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“I’ll take you home,” I tell her, already striding for my truck.
“I don’t want a ride from you,” she says, pulling out her phone.
“I don’t want to give you a ride, but it’s the best option,” I say, pulling open one heavy truck door.
There’s no service out here, and half a second later she remembers that, shoves her phone back into her purse.
“Just get in the truck,” I say, not kindly. “I promise not to talk to.”
Wordlessly, she crosses in front of the truck, gets into the passenger side.
I keep my word and don’t say a thing. I barely even look at her, and she spends the drive staring out the window.
When we get to her parents’ house, she thanks me for the ride brittlely and then she’s gone, the door slammed, escaping up the sidewalk to her parents’ front door.
I watch her walk in. She doesn’t look back, and despite that, despite myself, I memorize the way she looks when she goes.
I can’t help it. I want something to hang onto.I don’t go back home. I don’t want to. I want to find a void, a nothingness, and I want to lock myself in it with my misery and my anger and I want to never speak with another living human being again.
The time’s come. June is moving on and she’s leaving me behind, and even though I always knew this would happen that knowledge doesn’t dull the blow even a little.
I’m hurt, and I hurt her back because that’s what a wounded animal does. We lash out.
I drive around for a long time, aimlessly. I drive too fast around the corners, wanting that half-second rush that comes with danger, wanting to fuel the urge I have to destroy everything that’s still good in my life.
Eventually, I find my way to the ranger station where my office is. It’s closed and locked, a Sunday, but I go inside and find the file I’m looking for.
While I’m there, my phone rings. Caleb. I hit the ignore button.
A few minutes later, he calls again. Same result.
Then Eli.
Then Caleb.
Then Caleb again.
“Jesus,” I mutter, then flip the phone open. “What?”
“Well hello, sunshine,” he says. “Mom wanted me to ask you if you could bring some marshmallows over this afternoon—”
“I’m not coming,” I say, still going through papers with my other hand, quickly scanning USGS locations.
I’d forgotten it was Sunday and they’re expecting me at my mom’s house.
“To dinner?” he says.
“Was I unclear?” I say, finally finding a pink second-carbon-copy that says Hemlock Bottom. That’ll do. “No. I am not coming today. Are there any other questions or was that it?”
“What happened?” he says.
I stare at the pink form. I tap one finger against it, not answering Caleb’s question.
“Nothing,” I finally say.
“Levi—”
“I’ve gotta go repair a footbridge,” I say. “I’ll be back sometime Tuesday. Maybe Wednesday. We’ll see how bad it is.”
“Hold on,” he says, and then I can hear him say something to someone else, quick footsteps, the slam of a screen door. “You still there?”
“For now.”
“Will you wait?”
“There’s not much sunlight left,” I say, looking out the window.
“It’s eleven-thirty,” he says, and now I can hear the crunch of gravel under his footsteps. “Please? An hour.”
I close my eyes. I don’t want to wait an hour. I want to escape now, get lost from people and humanity and their noise and their needs and their opinions right now, go where things are simpler and there’s no one to break my heart.
I want to hike until I’m too exhausted to think. I want to hit things, throw things, fix a stupid bridge, force my brain to shut off.
“Levi,” says Caleb, softly. “Sixty minutes. Come on.”
“All right,” I say. “If you’re not at my house by then I’m leaving.”
“Sure,” he says, and we hang up.
I grab the pink sheet, study it more closely. Rotting planks, broken handrail. This was submitted almost two years ago, and it’s a travesty, really, that the forest service doesn’t have the resources to deal with this any more quickly.
Then I leave, lock the door behind me, get in my truck, head back to my house. Hedwig’s at the door, tail wagging, tongue lolling, and for the first time all day, I smile.
“Hey, girl,” I tell her. “You want to go for a hike?”
She does.Fifty-five minutes later, there’s a knock on my door.
“Yeah,” I call. It opens, and Caleb steps in, backlit by the sun, wearing a frame pack.
He’s followed by our father, and there’s one second where I swear I can feel my heart stop.
Except of course it’s not our father, it’s Eli. Eli who’s now the same age that Dad was in my earliest memories of him, Eli who came back from ten years of being away looking like the spitting image of Dad.
“Hi,” Caleb says. “We’re coming with you. Don’t argue. It’s happening.”
