The Girls of No Return (39 page)

I boiled water and let it cool, pouring it back into my water bottle for the hike out in the morning. I took a short nap, and when I woke, the sky had darkened to a deep gray. Just like that, the day was over. I'd done it. I'd been alone with myself, and I had survived.

I pulled a hoodie out of my pack, layered it under my fleece jacket, searched for the mittens that Margaret had given each of us before we got in the van, found one of them, put it on, and contemplated the fire circle. For some reason, the idea of building yet another fire exhausted me. I sighed dramatically, since no one could hear me, and then said, “It's just you and me, partner.”

I tried to get it done the old-fashioned way. After all, it had worked the night before. I leaned the smaller branches against one another like a pyramid, with the log in the middle. When that collapsed, I tried structuring it log-cabin style, laying the twigs over one another in a crosshatch. That didn't fall down, so I tried to light it with the small lighter that Margaret had given each of us. (
And, ladies,
she'd said,
I'll be getting these back at the end of the hike. Be sure of that.
) Nothing took. I remembered that I'd woken the night before to the sound of light rain. I'd thought that it was a dream, but maybe it rained just briefly enough to dampen my sticks. My one naked hand was red in the cold, and I stuffed it in my jacket pocket. I tried again, throwing in some dried moss and pine needles as kindling. Nothing.

I don't know how much time had passed at that point, but I do know that I was freezing, and hungry, and so focused on my goal that a Sasquatch could have snuck up on me and I wouldn't have heard. The thought of spending the night in the cold without a fire made me feel reckless, almost hysterical. I riffled through my pack wildly, tossing out items as I went: flashlight, extra socks, knit cap. Finally, I found what I was looking for.

I held my journal in front of me, peering through the dim light at the unicorn on the cover. It had always seemed to be mocking me, I thought. It certainly seemed to be doing so now. “I wouldn't look so smug,” I said to it, my voice echoing and loud. I opened the book and turned to the last empty page. I ripped it out quickly, wadded it up, and threw it in the fire pit. I did the same with the page before, and the page before that. And the paper, when I held the lighter to it, began to blaze.

I kept adding to the flame, working my way backward through the journal. Some pages were blank, some had doodles on them, some had little notes that I'd written to myself. It was like watching a movie in reverse. I knew what scene was coming up, and even though I didn't want to see it again, I kept getting closer and closer.

Finally, I was there. The fire's long flames reached with furtive fingers toward the night sky. I didn't have to turn the next page. But I did. And I looked at where I had written down my Thing. The page wasn't wrinkled or dirty; only two people had ever touched it. My handwriting looked foreign to me.

I ripped it out. And the two pages before it too. Ripped them all out and sent them sailing into the fire. I watched as my words took flame, the paper curling around itself as the edges browned, then crisped black, and finally disintegrated into ash.

At first, I felt nothing. They were just words, after all. Sure, they were
my
words, but were they still? Gia had stolen them, claimed them for herself. She'd taken my worst moments, my biggest secrets, and treated them like they were hers to twist and tell and forget. I watched the pages burn, and felt the familiar hollowness that I had been trying for so long to fill open up inside of me, gaping like a yawn.

“No,” I said.

I had worked too hard. Those weren't just words. They counted for something. I'd let go of my Thing when I wrote it down, and Gia couldn't take that from me. She couldn't take what I felt as I was writing it, the painful release and the compassion that followed, filling the spaces between the words. The peace that I'd felt when I was done writing.

There was so much that I had done wrong. I had been a bad friend — to Jules, Boone, even to Gia. But at least I had done this: I had looked my demon straight in the eye and I had recognized the eye as my own. By sharing my story — even if it was just on paper, even if no one else read it — I'd owned my actions. I closed my eyes now and breathed deeply. When I opened them again, the words had all disappeared in the smoke.

 

 

I've been doing so well with this project of mine. I've managed to keep it secret all this time, work on it mostly when no one's home or I know they won't bother me. Usually, that means late at night, after the news is done and my dad's turned off the TV and I've heard the sounds of their bedtime routine as they brush, floss, flush, close doors, and finally go to sleep. And now I'm nearing the end, and I have to fight the urge to throw down the pen and dive under my covers, where my world is safe.

I don't want to tell the rest.

But I know I need to.

There are those things you can't bear to live with, and those things you must live with. And between the two, like the translucent liquid that protects the brain from the skull, are the things you do in order to live. For me, writing is one of those things. I know that now.

So I
have
to keep telling this. And I have to do it soon, because the clock is ticking. I'm going to see her again in just a couple of weeks. Of course I told Margaret I'd go back. What else could I say?

Will she even agree to go? Will she want to see me?

Hurry, Lida. Hurry.

 

 

ONCE I GOT THE FIRE STARTED, I SAT HUNCHED NEAR IT FOR
a good ten minutes, just warming my hands. Then I made dinner, and scarfed it down so quickly that I didn't even taste the pasta sauce's dehydrated goodness. Man, I had earned that meal. I did my dishes, sat back by the fire, thought some more. I knew what I needed to do.

I walked over to where I had leaned my backpack against a tree and pulled out another book. It was far too dark at this point to read, but I carried it over to the fire and sat down, scanning the familiar cover.
The Dharma Bums
. I opened it and looked at the X-ACTO knife that was resting in the hollow, pillowed by Kleenex so that it didn't make a noise when Bev checked the contents of my bag. The knife was like a sibling, a freckle; in a crowded airport full of harried X-ACTO knives, I would recognize mine immediately. It knew pieces of my life that no one else had witnessed.

“Well, hello again,” I said to it. I picked it up.

“Hello.”

The voice breezed out of the shadows in the trees, and I almost fell into the fire. It was so dark that I couldn't see past the campsite, and I stood quickly, dropping the book but holding on to the knife. “Who's there?” I whispered, like some horror movie heroine.

I heard a familiar laugh. “You'd better drop that before you do something rash, Townie, like whittle a
real
weapon out of wood.” Boone stepped closer to the firelight. “That knife is as handy as a sponge. What are you going to do, tickle a bear with it?”

I watched as she walked over to the fire, holding her hands out in front of her to warm them. She was wearing a light jacket and a skullcap that she'd pulled down low over her ears. Her shoes were covered in dirt, and there were some pine needles stuck in her hair. She had a small backpack slung over one shoulder.

“What are you doing here?” It was the obvious question.

Boone squatted next to the fire, setting her backpack down next to her. She glanced up at me. “Thanks for the gracious welcome.” She clenched and unclenched her fingers as she held them close to the flames. “You forgot something in the cabin, and I thought I'd bring it for you.” Boone reached into her backpack and pulled out one of the bottles of wine that she had taken from Ben's place. “I assumed you wouldn't try to smuggle it in, not with all of the bag checks they were subjecting you to.” She grinned wickedly. “But then, I guess you're wilier than I thought.” She nodded at the knife, which I was still holding.

I set it back inside the book and shut the cover, laying it on the dirt next to where I was sitting. I reached out and took the bottle. “Thanks,” I said. “But, I mean, really — what
are
you doing here? And how did you get this far, anyway?”

“What the hell else was I going to do? You all left, and I couldn't very well sit around with everyone feeling sorry for me.” She mimicked the high, Valley-girl voice of some of the I-bankers.
“Poor Boone. She doesn't get to have her own Special Nature Time. We should cheer her up. I know! Let's dress up a pinecone in silly doll clothes and give it to her as a gift!”

I started to laugh. “What?”

“Admit it — they'd think of something like that.” Boone shook her head. “I just couldn't abide the shitstorm of sympathy that I was getting. So, you know . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“No, I don't.”

“Well, I happened to be in Margaret's cabin while she was getting ready to drive you to the trailhead.”

“Oh.”

“And I happened to see a copy of the map that she'd been looking at on her desk, and where each of you would be,” she said lightly. “And it really wasn't that far from school, so I just, you know, started walking.”

I stared at her. “Was that where you went yesterday?”

“Roger that.”

“You know how pissed they're going to be,” I said. “Bev especially.”

“Lida, I've said it before, and I'll say it again: What are they going to do? Nothing! There's nothing they
can
do to me now. So what does it matter?” Boone stood up and started pacing around the fire. “I'm about to head back to a place where nothing like this” — she waved her arm around — “exists. Nothing. So I think I deserve a little slice of beauty for just one goddamn night, thank you very much.”

I looked into the fire, which was flickering weakly in the dimming light. “You're right,” I said. “Whatever. I'm glad you're here.” And I was. Kind of. Under normal circumstances, I would have been grateful for Boone's presence. Nothing says safety like a girl who could probably scare Bev just by narrowing her eyes. But something wasn't right. Her voice had an oddly chipper tone, almost too friendly. I was on edge, but I couldn't put my finger on the reason why.

Boone slapped her palms on the sides of her pants and sat down by the fire, which crackled weakly. She sniffed the air. “It's going to snow tonight.”

“No it's not,” I said doubtfully. But I glanced at the sky anyway. There weren't any stars out, but it wasn't exactly pitch-black either. The clouds had a kind of silvery glow to them. “It's not,” I said again, more forcefully.

“If that's what you want to believe, Townie,” said Boone. “I just hope there are some snow boots in that pack of yours.” She smiled. “Hey. Let's crack open that wine, eh? Little toast to the good ol' days at Alice Marshall?” She walked around to my side of the fire, and sat next to me on a dusty rock that someone had set there as a makeshift chair.

“Sure.” I handed the bottle back over to her, and Boone produced a corkscrew from one of the deep pockets in her jeans.

“Took this from Ben's too,” she said by way of explanation.

Boone opened the bottle with the deftness of a seasoned bartender. She took a deep swig, and handed it to me. I did the same. The wine was vinegary and tart, and it numbed my tongue.

“This is terrible,” I said.

“Yes. Yes it is.” Boone took another gulp. “Just terrible.”

We drank in silence for a few minutes, passing the bottle back and forth, listening to the hiss of the fire. I still couldn't name the uneasy feeling that lay in the pit of my stomach, but the wine did a pretty good job of muting it, at least for a while.

“What a week,” Boone said finally. “As the I-bankers would say, ‘drama-rama.' ” She held the bottle out in front of her as though studying the label. Then she turned to me. “You okay? I mean, after Circle Share?”