward. He’s been irritable for the majority of the day. I don’t know what I did wrong—aside from lighting the cabin on fire, which he clearly wasn’t impressed by—or how to make it better. But sometimes, people who’ve spent too much time together for too long, get cranky. It certainly happens to Eve and I, and the best thing for that is time and space, so even though I want to talk endlessly, kiss more, hell, have a repeat of last night again, I will tuck all my wants aside and give Dallas room to breathe. We’ve been stuck like glue together for a week and he probably needs a little alone time. If we reach the spot on the river, we could call it a day, and I could tell him to go enjoy the water while I set up camp. Give us some space.

  “Sorry I’m not as badass as you.” The words drift into my ears stabbing my brain like pin pricks.

  “What?” I call over my shoulder nonchalantly, in case I misheard him.

  “You heard me,” Dallas says.

  “I’m not badass. Why are you saying that?”

  “I swear you could hike for miles and miles and never tire and here I am holding you back.” Holding me back? No, Dallas, you’ve freed me, not held me back.

  I stop walking to face him. “Where is this coming from? I haven’t complained about you at all have I?” He shakes his head. His brow furrows. “Dallas, no one has ever labeled me badass,” I say, as if the mere thought of it is preposterous.

  Dallas blinks, face riddled with… I don’t know. His eyes are cloudy and the easy-going, usually present half smirk I catch him wearing when watching my ass while we hike, is nowhere to be found. Something niggles at the base of my brain. A feeling akin to losing him and it startles me.

  “Well you are. People are probably just too scared to tell you.”

  “Scared of what? Me?” I laugh.

  “Yeah, Lotte, you.” Lotte. He never calls me that. I frown feeling the fine hairs on my arms stand up as if they’ve been shocked. “Scared of your light. It’s blinding and always there. Even in your sadness, even when you’re scared—it’s still there. That’s intimidating.”

  I bite my bottom lip and blink rapidly, uncertain what to say or where all this is coming from. “Okay. Are you saying you’re sick of me?” I can’t help the tremble in my voice.

  “Sick of you?!” His tone is incredulous. “How could anyone be sick of you? How could anyone want anything other than you? It’s just exhausting, you know? Trying to keep up with the goodness, the compassion, the chipper princess.”

  “Ebullience.” The word slips from my tongue into the air between us and hangs there.

  He shakes his head and scrunches up his face. “See? That. Brains as well as looks as well as heart. It’s
like you’re this trifecta of everything right in the world and who the hell is worthy of that? Not me. I can tell you that. N-o-t-M-e.”

  Red hot rage slips into my gut making my belly boil. “Who decides worth? Don’t I get to decide who is worthy of me and who is not? Am I supposed to give that power to someone else? I’m not perfect, Dallas, you of all people know that.”

  “I don’t feel worthy of you.”

  “I don’t feel like having this conversation with you. It’s asinine. You’re overtired and being mean.”

  My anger is bubbling over the way it does when Eve and I end up screaming at each other. I don’t want to have a battle of wits over teenage insecurities at the moment, and that seems to be all this is. Too much time for Dallas to overthink and overanalyze. I turn my back to him and stomp off at a hefty pace, essentially ending the conversation.

  By the time we reach the river bed and the small clearing near it, it is pitch black. I fell twice even with my headlamp on. Each time, Dallas tried to help me up, and each time I jerked my arm from his grip, determined in my self-sufficiency. But it is too dark and too hard to navigate the terrain, and I’m exhausted from being mad, so I call it. I drop my pack to the ground and stretch. The length of my spine pops but it feels so good.

  “Charlotte,” Dallas says, his voice gritty from disuse. I chance a glance at him. “I’m sorry I was a dick.” His bright eyes are dulled with remorse.

  I let out a sigh. “You’ve been in a mood all day. What gives?”

  He shrugs and shakes his head at me. “I don’t know. Maybe I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”

  “At home, Eve and I have a rule about that.”

  He drops his backpack into the grass and collapses to the ground. He looks like a wilted pile of laundry and stares straight through me. Something is off—and it has been for the last day or two. I can feel it in my bones.

  “Everyone’s allowed to be in a shitty mood, but you have to have the common courtesy to at least tell whoever you’re living with about it,” I say.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” He rubs at the back of his neck.

  “No, no, not talk about why you’re in a mood, just state to the other person that you’re in one at all. Like, fair warning. You know, if you say ‘I’m in a bad mood’ the other person knows to give you space and not push your buttons.”

  “Ah,” he says, nodding. “Makes sense. Your family is grossly mentally healthy, you know that.”

  I snort. It’s true. We’ve all been deep in ‘surviving-the-Tutor’ therapy for years at this point. Are other families not like us? I don’t know, I have nothing to compare it to. No best friend to be attached at the hip with, to witness their family life and know if mine is the weird one. And Dallas, he comes from no family at all, so what does he know about it? Or maybe, being in so many different houses has given him a better perspective on the average American family.

  “I’m feeling really guilty,” Dallas says.

  I lie back and tuck my hands beneath my head. My muscles burn and the remnants of my sweat have me chilly, now that the sun has disappeared and the air has cooled. “About what?”

  “About being in a bad mood, about snapping at you, especially the morning after...”

  Rolling onto my side, I look at him. He’s leaned against his pack looking pathetically dejected.

  “Last night was incredible. It was...indescribable. I woke up on such a high and despite you being an ass, I still feel...clear minded—more than I have before. I’m not going to tell you that being a dick was okay, but I have zero regrets about last night. Don’t make it about that. It was perfect to me.”

  The corners of his eyes crinkle slightly as he gives me a half-smile. “I love you, City. So much it scares me.”

  I crawl over to where he sits and rest my head on his lap. His fingers are instantly pulling my elastic out and fingering my hair. It feels divine, so much so that I may never move. “I love you too. I’m sorry you’re in a funk. Can we be done with our tiff now? I’m too tired and sore to keep fighting.”

  “I hate fighting with you. It makes me feel like trash. But, after a fight we’re supposed to make up.”

  “Isn’t that what we’re doing?” I laugh.

  “Not yet. Making out—up—properly requires a little more...physical connection, remember?”

  I stare up at him, smiling at the genuine ardor I see in his eyes.

  “I’m pretty smelly.”

  “Me too,” he says.

  “What should we do about it?”

  “We should probably strip down and get in the water.”

  “What about setting up camp? Dinner?”

  “All things that can wait,” he says. Leaning down, he brushes his lips against mine. A fire spreads across my abdomen, heating all the sweat-chilled parts of me, making my thoughts hazy and my resolve weak.

  I watch him sleep in the dim hazy light from the fire, unable to sleep. I still feel his fingers on my body, long after they are gone. The way the water moved around us. The feel of his lips on my skin. My thighs ache from being wrapped around his hips. Is there anything more wonderful than making love? Than being in love? I brush my fingers up and down his chest as he sleeps, contented.

  37

  Charlotte

  Dallas, a good ten clips behind me, has been slow all morning. His movements listless. It bothers me in a way I can’t put words to. We’re probably thirty minutes or so from the truck at this point, and he’s been mostly silent since we woke up this morning. An uneasy weight sits in the pit of my stomach. An ominous cloud seems to hang in the air around him—too thick for me to penetrate. He’s not in a mood. He’s not snappy or irritable, he feels melancholy. Almost as if he might burst into tears at any moment. When I woke, he was awake, watching me. I smiled. He gave me a sad smile back that lacked the usual luster his smiles normally possess. We ate protein bars in silence. Quiet “thank-you’s,” “yes’s” or “no’s” while we packed our things. And silence while we hiked. I check in every so often, and he answers, but that’s about it for conversation. It doesn’t feel like I’ve done something wrong. It doesn’t feel like he’s angry. It feels like… sadness. Profound sadness.

  “Still good?” I call out over my shoulder.

  “Yup.” The lone word leaves his mouth in a way that sounds like it took all his energy to say it. With my back to him, worry takes root in my gut. I reach around to my side pocket for the water bottle holstered there, and stop to take long swigs. Dallas stops beside me, having caught up, and I offer him the bottle. He eyes it suspiciously, but takes it and chugs until it’s empty.

  “It’s not nearly as hot today.”

  “Thank God,” he says. “Are we close to the truck?” He crumples the water bottle and shoves it into the side pouch of my pack.

  “Maybe twenty minutes if I had to guess.”

  “Good.” He adjusts his backpack on his shoulders and starts walking. And I’m left wondering how he’s gone from ludic to atrabilious so quickly.

  I hurry after him until we’re side by side. He looks like the life has been drained from him. No sparkle in his eye, no purpose to his movements.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” I ask, dodging a tree branch.

  “I’m good. Just ready to get back to the truck and sit for a while.”

  I side-eye him as we walk. “Did I do something?”

  He looks to me, eyes lifeless. “Of course not. I’m just tired. Lots of hiking and emotions that I’m not used to.”

  I can’t argue with that and I don’t think he’s lying to me. In the past, if he’s had an issue with me about something he’s come right out and said it, so I don’t know why he wouldn’t this time, but his demeanor today leaves a sour taste in my mouth that I can’t wash away.

  When the truck comes into view, Dallas lets out a rush of air that sounds like relief, and for a moment he seems genuinely happy.

  “I’m sort of surprised it’s still here honestly,” I
say.

  Dallas leans against the truck, shucks off his pack and tosses it into the bed. Mine slides down my arms and before it can hit the ground, Dallas has scooped it up and tossed it next to his.

  Stretching, I say, “I feel twenty pounds lighter.”

  Dallas shoots me a half-smile before fishing his keys out.

  We hop into the cab, doors closing simultaneously. He cranks the ignition and the engine roars to life, shaking the chassis, and us with it.

  “Still purrs,” he says, and pats the steering wheel. He pulls onto the road as I roll down my window. The fresh air whips my hair around and I relax against the seat.

  We roll into town shortly, two different people who left it not ninety-six hours ago. I’m a little sad knowing this is it—the end of our trip—and nervous about going home and facing Eve. Dallas doesn’t turn on the radio. When I snap out of my thoughts and glance at him, he looks like he’s straining to keep it together

  “Hey,” I say, putting my hand on his thigh. “Not to beat a dead horse, but, are you okay?”

  “I don’t feel good. I think we should stop for a while. Maybe get a motel room.” There’s a slight tremor in his voice that I’ve never heard before. I know deep in my gut that Dallas will need to work through his issues just like I had to work through mine. But I don’t know what his are or how to help.

  “Are you sure? If we take the highway we can be back in a few hours.”

  His knuckles are white from gripping the steering wheel and his breath is quick and short—his face rapidly draining color. And I think he’s having a panic attack.

  “I can’t,” he chokes out.

  “Okay.” The word is drawn out and feels suspended between us.

  He pulls to the side of the road, on the far end of town and bangs his head on the steering wheel.

  “Whoa, just breathe.” I rub his back not knowing what else to do.