What She Found in the Woods

by Josephine Angelini

  But my truth turned out to be as toxic as my lies.

  Bo and I spend too long lying on the ground, looking up at the sky.

  We don’t fall asleep exactly, but I wouldn’t say either of us is fully awake, either. California dreaming.

  I hear a noise and bolt upright.

  ‘What is it?’ Bo asks.

  I hold my breath while I try to pinpoint what I thought I heard. Footsteps. Clothes brushing against leaves. I don’t hear it again, but I know it was a presence, not the random rustling and creaking of the forest. It was human.

  ‘Someone’s here,’ I say, so softly I’m basically mouthing the words.

  Bo nods and rises soundlessly. ‘Which way?’ he mouths. I point, and he shifts into the brush, joining its substance.

  And then, nothing.

  No sound, no motion, no hint that the situation is either good or bad. I’m thinking it’s been too long when I hear Bo making his way back to me. He’s moving fast, not trying to be quiet.

  I stand before I see him and start gathering up our things. When he breaks through the brush, he nods his approval that I’m ready to go.

  ‘I found tracks, but whoever left them doubled back and was able to throw me,’ he says, his voice low and rough.

  ‘Raven?’ I ask hopefully.

  Bo shakes his head and pulls me along with him quickly. ‘No. She’ll never shadow us again,’ he says with certainty. ‘And whoever it was weighed more than any of my brothers or sisters.’

  ‘Who, then?’ I ask, once we’re through the river.

  Bo shrugs and hurries me along. We don’t talk. He glides over and through the brush, showing me where to step. He brings me most of the way through the forest and almost to town, but I stop him as the light shifts from the golden of late afternoon into the blue hue of evening.

  ‘Go,’ I say. ‘I’ll see you the day after tomorrow.’

  He nods, his eyes still sharp and scanning for danger, and kisses me hard. ‘Be careful,’ he pleads. Then he turns and breaks into a run for home.

  I do the same. I arrive at my grandparents’ at a sprint. Exhaustion has taken on a hallucinogenic quality at this point.

  I see too many cars parked out front. I’m stumbling, and the light is nearly gone. I push my way inside with no thought about the parked cars or anything else, because I think I might literally faint, and I just need to get to the end of this marathon day of exertion and fear and love so I can sleep and wake and remember the way Bo feels and tastes and how he sounds when he breathes my name.

  30 JULY. NIGHT

  Liam, Taylor, and Aura-Blue are in my living room.

  I can’t see them, but I hear their voices, chatting with my grandparents as I stumble inside. They are making polite conversation, a speciality of my family’s, but even for pros like Grandma and Grandpa, I can tell this is strained.

  I hear my grandmother calling me.

  My arm looks like I’ve been in a car crash, and my clothes are stained with deer blood. I don’t have a choice. I run upstairs.

  ‘I have to go to the bathroom so bad!’ I yell, forcing laughter into my voice so they think this is just a pee emergency.

  I tear my clothes as I pull them off my sweaty limbs and throw them into the back of my closet. I run into the bathroom, step into the tub, and rinse off as best as I can. I smell like Bo – leaves, and rain, and that half-feminine, half-masculine smell of lavender and sage that always clings to him.

  I choose a lightweight but long-sleeved shirt dress, swipe on some lipstick, and add a squirt of the perfume in the neon bottle to cover Bo’s scent before I run back downstairs.

  ‘You guys,’ I’m saying, grinning as I swoop into the room. ‘We didn’t make any plans . . .’ I break off as soon as I see their faces.

  Liam, Taylor, and Aura-Blue are standing. They all look pale and wide-eyed. I hear the ice cubes in my grandfather’s glass clink as he finishes off his gin and tonic.

  ‘Have you seen Mila today?’ Aura-Blue asks.

  ‘No,’ I reply.

  Liam swallows before he speaks. ‘Did you leave work yesterday with her?’ he asks. His voice is shaking.

  ‘Yeah,’ I breathe, blindsided. I look at Aura-Blue. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Did you go out after? Did you go to a party, maybe?’

  ‘No,’ I say immediately, then shake my head and scroll back, trying to remember. ‘Wait. We went for ice cream, but we didn’t stay long. Then she took me back to the shelter to get my bike. I got home . . .’ I stop and look at my grandmother. ‘When did I get home?’ I ask her.

  ‘Before four,’ she says anxiously.

  They all share a look before Liam says, ‘You didn’t go out with her later?’ He glances at my grandmother apologetically. ‘You didn’t sneak out, maybe, and go hiking?’

  ‘Hiking at night?’ I laugh I’m so surprised. They aren’t joking. I change my tone to something more serious. ‘I didn’t go to a party, and I don’t go hiking at night,’ I say clearly. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Mila’s missing,’ Aura-Blue says in a tremulous voice. ‘It’s too soon for the police to get involved, but we know something’s wrong. No one’s seen her.’

  ‘Mila hasn’t spent a day by herself ever,’ Liam adds, and I nod. Just like Jinka, Mila was never alone.

  ‘She’s not answering her phone – and she always answers her phone,’ Aura-Blue says. She grimaces. ‘Even when she shouldn’t.’

  ‘We were hoping she was with you,’ Taylor says.

  I shake my head. And that’s as far as I can stretch my strength. I have to sit down. I take a step to get to the couch, and my knee buckles. I feel Liam and Taylor catch me. My bruised arm complains, but the pain is a good thing. It keeps me here. They guide me around the sofa and help me sit.

  ‘She was fine when she dropped me off,’ I say. ‘Maybe she drove off the road on her way home? Have you checked?’

  ‘Her car is parked at her house, and some of her hiking gear is missing,’ Taylor says as he and Liam take seats on either side of me.

  Aura-Blue stands in front of us, wringing her hands. ‘Did you see her out there on your hike today, or did she mention where she might have gone when you talked after work?’ she asks.

  ‘No,’ I say. Something doesn’t sit right. ‘If she took her hiking gear, why did you ask me if we went to a party?’ I ask.

  Another look passes between Liam, Taylor, and Aura-Blue.

  ‘What?’ I snap, annoyed now. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

  ‘I told you guys, she really doesn’t know,’ Taylor says, laughing despite the situation.

  ‘Tay,’ Liam says sharply, silencing Taylor.

  I look at Aura-Blue. ‘Tell me.’

  She shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot, glancing back at my stock-still grand parents.

  ‘Because you know the drugs come out of the woods, right?’ she says timidly.

  ‘Yeah, I know. In fact, Mila and I were talking about people making meth and fentanyl in the woods when we went for ice cream yesterday. But she was terrified of all that,’ I say.

  Mila would never go out looking for Dr Goodnight just to prove to me he existed . . . would she?

  ‘You guys, she really doesn’t know,’ Taylor says, enunciating clearly so they actually listen to him. ‘She has no idea what working at the shelter means, AB.’

  ‘What does it mean?’ I ask slowly.

  Aura-Blue takes a breath and just says it. ‘Some girls who volunteer at the shelter do it so they can buy drugs off the guests.’

  My grandparents gasp, and Aura-Blue looks mortified to have to say this in front of them.

  ‘You can only score if you work out front. Back of the house is for the hardcore rehab people,’ she mumbles in their direction, even though they have no idea what that means. She looks back at me. ‘But you never tried to get moved out front. You never asked us to buy for you. You never went out with us, even though you were this big Manhattan socialite. Rob showed us y
our Instagram from a year or so back. You knew legit celebrities.’

  She sounds so impressed. It makes my skin crawl.

  ‘At first we thought we were too D-list for you, and that’s why you always went home,’ she continues with a self-deprecating smirk. ‘Then later we realized you just didn’t party. We figured you had quit.’

  ‘What has that got to do with Mila?’ I snap, frustrated. ‘She wasn’t doing drugs.’

  A look passes between the three of them. Aura-Blue shakes her head, confused.

  ‘Wait. Mila said she talked with you about how much she was using, and you told her not to worry.’

  I couldn’t be more shocked if she’d slapped me. ‘We never talked about that,’ I say.

  ‘When she and I got into that fight that day,’ Aura-Blue explains. ‘After work at the shelter, when you came out to the car, and there was all that drama? Do you remember that?’

  ‘Yeah . . . no,’ I sputter defensively as pushes on.

  ‘I was trying to get her to quit with me. She told me later that the two of you talked about it, and that you said it was just a summer thing, and she shouldn’t worry. She figured you’d know because you used to be a big party girl and you were able to quit.’

  Liam stands up stiffly and has to walk around.

  ‘No. That conversation was about . . .’ I gesture to Liam, and my hand drops. ‘She used the word “stray”. Then she said sometimes she needed something extra. I thought she was talking about guys . . . Oh my God.’ I drop my head in my hands. ‘I swear she never said anything about drugs.’

  ‘She’d never say it,’ Liam growls from the other side of the room. ‘Mila never really says what she means. That would be too ordinary.’

  I just sit there, overwhelmed.

  ‘She kept promising she would quit before school started. It was just a summer thing. Like you said,’ Aura-Blue adds quietly. ‘Then she ran out of money and started going out with guests from the shelter. She was going to parties with the dealers. She tried to get me to come, but I wouldn’t because I know what that means.’

  I nod, still taking it in. I remember Gina in the kitchen, warning me off Mila. Saying Mila needed to bring pretty girls to parties. It was because Mila needed fresh meat for the dealers to get free drugs now that she was out of cash. She kept borrowing money and stopped wearing jewellery, probably because she’d pawned it all. She’d lost weight and she looked like she wasn’t sleeping. I noticed all this stuff, but I never put it together. I can’t believe I didn’t see the truth.

  ‘That’s why we think she went hiking last night,’ Taylor says. ‘She must have run out, and we think she went looking for the source.’

  ‘No,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘She was too scared.’

  ‘You don’t know what she would have done to get more,’ Liam says darkly.

  Aura-Blue sniffs, and I realize she’s crying. ‘It feels like it happened overnight. One day she was just buying oxy for the weekend, and the next . . .’ She trails off.

  If I had stopped to think about it – actually think about Mila – it would have been blindingly obvious. The way she ran her hands over the steering wheel sensually and tilted her face into the light. The fact that she kissed me. She was so high. I noticed the details, but I didn’t want to look harder at the whole picture. I didn’t bother to ask her what the fight with Aura-Blue was really about because I didn’t want to get dragged into it.

  I didn’t want to read past those three little dots.

  And that day in Mila’s Mini, after Aura-Blue had tried to get her to stop, I told Mila to have fun. Of course she listened to me, not her best friend Aura-Blue, because I used to party with legit celebrities. Look at my Instagram. I’m an expert at this shit.

  I told Mila to do more this summer.

  I told her, Go ahead.

  ‘This can’t be happening again,’ I say, shaking my head. I think I stand up. ‘It can’t.’

  I’m drowning. I need to get out. Death goes everywhere I do. I should be as far away from people as possible.

  I see the stars and feel my lungs fill with night air for a brief moment before I feel hands catching me, trying to get me to sit or stay or stop.

  I see my grandparents’ faces and hear them scolding. Someone’s yelling something about how they shouldn’t upset me. That I have suffered tragic losses. That I came here to get away from it all, and why can’t they just leave me alone?

  The hands don’t let me go. I see Taylor’s worried face as he carries me upstairs and lays me on my bed. He tucks the covers around me. He’s a sweet guy.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he whispers. ‘It’s not your fault.’

  Sweet, but so very wrong.

  When your room is silent and still, the single object that creates noise and motion becomes a point of fixation.

  The fan went woop-woop, and it filled many hours of my day. It was the whirring pinwheel around which I rotated between therapy sessions. I was always spinning, even lying down.

  One day, after group therapy, they shuffled us into the common room, ostensibly for our daily allotment of supervised socialization, but really it was to give us our second dose of medication. Before mine kicked in, I noticed something. I noticed that one of the boys in my group was looking out the window. He was smiling.

  David was his name. OCD. Manic depression. He’d lost his marbles when his girlfriend dumped him, and he’d tried to kill himself.

  I’d like to say I knew him well, seeing as how every day I listened to him spill his guts, but the truth is, when you’re sunk so deep that you’re in a hospital, other people glance off you like rocks skimming the top of a pond.

  I could give you a list of all David’s triggers. I could tell you everything about his family and about his friends on the volleyball team. But I never knew him. I never interacted with him. I never invested myself enough to decide if I even liked him or not. I watched him and wrote down the details. Just the details. Never the whole picture.

  I’d written about him before, but this particular day was different. I needed to describe the way he was looking out the window because I couldn’t figure it out. Seeing his smile was like a seeing a sheep walking down Fifth Avenue. It didn’t belong there.

  I took my journal out of the pocket of my robe and wrote about David’s smile. He was looking out the window and thinking something magical. I realized that it was the wistful, longing look of someone who was in love. Not that I’d ever been in love. But I’d seen movies, and David was definitely in love.

  It was so enchanting to see it there in the hospital. That anyone could feel anything so deeply that wasn’t paranoia, anxiety, or desperation struck me as otherworldly.

  I wrote about the sun coming through the window, hitting his sharp, pale features and lighting up his extraordinarily long and thin body. David was an exceptionally tall, skinny guy with a Byronic air. He even had the romantic curls of a poet, now that his hair had grown back in after they’d shaved it.

  I formed an opinion about David in that moment. And it was that I liked him. But I kind of wanted to kick him, too. I wanted to tell him to tuck his heart back in. It’s sloppy to leave it hanging out like that.

  Even then I knew I was watching something deeply private. Embarrassed by his earnestness, I started writing about the floors and the walls and the texture of the paper under my fingers. I wrote about the nurses and the clocks and the feel of the medication seeping into my veins, turning my blood to chalk.

  I never stopped to think that I had been writing in group therapy just moments before. I had written about how he kept complimenting Dr Holt. How he laughed at every joke and hung on her every word. The other doctors, watching the video surveillance cameras of the session, would only see David engaged and responding to treatment in a positive way. But my journal was not a camera hanging in a high corner. My journal was on the ground in the thick of it. Moment to moment. It caught and recorded more than the bird’s-eye view.

  I never stopped
to think that an outside set of eyes reading my observations about the therapy session, followed so closely by my heavily detailed description of David’s burgeoning attachment, would see the whole picture through me, which I still couldn’t, trapped in the absolute truth of the details as I was. The whole picture was that David had fallen in love with Dr Holt. Given David’s history, falling in love was the first step towards his self-destructive impulses. It became imperative that something be done about it.

  Unfortunately, the wrong ‘something’ was done.

  The effect my journal had on others, be it an un-journal full of lies or the hyper-truth of moment-by-moment life, was still beyond me, although it was the reason I was in that hospital to begin with.

  I wrote until the drugs made me still again. The red light on the surveillance camera blinked on, telling me that night had come, and it was time to sleep. Then I stared at the fan, rotating way above me in the never-darkness of my hospital room. I thought about how tall David was, and the distance to that fan. I thought about it, but still in my cocoon, I couldn’t say anything. So I just stared.

  Woop-woop.

  31 JULY

  I wake up aching, like a fist clenched for too long.

  I open my mouth wide, and my jaw cracks. It’s a satisfying sound and feeling. I unwind myself from the blankets Taylor wrapped around me.

  I sit up and see that my phone is vibrating. I know who it is before I check the caller.

  When I don’t answer, Rob sends me a text.

  Are you OK?

  Yes, I text back, just a little shaky. Did you talk to Liam or Taylor?

  Both. Aura-Blue too. I’m coming back early.

  The thought is actually a comfort, even though I’m going to have to break up with him as soon as he’s settled.

  Is your mom OK with that? I text. He’s told me bits and pieces about her. She’s very attached to Rob, and she’s jealous of any time he spends away from her.

  Don’t care. I’m so worried about you. Taylor told me you took the news hard.

  No other way to take it. I’m glad you’re coming back.

  There’s a pause before he writes, I miss you.