“I don’t see—” But then I do. There, on the edge of the bush, the backside of something big and brown disappears into the canopy of trees. I’m actually relieved.
“A bear,” I say. “It’s just a bear.”
The camper rocks as Tarin gets down and peers out the door. “Just? Just a bear?” She’s trying to whisper, but her voice is high. “A real one?”
“No,” I say, “it was Winnie-the-Pooh. Of course it was real.” I want to tell her to get a grip already, but I bite my tongue. She’s a city girl. “It was probably only curious, checking out the camper.”
“Or looking for breakfast.”
I don’t know if she sees me roll my eyes, but she plops down at the table and rests her chin in her hands. She looks helpless and forlorn.
“Speaking of breakfast,” I say, sitting down opposite her, “do we have anything?”
She sighs. “Well, not bacon or eggs or anything. But we have some canned ham left, and some Kraft dinner.”
My stomach does a flip. “No more Lucky Charms?”
She shakes her head. “I finished them off last night.”
A feeling of dread grips me. I didn’t bring food and haven’t contributed to our survival in any way. Maybe I’m not being fair, but I’d assumed Tarin had all the details worked out. She promised me an escape, not starvation.
The honeymoon is officially over.
“Don’t worry, my princess,” she says. “There’ll be plenty of food soon enough.”
“Is that right?” I say. “And where is it going to come from? Are little elves going to make a delivery?”
She waves her hand in front of her, signaling me to stop. “I have a plan. If you’d let me talk, maybe I could explain.”
Let her talk? She’s had more than ample opportunity to spill the beans. When she smiles across the table at me with an odd, crooked grin, it hits me why she hasn’t spoken up—she’s nervous. Tarin, Miss Screw-the-World-and-Who-Gives-a-Shit-What-Anybody-Thinks, actually cares about my opinion.
“My boyfriend is on his way to get us—he’ll be here any day now. Could arrive any minute, really. We have to hang in there, be patient.”
“Your boyfriend?” I say. “Won’t your mom think of looking for him? Won’t that mess things up?”
She shakes her head. “My mom’s never met him,” she says. “She doesn’t even know about him.” She’s looking down at her hands, cleaning her nails, and it hits me: she’s hiding something.
“Have you ever met him?” And the way she keeps looking down, I know the answer immediately.
“Oh my god,” I say. “You’ve never met him. He’s some guy you met online, and he could be a complete psycho.”
Her head whips up and her eyes narrow. “Falcon is not psycho,” she snaps. “He’s the kindest, sweetest guy ever. You’ll see.”
“Falcon?” My voice is shrill. “What kind of name is Falcon?”
She shakes her head, as if I am the one who’s an idiot. “It’s a nickname, obviously.”
Super Doc’s counting technique is about to fail me. “And what’s his real name?”
“I can’t remember,” she answers. “But who cares? He’s awesome, he’s got a car, and he’s willing to drive all the way from the coast to help us out. These are the important details.”
“You’re kidding, right?” I’ve watched the TV movies of the week, seen all the cop shows. I may be brain-damaged, but I am not totally out to lunch. Tarin looks at me, her eyes framed by black eyeliner, waiting. Waiting for me to freak out. And I want to. I want to scream at her, tell her it’s all her fault that I have nowhere to turn. Strangely, though, staring back at her, with her dirty hair and clothes, looking a little scared—of me—something inside of me shuts down.
Yes, I am mad. And freaked out. But part of me lets it all go, lets this awful feeling of being completely alone sink deep into my very core.
“Look,” Tarin says, “it sounds crazy, I know. But I’ve known him for almost six months, and you trust me, right? Anyway, it’s not like we have many other options.”
She’s right about that. But it’s a lot to take in, and I need time alone to absorb it all. I stand up and reach under the table for my backpack.
“I’ll be back soon,” I say. I push the door open and step outside, letting the door slam shut behind me.
I don’t think. My feet move, one in front of the other, toward the trees that sway gently in the breeze.
Outsider
I don’t glance back to see if Tarin has opened the camper door, if she’s trying to stop me from leaving. All I want to do is find a spot in the wild grass, or among the leaves and branches in the bush, and curl up in a ball. I want to feel sorry for myself, wallow in self-pity. My life sucks. It isn’t fair, what’s happened to me. Even Dr. K. said so.
I wonder if the bear is somewhere nearby, waiting for me to let down my guard so he can eat me. Perfect, I think. Saves me having to think about what to do with myself.
Tarin is as lost and confused as I am; I can’t really expect her to be my savior. But a guy she met online? It’s kind of pathetic. The harsh reality, though, is that if I don’t go with her and this Falcon dude, I’m doomed. I know from my failed attempt at spearfishing that I’m not exactly qualified to live off Mother Nature’s bounty. I make my way toward the creek, and when I reach the bank I see the footprints Stephen and I made, still there deep in the mud. I take out my phone and click a few shots, then turn it off and put it back in my pack.
My stomach growls and I remember—I haven’t had my cereal. The thought of eating canned mushy ham makes me want to barf. As I walk and the fresh air fills my lungs, an idea forms in my mind. Mother and Dad must be heading to the hospital soon, since Stephen is supposed to be there for a few days. If the coast is clear, maybe I can sneak into the house and grab a stash of Lucky Charms.
It’s daring and maybe a little careless, but I’m pumped up from the fight with Tarin. I march, determined, until I reach the bison pen, then past the shed where Stephen and I played Pygmies. I slow my pace, take deep breaths and stay on the edge of the trees. Ginger could start barking and blow my cover. Before I come up with a plan for that, though, she’s there beside me, her tail thumping against my leg. Leaning down, I rub behind her ears and give her a kiss on the top of the head. “That’s my girl,” I whisper.
It’s so quiet. Maybe Dad and Mother have already left. I’m about to step onto the back stairs that lead to the kitchen when a scraping sound—a chair across the floor maybe?—makes me freeze. I duck and creep carefully to the trees outside the side window, where I dip below the branches and bring my knees up to my chest. Ginger curls up beside me and closes her eyes.
I pull myself closer to the tree trunk as a shape appears in the window. It’s Mother, in her housecoat. She steps closer to the glass, staring off into the distance somewhere above the trees. She wraps her arms tightly around herself, and then Dad is there too. He kisses her softly on the cheek, then takes her hand and leads her away from my view.
Sadness settles over me. She’s always tried her hardest, my mother. There may be a stiffness to her sometimes, which I’m clueless how to read, but that’s just who she is. They’re good people, my parents, and I wish I hadn’t let them down. I’ve let Stephen down too, and Dr. K. I wonder if she knows, if she’s worried about me. I didn’t even do my last homework assignment—to write about my idea of the perfect life. Describe it to me, she’d said.
I can’t go in the house yet, but I’m not ready to go back and face Tarin. Maybe Dr. K. will never see it, but my assignment was meant to help me figure things out. If I am trying to start fresh, I need a vision of what I imagine my future to be. And this cosy nook under the tree, with Ginger by my side, is as good a place as any to get started. I pull my notebook and pen out of my backpack.
My Perfect Life, I write. I peer up at the window, near where Mother and Dad must be sitting, drinking their morning coffee, then scribble down what comes to mind.
A nice family. People who love me. Being myself. Taking photos. Having friends that I choose. Making decisions about my life on my own. Feeling like I belong.
It’s not eloquent, and I’m surprised that I have nothing else to say. Is the secret to my happiness legitimately that simple? And why didn’t I add memories of my old life to that list? It came to my mind. I’m chewing on the end of the pen, thinking, when a car door slams and Ginger leaps up and bolts across the lawn, barking. I listen to Mother and Dad drive away.
After Ginger comes back I wait a few minutes to be sure the coast is clear, then creep out of my hiding spot and up the steps. In the kitchen, I am all business, filling a bag with food. In the basement, I open the closet in the spare bedroom to look for blankets and find a sleeping bag tied up with twine. There’s also a small camouflage duffel bag with binoculars and a set of camping dishes in it, so I take that too. I don’t look around, don’t linger, don’t let myself get sentimental.
Outside, I give Ginger a good rub, then order her to stay. She obeys, watching with droopy eyes as I go. I pull out my phone and take two shots: one of her, one of the house. I walk away from the life that once was and could have been, back toward the cut line. My body is stiff, and my throat tight and dry.
Tarin is not at the camper when I make it back. I scarf down some cereal, crawl up to the bunk, bury myself in the sleeping bag that smells like home and fall asleep.
Road Trip
The top of the camper is hot and stuffy, and I wake up to the sound of voices.
“Dude,” a deep one says, “this is a pretty sweet joint.”
A laugh—Tarin’s—then: “You don’t have to say that. It’s not great, but it’s served its purpose.”
“Hey, beats sleeping in the back of a car.”
I peer out from the sleeping bag and see a guy with spiky orange hair standing by the door with Tarin. Something dark, thin and furry sits on his shoulder, staring up at me with beady eyes. I haven’t had time to think about Tarin and our fight. I want to hide a little longer, but the smell of that little beast tickles my nose, and I sneeze. Tarin glances up at me.
“Jess,” she says. “I thought maybe you’d backed out on me.”
I pull myself out of the sleeping bag. “Not exactly,” I say. The guy extends his hand upward, and I shake it limply.
“Falcon,” he says. “Enchanté.”
“Jessica,” I say.
He rubs the weaselly thing—I think it’s a ferret—under its chin. “And this is sweet little Lady Di.”
Tarin and I share a look, and I can see in her eyes that she’s glad I’m back. “Do we have any Coke or anything?” I say. “I’m parched.”
“Whoa, you look too innocent for the hard stuff,” Falcon says, and the ferret nuzzles his neck. Tarin whacks his shoulder with a playful punch.
“You goof,” she says. “She means Coca-Cola. You know, the beverage.”
“Whew,” he says, and I see the shimmer of a stud on his tongue when he talks. “Don’t want to be around junk like that. I take care of myself, stay away from the bad stuff. You know, my body is my temple and all that jazz.”
“We only have water,” Tarin says as I climb down to the table.
“No problemo,” Falcon says. “We’ll make a pit stop and get some road pops. Some good tunes, snacks, and we’ll be ready to hit the highway.”
I clear my throat. “We’re leaving?”
“Did you think we were going to stay here forever? Eat bark and grow old together?” Tarin says.
“Of course not,” I say. “But now? I mean, already?”
“Pack up, little lady,” Falcon says. “We leave in five.”
It doesn’t take long—all I’ve got is my backpack, sleeping bag and the camouflage duffel—but I stay in the camper, taking deep breaths despite the smell, while they chat outside, until Falcon yells at me to get my butt in gear already. I’m freaked out and not sure what I’m doing, but I don’t have a plan B, so I follow them past the camper and through the woods a way we haven’t gone before.
Falcon whistles what sounds like “I’m a Little Teapot” as we walk. I stay behind them, and after ten minutes or so we reach the gravel road. It must be the same road that goes past my house and Tarin’s grandmother’s, but farther along.
A beat-up yellow car sits on the side of the road, nearly in the ditch.
“Your chariot awaits,” Falcon says with a wink.
“We’ll go the long way back to the highway,” Tarin says, opening the front door, “so no one sees us.”
I climb in the back, and the car sputters a few times before it finally starts. Falcon gooses the engine, and we take off with a skid down the road. Music blares out of the speakers, and Falcon sings along: “Light ’em up up up, light ’em up up up, I’m on fire!”
We hit a bump in the road and a loud scraping sound comes from under the seat. Nervous energy flows through me, and I need to channel it somewhere. I zip open the camo duffel bag I took from the basement. I didn’t have time to fully check out its contents, to see how equipped I am to start my new life. There are the binoculars and set of plastic dishes, and tucked under that I discover a Swiss Army knife. I pull the blades out one by one, then the little scissors and corkscrew. Falcon glances in the rearview mirror. “Sweet,” he yells over the music. “I had one of those when I was a kid!”
I close the knife and put it in my pocket—at least I have a weapon if he does turn out to be psycho—then unzip a smaller compartment at one end of the bag. Reaching inside, my hand meets something smooth and cool. When I pull it out, I’m surprised to see a camera. It’s an older one, but with a substantial lens attached to the front. I don’t have the expertise to tell if it’s good quality or not, but it’s heavy and looks like the real deal.
I push the Power button and the screen lights up.
The music fades at the end of the song. “Jess,” Tarin says, “what do you want to listen to? Eminem or some classic Nirvana?”
“Whatever,” I say.
The music goes up a notch, so loud I feel the vibration of the beat through the seat. I push some buttons on the front of the camera—the center of a round dial, one with an arrow on it—until a photo appears on the screen.
It’s an off-center close-up of the Girl, the top right of her head not in the frame. She has a steely look in her eyes, not even a hint of a smile. It’s another selfie, but this one was not taken in her room. Behind her there are trees and sky. And around her face, like the hood of a medieval cape, is the red scarf I found in Stephen’s drawer.
In the left corner of the picture are two wooden posts. I can barely make out the thin lines stretched between them. It’s a section of a fence, and I’ve only seen one like it on the farm. It’s part of the bison pen.
“This is so exciting!” Tarin yells. “Yahoo!”
A fluttery feeling grows in my stomach. The date at the bottom of the photo is April 26.
Tarin and Falcon rock out in the front seat. “This is,” they sing, “survival of the fittest, this is do or die…” But I’m not listening. My mind races through all the clues I have gathered these past weeks about who the Girl was. The part in the Girl’s journal, after Harrison called her Most Likely to Be Wearing Old Lady Underwear, about not wanting to be boring. Maybe one day I’ll work up the guts to do something crazy… Hands trembling, I put the camera in the bag, then take out my phone and get onto Facebook.
The night before the Very Bad Day, she posted the quote-and-flower photo. And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. And the post before that is the photo of the girl with long blond hair lying casually across the back of a tiger, as though it’s a piece of plush furniture. Loosely tied around her neck is a red scarf.
The caption under the photo reads Cutting-Edge Photos with Wild Animals. I click on the link and discover a whole album, dozens of photos of girls and women in romantic clothing, surrounded by woods. In some, the forest i
s foggy and dark, creating an eeriness; in others, the leaves on the trees are crisp in the daytime light. The models pose with animals you wouldn’t usually see in photos with humans: one girl with shocking-red hair has her arms wrapped around a bear; a skinny brunette sits in front of an elephant, its trunk wrapped around her waist; the same blond from the tiger photo leans against a caribou. The photos are surreal and amazing and very, very daring.
The music fades from the speakers. “J, my lady!” Falcon yells back at me. “You gotta loosen up, let your hair down. Didn’t you get the memo? Road trips are supposed to be fun, man.”
I don’t answer. My mind scrambles to fill in the missing details. The scarf. The camera. Dad didn’t say anything about seeing them when he found me in the pen. Why would he leave that out?
And then it hits me like slap in the face—I know who must have the answers. But the farther we travel down the road, the closer we get to our fresh start, the greater the distance between me and the truth.
I have to do it now, before it’s too late. “Let me out,” I say.
“What?” Tarin peers back at me. “What did you say?”
“Let me out,” I say again, loud and slow.
“You gotta pee already?” Falcon says, the car veering to the side of the road.
“No.”
A feeling comes over me, something strange and powerful. It’s not exactly me, or the me of recent memory, who’s talking. It’s the girl I used to be, the girl I am now and the girl I will become, all rolled into one. They’re in agreement, coming together for the first time. It surprises me and at the same time makes me feel strong. And whole.
“No, I don’t have to pee,” I say. “Just stop the car.”
Falcon slows down, and he and Tarin exchange a look.
More than anything, I want to get out. I don’t want to go on a road trip to God-knows-where with a stinky ferret. I want to go home.
I detach my seat belt and clutch onto the back of Falcon’s seat. “I said, stop the car!” He actually laughs as the car skids to a halt, pieces of gravel dinging the underside of the car like popcorn in a pot.
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