Alive

by Chandler Baker

  Brynn and I storm off in opposite directions. A door slams upstairs. I pound my fist to my forehead. My chest radiates pain to the point that my breathing is now shallow. Oxygen flows into my lungs in tiny swigs. Where is he? I pull out my phone and call Levi. No answer. I don’t even know why I’m so panicked, but my armpits are sweating and I’m starting to get dizzy, so that must be what it is. Panic.

  I just saw him on the deck talking to Tess. That must have been when he went to get a drink, but where’d he go from there? He wasn’t hooking up with anyone upstairs. That much I’ve ruled out, at least.

  I stagger downstairs and outside through the growing crowd of people. The cold air hits me and I gulp it in, as if I’ve only just now realized how cramped it’d been in there. My legs are as wobbly as if I’d spent a month bedridden, only I haven’t. Not this time. I make my way across the yard to where Levi parked. The Tahoe’s still there, not that he’s in it. But it’s there and I’m comforted, if only a little.

  Why wouldn’t he be there waiting for me when I got back? Or if he stepped away, why wouldn’t he come looking for me? He’s supposed to be my boyfriend.

  My heart thrums inside my chest and I press my fingertips to my throat, counting the beats. As I mutter numbers under my breath, the words run together. My pulse is fast. Too fast. I try to calm down. Blackness eats at the edges of my vision.

  Towering pines twist around the property like a veil. The sound of their rustling leaves swarms the sky. Wind picks at my hair, lifting it off my shoulders.

  My feet tread gently across pine needles and cones. I skirt the edge of Mitchell’s house in search of Levi. The sound of the party is muffled by the pitter-patter of rain falling loose from branches, stirring treetops, and the occasional hollowed out howl of the wind. I hug myself against the chill. Even as I search, I know that Brynn’s right. I’m acting crazy.

  But I forge on anyway.

  Retrieving my cell phone, I aim it at the ground to mark my steps. The deck juts out from the back of the house. I blink. An image butts in uninvited. Levi and Tess talk—no, flirt. I haven’t seen her since I left for the bathroom either. I don’t know if it’s real or my imagination, but I can smell beer, hear the sound of clanking glasses from inside the house. The bass is thump-thump-thumping and it tickles my insides. Henry is saying something near me. I catch him smiling, but cut my glance away before I can return it. Tess and Levi. The names smash together in my head, setting off alarm bells. Why her? Why is he talking to her?

  A twig snaps behind me and I jump back to the present. “Who’s there?” I hiss. No one answers. More sticks crack. There’s rustling. I ready myself to run even if it kills me. Because it might. The doctors have made that much clear. Out of the underbrush, a raccoon trundles along the dampened ground.

  Who did I think it was going to be, Charles Manson?

  “Levi?” I call, following the outline of the deck. It forms a large rectangle, at the end of which is a set of wooden stairs. I stand at the foot and stare out. There’s a barely visible path leading into the woods, where the floor of needles has been stepped on and, in places, brushed away. This is the last place I haven’t looked.

  Moonlight trickles through the trees, casting an eerie sheen on the woodland path. When I was little, I would have loved exploring the forest. I would have imagined all of the types of animals I might see, the places I could hide.

  My boots sink into the soft ground. I push past thin branches and bushes that block the path. Pretty soon I’m so deeply entrenched in the woods that I can no longer see the lights from Mitchell’s house. Everything is as dark and opaque as crushed velvet beyond the subtle glow from my cell phone.

  I push down the fear that’s threatening to explode my lungs and press into the darkness. With each step, the air becomes more damp and cold. “Levi?” I cup my hands around my mouth and call as loudly as I dare.

  The first time I hear a branch break, a few invisible feet to my right, I force myself to ignore it. It’s another raccoon. They’re everywhere in Washington. Then another limb cracks. Still nothing, I tell myself. They’re more scared of you than you are of them. I remember when my dad used to tell me that about spiders.

  I rub my palms on the front of my jeans for warmth. Only a little farther. If I don’t find them, I’ll turn back. There’s a break in the canopy up ahead where the moonlight pours in and paints a silvery window on the nettled floor. I aim for that point, comforted by the interruption from blackness. My nose is running. It coats my upper lip. I wipe it away, continuing to punch and kick my way through the bramble.

  Is Brynn right? Have I lost it?

  The next snap of a bough is so close to my ear I jump back. “Who’s there?” Unlike the previous noises, this one wasn’t from an animal foraging on the ground. It was higher. I aim the screen of my phone outward and try to use it as a flashlight. The soft, electronic blue illuminates only a foot or so in front of my outstretched hand. A maze of tree trunks surround me. Between each is nothing but empty space.

  I take tiny steps, rotating a full three hundred and sixty degrees. Breath drains out of me in a slow, belabored rattle. “I have a weapon,” I call. I wish I had a weapon—a knife, a screwdriver, anything. Branches and twigs splinter in rapid fire, surrounding me like a circle of dominoes falling one after the other.

  A swoosh of leaves, like a rake sweeping the ground. I whip to my left.

  Watched.

  Watched.

  Watched.

  You are being watched. My skin feels like it’s being overtaken by scuttling beetles. My joints are suddenly stiff, and when I try to move my cement-block feet, the motion is robotic and clumsy. Move, feet, I demand, but they fight to stay on the ground. I tear each one from the dirt like my shoes have grown roots.

  I twirl back the way I came, away from the mirror of light shining through the trees. The leaves ripple around me. I’m being chased. I break into a run. Any second, Mitchell’s house should be visible.

  The toe of my boot catches on a root and my stomach goes flying into my throat. My hands and chin skid into moist dirt. Scrambling, I push my knees and elbows into the mud. Wet leaves and undergrowth coat the entire front of me. My phone skids, faceup, out of reach.

  On all fours, I crawl toward the phone. Just as I curl my fingers around the cold, hard glass, my eye catches what looks like a bloody handprint on one of the tree trunks. Steamy white breath puffs from my flaring nostrils.

  I squeeze my eyes shut. Lightning pain shoots through the back of my head and, after, my vision is tinted in red.

  I do a crab-scuttle back, and before I can see any more, I’ve clambered to my feet. In a ring around me, every trunk is splattered in blood, dribbling through the cracks between the bark. Faint sounds of laughter and music trickle through the leaves. I hobble toward them, knees stinging, thorns and branches tearing my clothes, scratching my face.

  I stagger all the way back to the house without looking back. It’s not real. It’s not real. I say the words over and over again until they lose meaning. The dissection, the handprints, Elsie’s drowning—none of these had been real.

  I push my knuckles into my temples. Why’s he letting this happen to me? It’s his fault. He’s the one who left me. Swallowing hard against tears, I slump onto a couch and wait. White and blue spots flare up like fireworks each time I blink. The clock on my phone says 12:00. Then 12:20. The people in front of me are swirling and I feel as if I’m just watching a scene. It’s twelve forty now. I check my phone to make sure I have service. I do. But there are no calls or texts from Levi.

  My insides have twisted themselves into a fistful of angry knots, and I will myself to hold down the bile that’s burning the back of my throat. If he were here, none of this would have happened. Everything would have been fine.

  We’re supposed to be at this party together, me and Levi. I bite back tears thinking about how I’d imagined taking him upstairs. How it should have been me instead of Brynn. I’ve never don
e anything like that and it was supposed to be tonight.

  Instead, I wait on the couch, embarrassed by how angry I am, embarrassed that I’m not enjoying the party without him. I should go get wasted and dance on the kitchen counter. That’s what I should do. But that’s not what I would do and it turns out that’s a tougher thing to change than I thought

  It’s twelve fifty-three. I look up from my phone, my vision blurry. People are dancing. The bass has become as much a part of me as my own heartbeat. This isn’t normal. Brynn is right. My parents are right. Henry’s right. Everyone’s right but me.

  A hand’s on my shoulder. All of the pain that I’ve been feeling for the last hour seeps out of me. I’ve been staring into space, completely blank, and when I look up, there’s Levi.

  “Stella?” he asks.

  “Yeah.” I don’t get up. My insides are churning, but my chest is calm. I can actually think. “Where have you been?” I wish I didn’t say it with so much venom, but it’s out there.

  Levi looks affronted. His chin snaps back. “I was hanging out with some of the guys.”

  My eyes narrow to a squint. “Which guys?”

  One side of Levi’s mouth snags upward into a snarl. “God, what are you? The police?”

  The comment hits me in the gut. I’ve always had trouble trusting people. I even believe my parents have ulterior motives.

  “I went looking for you and I didn’t see you with any of the guys here.” I’m still doing it. I can’t help it. Something’s wrong with me.

  “You went looking for me?” Levi says, like I’d done something vile.

  “Well, you said you’d be there waiting for me and then…” I sniffle without meaning to. “And then you weren’t.” I can’t bring myself to tell him about the woods.

  Slowly, calmly, he folds his arms across his chest. “I suppose the concept of personal space is lost on you then?” Something about him looks radiant. Like he’s just gotten back from a workout and all his blood is pumping life into him. He looks high.

  My lower lip starts to tremble. I’m going to cry. I’m going to cry right here in the middle of Mitchell Boerne’s living room, surrounded by drunk people and the smell of booze sweat. So I do the only thing I can think of. I leave.

  Grabbing my cell off my lap, I shove it in my back pocket and make a beeline for the front door.

  I’m sick with shame. As soon as I’m outside, I round the house and crouch down next to a bush, my face already slick with tears and snot. Salt pours onto my lips and into my mouth, which I’m breathing through now, since I can’t possibly take a breath through my nose. The more I tell myself not to cry, the more I sob, the more I feel like I’m suffocating. We are, it turns out, completely and utterly screwed up.

  “You’re acting insane.”

  “Only because you’re making me that way.”

  “What did you say?” Lightning fast, he snatches my wrist and twists. The force crushes my bones.

  “Stop, you’re hurting me.” This should be the moment that I collapse into a fit of renewed sobbing, but strangely, my tears dry up as if they’ve been vacuumed. I’m met, for the first time, with the hardness in Levi’s eyes. Cold and unforgiving as marble. He glares at me and a chill races down my back.

  “Don’t tell me about hurt,” he says.

  “Let me go.” I smooth my voice into a pitch that doesn’t waver. And when he finally does, I feel a swell of fear and relief, because I know what it is I’m really telling him; my heart is already aching in protest.

  It’s over.

  “Are you watching?” Brynn asks before I can say hello.

  I bury my face in the pillow. “What time is it?” I groan and peel open my eyelids, which are puffy and crusted

  “Almost after twelve. A time when civilized people are out of bed, Stella.”

  My temples throb and I press my thumbs into my skull. “Screw civilization. Totally overrated.” I’d given up early rising when I had to give up swim practices.

  “Says the girl who once lived off Doritos. Turn on the TV.” This isn’t what I thought she was going to say. After all, I basically called her a slut last night. My best friend. What is wrong with me? Throwing the comforter off, I swing my legs over the bed and gingerly stand up, feeling like somebody punched me in the eye sockets.

  Clicking on the television, I’m about to ask which channel, when the face of a pretty, dark-haired girl appears.

  “Is that Tess?” I ask, forgetting all concerns over the awkwardness of last night. A newscaster is saying something that I can’t hear, and in a box at the top of the frame is a school picture of Tess. Her hair’s down and she’s smiling against the muted blue-sea background that school photographers always seem to favor.

  “Yep.”

  I turn up the volume and listen to the newscaster as I piece together the meaning of the words. Missing and Friday and If you have any information…

  “She never came home after the party.”

  “They know about the party?”

  “Yeah.” Brynn sighs. “Mitchell came clean pretty quickly this morning after he got a couple calls. I think his parents are okay. Just glad he was honest. But they’re on their way home from their trip. Early.”

  “Jesus.” I pull myself up so that I’m kneeling in bed. “My parents are going to flip. What happened?” The image of Levi and Tess standing together on the deck flashes like a camera in my mind. Followed by something worse.

  “They don’t know. Somebody said she had a fight with her mom earlier. Maybe she ran away.”

  “Right.” I nod, even though Brynn can’t see me. “That makes sense. It’s kind of early, isn’t it? I mean, to call out the bloodhounds and whatnot. It’s been less than twenty-four hours.”

  There are still shots of our school flashing across the screen now and a caption below saying that our principal will be interviewed in an hour.

  “Apparently there were signs of foul play. Whatever that means. No one’s saying a thing, but Mitchell told Connor, who told me that there were drops of blood on his deck.”

  “Really?” My voice is hoarse. The image of blood splattered across the tree trunks springs to mind and then vanishes.

  “I know, right?”

  We sit quietly for a few moments, listening to each other breathe. I watch a few new photographs scroll on-screen. Tess in her cheerleading uniform. Tess in a goofy Christmas sweater. Tess holding her scruffy shih tzu dog.

  “You think she’s okay, don’t you?” I ask. This time it’s the impact of her head against a sharp corner that I see. A slow, controlled folding inward of the body, like human origami. I push my head into the crook of my elbow.

  “I don’t know. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, not even her. Anyway, it’s probably too early to start thinking about that stuff.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” I wait a few more seconds. Part of me wants to say something, to tell Brynn about how I’d seen Levi talking to her outside. And about how I’d looked but couldn’t find him. To have her say back, Oh, isn’t that strange? But in a lighthearted, what-a-coincidence sort of way. I want to tell her because it should be a small detail, a nothing. Why should I think it is anything else? But I don’t.

  Like Brynn had said, Tess was drunk. She had a fight with her mom. She could have run away or wandered off or anything. I think back to my vision, but what would I say to the police? I’m not even sure what I saw. Trees? Wet trees? It’s Seattle. That will go over well. And besides, they could think I’m involved.

  Then comes a more chilling thought. What if I am involved? What did I do during my vision? I have no idea.

  “Brynn, about last night—” I say instead.

  “Let’s not,” she cuts me off, and I can tell that she means it.

  I sit quietly, not knowing how to continue until, to my surprise, I say, “I broke up with him. You were right.”

  “I know,” she says, but for once she leaves out the I-told-you-so tone.

  After a while
, I tell Brynn I have to finish my homework but that I’ll see her tomorrow and then there’s a click and the line’s dead. The phone bounces on the mattress and I stare blankly at the TV without blinking. Finally, when my eyes are dry and itching, I lie back down on my pillow and close them, the image of Levi and Tess burned like a brand into the back of my lids.

  That afternoon, I refuse to eat or get dressed or shower. Levi calls. My finger hovers over the buttons until I summon the willpower to hit ignore. As soon as I do, the space underneath my breastbone swells with an agony so deep it nearly buckles my knees.

  Then, at five oh eight, I crawl into bed and accept that there’s no way out from the pain. I slip in and let it engulf my body from head to toe like I’m drowning, and afterward, I don’t bother getting up until morning.

  The next day, they find her body. Even though I’m not there, the scene plays vividly in my imagination. A man with a forest-green uniform and a holster that swivels on his hips leans back on the leashes of two black-and-tan German shepherds whose noses churn up the dirt and undergrowth. They find her beneath a thorny shrub. A torn piece of fabric hangs from one of the branches. Twigs and leaves accessorize her knotted hair as though she were a fairy wood nymph waiting to awaken.

  The dogs howl, long and forlorn. They paw at the ground as if they’re trying to dig a grave with their short claws. Yellow tape wraps around tree trunks. Sirens. A boxy ambulance. An unzipped plastic bag. And when they lift her, the weight of her middle sags low.

  But there’s one thing I can’t picture. No matter how many times the reporters insist in their zappy, sensationalized-headline way that it’s true.

  Tess Collars was found Sunday morning with a single, gaping hole and nothing inside the cabinet of her chest.

  Her heart, they said, was missing.

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