“Here,” I say, handing the pink tee to Arden. “I figured our jeans could go a couple days, but we needed shirts.”
She unfolds her prize and spreads it on the steering wheel. With careful touches, she tugs the arms and the neck, until it’s splayed out in front of her, perfectly arranged. Her whole face lights up. This is what Christmas at her house must look like, and I don’t get it. It’s not like she doesn’t have a closet full of name-brand shit at home.
After a second, she realizes I said something. Her smile is distracted and she says, “I was thinking the same thing about underwear.”
I tease, “You were thinking about my underwear?”
To my surprise, Arden blushes. Her ears turn a delicate pink, her cheeks too. It’s obvious she’s embarrassed by being embarrassed, because she folds the shirt up real quick and drapes it over her shoulder. She starts the car and says, “We should hit a Walmart, pick up a couple things. There’s probably one around here somewhere.”
“You’re so weird,” I tell her, pulling on my seat belt. “And I can’t believe you know what a Walmart is.”
“Everybody likes to save money.”
When she starts the engine, I mold myself into the seat. The engine sounds smooth but there’s something slightly off about the car. It runs fine, but the AC keeps going in and out. Something pings and pops under the hood every time it does. Big surprise, you don’t get a quality piece of machinery for a handful of magic beans.
It makes me nervous because I want the car to last until Illinois. I’m hoping if we stop soon and let it rest, it’ll do us right. It would be nice if it got us all the way to California. That’s not even optimistic though. That’s just stupid.
Leaving the gas station, I notice a lot of hotels on this exit. Restaurants, too, their signs starting to glow now that it’s dusk. I wonder if Arden wants to stop in one of them. So far, she doesn’t say much about what she wants. She doesn’t make rest stops for her, but she goes every time I need to.
“Where do you want to stay tonight?” She asks me this, like it didn’t bite her in the ass last time.
Picking up her phone, I fiddle around with the map app. “I don’t care, wherever.”
Dubious, she says, “Wherever. You really don’t care.”
I shrug with all the intense indifference I can muster. Arden’s a mystery to me. The only way to solve her is by turning her over and examining all her edges. So I kind of want to see what she’ll pick. Maybe it’ll be one of those fancy hotels with room service and a guy running the elevator. Maybe it’ll be another Baytes Motel.
Shifting uncomfortably, Arden pulls up to a red light. She watches it, like it might sneak a green past her if she’s not paying attention. “What if I want to sleep in the car?”
“Fine by me,” I say.
Rocking against the wheel, she offers, “What if we bought a tent at Walmart and camped?”
“Cool,” I say. “I’ve never been camping.”
“Hmmm.”
She sounds like her dad did on the phone. It might be a bad thing to point that out, though, so I change the subject. When the light flicks green, I ask, “Are you hungry?”
With a shrug, Arden glances over. “I could eat. Where do you want to stop?”
“If you’re hungry, pick something,” I say.
On the phone, I zoom down to street level. All the chains are there. Chili’s and Applebee’s and Ruby Tuesday, digital pushpins on a digital map. I love looking at them on the screen, then looking up to see the real thing glide by. I defy anybody to sit and think about it, really think about it, and not be amazed.
“I don’t know, what sounds good to you?”
Leaning into her space, I clap a hand on her shoulder and peer at her. Her profile’s not as nice as the front view. Her crazy curls cover up a lot. It looks like her brows are furrowed all the time, like she’s just walking around mad. Resting my chin on my hand, I say, “What sounds good to you?”
Arden steals a look in my direction. “Is there some reason you’re messing with me, or is it just for fun?”
“I’m not, I just want you to pick.”
“I really don’t know,” she says.
Shaking my head, I slide back to my side of the car. I always know what I want. I even know the order I want it in. Either Arden’s lying to treat me, or she’s even more alien than I thought. Since I’m in charge of everything, I make an executive decision. “There’s a Walmart. Let’s just get groceries and keep going. We can drive all night.”
Finally, she hesitates and admits, “I’m kind of tired.”
Good enough. I’ll take it.
(LONGEST RECEIPT I EVER SEEN)
Three hundred dollars buys a lot at Walmart. The basket was full; we had too much for a self-check lane.
Then the clerk called the manager, and manager called in to make sure Arden’s credit card wasn’t stolen. Arden was embarrassed. I was impressed. When the manager came back, he apologized to Arden and called her sir. Looking sick, Arden accepted the apology anyway.
We cart ourselves down the street, and Arden finally picks an in-between hotel. Nothing fancy with room service or anything. But nothing skanky with potential serial killers next door, either. In the lobby, they heap a plate high with fresh, free cookies. While Arden pays for the room, I snag one. Taking a bite, I sigh. It’s only okay: kinda chocolate, but kinda metal. But cookies make me wonder where my old sailing buddy Coy Carmichael is tonight. If she’s baking or riding away, or maybe a little of both.
When we get upstairs, I’m disappointed to realize this room has two beds. Maybe that’s wrong, but I like how things ended up at the motel; all the spark and fire of accidentally touching when we were awake. All the newfound glory, waking up in somebody’s arms. It was too much to hope for again, so I try to put the thought out of my head.
Arden dumps our bags on the bed by the door. She moves like she’s on a mission. Spilling things out, she sorts. Crazy fast, she creates piles.
In the eating stack, all the food we bought. Apples and bananas, bread and lunch meat, mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard. Skittles. Mountain Dew. We’re going to fill up the cooler we bought with ice from the hotel bins. This way, we can snack on the road and we don’t have to stop unless we want to.
Next is the clothes stack, one for me, one for her. She’s got a six-pack of panties; I’m guessing the same kind she always wears. I’ve seen the arch of them peeking over the top of her leggings, just plain, colored cotton. She pulls a bra out of the tangle, and actually stops. I’m watching her just because I like watching her, but she blushes when she realizes my eyes are on her. With a rolled shoulder, she holds up the lacy, padded lingerie and says, “It’s not worth the fight at home.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
She pulls the bra off the hanger and folds it neatly into her pile. Matter of fact, she looks at me and shrugs. “I mean, realistically, they’re never going to be that big. Hormones get you as far as your mom’s genetics will take you, and my mom’s flat as a pancake.”
That’s new information to me, but not all that interesting to her, it looks like. It takes her all of a second to move on. The bags rustle as she rummages in them, and she starts hauling out more phat lewtz.
Next up, body stuff—toothbrushes, floss that she’s gonna use but I never will. Shampoo, and I argued about that because the hotels give us shampoo. But if this is the kind that smells like her, then I guess I can use it. She smells clean to me, always. A pack of razors for her, she’s got a pretty good shadow on her jaw at the moment.
Nestled in the middle of this stuff is a first-aid kit, a fire extinguisher, and an emergency roadside pack. We are prepared, bitches.
The last stack is dumb stuff. Bottles of bubbles and Nerf guns. Harmonicas and maracas and Koosh balls. The tiny chess set was Arden’s idea. She thinks she’s going to teach me to play. I’ve got news for her: I already know. I will kick her ass. And when I do, I will laugh and laugh.
Th
e cookies are still warm. I press my tongue into one of the chips, soft chocolate spilling out. Waxy and sweet, it fills my mouth—it’s not too bad, actually. I sprawl on the other bed because I’m supposed to act like a gentleman, even if I’m not one. Even if I’m hoping that we’re going to share again, I can’t just assume it. I just want all that stuff to stay over there; I want so bad for her to come over here.
“Wait, I know I bought a multitool,” Arden mutters, digging around in the bags.
She’s fussy, and that’s funny. In the game, the way I know her best, she’s undead. And it’s a fact: the Forsaken are nasty. They poison everything; they leave pools of green contamination wherever they go. Their city has a canal full of toxic sludge. Their main goal in unlife is to turn the whole world into walking corpses. How do you get to be somebody who folds socks in thirds in real life, but picks an avatar that’s nothing but decomp?
It makes me wonder about her, and I feel like I’ve done that a lot today. Rolling onto my stomach, I call her name to get her attention. When she looks, I wave my hands around with fake sign language and ask aloud, “What was that all about?”
There’s a weird second where her face clouds over. But it’s gone just as fast, replaced with a half smile. She replies with sweeping, elegant fingers. They wash through the air, curling, flicking. Her lips move, and then when she goes back to sorting she says, “It’s ASL. I learned some at camp. One of my bunkmates was Deaf.”
“For real?” I prop myself on my elbows, picking the cookie into tiny pieces. “That’s cool. What do you do at camp?”
“Archery, crafts. There’s usually a talent show . . .” She bounces when she finds her multitool, which turns out to be a bunch of tools all crammed together. So, now the name makes sense. She cracks it open and starts cutting tags like a champ. “Bonfires, hikes, stuff like that.”
Rolling onto my back, I watch her from upside down now. She’s still pretty, her hair wavering as she moves. It’s a dense, dark cloud and it gets in her face—makes sense she bought another pack of hairbands.
I ask, “Was it fun?”
“No,” she says. That’s as direct as she’s ever been, and she looks up at me like she might have to defend herself.
I break off a piece of cookie and hold it out. “Why not?”
“I started going the summer my parents got divorced.” She takes the cookie and pops it into her mouth. Her hands flash again, severing tags from socks and shirts with reckless abandon. “Actually, I went to camp, and when I got home, they were divorced. My dad was gone.”
An ache that belongs to Arden alone starts beneath my rib-cage. It spreads out, taking up residence. It pushes all my inside soup out of the way, popping bones like toothpicks. What kind of parents do that to their kid? I thought rich people were all about mediation and talking it out and therapy and shit.
I say none of this, because I don’t want her to think I’m banging on her mom and dad. I know from experience, you can call your own people assholes but the minute somebody else does it, the fight is on. So I temper my response, down to something that’s focused just on her. On little baby Arden, who probably had a round baby face, to go with her round curls and her round eyes. So soft and vulnerable and woundable.
“That sucks, boo. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” she says.
“Doesn’t mean I’m not sorry,” I reply.
It’s almost automatic, the way she straightens everything up. Now that everything’s detagged, she starts packing again. Clothes into the backpack she picked out, food into the cooler. She organizes the world. Sorts it. Puts it in boxes. There’s a tremor that runs up her back when she does it; I didn’t notice that before. Her voice is even because she forces it that way.
“Mom said they were trying to make it a clean break for me. Then the next summer, she dropped me off at camp and Dad picked me up. So, you know, they’re big on clean breaks.”
There’s darkness here. I see it; it casts shadows across Arden’s face. It turns her mouth down, and turns the lights off in her eyes. The cookie tastes like dust now, so I put it aside. “Where . . . where did she go?”
“France. To find herself.” A grim smile contorts her face; she doesn’t look at me. She just keeps punching clothes into bags. Punishing denim instead of her family. I like to hit things when I get mad, too. “She’s still there. Apparently she was really lost.”
There’s a bunch more questions I wanna ask. Have you seen her? Does she talk to you? But I don’t ask; it doesn’t seem like there’s a good answer waiting. Instead, I slide to the edge of the bed and reach across the gap. Arden’s too far away; I can’t actually touch her. I wave my hands in the air until the breeze touches her instead. “Troche-say-hey. Hey, you.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, trying to force her face into a smooth mask of itself. “I’m bringing you down. I’m bringing me down. Shut up, right?”
“Yeah, that’s something I’d say to you never.” I hold out my hand again. “Come here.”
Her hesitation turns into unraveling, but she comes closer and I wrap her back up again. When her arms slip around me, I pull her head to my shoulder and pet her back in long, smooth strokes. I can’t do much, but I can comfort her, you know?
I’ve got nothing to give her but a safe place, folded against my chest. She can hide in the curve of my neck; she’s safe here beneath my hands. I’m not scamming on her; I’m not. All I wanna do right now is let her hide, and hurt, and come back out whole on the other side.
I squeeze her tight and I murmur, “People just suck sometimes. They don’t think about anybody but themselves.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Her breath seeps through my shirt, marking me red hot. For a minute, she lets herself disappear in me. But just a minute; it’s almost like she can’t let herself relax. When she starts to give in she pulls away. There’s light between us, then she steps back. She swallows hard, then takes a deep breath.
To give her some privacy, I look away because she’s trying to put herself back together. I get that. When her breath falls even again, I tug on the hem of her shirt. I dip my head to catch her eyes, because she’s still staring at the floor.
I promise her, “I’ll be the one who stays.”
The air in the room suddenly clears. It’s clean and sharp, so thin everything looks brighter. That’s the first time I’m not afraid of where I’m going. Destination, mostly unknown. Normal unknown, life, unknown, but one thing’s for sure.
When it comes to Arden, I’ll be the one who stays.
(NIGHTSWIMMING)
I slide out of sleep like I’m slicked with oil. Greasy sweat trails fire along my skin. The bed lurches beneath me, or maybe I arch off of it.
Peeling Arden’s arm from my waist, I slip from the bed and stagger toward the bathroom. Nothing makes sense at first. The geometry of the room is off, with corners doubled up and the floor at an angle. One of the lights buzzes and it casts a greenish haze—maybe I’m just seeing greenish.
Splashing cold water on my face, I wait for a wave of nausea. I don’t know why I’m sick, I just know it’s coming. It’s gonna hit any minute. This isn’t chemo sick. This isn’t even detox sick, and fuck, I don’t miss that at all.
Snatches of dreams waver just at the edge of my thoughts. I was inside an MRI again; it clanged, something was wrong—the more I try to remember what happened, the worse it makes me feel. It doesn’t seem fair that a light show that your brain puts on when you’re unconscious should have any kind of power, but it does.
It woke me up, but it’s got claws in. It’s turning bad dreams into anxiety, making it flutter in my chest and twist in my gut. I lean over the toilet for a long time, but nothing happens. Nothing comes up, and finally I give up. I rinse my mouth and stumble from the bathroom. I bump the bed, then lean away from it. As if it’s the bed’s fault I had anxiety dreams—yeah, blame the mattress and the pillows that actually fluff, Dylan, do that.
I sn
atch the key card from the dresser and wobble to the door. I don’t want to be sick like this when Arden’s in the room. For a long time, the doctors had me on pills to help the anxiety. Funny thing was, they didn’t help a lot—you can’t chemical away being scared of dying when you’re dying, it turns out. Now, though, I sort of wish I had them. I’m scared for no reason, and I feel helpless. If she wakes up, she’ll feel helpless, too.
I gotta get out of here. Just long enough to get my head back. Just long enough to get some air. I fling myself out of the room.
The hall is too long and too tall, stretching like a cathedral above me. Chlorine stains the air, and I follow the smell. It seems like swimming would help, if I could just cool off. Get the sweat off me, and float a little bit. My mouth hangs open, spit pooling. I don’t want to swallow; it tastes like chewing foil, like licking batteries.
Pulling my shirt to my mouth, I spit into a fold of it and sway against the wall. It holds me up and I walk and walk and walk. Forever, it seems like. The walk from my bedroom to the kitchen is forever at night. Even when my mother craps out in front of the TV, and I have three a.m. infomercials lighting the way, it’s so far.
At the end of the hall, I stare at myself. All my molecules screech to a halt and I whimper. I’m a ghost, pale and transparent. Tipping my head one way, then the other, I approach myself. Did I die? I really want to know, because this is some cartoonish bullshit, being out of my body and seeing myself from a distance. Creeping closer, I hold my breath. It raises an unsteady hand; I do too.
Then I crash into a glass wall. Found the pool.
My key card opens the glass door. A humid curtain sweeps over me. Chlorine burns my nose. Wavering blue crescents decorate the walls, the ceiling. The lights are out, the only illumination coming from beneath the water. I leave the card on a frosted glass table and walk to the edge of the pool. All I wanna do is cool off. I just need to get wet and get my shit together, that’s all.
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