Nothing But Blue (7 page)

He grins. His gums are covered in black spots, and he has a couple of missing teeth. The other three from last night are nowhere around. It is just him and me. And Shadow.

Shadow curls his lips to reveal his sharp incisors and lets out a long, low growl from deep inside. His hackles rise and he seems to grow to twice his size. He is suddenly large and looming. More wolf than dog. He looks so different, so scary.

The man steps back. “Control that dog,” he warns, drawing out the words slowly.

“Sorry,” I mumble. I try to grab hold of Shadow's neck to steer him away, but he shakes me off. He won't let me touch him. His growl turns into fierce barking.

“I'll kill it if it comes near me.” The man lifts his shirt to reveal a thick knife handle tucked into the waist of his pants. He stares straight at me. “You and I are just the same, you know. Don't go thinking you're any different.”

The man pulls out his knife and waves it in the air.

I go numb. I am going to die. I have a sudden realization that death might be better than life, if I could only just accept it. I won't be the only one dead. Others have died. But how? Where? Why?

Shadow stops barking and stands still. He stares at the man. The man stares back. It is incredibly quiet, as if everything has suddenly frozen. Even the air has stopped. My eyes dart from Shadow to the man. They are in some kind of trance. It's eerie, like nothing else exists. The only things moving are Shadow's eyes, swirling like a mad fire.

It lasts only a second, maybe two. Shadow shakes and things start moving again. The man backs away. “We're the same,” he hisses. Shadow growls again and the man turns and runs. As he does he lets go of his knife. It falls to the ground with a clunk, but he doesn't stop. He keeps running into the mist until he's out in the road and disappears around a bend.

The sun creeps its light under the bridge. Somewhere a bird calls and another answers. The man is gone and Shadow is normal again.

I pick up the knife. I wrap the blade in one of my extra shirts and place it carefully in my pack.

 

Another day of endless walking, and by nightfall not only do my legs ache, they itch like crazy. My broken blisters rub raw against the canvas of my sneakers. I wince in pain with each step. Forget trying to be the steadfast ant. I am in pain, and there are no cows in the fields to encourage me. Shadow tries—he runs ahead, runs back, circles me, licks my hand, but I merely drag myself along.

I stop at an all-night convenience store and grab handfuls of paper towel from the bathroom. I sit behind the store and peel off my shoes. As I suspected, the blisters are raw and oozing. First I carefully cut off the flapping skin, using the tip of Jimbo's knife. Then I wrap the paper towels around my heels and stuff my feet back into the sneakers. The sneakers feel a little tight now, but it's a lot better than the chafing.

It is a clear night with a sliver of moon and stars. I chow down on a dumpster dinner of chicken wings and some kind of Chinese egg rolls. I give some of both to Shadow. I climb over the railing and walk into the woods, using the flashlight. Its glow is weak; I don't know how much longer the battery will last. Shadow leads, so I turn off the light and follow him. The white parts of his fur reflect the moon. He is a ghost dog in the night.

All of a sudden I snag a root and lose balance. I feel myself falling. I think maybe I can stop the fall and regain balance, but it's too late. I lose touch with gravity, and down I go. A sharp branch scrapes along my cheek, and
thunk
. I am face-down in a pile of leaves.

I lie there, smelling the damp earth. My body throbs along with my heart. I guess this means I am still alive, though I kind of wish I wasn't. My cheek stings. I feel like an idiot even though no one is there to see me.

This is my life—walking, fleeing, hiding, aching, going nowhere, having nothing.

Then Shadow's warm, wet tongue licks me and the sting lessens. Slowly I sit up. I touch my cheek where there is already a welt forming. I wave the swarms of mosquitoes from around my head, but they don't stay away for long. They are too keen to suck my blood.

My knee is scraped. I wipe it off and wipe my eyes with my dirty sleeve. I stand. “I'm okay,” I tell Shadow.

We walk until we come to a moss-covered opening surrounded by a couple of boulders. I clear away some dead branches and lie down. The moss makes a nice soft padding. Shadow cuddles next to me. At first everything is quiet, and then sounds slowly emerge. The bellow of a bullfrog, the hoot of an owl, the gabble of migrating geese. For a moment I forget my pain, my fears, my uncertainty, and in a strange way, everything is peaceful.

I watch the stars twinkling through the trees. I've never seen so many stars. I know the names of constellations like the Big Dipper, Orion's Belt, Cassiopeia, but I've never actually seen them. I try to make out something that looks like a big dipping spoon or the belt of a man, but there's no way I can identify anything like that. I realize I don't even know what Cassiopeia is supposed to be.

I always thought all stars were the same, but each one has its own identity. Some are bigger than others, some blink, and some shine steady; some are reddish, while others are white. Some are planets, I know, but I don't know which ones. There is a whole world up there.

I start to think that maybe we are not all alone in this solar system. How would someone like me look from up there? I'd be a teeny-tiny little ant, or I'd be nothing at all, not even visible.

I am almost asleep when Shadow jumps up suddenly. He whimpers, staring straight ahead. I follow his gaze through the trees. I don't see anything, but Shadow's ears are alert. He is listening and staring intently. He whimpers again and growls low. I grab the light and shine it in his direction. It produces a dim beam and then fades to nothing.

“What?” I whisper. “What is it?”

Shadow circles me with his tail between his legs. My heart races and my mind fills with thoughts of danger. If Shadow is scared, then I ought to be doubly scared. After all, I am a girl alone in the woods in the middle of night.

Slowly I creep my arm over to grab my pack and find the knife. I clutch it to my chest. I hear the crunching sound of feet on leaves. Is it animal or human? I am too afraid to sit up, so I just lie there, tightening my grip on the knife handle.

I watch Shadow watching whatever it is. We wait forever for something to emerge.

Then there is a movement in the bushes and the leaves shake. I close my eyes and scream, preparing for the worst. When nothing happens I open my eyes. My mouth is still open, but no sound comes out.

A little animal pokes through. It could be a possum, a fat rat. I'm not sure. It doesn't have the black and white markings of a skunk, and it's not a raccoon. It's gray with a long, skinny furless tail. It looks just as startled to see me as I am to see it. I'm so relieved, I start to laugh. It stops for a second, figures I am not an enemy. Shadow does nothing more than sniff it as it waddles on by.

We wait until it's completely gone. The owl hoots. The night goes back to before. I release my grip on the knife. Shadow relaxes his ears. He circles three times in the same place, then lies down tucked against my shoulder. He lets out a big sigh and closes his eyes.

“You're a good dog,” I say. I pat him on the rump and hold him close all night long.

Everyone wants to know about sex. As soon as you start dating someone, that's all they care about. “Did you do it?” “Is he a good kisser?” “How was it?” “Where was it?” “Did you use protection?”

The thing with Jake—it was more than that. It couldn't be condensed to a few stupid logistical questions about one act, not that anyone knew Jake and I were going out. I wasn't even sure if we were. I couldn't believe that Jake actually liked me. I was in some kind of dream.

We had gone on three dates, if you could call them that, mostly parking and making out, places where we were almost always alone. He said it was because he wanted me all to himself, which was fine with me because I doubted his popular friends would like me. Once he took me to a fancy sushi restaurant where I ordered chicken tenders while I watched him eat slimy, raw pieces of fish and tried not to gag.

Our fourth date was Sunday afternoon (our first daytime date), and we were going to the beach. Which meant he'd have to see me in a bathing suit.

I owned three suits. My regular solid tank was ugly and stretched out already. The string bikini I'd bought but never worn was obviously out of the question. So I settled on a blue tankini. Blue was my favorite color and I figured I'd have the option of showing a little skin if I got bold enough. I wore a loose T-shirt and shorts over it.

I assumed we would go to one of the pristine beaches out of town, but when I got into the car, Jake said, “Let's go to the town beach. You're down with that, right?”

I didn't mind the town beach at all. In fact, I kind of liked it. There were always empty beer cans and random litter strewn about, but there was something “real” about it. In the summer kids splashed in and out of the freezing water; in the winter couples huddled together smoking cigarettes. You could do what you wanted there and no one cared. I was surprised that Jake would like it, though. He wasn't a town-beach kind of guy. He was more a yacht-in-the-Caribbean kind of guy.

It was late in the afternoon, so all the little kids were gone by the time we got there. A few couples walked along the shore. A group of older teens, college kids by the looks of it, had a boom box, so loud rock music filled the air. I watched a circle of gulls follow a boat out in the bay. A dog barked after them while its owner trailed behind.

“Is this an okay spot?” Jake asked.

“Can we move away from that dog?” I asked. “I don't want it to walk on our stuff.”

We found a spot and laid out our towels. I took off my shorts and top. I was painfully aware of Jake watching me. He smiled and peeled himself out of his shirt. He had a clean, smooth chest, and you could see his abs. He definitely worked out. I pulled on my tankini top to cover my belly and crossed my arms over my chest. I wasn't bold enough to show that much skin yet.

“Last one in is a loser.” He ran down toward the water.

“Not fair!” I called, running after him. “You didn't give me warning.”

Jake reached the water and waited for me to catch up. “Okay. Let's go together, then.”

He counted to three and we dove under only to rise up screaming from the icy shock. Jake grabbed me by the shoulders and dunked me. I swam a few laps around him. I've always liked being in the water. It's the one place where I can forget about my body and everything else. It's like nothing matters under water. I was smiling when I came back up. Jake leaned over and we kissed. I felt like a new person. Relaxed and happy. This was the magic I wanted.

After about ten minutes of dunking, splashing, and kissing, we ran to our towels to warm up. I lay on my front and stared out at the ocean. The sea and the sky were almost the same color.

“It's all blue,” I mused. “Nothing but blue as far as you can see. But if you put air or water in a glass, it's clear. Why is that?”

Jake shrugged. “Something to do with reflection of light, I think,” he said.

“It's so beautiful.”

“Yeah, but it's all an illusion.” Jake picked up a tube of sunscreen. “Let me put this on your back. You don't want to get burned.” He straddled me and moved my hair out of the way. He started massaging my shoulders with lotion.

“You have gorgeous hair,” he said. “Especially when it's wet and sleeked back. Really sexy.”

He rolled over next to me. He put his hand on my thigh, then moved it slowly to my hip, then waist, and kept slipping it up. Then he moved back down again, then up, then down, caressing my body. He tucked some strands of my hair behind my ear and whispered, “Let's get out of here.”

We went back to the car. We kissed more passionately than ever before.

“Do you want to?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. I did. I did want to. I wanted Jake to love me. He scrambled into the back seat and I followed, banging my head on the roof as I climbed over the seat.

He fumbled out of his suit. I took off my bottoms but left the top part on.

“Wait a sec.” Jake leaned over and took something out of his wallet. A condom. He put it on like he was a pro.

For some reason this struck me as funny. I was going to have sex with the cool guy in a car at the beach. I burst out in laughter.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “It's just . . . I don't know . . . this seems funny.”

“I thought you wanted to.”

“No, I mean, yes. I do, but it's just that I didn't believe this would ever happen.”

“It's happening,” he said.

He lifted my hips and I sat on his lap. “Mmm. Can you take your top off?”

“I don't know,” I said. He could see my stomach and all, but I wasn't sure I was ready for him to see everything. He didn't ask again, and I respected him for that. He held my neck and then moved his hands to my back, gripping tightly.

I watched out the rear window at the sun shimmering like crystal on the tips of the small waves. The same little dog from earlier was splashing in and out of the water. The owner was smiling and laughing like she was having the time of her life just watching her dog play.

I was surprised when Jake let out a deep breath and moved me off his lap.

“Man oh man,” he said. “It just happened so fast. I couldn't wait.”

“Oh.” I didn't know what to say. I had felt something, but I wasn't sure if it was what I was supposed to feel. He was acting like it was all over and I still wanted to keep kissing and touching. I wrapped my arms around his back. I wanted him close. I wanted to be with him forever. I wanted him to love me and me to love him. I wanted to be important.