by Amanda Heger
“Are you okay?” he asked, stopping his shaking legs a few feet in front of her.
She shook her head, mouth set in a firm line. “This fucking place…”
Felipe sank against the wall, drowning in his emotions.
“How could you do that?” Annie’s voice was small, but her words were pointed.
Half his mind remained outside, processing the villagers’ irate shouts. “¿Qué?”
“Send her back to those people. How can you send a child back to…to a monster? Like you didn’t even think it was wrong. Like, no problem, here in Nicaragua it’s okay to beat your kids.”
“Are you serious?” Felipe’s fury threatened to erupt. He’d put Annie in danger. He’d put the entire brigade in danger, taking her to that house. And he could tolerate her being angry with him for that. But this—
“Yes.”
“What do you want me to do?” He stood, his fists tight at his sides.
Marisol grabbed the flashlight and made her way over to them. The yellow light illuminated Annie’s red-rimmed eyes and the fat, ugly tears streaking her cheeks.
“’Lipe.” Marisol tugged at his arm. “Ven. Not now.”
“You want me to kidnap her? Kidnap every child here who has awful parents? Sorry, Annie. That is not going to happen.” He shook off his sister’s grip. “And Rosa. You made things worse for her. Do you think her dad went home and said, ‘Oh, I am so sorry now because the American girl showed me the error of my ways?’”
“Felipe, shhh.” Marisol pulled at him again.
“You handed her off to those people and walked away.” Annie smacked a hand against the dirt floor. “You knew what would happen, and you took her home anyway. How sick is that?”
“Do you know how many nights I had to sit around this fire playing the damn guitar before they would let us vaccinate their niños? Do you have any idea how many times we came out here only to have every person in the village ignore us?” The words ran out of his mouth, piling up in the space between them, pushing them further apart.
“So that makes it okay to let someone beat the shit out of a little girl?”
“No. How can you say that?” He started to walk away but flung himself around after a few steps. “Being a good doctor means making hard choices, Annie. Maybe one day you will see.” He took a deep breath, thinking of her bright future, probably working in the best hospitals in America. Never wanting for supplies or equipment or money. “But maybe not.”
Annie’s face crumbled then went slack. For a second he regretted every word. Her hands trembled as she pulled at the ends of her hair. “I want to go home.” She raised her eyes, furious tears working their way down her face. “I’m not staying here.”
Marisol pushed him off into another corner before he could spit out a response.
Juan stepped in front of him, cutting off Felipe’s view of Annie. “What now?” Juan asked.
Their host jabbed a finger at Felipe’s chest. “You must go. Once the people are gone. I cannot have these risks. I have family.”
When they were certain the last of the angry mob had retreated for the night, Felipe loaded his aching body with bags and led the group down the path. Juan and the rifle took the rear, and no one said a word as they slipped out of the village in the darkness.
Day Nineteen
Annie pulled out her journal, and her shoulders slumped over the blank page. Brown is never going to happen anyway. Not now. She shoved the cap between her clenched jaws as she pressed her pen to the page. The tip tore through the edge of the paper and still she pushed harder, letting the ink bleed through to the next page.
Day 19: Get me the hell out of this place.
“Are you okay, mi Anita?” Marisol stood over her. Dark circles ringed her eyes.
“Mari, I really need to go home.”
“I do not understand.”
“I need to go home. I can’t stay here and do this. I can’t…I can’t.” Annie bore down on the words, forcing them out with less hysteria than she felt.
Marisol sighed. “You can. You must. We are too far away from the roads.”
A cold rush of panic hit her skin. Marisol was right. She couldn’t leave. She was trapped in the rainforest, in this heat, with these mosquitos, covered in a perpetual layer of bug spray and sweat, following around a doctor who let drunks beat their daughters. And the only way out was time. Nine more days to be exact.
Nine. I have to make it through nine more days.
Marisol uncapped a lancet, pricked her finger, and smeared a drop of blood on one of her test strips. “I need to eat something.”
Annie had heard those words hundreds of times in the early months of their friendship. Marisol had just received her pump, and finding the right dosage of insulin had been tricky. Especially since all the training had been given in English.
“Do you have something in here?” Annie picked up Marisol’s pack and began digging. “Geez, Mari, how many books did you bring?” She pulled out three paperbacks before her fingers closed around the slick cylinder of glucose tabs. “Here.”
“Gracias.” Marisol sat and popped open the package, cramming two orange tabs into her mouth at once. “We have to wait for them to come get us.”
Annie wrinkled her forehead, wondering if her friend’s blood sugar had gone too low. “Who?”
“The people from the next village. They will meet us here and take us with them. It is inland. I think you will feel better after that. What happened last night,” she shook her head, “it was bad. But only a bump. We still have many days left to have fun together.” Her eyes brightened, and Annie could tell the sugar was working its way through her bloodstream.
“Okay. Do I have time to show—” Annie shook her head. “To wash off?”
Marisol pursed her lips. “Are you okay?”
She shrugged and nodded, her shoulders refusing the lie her head told. Her face felt puffy and raw, and anger still boiled in her chest. All morning she’d wondered about Rosa. Whether she sat huddled in a corner somewhere bruised and broken. Whether she was playing with her friends as if nothing happened. Whether Felipe was right about one thing—if she had made things ten times worse for the girl, for the whole village.
“Go ahead,” Marisol said.
Annie grabbed her pack and tore toward the water, her sadness and anger growing like a malignancy in her chest. She rounded a corner, and soon a line of trees stood between her and the others. She dropped her pack and collapsed on the ground, hanging her head between her knees. The sobs she’d held in all morning eased their way out in silent, searing pain.
When her tears dried, she stripped down, not bothering to pull her towel free of the mess in her bag, and jumped into the cool river. The water numbed her, and for a blissful few minutes she was able to scrub yesterday from her skin without being so deep inside her own head.
She sloshed her way to the shore and stood dripping next to her bag. As she rifled for her towel, the beat of footsteps came from her right.
“I’m naked!” Her voice carried through the trees. “Please wait.” She rummaged faster, yanking her towel around her as Phillip poked his head around the corner.
“Well, that’s no way to keep people away, yelling about how you’re naked.” His smile was wide and goofy, but his hands covered his eyes.
“Decent people would stay away.”
“Burn. Can I open my eyes now?”
She pulled the towel tighter around her. “Sure.”
“Do you want to talk?”
“I want to get dressed.”
“Are you sure? That chick on Barnyard said I was a great listener.”
She turned her back to him.
“Okay, you might hurry though. The horses are here.”
“Horses?”
He’d disappeared by the time she turned around.
She wrung out her hair and slipped into a different set of clothes. The edges of her t-shirt grew more tattered each day, and the stiff and un
yielding fabric chafed her sun-soaked skin.
By the time she trudged to the campsite, their group had grown by nine—three men and six horses. The animals were rough and scarred but well-fed and strong. As they paced, the muscles rippled in their haunches. She dropped her pack and inched forward, offering her palm to the nearest one—a bay paint, with a splotch of white across the nose. He snorted and nuzzled her hand. She scratched his neck, and her breathing slowed.
It was only after she buried her face in the horse’s mane—its rough hairs tangled and knotted at the ends—that she saw who was perched atop.
Felipe.
She took two giant steps back, and her pulse throbbed in her temples. “We’re going to ride?” she asked.
“Sí.” Marisol put a leg in the stirrup and threw the other over the saddle. Phillip slipped in behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her unnecessarily close.
Annie clenched her jaw so tightly her eye sockets ached. She was the only one left on the ground. The three strange men were already saddled, their horses loaded with bags. And she wasn’t about to ride with someone she didn’t know. Not after last night. Juan sat perched atop a mule, and there was no way it could carry both of them.
“Mari,” Annie stepped close to her friend’s horse, a lanky white thing with a beige mane, “let me ride with you. Please. I can’t do this. Not today.”
“You can. Just a bump, Annie. You will ride together into the sunset and make all your fighting disappear.”
She turned to the bay paint. She breathed deep, taking in the horses’ grainy smell. “I guess I’m riding with you.”
Felipe stared at her, embers of anger still burning in his expression. Without a word he offered her a hand.
Annie shook her head. No way I’m riding with my arms wrapped around him. No fucking way. “I need the saddle.”
“Do you know how to ride a horse?”
“Yes.”
They squared off, and the more time Annie spent there on the ground, grinding her teeth and seething, the louder the voice in the back of her mind became. Home. Home. I want to go home.
Finally, Felipe slid to the ground, and she threw herself over the animal’s back.
She leaned forward as he climbed on, putting as much space between them as possible, but there was no getting around the way his thighs pressed against her hips. Her skin scorched at his touch, but Annie ignored her body’s betrayal. “Let’s go boy.” She followed the others into the jungle.
The animal’s walk was clipped and purposeful. He did all the work, turning before Annie told him to and easing into the quick jumps over the gullies they crossed. “He must take this run a lot,” she muttered, relaxing into his trot as the breeze pulled the sweaty hairs from the back of her neck.
“Sí.”
Felipe’s breath warmed her skin, and Annie’s stomach churned. For three blissful seconds, she’d managed to forget he was behind her. The horse stiffened his movements to match hers, and they stopped, the distance between them and the others growing. She exhaled and nudged the animal forward. He took a single step. “Look.” She twisted around. “Don’t talk to me, right now. It’s making me all tense and—”
“I thought you knew how to ride horses.”
Annie dug her heel into the animal’s side. They tore off, and Felipe fumbled backwards, his hands finding her waist and gripping for dear life. She drove the horse faster, not caring that the brush tore at her arms and legs. Every scrape and scratch reminded her of Rosa. Reminded her of the way he’d pried the poor girl from her arms, then acted as if she was the one who did something wrong.
Nine more days.
Day Twenty
Felipe rose out of his hammock before the sun climbed fully in the sky. All night, he’d stared at the ceiling of the tiny house, worrying while he listened to Juan’s deafening snores. Worrying about Rosa. Whether news of the near riot would follow the brigade, seeping distrust into the other villages. About the fight brewing with his mother—even if she didn’t know it yet.
The last brigade had included a prominent surgeon from Seattle with a big forehead and an even bigger ego. Things had gone downhill fast, and by the halfway point in the trip, the man had stopped speaking to everyone. When the group returned to Ahora headquarters, Dr. Big Head refused to participate in the post-trip debriefing and instead checked himself into the hotel down the street. A month later, he mailed Melinda a letter with a detailed list of complaints. Number one: the “angry child” in charge. The letter also hinted that he would like his sizeable pre-trip donation returned in full. Melinda had pulled the funds from Felipe’s salary and given him a “last chance” lecture that left him queasy and outraged for days.
Already, he could picture how this lecture would go. Even a hundred kilometers from home, he could hear his mother’s voice—sharp as the broken glass the drunk had clutched in his fingers—see her heavy sigh, feel her disappointment. She’d sigh and shake her head when they arrived home, rambling on about how he needed to be more flexible. That he needed to understand more about how the world works and the people in it. He would beg her once again to stop parading the Americans through the jungle, mucking up everything in their wake. And then she’d fire him from these trips, severing his last remaining ties to the place he’d been born. Felipe dropped his bags to the ground and sat outside the hut while everyone else slept. Around him, people left their houses for morning chores. They waved and welcomed him as they passed, and Felipe breathed a little deeper. Either they did not care about what had happened, or the news had not made it this far. Yet.
The hard, cracked dirt dug into his backside, and with each passing minute, the sun rose higher, pounding down on his skin. He ran through excuse after excuse, searching for any explanation that could possibly satisfy his mother and finding none.
“What are you doing?” Marisol’s shadow blocked the sun.
“Thinking.”
“Everyone is ready to go to the clinic…”
“And?”
“Except Annie. She does not feel well. But I think it is—”
“If she is sick, she should not come.” He stood and picked up the bags at his feet, refusing to meet his sister’s eye.
“’Lipe, you know—”
“No, I do not know. If she wants to stay here, she can stay here.” He swallowed something hard and bitter in his throat. “We do not need her.”
Marisol threw a duffle bag at his feet. It hit the ground with a thud, stirring up dust around his ankles. “You will do the nets then?”
They stared at each other, Marisol’s nostrils flaring.
“Fine.” He picked up the bag and tossed it over his shoulder with the others. As he turned, a crop of messy red curls poked out from the doorway, and his eyes landed on Annie’s. The mix of emotions boiling inside him was so acrid the words flew out of his mouth before he could stop them. “We do not need you anyway.”
She stared at him, unmoving, unblinking. But the hurt was etched into her features, and it only made his anger burn and blister deeper.
“You are so stupid, ’Lipe.” Marisol’s words hit him in the back, shoving him forward. He kept walking, ignoring the cold, hard lump of pain in his throat.
Day Twenty-One
The fine spray of river water made goose bumps rise on Annie’s forearms. Thick, slate-gray clouds overhead blocked every ounce of sunlight, and the breeze created by the boat ride was almost enough to make her teeth chatter. For the first time since she left the airport in Managua, Annie was cold.
Beside her, Marisol droned on, asking question after question about their old classmates. Annie knew her friend was trying to keep her mind off of what had happened. “And the girl with all the earrings in her face? I do not remember her name, but she had very long hair.”
“I think her name was Jen.” Annie stared out at the river. Looking at Marisol meant seeing Felipe’s annoying broad shoulders. It meant seeing the way Phillip looked at Mari, all infatua
tion and puppy love. And not standard puppy love. It was starving-puppy-rescued-from-a-mill-and-given-a-sirloin, puppy love.
“Does she still live in St. Louis?”
“No, she moved away in eleventh grade. But she still had all the piercings then.”
“Probably more.” Marisol nudged Annie with her shoulder. “Remember when her tongue earring got stuck to the gym teacher’s whistle?”
The memory rushed back, forcing out a smile. “She kept screaming, ‘Thluck! Thluck!’” Annie waved her hands in panicked circles, mimicking the poor girl’s movements. “And Coach Roberts kept saying, ‘Quit moving, Martin. Quit moving!’”
“I never believed the she-dropped-a-pen-under-the-desk story.”
“That sounds like the best school ever,” Phillip said. “Stuff like that never happened at mine. But the teachers were all nuns, so…”
Ahead of them, Felipe shook his head, and even though Annie couldn’t see his expression, she could picture it perfectly. All judgment and annoyance. Steely superiority.
“You look like you’re about to murder someone’s grandma. Relax.” Phillip gave Annie his trademark blinding smile. “We’ve got another week here to live la vida loca or whatever. Might as well try to have a good time.”
“Yes, because nothing helps someone relax more than being told to relax. God. Do you ever think before you open your mouth?” Annie’s last tiny bit of happiness splintered inside her, turning to shards of bitterness and reaching out to stab anyone in her way. “Probably not. That’s why everyone but you knows this little fling with Mari has been doomed from the beginning, so no big deal. Just relax, right?”
Phillip’s calm, cool, good looks morphed into something so sad and pathetic Annie could barely stand it.
“Look,” she said. “I’m sorry. I—”
He turned away before she could finish.