Damaged (23 page)

Hunter makes a fire and gets dinner ready while I set up the tent. After all these stops, we've finally developed a good system for setting up camp. But it barely matters now. We're only two states away from the end. Our trip is almost over.

We cook hot dogs on sticks over the fire. “I can't believe I'm saying this, but I miss Terry,” I say.

“I miss him too,” Hunter says. “Crazy bastard.”

We sit in silence for a while, watching the hot dogs turn brown and bubbly. As the sky darkens and we finish dinner, Hunter suddenly jumps up and starts running in place.

“What are you doing?”

He stops running, clenches his fists, and makes a sound like a pained growl. “I feel itchy.”

“I have some calamine lotion. It works pretty well on mosquito bites.”

“No,” he says, stretching his arms above his head. “Like itchy
inside
. Like I've been sitting in a car too long. Like I need a drink.”

My heart drops and I say nothing. What am I supposed to say? Am I supposed to forbid it like I'm his mother? Am I supposed to beg him not to?

He runs over to the car and opens the trunk, where the box of remaining bottles has been waiting like a loaded gun these fragile days he's been sober. I can't watch this. I can't just sit here while he does this. I stand up, but I don't have the anger to storm off. I'm just sad. Deflated.

“Watch this,” he says. Watch what? Watch you destroy yourself? Watch you turn into a drooling, puking fool? For a moment, I think of running over to the car and getting Terry Junior and throwing him into the fire to make a point.

Hunter pulls a bottle out of the box, unscrews the cap, and pours it into the fire.

Red light blinds me as the fire explodes. My face burns.

Glass breaks and car tires squeal and I am lost and alone on a road in the night.

No. I open my eyes and the fire has returned to normal. There is no glass and no car and no road, just the air tinged with the sweet acid smell of burning alcohol. Hunter stands beside me. He pulls another bottle out of the box and hands it to me. “You try.”

The bottle is cool and so solid in my hands. I pour it in slowly and the fire sputters.

“You have to do it with more pizzazz,” Hunter says. He waves a bottle around, the splashes of liquor making little bursts of pyrotechnics.

We drain the rest of the bottles like that, cackling into the night like mad witches, pouring our potions into the fire and making magic. The fire grabs at Hunter with its red hands; it lights his face, burns its reflection into his eyes. But Hunter is its master tonight, scars and all. The fire cannot hurt him now.

And then all we have left is a cardboard box and empty bottles. We sit on a log, staring at the fire that looks like any old fire, not one that just burned and evaporated so much poison.

“It's all gone,” Hunter says.

“How does it feel?”

“Kind of awesome. Kind of scary,” he says. Then after a pause, “Really scary.”

I reach over and hold his hand. The people in the RVs have turned off their TVs and gone to bed. The night is black around us, but the fire bathes us in warm light. We are surrounded by the unknown, but I feel safer than I have in a long time. And what's the point of safety but to make us brave enough to do something that will scare us again?

Hunter did something that scared him. He took back the fire. He tamed the thing that scarred him. Now it is my turn.

I take a deep breath. “What did Camille say about me?” I say.

He looks at me, his face throbbing with firelight.

“Tell me. I can handle it.”

“She said you were best friends since you were four.” He's trying to make his voice light, casual, as if this is going to be a light conversation. “She loved you very much.”

“You're patronizing me.”

“No I'm not.”

“Tell me the hard stuff.”

“Really?”

“All of it.”

Hunter takes a deep breath and squeezes my hand. “She said you were too attached to your plans.”

“Yeah, she always teases me about that,” I say. “I mean, teased.”

“She said you were too attached to her.” He looks at me to see if he should go further. He cannot see my heart torn to shreds. “It drove her crazy. She said you treated her like you were both still ten years old. You refused to accept that she was changing. She said she tried to talk to you but you refused to hear her. You couldn't let go of the way things used to be, the way she used to be.”

The memories don't quite surface, but I know that they're there. I know Camille had tried to break through my fantasy, but I hadn't let her. I can feel the memory of her pulling away, the tug on my heart as the distance between us increased and I refused to believe it.

“She was worried about you being roommates,” Hunter continues. “She was afraid you wouldn't make any of your own friends, that you'd rely on her forever.”

The fire suddenly seems too bright. It is exposing too much. I want to tell Hunter to shut up. I want to tell him things Camille said about him that would hurt him. But I have nothing to tell him. She told me nothing. He was one of so many of her new secrets.

“She didn't want to move to San Francisco with you after college,” he says. “She wanted to sign up for the Peace Corps or Teach for America. She wanted to do something on her own. Something away from you.”

San Francisco. What a stupid destination. One of the most sophisticated and expensive cities in the world to live in, and we were two country girls with no money and no skills. And now I am one country girl, alone, on my way to a place that I imagined as ours. But it never was, and it never will be. She wanted to be somewhere else, somewhere far away from me. And now she is.

Camille would never choose to stick around as a ghost, would never have the kind of troubled soul that tethers itself to the world it's supposed to leave behind. Camille is not the one holding on to a long-gone past. Terry was right—if you're lonely enough, even a ghost will keep you company.

“Are you okay?” Hunter says softly.

“Yeah,” I say, but I'm not sure if I mean it. I'm not sure if I even know what okay feels like.

We sit on the log and watch the fire die out. There is no more need to talk; enough has been said for tonight. Coyotes or wolves howl and they sound closer than they should be. They could eat us in the night. We could be killed before we even knew what was happening. The fire turns to embers and we go silently to bed. Hunter falls asleep quickly, but I can't. I feel so on edge, so shaky, so close to shattering. I need something, someone, to help hold me together.

I know I shouldn't, but the night is so big and empty, the wolves are so close and hungry, my arms need to be around someone warm and solid, and Hunter is so close. He fits so perfectly in my arms. My body curls around his. His warmth is my warmth. He is asleep, so it doesn't matter that I'm crying, that my sobs are mixing with howls of the wolves and turning the night even blacker.

But his arms wrap around me and squeeze back. The night is black and the world is empty, but he is here and I am not alone.

We hold on to each other as the wolves take over the night. But we are safe from them in here. This is the solid place. Everything else drifts away, leaving only us, holding on, curling into each other. I listen to him breathe as sleep falls over me. I let myself feel the dull pain grinding inside my chest, but I also let myself feel Hunter's warmth around me. I let myself feel held and safe, even in the midst of so much pain.

FIFTEEN

Hunter and I didn't even
kiss last night, but when I wake up in his arms I feel like we did much more. When I open my eyes, his are right in front of me, inches away, blinking away sleep just like mine. For a brief moment, I panic—did something else happen? But no, we are still in our own sleeping bags. Our clothes are still on.

“Good morning,” he says, a little unsurely.

“Good morning,” I say, discomfort starting to spread through me. My body stiffens and he lets go, scoots a few inches away so I can no longer feel him against me.

We're both a little embarrassed as we pack up, a little too polite and careful with each other. As we drive away, Hunter leans over; I think he's going to kiss me, and my body tenses in anticipation. His face is close and I can smell the toothpaste on his breath. My lips part a little—to say something or kiss him back, I'm not sure which. But he just smiles, reaches over, and pulls a twig out of my hair.

“Make a wish,” he says, holding the twig in front of me.

“On that?” I laugh, still giddy from the almost-kiss.

“Sure, why not? It's like making a wish on an eyelash. It's a tree's eyelash.”

“Okay,” I say, and scrunch my face into a caricature of serious thinking. But even though this is a joke, it somehow seems important. I really do need to make a wish. But what do I even want?

I close my eyes and send my wish to God or the universe or whatever's out there listening:
I want to know what I want.

I open my eyes and blow on the twig in Hunter's fingers. He flicks it out the window. “What'd you wish for?” he asks.

“It's a secret,” I tell him.

“You and your secrets, Kinsey Cole.”

The mountains of northern Wyoming turn to rolling hills as we go south. The landscape is yellow with dried grass, dotted with mountains of straw bound in swirls like giant cinnamon rolls.

“Look at those things,” I say. “They must weigh at least a ton.”

“Let's find out,” Hunter says, and jerks the car to the side of the freeway.

“What are you doing?”

“I have to go check out this straw.”

“Why?”

“Just because.”

“Because why?”

“Not everything you do has to have a reason.” He grins. He leans over and gives me a quick peck on the cheek. Before it has a chance to register, he's out of the car and running around the field.

So I follow. I feel the rush of cars on the freeway as I make my way over the embankment and into the field. The rolls are massive, at least twice my height. I walk in and out of them, calling for Hunter. The wind plays with his voice, makes it come from all directions, and I feel like I'm going in the circles trying to follow it. “Where are you?” I call.

“Here!” he says, but I don't know where here is. I run and weave, chasing his voice. The straw towers above me and I can't see the car anymore; I don't even know which direction the freeway is. I'm lost in a maze of yellow. The paths from here are infinite. I look up and the blue sky towers above me. But it doesn't feel heavy; it feels expansive, limitless. Amid all this unknown, I don't feel scared. Maybe being lost isn't such a bad thing.

Arms grab me from behind and I scream. Hunter wraps me in a bear hug. “Where are we?” I say.

“I was hoping you knew.” His breath is warm on the back of my ear. We stand for a while like that, looking up at the sky. In this moment, everything feels so simple, so perfect. There is only us; there is only here. It doesn't matter that we are lost.

Somehow we find our way back to the car. As soon as I see the freeway, see the cars rushing to their destinations, feel the harsh wind of their speed, my bliss is joined by an uneasy doubt. Is
this
the real world—this freeway with its hostile speed, this straight, hard path? What I felt out there in the maze, was that real too? Or was it just the result of chasing a beautiful boy, of having his arms around me?

This trip will soon be over. Whatever this is brewing between Hunter and me will end. Or will it? My plans for the future never included him, not like this. Maybe once I thought we could be friends, but now do I want him to be something more? How could that be possible while working full-time and going to school? How would I make room in my life for something like a relationship?

Is that even what I want? Do I want to be in a relationship with him? I care about Hunter, I know that. I feel alive when I'm with him. But does that automatically need to translate into something long-term? Am I supposed to re-envision my path as something in tandem, something defined by “us” instead of me? Should we aspire to become like Eli and Shelby? Should we make a home together? Should we plan on forever?

Hunter hums as he starts the car and gets back on the freeway. How can he be so calm at a time like this? How can he not be terrified? I must do something. I must say something.

“Did you love Camille?” is what comes out of my mouth.

I feel the car jerk a little. “Whoa, where the hell did that come from?” he says. I have no idea. Probably my instinct to say the exact wrong thing at the exact wrong time.

“It's an obvious question.”

He doesn't say anything.

“If you were me, wouldn't you want to know?”

Silence.

“Well?” I say after a few unbearable moments.

“I don't know,” he finally answers.

“‘I don't know'? Isn't that what I'm not allowed to say? That's not an answer.”

“It's my answer.”

“But it's not an answer.”

“My answer is ‘I don't know,'” Hunter says softly after a long silence. “That's my honest answer.” I hold my breath, waiting for him to say more, waiting for something definitive. But he just says the same thing again: “I don't know if I loved her. I'm sorry if that's not the answer you wanted.”

I don't know what I'm supposed to say. Am I supposed to tell him it's okay, as if it's my place to give him permission for his feelings?

“I think I loved lots of things about her,” he says, and I'm surprised to feel a squeeze in my chest. Is that jealousy? “Her laugh,” he says. “Her enthusiasm. The way she always saw the positive in something. The way she saw the positive in people. In me.”

“I loved her hope,” I say, but the last word gets tangled in my throat. Heat rushes to my face, and my eyes well with tears and I have to clench on tight to keep my heart from bursting.

Hunter looks at me briefly from the driver's seat. “Yeah. Exactly. It felt good to be around her. I loved how she made me feel. We had a lot of fun. But I don't know if that's love. I think love has to be something more than that.”

“So what is it then?”

He doesn't even pause to think. “Someone knowing every piece of you, from the top all the way to the very ­bottom. All the light and all the dark.” He says this with such confidence, as if he's absolutely certain. “And they love it all, even the shitty stuff. And you let them, even though it's the scariest thing you've ever done. And you want to keep doing it forever.”

“Wow,” is all I can think to say.

“Wow, what?”

“You've thought about it a lot.”

“Not really. I don't know. I guess I'm secretly emo.”

“Not so secret,” I say.

He laughs a little, and it lightens the car just enough. “What about you?” he says then. “Have you ever been in love?”

Does he want me to say yes? Does he want me to say I'm in love with him? I look at his face and realize no, that's not what we are. I don't know how to define what we're doing, who we are to each other, but I know that whatever it is it doesn't include these one-word definitions, these standard labels, any of the bullshit dating games, those half-truths and slow reveals, all those fears of letting someone in bit by bit, the lying to keep them interested. We are beyond all that. Maybe because we were thrown together by a tragedy. Maybe because we are two people who would never have crossed paths otherwise. Maybe because we never planned this.

Or maybe because we know it's only temporary, because we know it's going nowhere. Maybe that's what frees us—we can tell the truth only because we have no future.

So I answer truthfully. Have I ever been in love? “No.”

There is no sign of hurt on Hunter's face. He doesn't want me to be in love with him. “But you've had boyfriends?”

“Yeah, a couple. It was fun for a while. Then it wasn't.”

He chuckles. “How romantic.”

“Yep, that's me. Miss Romance.”

“Are you a virgin?”

“Oh my god! That is so none of your business.”

“Oh, come on,” he teases. “I'm sure Camille told you way more about our sex life than I'm comfortable with.”

“Not really.”

“Oh.”

“She hardly told me anything.” The truth of this is too big for this moment, too big for me. I suddenly feel so lonely, but it's a loneliness that goes back in time and erases my denial, erases Camille from my memories of all the times I told myself that things were fine, that
we
were fine, back all the way to the beginning of when she started pulling away and I refused to see it, refused to let her change, refused to let her go. Truth erases Camille until all that's left is me, standing alone, with an empty space next to me where she used to be.

“No, I'm not a virgin,” I say.

“You didn't have to tell me,” Hunter says.

“I know,” I say. “I wanted to tell you.”

I'm sick of hiding. I'm sick of secrets.

I want lightness. I want truth.

* * *

Something feels off. Tilted. On the verge of spilling over.

We've barely spoken during southern Wyoming and into Utah. We are so close now. Only Nevada stands between us and California.

I am not ready. The car is suddenly suffocating. Hunter takes up too much space. It is crowded with him, with us, heavy with these new bonds that tie us together.

The suburbs are turning into desolation. We are outside of Salt Lake City, back on the 80 after avoiding it for so long. “Fuck my dad,” Hunter said. “He was bluffing. He wouldn't go through the trouble to hunt down this car. He can buy a new one. And he sure as hell doesn't want me back.”

My mind keeps returning to the same thought—what's going to happen when Hunter and I separate? Maybe it won't happen right away, but I know that whatever this sweetness is between us right now, it's not meant to last forever. I cannot see him in my future. I cannot see our lives in tandem. He stepped into my life and gave me something beautiful, but he will step back out when our time together is done.

Some things are not meant to last forever. Some relationships are meant to be intense and vast and life changing, but also short, also temporary. And after the person is gone, you're left with what they've done, how they've changed you. And it stays with you forever, even if they don't.

So we will touch each other's lives, we will change each other's course, and then we will move on. And then what? Who's going to protect me from my dreams? Who's going to protect me from my own loneliness? Who's going to keep me safe? Who will I be without him?

Who am I without Camille?

I turn the radio on to fill my head with something, anything besides my own thoughts. The newscaster is saying something about a forest fire in the mountains east of Salt Lake City. The sky is thick with its smoke, red and sickly as the sun makes its slow way down to the horizon. I can smell the fire in the air, the destruction, all those trees burning.

A sign says something about salt flats. There is nothing around us but white, flat nothingness, a dry, ancient seabed, too salty for life. Dead.

I reach over and turn the radio off. The only sound is the wind whipping through the open windows. Even the breeze is hot. This place could be the moon, a distant planet, and yet recognition throbs inside me, like I've been here before, like I knew I'd return. The pressure in my chest builds as we drive deeper into the sterile desert, as color drains from the world, leaving only the heavy orange of the sky and the ashy white of the salt flats. The setting sun is a huge puncture in the sky, a gaping red wound, a cotton ball collecting blood.

I can't keep living like this, living in fear, running from myself, dependent on Hunter to keep me safe. That's not what friendship is, not what love is. It's not dependence, not desperation, not falling apart the moment we're separated, not seeing ghosts because I'm so afraid of being alone. And now here I am, in the blank space between earth and sky, where the horizon is forever away, where all color but fire has been completely bled out of the world. This is the place where Camille is lost, where I am lost, the place of infinity, the place of nowhere.

“Stop the car,” I say.

“What?”

“Just stop the car.”

“Here?”

“Yes. Pull over.”

“Why?”

“Just pull over.” My voice is fire.

He doesn't question me. Before the car even comes to a complete stop, I jump out, barefoot, and start running. The air is thick and hot, the wind hard and screaming, shoving the heat like a bulldozer, huge heavy mountains of it. I jump over broken glass and garbage, all coated with the same dingy white dust, all these discarded things that used to be colorful, now just bleached trash on the side of the road. My feet find the flat white clay—sterile, empty, dry, and dead, with no rocks, no plants, no hills, nothing for as far as the eye can see. The ground is springy, like gym mats, perfect for running. I could run forever on this and never get injured. I could just keep running until the end of the world.

So I run. Somewhere in the wind, I can hear Hunter's voice calling my name, but I have crossed over, I am a ghost, I am so far away his voice just barely reaches me. I run and run until he is gone, the road is gone, the sound of cars is gone, everything but the clouds at my feet and the bloody sky darkening into night.