So I tried to pretend that the sounds around me in the woods were a soothing nature soundtrack, to keep me calm. Inhale, exhale.
“Wait.” Alex reached out and grabbed my arm, jarring me to a stop. I stepped on a twig, and it loudly snapped, like end punctuation to her command. “What. Is. That.”
Sometimes the shifting light in the forest played tricks on us, appearing like a moving creature. Although it could be a real creature—we weren’t alone in the woods. I hope it’s a wolf. Alex’s voice didn’t sound like she’d noticed anything that would help us, such as a building in the distance or a signpost or even a glimpse of the river, swiftly flowing somewhere beyond the trees.
My muscles tensed. “What is what?” This is getting existential, I thought, almost laughing. I was feeling kind of loopy, maybe from the hunger, or maybe from the lack of sleep.
“That pile of stones?” Her voice rose in disbelief. “That’s not the stack you made, right?”
I blinked. Then I blinked again, hoping that when my eyes fluttered back open, the cairn would disappear. Maybe it was a mirage. Maybe Alex was hallucinating. Maybe I was hallucinating.
It wasn’t; she wasn’t; I wasn’t.
I knew right away it was my stack of stones because of how it tilted to the left, and because the biggest one on the bottom had some green gunk on it. Either moss or lichen (the difference between the two is that one is a plant and the other is a life form that’s partly a fungus, although I had trouble remembering which was which). A couple of rocks had tumbled off, apparently, and lay on the ground in front of the remaining stack of stones.
Looking more closely at the area around us, I saw the indentation of flattened plants and leaves where we’d spread the inner tube last night. I kind of recognized a gnarled tree whose branches made the letter Y. The cluster of mushrooms that looked like they were “marching” in formation. My heart sank. We were back at our campsite. We’d spent half the day traveling in a giant circle, even though I’d tried to prevent that. We were no closer to being out of the woods or back to the river.
“Is. That. Your. Pile. Of. Stones.” Alex’s speech was stilted and sharp, like she was holding back a rock slide of rage.
“I think so,” I said quietly. “I mean, yeah. I know it is. My cairn.”
“So we’re back to where we spent the night. We just walked. In a huge. Freaking. Circle.” Alex was waving her arms around for emphasis, her voice getting louder with each syllable. The rage-slide was starting.
Why does she have to act like this? We both already knew what she was saying was true. But she still had to yell it at me, make this mistake my fault, when—really—I was the one who was doing most of the work of trying to keep us alive and get us out of the woods. And Alex was contributing…attitude? Near-constant whining? Occasional outbursts of hanger?
“Don’t yell at me,” I said, my voice quiet but firm.
“This sucks.” Alex started kicking at the underbrush, sending clumps of needles and some of those poor mushrooms flying into the air. I winced, thinking of how she must be hurting her battered feet. “How could you let us do that?”
“Why is this my fault?” The skin on my face flushed with anger, and I dumped the rolled-up inner tube on the ground so I could wave my arms around accusingly.
“Because it’s all your fault.” Alex scowled at me. “The fact that I’m here.”
“If you mean because I’ve kept us alive so far, then yes!” I wasn’t yelling yet, but my voice was getting higher and tighter and raspier.
She snorted. “Barely. Look at us.” She gestured at all the scrapes and bites. “Tonight—I can’t believe there’s going to be a tonight again—we’ll probably freeze to death. Well, maybe you won’t.” She pointed at my sweatshirt, shaking her head and trying to curl her puffy lips into a snarky smile. Just like Laura had in the hallway. I winced.
“Why are you like this?” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Why are you being so mean to me?”
“I’m mean to you? You ruined my phone, on purpose!”
My stomach wrenched. “I—What are you talking about? You dropped your phone in the river. That wasn’t something I did.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Come on. I know you’re soooo much smarter than me, but I’m not dumb about that. We didn’t bump into anything, and there wasn’t some sudden wave. I think you bounced the inner tube.” She paused. “On purpose, so I’d lose my phone.”
My mouth opened, but I had no words. I never meant for that to happen. Even if I’d been a teensy bit happy to see her phone sail into the water, it had still been an accident. “It wasn’t on purpose.”
“Nope, don’t believe you.” She crossed her arms over her chest and sized me up. “This”—she uncrossed her arms and motioned at the forest surrounding us—“is probably what you’ve been dying for. Trapping me in your precious woods, without even my phone. So you could have me all to yourself.”
“What?” I sputtered. She was making me sound like a creeper, and it wasn’t true. “I didn’t want any of this to happen!” I’d wanted a fun morning on the river. An adventure, but the normal kind, where you see some cool wildlife and get splashed during the low-key patch of rapids, and take some pictures that you might actually print out and stick up on your memory board, and at the end of the day, you return to the cabin and eat s’mores together and then go to sleep on the aerie mattress in side-by-side sleeping bags, not on top of a busted inner tube with a blanket of bugs.
“You’ve been, like, so mopey all summer. Because you’re jealous. You can’t handle the fact that I have other friends now, like Laura, who is actually nice and fun, and doesn’t always have to prove how smart she is. Hanging out with her is awesome.”
And hanging out with me is… The implication cut like a knife. “I don’t care that you have other friends, but I care that Laura is turning you into a clone of herself! Because she’s the worst.” We were both shouting by this point. “She doesn’t even know that New Mexico is a state, not a country.” That was a low blow, but it was true—last year Laura kept asking our social studies teacher whether Mexico or New Mexico shared a border with the United States. It seemed to astonish her that New Mexico, a state, shared a border with Mexico, the country. “She’s too extra to even eat her own dish of custard. And she used to call you ‘A ledge’!”
“Which she apologized for! Because normal people, like, grow up and change. At least now she doesn’t wear a swimsuit that’s almost falling apart. Or that.” She pointed at my sweatshirt. “‘Lupine lover.’ I swear, Jocelyn, you act like such a dork sometimes, I can’t even. It’s embarrassing.” She exhaled sharply, blowing her tangled hair away from her red face.
I just stood there, half stunned and half defiant. When she’d let Laura laugh at me in the hallway—when she’d laughed right alongside her—I thought nothing could feel more like a betrayal. But Laura wasn’t even here to witness this. Suddenly, it was clear what had happened on registration day hadn’t been because Alex was hypnotized by Laura or was performing some kind of obedience test. It had everything to do with how my best friend now felt about me. Embarrassing. Dork.
I felt the unmistakable prick of tears pooling at the corners of my eyes. The fact that I knew I was going to cry made me, at least temporarily, angrier. Alex had hurt me so much over the summer. She’d made me feel small and nerdy and uncool; most of all, she’d made me feel so lonely. I wanted her to feel as bad as I had.
Alex has always been sensitive about not being “smart” because Lucy is such a superstar. And, well, my report card is full of A’s that—to Alex—seem effortless while she sometimes struggles. She’s told me before that she always feels like “the dumb one” compared to Lucy or me. That’s her Achilles’ heel.
“You know what? I was wrong. You and Laura are perfect for each other.” My voice was shaking as I spoke. “But I hate to break it to you. Even com
pared to Laura, you’re still the dumb one.” I paused to let my words sink in. “That’s just who you are.”
For a moment, Alex just stood there, blinking at me. She might’ve been blinking back tears. I opened my mouth, thinking I should take it back, apologize. But then she suddenly lunged toward the ground, picked up a handful of mud and leaves, and threw it at the center of my sweatshirt. It hit the wolf smack in its face.
It was obvious Alex hadn’t thrown it to hurt me, because after years of dodgeball games and tossing a Nerf in the pool, I knew she could chuck something a lot harder than that. It was almost like she was trying to cover the wolf in dirt. Like she hated it. Or in that moment, hated me.
I couldn’t believe she’d done it. It was weird and shocking and immature—ironic, since we were fighting about who needed to grow up. But I also couldn’t believe what I’d said about her. I didn’t even mean it. Yet I’d released those words anyway, and now they stained Alex. Like the clumps of damp dirt smudging the wolf on my chest—although what I’d said couldn’t ever be brushed or washed away.
Alex
Registration Day
Registration day is like practice for the first day of school. You don’t have to wake up so early or go to any classes, but it is the first time you’ll see all the kids you haven’t been hanging out with over the summer. The first time they’ll see your new clothes, new shoes, new hair, new braces (luckily, I didn’t have those to deal with). And your new friendships. According to Laura, registration is the real first impression. “Think of it as the soft launch,” she said, which is apparently some kind of business term her mom uses a lot.
I’d only ever thought of registration day as when you get to pick up your schedule, while crossing your fingers that you’re in at least one class with your best friend. For seventh grade, Jocelyn and I hit the jackpot: three classes plus lunch together. We’d shrieked with joy so loudly that my mom had startled and dropped her coffee, and then we had to help her mop it up with paper towels from the restroom.
But Laura is right. Registration is actually so much more than picking up a schedule. Especially this year. I didn’t know if I could remake a first impression on kids I’d been going to school with for eight previous years—or longer, if we were in nursery school together—but I was hoping for a fresh start. This year, I’d be sharing Laura’s spotlight. Everything was going to be different now that I was Lexie. Shinier. Cooler. Funner. I mean, more fun.
Even though the time window for incoming eighth graders to register was eleven to one, I got up at eight forty-five to start getting ready. When I was in the bathroom, styling my hair, Lucy banged on the door. “What are you doing in there? I have to get to the zoo. There are three day-care field trips coming in today.”
“Just give me another minute!” I hollered through the door. “Use the downstairs bathroom!”
“Mateo’s in it, and I’m afraid to go in after him!”
When I finally unlocked the door to let her in, Lucy did a double take. “Please tell me you aren’t doing all that”—she motioned to my face—“for another trip to the pool.”
“It’s registration day, silly!” I pushed past her to get back to my room. I’d narrowed my outfit choices to four. Laura and I were going to videochat to pick out the final selection.
“Definitely number three,” Laura said, after I modeled each outfit twice. “The tank looks great—that’s a summer color.” Laura’s mom had “done my colors,” which meant picking out a palette of my perfect shades.
“Awesome, thanks.” I started to put the other outfits away.
“Hey, do you want a ride?” Laura asked. “My dad can drop us off on his way to play golf.”
“Um, sure!”
“Great. We’ll be there in twenty.”
I danced around my room after we ended the chat. To be honest, I hadn’t been sure how it would work, being back in the halls of Walden after everything that had gone down this summer. Laura had a ton of other friends. It’s not like I was the only person she’d been hanging out with. I’d wondered if it would be the kind of thing where our friendship would fizzle once school began: We’d see each other in the hallway and nod “hey,” or briefly hug and squee, but then go our separate ways. Instead, today we were going to be making a first impression together.
My phone buzzed. I grimaced when I read the emoji-less text: Hey, what time do you want to go to Walden?
Jocelyn. I placed the phone on my dresser, thinking of how best to answer. I didn’t want to tell Joss that I was riding with Laura because that would obviously make her feel excluded. But this was not a situation where she could tag along with us—definitely not after how things had gone at the pool party.
Maybe I could text Jocelyn back once I was at school. Something like, Just saw this! At Walden already. And then add the school emoji or the smiley with the glasses or the pink hearts. She wouldn’t be able to see them on the flip phone but the little question-mark-box icon would show I was trying to send her nice emojis. Or I could just write xoxoxoxo, like Laura does all the time.
I slipped my phone into my bag and skipped downstairs to wait. My mom wandered into the hallway while I stood by the front door, checking my outfit again in the big mirror.
“You look nice,” she said, thankfully not commenting on how tight the tank was.
“Thanks, Mom.” One strand would not cooperate with the rest of my ponytail, no matter how much I futzed with it.
“Do you want me to drive you to school? Or are you and Joss walking?”
Finally, my ponytail was perfect. I turned to face my mom. “Actually, I’m going with Laura. Her dad’s driving us.”
“Oh! Well, in that case, thank him for the ride.” My mom paused, like she wanted to say something else. She cleared her throat. “I can’t believe it’s already school registration. And almost time to head up north.”
The end-of-summer vacation we always take—with Joss’s whole family. I think I knew why Mom was bringing that up, at this particular moment.
“I’ll see Jocelyn at school,” I mumbled, even though I kind of hoped I wouldn’t. It would just make my reboot…complicated. “Mom, you know I have other friends besides Joss.”
“And that’s great, sweetie.” She patted my shoulder. “You’ve always been a good friend.”
I don’t know why her compliment made me feel so guilty, like she’d caught me with my hand in the cookie jar or something.
My phone buzzed—Laura was outside. “Gotta go,” I said, pressing into my mom for a quick hug.
“Good luck with everything!”
I wondered if she was referring to more than my schedule assignment.
When we got out of the car at Walden, Laura stopped me before I could start up the walkway. “Lexie, you’re missing something,” she said, her voice a singsong.
I froze, momentarily panicked, thinking that I’d somehow forgotten to put on my shorts or something nightmarish like that. Or that Mateo had pranked me by cutting a snowflake pattern into my shirt—which he did once, and then he had to use all his saved-up allowance to buy me a new one. I scanned from my polished toenails to the tops of my bare shoulders. It must be my ponytail. I felt for a strand out of place. “What?”
Laura grabbed my wrist and slid a shiny bangle on it. It was engraved with the letters BFF. Then she held out her own wrist, modeling an identical one. “Now we’re twinning!” She looped her arm through mine and propelled us up the steps and into school for the “soft launch” of us as a duo. It felt like she’d put something else on me: a glass slipper. My Cinderella moment, as Laura guided me into school.
Except for the texting. Constant texting. Even Laura noticed the buzzing. “Do you need to check your phone? It’s like you’re hiding a nest of bees in your bag.”
Actually, a hive. The correct word came to me in Jocelyn’s slightly know-it-all voice, which l
eft a stab wound of guilt in my gut. “No, it’s cool.”
“What if it’s Kelvin texting you?”
I shook my head. “Pretty sure it’s Jocelyn.”
Laura’s nose wrinkled. “Yeah, okay to ignore.”
Another stab. So I did pull out my phone and quickly replied: Sorry just saw this! At Walden already. Xoxoxoxoxoxo!
The kids milling around inside seemed a little confused, but impressed, when Laura and I waltzed in together. Josh Haberman came up to us to say hi, and even though my heart still belonged to Kelvin, it beat faster with each step he took toward me. He leaned in to give Laura a high five, and then one for me too. “What’s up, Lexie?” Super friendly and casual, like we’d always hung out.
By then, Houa and Kate had wandered into the hallway. I waved but didn’t leave Laura and Josh to go over and say hi or anything. Neither girl made a move to come over toward us. In fact, even though Houa half-smiled and waved back at me, she then pulled Kate close to whisper in her ear.
Is it terrible that I’m pretty sure they were talking about how I was with the cool kids? Is it more terrible that it felt kind of…awesome?
By the time Laura and I made our way to the A through M line at the registration table, after so many high fives and what’s-ups with people who wouldn’t have even known I was alive in past years, my phone had stopped buzzing altogether. The office lady behind the table flipped through the stack of printouts till she found our schedules, then handed them over. Laura and I held them up, side by side, to compare.
“Oh, sweet! We have social studies and math together.” Laura nudged me in my side. “You can help me do all the assignments.” She smiled. “Because you’re the smarty.”
I smiled too, thinking about how weird it was that I was considered the smart friend, now. That might be kind of nice.
The longer we stayed inside school, the more it felt totally normal to be standing next to Laura, in her spotlight of cool. It felt like if things hadn’t always been that way, then they should’ve been. Now I’d finally found my place. What exactly had been holding me back, all those years of lunchroom anxiety, of being invisible at my locker, of huddling by the snack table with Shark Boy at dances?
Alone in the Woods Page 14