Overnight? I hadn’t thought of that when I volunteered. I hadn’t actually thought of anything. I have to go home tonight. My mind starts racing, trying to find a way out of this, but the engine’s getting louder. I imagine being out here in the dark, alone, chained to a weird random bucket in the ground, some forest cop trying to arrest me. I look to Jeff for help, but he’s out on the fringes of the group, watching me with this weird mix of admiration and jealousy.
That’s not how I thought he’d look at me when I said I’d do this. I thought I’d make him feel less alone, like he could keep going, like he does for me at home, that he’d realize he needs me like I need him. I thought he’d say thank you. But when I finally meet his eyes, he ping-pongs his gaze off mine, bounces it onto the ground.
Sage leans in closer to me, blond hair on her forearms glinting in the early-evening sun. “Listen,” she says. “You’ll be fine. We’ll be watching from the woods, okay? Aaron and I will stay near enough that we can keep an eye on things. Nobody leaves anyone alone out here.” My hair’s in my face; I try to push it out of my eyes with my free hand, but it’s clumsy and uncomfortable. Sage reaches down and does it for me. It almost makes me shy.
Usually I don’t care what other girls think of me; I just expect them to be mean. But Sage isn’t, and for some reason I want her to think I’m strong. I clench my jaw, trying to cover up the fear underneath. “You’re okay,” she says. Jesus, she notices everything. “Just relax.” Then she gets up and walks away.
Exile and Nutmeg fade back into the forest; Aaron says, “Thank you, Alison,” and disappears. I look at Jeff. I want him to come sit with me, even though I know he can’t. I want to say, I’m scared, but he’s far away; I’d have to yell. I want to tell him, I’m doing this for you. But there’s just this kind of awkward moment where we look at each other, and then he holds up his fist like some protester in a movie from history class and follows everyone else into the woods.
And then they’re gone, and the engine’s getting louder, and I’m lying here handcuffed to the frigging ground. Adrenaline courses through my veins. Even though I know I could unlock myself, I feel trapped. Like fall of sophomore year, when the senior jocks would swarm me in the halls, hitting on me in a pack; like that spring when girls pinned me up against a locker yelling, Slut. I know this feeling: fight-or-flight. But now I’m chained to the ground, and I can’t do either one.
Wheels grind over dirt and then the truck comes around the bend. It’s not the Forest Service. The truck is old and kind of rickety, paint chipping off in spots, an NRA sticker on the windshield, two-by-fours clattering in the back. The truck gets twenty feet away, then ten, and still it doesn’t stop. I grit my teeth and hold my breath. Twigs fly in my face.
Finally it stops, like six feet from my nose. The ignition shuts off and the doors swing open, and two guys get out. My heart beats so hard, it scares me; I wonder what a heart attack feels like.
For some reason I expected whoever was in there would be old enough to get me in trouble, but these guys aren’t much older than anyone here besides me. One has stringy hair and a weaselly face; another one is chunky in the football-player way. They’re wearing jean jackets, and both of them look mean. I hold my breath.
Weasel Face strides up from the driver’s side and glares down at me. I can smell the beer, and suddenly I feel like I’m going to throw up.
“You gonna let us through, or what?” he sneers.
I don’t know what to say, so I just say “No.”
“What if we wanna get through anyway?”
I shrug, suddenly nostalgic for the jocks at school.
Football takes a step forward to stand with Weasel, threatening. “There’s not enough room to drive around you.”
“I know,” I say. Then, brave or reckless: “That’s kind of the point.”
Weasel sneers down at me. “Y’know, no one out here likes hippies.”
“Yeah,” Football chimes in. “Y’all smell.”
“I’m not a hippie,” I tell them. I’m not positive I don’t smell right now, so I don’t defend myself on that charge.
“Yeah?” Weasel takes another step toward me, his work boot near my face. He bends to stare me down. I can smell the booze on his breath; I swallow back bile. “Then what’re you doin’ out here?”
My hand shakes, gripping the crossbar in the dragon. What do I say? My boyfriend got kicked out and his weird punk friend brought us to the forest? I strap on my bravado, pretending he’s one of the jocks. “I don’t know, what are you doing out here?”
“Came to give you a warning. You stop along the way up from the city, people see you. We know each other around here. Not like you.” I realize: the guy at the Quik-Mart must’ve told them he saw us. And then I realize: that means it’s not just that one guy who hates us—it’s everyone who lives up here.
There’s a long silence while they stare me down; my head goes light, my heart flutters high in my chest. Weasel’s close enough to kick me in the face, and he’s looking at me like he wants to. But I don’t drop his gaze.
Finally he says, “Aw, fuck it,” and turns to Football. “We don’t need this shit.” He starts to walk off, but then he turns to me again. “Go back to Seattle or Eugene or wherever you come from,” he hisses. “We don’t want you here.” And then he spits. On me. I hold up my free hand to shield my face; it hits my sleeve, thick and stringy. As bad as it ever gets at school, I’ve never been spit on before. I rub my sleeve on the ground, cleaning it off with the dirt, as they get back into their truck and drive away.
* * *
• • •
For a minute it’s silent, and I realize it’s dark out. I didn’t even notice that the sun went down. But now I can’t see. Then Sage and Aaron run out from the woods. “Fuck yeah!” Sage hollers.
“You okay?” Aaron asks as he comes to help me out of the dragon. He’s close enough that I can see the protective look in his eye, and I feel this pang in my gut. No one’s looked at me like that for a long time. It makes me blush and I want to look away, but there’s no place to look; I’m chained to the ground.
“Yeah, I’m good.” I lift my head and he unlatches the fire door and I snap myself out of the cuffs. Aaron gives me his elbow to lean on while I stand and I shake out my arm. It did fall asleep while I was there; I didn’t even notice. I hold on to his arm a second too long, feeling the strength beneath his T-shirt sleeve. Standing up, I get a head rush. And then another rush: I did this.
Aaron and Sage’s flashlights trace paths through the trees as we walk, lighting the dew on the moss. When we get back, there’s a fire going, Nutmeg and Exile with a guitar, Jeff and Dirtrat beside them. Jeff’s smoking a cigarette; Nutmeg gives him a coffee can. “For the butts,” I hear him say. Seeing Jeff, I suddenly feel nervous: I was trying to help him when I locked down, but I don’t think that’s how he took it, and I don’t know why, or how he’s going to act with me.
Sage calls out, “Hey!” and everyone turns to look. “Look who I got!”
Jeff sees me, drops the coffee can, and runs up. He grabs onto me, his sinewy arms tight around my waist. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he says, and relief floods me like rain. I feel like I can breathe again. I pull back and look at him: that weird jealous look is gone. Now his eyes just say he’s glad I’m back. That’s the look I wanted. The one that says I’m not the only one who needs something.
“She did fuckin’ awesome,” Sage says, and I haven’t had so many people be nice to me since I was a kid. I try to memorize the feeling. I don’t know when I’ll get it again.
I look at the huddle of people around me, the black sparking sky above the trees. Home feels a million miles away, even though it’s only two and a half hours. And as soon as I think the word home, I realize: shit. It’s late.
Too late to get back tonight.
I’ve never stayed out overnight
, not without my mom knowing where I am. I don’t even know what she’d do. Would she call the police? I don’t have a curfew, but staying out all night is like an invisible line I’ve never crossed.
But then Jeff wraps his arm around my waist, claiming me, and I don’t want that to stop. It’s not like she’ll care, I tell myself. She’s probably too depressed to even notice. I don’t believe myself, not quite, but Jeff leans into me and I breathe him in and think, He needs me here. That’s all that matters. Someone needs me.
* * *
• • •
I wake up in a borrowed sleeping bag with Jeff, twigs creasing my face, dawn slivering the branches above me. It’s Saturday; the empty day stretches in front of me like a road. Birds ring in my ears, loud without a roof to muffle the sound, and I realize how much of the world our houses keep out.
Jeff breathes next to me, still sleeping. I bury my face in his shoulder, wrap my leg over his. With my eyes closed I can pretend it’s just us out here, like in his basement on the tweedy couch, safe.
Then a loud burp comes from the other side of Jeff. Dirtrat’s right there, curled up on a tattered yoga mat. Burping in his sleep. Lovely.
I sit up and rub my eyes and look around. Across the clearing, Sage and Nutmeg are sleeping in their tents; Exile’s tent is open, his sleeping bag empty. Clinking sounds come from the kitchen, and when I look, I see Aaron there, pouring water into a big pot, then oatmeal from a jar. He waves me over. I look down at Jeff, wanting to stay with him, but I’m awake. Dirtrat burps again and that does it: I stretch as I stand up, grubby in my slept-in clothes.
In the kitchen Aaron sets me up with some almonds and a knife and I chop, enough for everyone. Exile brings coffee from the campfire; it tastes earthy and sharp in my mouth. As the sun brightens and the air warms, everyone stirs, one by one. Finally Jeff comes over wanting coffee. He slides his arm around me, kissing me hello on the mouth. He doesn’t usually do that, kiss hello: too couple-y for him. It’s nice. And then for a second I flash on my parents in our linoleum kitchen, in the morning before school, before my dad was gone, before everything. I flinch and pull away.
Jeff notices, and looks at me a second. I want to say, No, it isn’t you, but I don’t know how to explain. Then wheels turn in his head and he looks at Aaron. Jeff’s hand leaves my waist; he takes a coffee mug and stares at Aaron again.
There’s this awkward pause, like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t, and somehow I feel like I’m supposed to decide what happens next.
That’s not the way it is at home. At home he makes the plans and I ride in the passenger seat. I like it that way; he’s always taking me somewhere, on adventures or at least away. I like how he chooses what he wants to do; I like watching him decide things. But now he’s got this hesitation, the same one that happened when they were asking who would lock down in the dragon, this almost saying something but not saying it. I’m not used to that.
“You need anything else here?” I finally ask Aaron.
“Nah, I’m good,” Aaron says, adjusting his stocking cap over his scraggly hair, smiling at me, then at Jeff. Jeff doesn’t smile back. “You guys hang out.”
I feel weirdly relieved.
I refill my coffee and lead us toward the fire pit. As soon as we get away from Aaron, Jeff’s shoulders relax.
“Big move you made last night,” he says as we sit. I guess we aren’t going to finish our conversation about what happens when he stays and I have to go home. That’s okay, though. That means I can pretend that it won’t happen, at least for a little while.
“Yeah, I don’t know, I just thought—y’know, nobody else could really do it.” He looks hurt, and suddenly I realize how that sounded. “I mean,” I scramble, “other people could’ve. But I don’t know, for some reason I just said I would.”
“Yeah.” He nods, playing with his lip ring. Sometimes I see his face like it’s new again and remember how cute he is. I’m still surprised a guy as hot as him is into me. “Did it hurt?”
“My arm fell asleep,” I say, relaxing a little. “But it was weird, I didn’t notice till it was over, I guess because of the adrenaline? Those guys were pretty intense.”
“Yeah?” Jeff’s eyes get almost mad. “What’d they say?”
“They called me a hippie,” I say, and laugh.
He laughs back, and I’m relieved. “That’s fuckin’ hilarious.”
“I know, right?”
“So, was it like . . .” he trails off, looking for words. “I don’t know. Was it cool?” He looks at me: I can tell he’s really asking.
“Yeah, it was,” I say. “I mean, it was super-scary, too; they’d drunk so much, I could smell it coming off them. One of them spit on me.”
“They spit on you? What the fuck?” He stabs a stick into the dirt. “I can’t believe they did that!” He looks weirdly guilty. Like he should’ve kept that from happening to me. I want to tell him that it’s okay that I was the one to do it, that how everybody acted afterward gave me something to be proud of. But then I think, that would sound like he doesn’t have anything to be proud of. So I don’t say anything.
* * *
• • •
All day long we don’t talk about going home, even when the sun starts to set and the light through the trees gets dappled and dim. Jeff and I eat together, pretending everything is normal, and Aaron shows me how to build a fire and Nutmeg shows me how to pour concrete, and my hair smells like campfire and my hands feel strong. Somewhere in my head I tell myself that if I just don’t do anything, don’t make a choice to stay or go, I can just stay here with Jeff and keep pretending Tacoma doesn’t exist, and maybe it’ll turn into the truth.
* * *
• • •
Jeff and I sleep curled up together again, three nights in a row now, and it starts to feel like just the way things are. It’s not till the sun arcs to the center of the sky and starts its slow climb down that I start to get antsy. Today is Sunday. That means tomorrow is Monday. And first period is chem lab. I’ve ignored it as long as I can, but then finally I can’t.
I find Jeff, alone, whittling a stick into a point with a Swiss Army knife, and kick his boot. “Hey.” I plop down next to him. “So.”
“So,” he says back.
“Tomorrow’s Monday.”
“Yeah?” he says, like, So what?
“I’ve got school?”
“Okay,” he says. “What, you want to go or something?” He grins, trying to turn it into a joke.
“No.” I grin back. I can’t help it; his charm is contagious. “But if I’m not at lab tomorrow, I don’t graduate. Remember? That’s why you waited for me Friday morning?”
His face falls. I guess he’s been trying not to think about it, too. “Shit,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say.
“What are you gonna do?”
“Well, I mean, I have to go back.” I pick at a pebble.
“Really?” His voice softens, disappointed. He knows I hate it at home. He knows I hate school. After everything that happened this weekend, he must’ve been hoping I’d just throw it all away. But I can hear Andy in my head: C’mon, Al. Don’t be a dumb-ass. And I think about that letter tucked behind my mirror, the one from Antioch. It’s stupid, but something won’t let me let it go.
Jeff and I don’t really talk about college. I mean, he knows about my mom and UCSB and Andy’s scholarship, but all I’ve told him is that it’s bullshit, that I don’t want to go. He says I could come down to Portland after graduation and live with him and his band in the house that they’re getting, and usually I nod and act like that’s what’ll probably happen. I can’t tell him about Antioch; he’d think it was so stupid. College is the Man; you go there and you’re buying into the system; dropping out of Evergreen was the best decision he’s ever made. I can hear exactly what he’d say: There’s no
way you can even go; who’d pay for it? Besides, what’s it gonna do, funnel you into some sellout job you don’t even want? It’s stupid. Forget about that, come live with me and my band, at least we’re doing something.
“I mean, do you have to go back?” he says. “’Cause you could just—”
I don’t let him finish. “Yeah.”
“You remember I can’t go back to my house, right?” he says then, like, You know what you’re deciding?
I nod. I know. He just looks at me; we just look at each other. And this huge space opens up between us. We have to be in different places. He can’t go back, not now, and I can’t stay. I wish I knew how long he’ll have to be here, that we could figure out some kind of plan. I feel like I might cry. I haven’t cried in front of another person since the last time I tried to talk to my mom about Andy.
“Do you want to go back?” he asks me, tentative.
“No,” I tell him. “I just have to.”
He raises his eyebrows, doubting, like, Okay, if you say so. Like he thinks I have a choice. I don’t know how to explain to him that there’s no choice. He doesn’t know that I can still hear what Andy’s voice sounds like in my head. He doesn’t know that hearing disappointment in that voice is worse than hearing disappointment in anybody else’s. He doesn’t know that it’s my fault Andy’s gone, and that the least I can do is not let down the memory of him. I don’t know how to explain that. So I just sit there, feeling far away.
“Okay,” he finally says. The forest is silent around us.
“So can you drive me back?”
“Yeah, all right.” He digs at the dirt with a stick. “We have to leave before it gets dark, though.”
“Right.”
“And then I’ll head back here in the morning, I guess.”
My heart sinks. “Yeah,” I say. “Okay.” I know there’s no way it could happen, he doesn’t even have a place to live, but: I wish he’d bring me back and stay. I wish he needed me enough to make him just say, Fuck it, I’ll figure it out, and stay with me in Tacoma, to pick me up and take me out and help me escape all the things I can’t get away from on my own.
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