Page 2 of River & Rue

The beauty laid out before me is no less captivating or surreal than the redwood forest, but it doesn’t seduce me into imaginary realms. No, this ache is undeniably tethered to reality. A familiar pressure against the forever-tender bruises of memory.

I want to pull over. Take a thousand photos on my phone. But I don’t; the person I want to share them with most will never see them. Instead, I think of how all Teddy wanted for Christmas when he was eight was a camera and how devastated he was when he didn’t get one. The next day, I dragged him outside into the ankle-deep snow and told him he could still take pictures. That our brains could be cameras if we concentrated hard enough.

We stayed outside taking ‘pictures’ until our faces and fingers were numb.

Smiling at the memory, I lift an imaginary camera to my face and whisper, “Click.”

At the bottom of the slope, the road forks again. I stay to the left, and before long, a steel-framed wooden gate bars the way. I pull to a stop beside a security keypad, my eyes veering to the engraved wooden sign sitting in a bed of ferns.

Pacific Arts Collective

A surge of nervousness collides with the remains of gas station coffee and a granola bar. Wincing at the resulting stomach cramp, I put the car in park and reach into the passenger seat for my phone. As my fingers close around it, loud ringing overtakes the car’s speakers. I yelp, fumbling the device and losing my grip. It flies off the seat to the floorboard, disappearing instantly.

“Sonofabitch.”

Unbuckling my seat belt, I stretch over the center console and dig blindly through assorted road-trip trash. It isn’t until Ivy’s laughter fills my ears that I realize the ringing has stopped.

“This sounds entirely on brand for you,” she says, still giggling. “Please tell me you’re not driving right now.”

“Ha! Found it.” Victorious, I straighten with my phone in hand. “I’m parked. Just pulled up to the entrance.”

“Oh, good. I was hoping that was the case since you’re pretty close to the coast. You made great time!”

I groan. “How many times have you checked my location today?”

“Less than forty, more than twenty,” she answers airily. “Was traffic okay? Did you listen to today’s playlist? Have you had anything to eat or drink besides coffee?”

A smile tugs at my mouth. It took a few years of friendship and one memorable fight for me to accept that Ivy doesn’t actually think I’m incapable of adulting. She just worries, at times excessively, about the people she loves.

“Traffic was fine once I got out of Bakersfield, your playlist has been on shuffle all day, and I ate a granola bar with my coffee.” Before she can lay into me, I hurry to add, “I’ll grab something when I get settled. I’m totally fine.”

As I say the words, I’m forced to admit I’m increasingly not fine. In the last few seconds, a cold sweat has broken out on my neck, and my intestines have begun competing for the world’s tightest knot.

“Okay, good.” Her voice softens as she asks, “And how are you feeling otherwise? Emotionally speaking.”

My throat betrays me, closing before I can lie. There’s no point, anyway. She’s been my best friend for a decade and is well aware I normally spend today in bed.

I’m actually grateful when a spike of pain lances through my abdomen, bringing me back into my rebelling body. I’d rather be freaking out over the present than the past. At least one of them I have a modicum of control over.

Ivy makes a distressed sound. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I wasn’t going to, but I also didn’t want you to think I’d forgotten⁠—”

“Ivy, it’s okay. Promise. We can do hard things, right?”

I easily envision the tension releasing from her shoulders. “Hell yes, we can. You’re such a bad bitch.”

“Takes one to know one.” Swiping quickly through my emails, I find the one with the gate code. “Can I check in with you later? I need to get through this gate and find a bathroom. I’m either about to shit myself or my period has come early.”

Her dramatic gasp doesn’t completely disguise a snort of laughter. “Hopefully it’s just gas. Call me later. Love you!”

“Love you too.”

As I reach for the red circle on my dash screen, she yells, “Wait! I almost forgot the reason I called—besides making sure you were alive, obviously. You’re not going to believe this. Actually, you’ll totally believe it because weird shit happens to you all the time⁠—”

“Ivy,” I whine.

“Sorry! I was talking to my mom earlier and bragging about you being accepted for the writer slot at PAC out of a bajillion applicants, and guess who’s one of the artists-in-residence this summer?”

My fingertips go numb.