It’s half an hour to the tiny timber town. We drive on county roads, no strip malls or highways. It goes slow.
“So, Tacoma, huh?” he says after a while. “You miss it ever?”
“No,” I snort, looking out the window. “Not at all.”
“You have people there, or . . . ?” He lets it hang.
I don’t want to lie, and I kind of have to answer, even though I don’t want to. “My mom.”
Aaron thinks a second, then turns and looks at me. “How old are you?”
“Um . . . seventeen?” I don’t know why I feel weird telling him that, but I do.
“You’re not eighteen,” he says. I shake my head. “That’s good to know.” Then, carefully, “Does your mom know you’re here?”
“No,” I tell him quickly, suddenly worried he might say I have to go home. “She thinks Jeff and I are in Portland with his band.” And then, not really a lie but not exactly the truth, “She let me go.”
“Ah,” he says. “Okay.”
“She doesn’t miss me,” I say, bravado steadying my voice like in the hallways at school.
He takes his eyes off the road for a second. His voice softens. “Are you sure?”
I don’t tell him about the secret tiny grain of hope buried so deep I can hardly even feel it anymore. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” I say. But my voice cracks.
“What’s that about, Al?” he asks. Al. A nickname. My chest hitches. He looks at me again; I turn my head toward the window so he won’t see the wet in my eyes.
“She’s got other . . . stuff she’s thinking about,” I say, still not looking at him.
He just waits.
“A few years ago . . .” I trail off, realizing I’m about to tell him about Andy. My heart starts beating really fast; I’ve never really talked to anyone about it. Not all of it. I mean, Jeff knows he died; he knows what happened afterward. But he doesn’t know that it’s my fault. Nobody does. Somehow I know that if I open up the door to Aaron right now, I’ll tell him everything.
“A few years ago what?”
I watch the road: nothing but trees and trees and trees and a few scattered houses with mossy walls and waterlogged roofs. I listen to the whir of the engine. We drive over bumps in the road. I shift my weight.
Finally: “A few years ago my mom started drinking.”
“Oh,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say. I feel like he can tell there’s more.
“That must be hard,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
I can feel the knot of tears in my throat, threatening to burst out. I swallow hard. “Yeah,” I tell him. “Thanks.”
* * *
• • •
Closer to town, rusty trailers start cropping up, brown and beige dotting the stretches of green, kids’ toys and old cars cluttering front lawns. People squint at our car windows, trying to see inside. Our bumper stickers say “Walk in Balance” and “Support Organic Farmers.” I brace myself, remembering the Quik-Mart, that guy who thought we wanted to take away his job.
Aaron knows the way to the little health food store, tucked into a strip between a pawnshop and a check-cashing place. We park the car and get out. Next to the shops is someone’s house; a boy and a girl play on a faded pink plastic slide out front. She looks about four; he’s probably seven. “Hi,” the girl blurts as we walk by, shy and curious. “Hi.” I smile back, and her mom glares at me from the porch. For a second I think about my own mom, how once she must’ve sat like that with us, but then I push it away.
In the health food store, I head straight for the bathroom. I don’t even have to go; I just want the running water.
I turn the hot water up as high as I can stand, even though I know it’s wasteful, and I let it run over my hands and wrists. I wash my face with liquid soap, dry it with paper towels, and I know they’re dead trees but it feels so good to get really clean. Not camping clean from a stream or water jug; civilization clean, from a faucet and soap. In the mirror I can see the line between my face and neck; the rest of me is two shades darker, grubby and tan, like somebody who works the docks, or in someone’s yard. My cheeks are pink and naked. I haven’t looked in a mirror in two weeks: my eyes look older, skin freckled and rough. I wonder if I would look different to people from school, if they’d be able to tell that I’ve changed.
I walk out, awake and scrubbed, and find Aaron in the aisles. It’s weird to be in a store. And it’s even weirder that it feels so strange to be there. There are price tags; fluorescent light bounces off the linoleum floor. Lonely boxes of organic macaroni dot the metal shelves, and they look sad to me, these products, strange and unnatural. It’s amazing how fast things can start looking unfamiliar.
The store is tiny, almost empty; it doesn’t take long to get through the aisles. Aaron puts things into the cart: rice and lentils from the bulk section, canisters of oats. A hippie-looking lady works the register; it’s hard to tell how old she is because she looks so tired. She checks out our clothes as she’s ringing us up and says, “You guys from that Free State, huh?”
It makes me nervous that she’s asking: so far everyone in this town seems to hate us, and I don’t know if she’s one of us or one of them. I’ve never thought about the world like that before, but now I have to. I’m part of a thing that’s defined against another thing, opposed and opposite. It makes me feel scared of the world and safer in it at the same time. I guess I picked sides.
I look to Aaron: I don’t know whether we’re supposed to keep it secret. He looks into her eyes, direct and steady, and says, “Why do you ask?”
She says, “I think what they’re doing up there is brave.”
“Well, thanks,” Aaron says, answering her question without answering it. “I think we all just pretty much feel like we have to. Just doing what we can.”
The lady nods and leans in. “Cascade really wants that sale to go through, you know.”
“Well, yeah,” Aaron chuckles. “Timber companies tend to want to cut the trees they think are theirs.”
“Sure.” The lady nods. “But they think it sets some kind of precedent if they let this one get stopped.”
I don’t really know what that means, but Aaron nods, sober. “That’s good to know,” he says, thinking hard. “Thank you.”
“Sure,” hippie lady says, surprised at his seriousness. “That’ll be $78.39.” Aaron doesn’t say anything else, so I don’t either. He takes cash from his pocket and pays her while I load the food into cardboard boxes.
I help him haul the food back to Exile’s car. My arms have gotten strong. Aaron is quiet while we get the food into the trunk, but as soon as we’re in the car with the doors closed, he says, “It’s good we went there.”
“Yeah.” I’m not sure exactly what he means. “How come?”
“It’s important information. That Cascade sees this as symbolic.” He starts the car. “That means they’re probably planning to dig in. And that means we should too.”
CHAPTER 12
When we pull up to camp, it’s already past lunchtime. I’m unloading the car, Aaron hauling boxes to the kitchen, and Jeff comes out from the school bus, purple-hair Cyn behind him. She looks at me, pretty in her hard way, and I wonder where the other guys are, if it was just them in there. He waves her off—just a minute—as he beelines toward me, jaw set.
“Where were you?” he asks as he gets closer, and it’s not like when he’d call me forgetting I was at school, it’s like when his dad kicked him out and he yelled at me. His voice is sharp. My shoulders go tense.
“On a food run?” I tell him. I see Aaron clock us from the kitchen, keeping his eyes on us as he unpacks lentils and rice.
“With Aaron, right?” It’s like an accusation.
There aren’t a ton of people around, but we’re not alone. My cheeks go hot.
“Yes, with Aaron,
so?”
He just laughs, this angry kind of snort. “Fuckin’ A,” he says, snide. “Of course.”
“Of course what?” I ask. I mean, I know of course what. Jeff knows me. He can probably feel something. But I haven’t let anything show, and I won’t. Sage would hate me, Aaron would get weird, and it would totally mess up me and Jeff—though suddenly, the way he’s talking to me now, that last part seems way less important. “What are you even talking about?”
“You know what? Fuck you, Alison,” Jeff says.
I look at him, shocked.
A week and a half ago we were out at Legacy together; he said thank you. I don’t understand how he got from that to this.
I freeze, not knowing how to fix it. From the corner of my eye I see Aaron put the food down.
“Hey,” Aaron hollers over. “Hey, Jeff,” and that makes it worse. Jeff’s eyes are blazing like that night with his dad, and I don’t know what he’s going to say next. Suddenly I don’t trust him; I can’t predict what he’s going to do. It feels like he’s going to fight. I don’t want him to fight. Not here. Not Aaron. I feel like I have to say something, but I don’t know what.
Aaron walks over toward us, wiping his hands on a rag; Jeff squares his shoulders. I hold my breath.
But when Aaron gets to us, he’s calm. “Hey, man,” he tells Jeff. “It looks like things might heat up here in the next week or so; I heard some stuff in town. I could really use your help.”
That throws Jeff. I see him on his heels, wheels turning, trying to figure out what Aaron’s doing. He thought Aaron was about to be an asshole, but now he’s asking for his help. “What kind of help?” He’s skeptical. I’m just glad to have his attention off me for a minute so I can breathe.
“Sounds like Cascade Lumber’s gearing up, so we need to make sure the entry points are fortified. Sage and Nutmeg are finishing the dragons, but we need some ditches behind them. Like monster potholes, deep enough to snare a tire or break a shock absorber. I need someone strong to get that done.”
Jeff’s lip twitches a little when Aaron calls him strong. I can tell he wants to take the compliment, but he doesn’t trust it. He eyes Aaron, sussing him out. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. You think you could do that? Would really help the camp.”
Jeff looks to me. I don’t want to say the wrong thing, so I don’t say anything.
“Yeah, okay,” he finally says. “I guess I can help out.”
“Awesome,” Aaron says. “Thank you so much. That’s huge. Exile will set you up with gear—probably take you a few hours today and most of tomorrow. Feel free to hit some of those guys up to help you out”—he gestures toward the school bus—“but you lead it. Cool?”
You lead.
I see Jeff take that in, and I see Aaron make sure he does.
Jeff looks at me like he’s thinking something, but then he just says, “See you later, Alison,” and walks off.
That night when Jeff huddles up beside me in the sleeping bag, I just lie there. He was asleep already when I came into the tent, worn out from a day of digging. I’m awake, watching the moonlight glow through the mesh. His skinny chest presses against my shoulder blades and I squirm beneath the weight of his tattooed arm, trying to stake out enough space to breathe.
I’m pissed at him. He yelled at me today. And I don’t know if anyone but Aaron heard it, but the point is, Jeff didn’t care if they did. He’s always made such a big deal that I embarrass him when I don’t know random punk shit, but he apparently doesn’t give a shit about embarrassing me in front of everyone here.
I feel guilty that his feelings are hurt, but I also know I didn’t do anything wrong. It makes me mad that I feel guilty, because I know I shouldn’t. It’s like the guilt and the mad are in a knot I can’t untangle, and it just makes me want to get away from him.
And it’s not even like he’s got a better reason than me to be jealous. I didn’t say anything to him about stupid purple-haired Cyn behind him in that school bus, or ask what they were doing when me and Aaron were in town.
I left my life to come and be with him. Even if I hate my life, that should count for something. But I guess it doesn’t.
CHAPTER 13
When I wake up, Jeff’s already gone. I’m relieved I haven’t had to talk to him since he yelled at me yesterday; I don’t know what I would say. But then I lie there in the half dawn, watching the sky turn pink through the mesh, and I start worrying. I really don’t have anyone else here. I mean, Aaron’s my friend, and Sage is nice to me, but I just met them. It’s not like I’ve ever tested things with them, like I really know that I could lean on them. Who says they even care about me. Maybe they’re just being friendly. I start thinking about my mom, her shocked face when I left, the raw red anger right before that. I think about what I told Aaron in the car yesterday, that she doesn’t miss me. That’s what I tell myself. I’m pretty sure it’s true; if it isn’t, it’s still what I’d rather believe.
I hide in the tent as camp starts to clink awake. My mind is racing, from thing to thing to thing: Jeff, my mom, what the hell I’m even doing here, what I’ll do when I finally have to leave. I guess I convinced myself that what I told my mom might actually be true, that I could follow Jeff to Portland after this, but now I’m not sure I can do that anymore.
That acceptance letter from Antioch is still folded in my backpack, crushed at the bottom, edges softened with backpack lint. I can’t go. There’s no money, and my mom would never help me even if she could. But ever since it showed up in our mailbox, I haven’t been able to throw it out. It’s like it’s taunting me, something that I want and can’t have. I don’t even know why I care. It’s not like I’ve ever been there, like I know anything besides that stupid guidance counselor’s catalog. It’s not like I even believe in college. But I keep thinking about it.
Jeff, my mom, and my future circle through my brain like a hamster wheel, fast and faster. It speeds up till I can’t lie still anymore, and I sit up and I’m awake. I need to know what’s going on with Jeff. We can’t avoid each other here. I pour some bottled water on my hand and wipe the dirt off my face and head out of the tent.
I hike through the woods, listening for voices. I’m pretty sure Jeff wouldn’t bring Stone—Aaron said you lead, and I saw Jeff’s face. I know he wants the chance to prove he can. But I hope he doesn’t have Dirtrat there, or Goat or them. And I definitely hope that he didn’t take Cyn.
When I get to the front lines, I’m relieved to see there’s no one from the school bus there. Probably he tried, but they’re all still passed out.
When I get close, he says “Hey,” but nothing else. He just keeps digging. I consider asking if he’s still mad, what’s going on, but something tells me to wait.
There’s a spare shovel on the ground. I pick it up, start working next to him, silent. Having something to do takes the edge off.
For a long time he just digs beside me, spindly in his tattered black hoodie, tattoos poking out from his rolled-up sleeves. I can’t tell if he’s tired or mad or thinks everything is fine. I wish I could read his mind: I want to know what’s in it, but I don’t want to ask.
Finally he frowns at me, and then at the ditch I’m digging. “That’s not deep enough, Alison,” he says. “A truck with good tires can drive right over it.”
I don’t say anything, but I think, Asshole.
“Whatever. I’m just saying,” he says. I look at his ditch: it is deeper. Ugh. He’s right. I start going back over mine, grinding my shovel into gravel.
He watches me a minute, and then, “Here,” he says, and comes to help me out. I breathe in, relaxing a little. We work side by side, sweaty, and for a minute it feels like maybe he’s going to try to make it better.
Then he opens his mouth.
“So, that was fucked up yesterday.”
What I want to say is Yeah, and
it was your fault. What I actually say is “You mean me going into town with Aaron?”
“Yeah, I mean, without telling me.”
I don’t know why I’m supposed to tell him where I’m going. Is that suddenly the rule? But I don’t say that. Instead I just say, “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Sweat streams down his face.
“I mean, I don’t know.”
“Yeah, no,” he says. “That’s not how it works. You either agree with me or you don’t. It’s fucked up or it’s not.”
“I guess,” I say.
“See, same thing,” he says. “‘I guess.’ That doesn’t mean anything.” He sounds like he’s making fun of me. I just look at him. He keeps talking. “At least take a stand, say what you think for once. Do you think it’s fucked up that you didn’t tell me where you were going, or do you not?”
I want to throw it back at him, ask him, Do you think it’s fucked up you were in that bus with Cyn, or do you not? But I know that saying that would just make it worse. I don’t want to just do what he’s doing back at him. That always only makes the fight get bigger.
“Seriously, Alison,” he says. “You better fucking answer me.”
You better? What the fuck? He’s never talked to me like that. He’s never been this way with me: confrontational, angry. I’ve seen it aimed in a million other directions: his dad, the Man, the capitalist-industrial complex. But not at me. His eyes are blazing. It makes me feel like I can’t reach him, like I’m not sure he recognizes me. I feel frozen, and I don’t know what to say to make it stop.
“See?” he snorts. “You can’t even answer. It’s like I don’t even know where I stand with you. Or why you’re even here, or anything.”
“Seriously?” I stare at him. “You don’t know why I’m here.” How does he think I got up here in the first place? I’m here because he is.
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