Wake (46 page)

“So where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise.”

Willa is in her scruffy weekend outfit, so we’re probably not going out in public. She told me to wear old clothes and beat up shoes, too.

Willa sighs and adjusts her sunglasses on her nose. “Days like this, I miss my other wheels. I had to leave Kyla in St. John’s to move here.”

“You named your car Kyla?”

“So? I bet you’ve named your dick,” she says. “And Kyla’s a bike.”

I snort. “I guess this rusty shitbox is a step up from peddle-power in Newfoundland weather.”

“A
motorbike
. And summers there are nice. Winter doesn’t last forever.”

I try to picture Willa on a motorbike. It looks something like Audrey Hepburn in
Roman Holiday.
“So what, you had some cute little moped?”

“No,” she says with sarcasm and disgust. “She’s a red Harley Davidson Xr1200 Sportster. Tessa left it to me in her will .”

“And your parents let you keep it?” Most parents have better priorities set for their children, like not getting smeared across the highway.

“They wanted me to sell it, but I refused.”

I try to picture Willa on a proper motorcycle, cruising down the highway with her hair a mess behind her. I mean, come on, how many teenage girls drive motorcycles as their primary means of transportation? I imagine her pulling into the school parking lot every day; guys were probably drooling over her bike, if not her.

“You know, you’re kind of a badass,” I tell her.

Willa scoffs. “Please, if I had balls they’d be bigger than yours.”

Willa turns off the pavement and onto a secluded dirt road. We creep along that for a while until the road abruptly ends, and for some reason Willa decides that this would be a good time to shift into park and get out of the car.

“Did you take the wrong road?”

“No.” She grabs an overstuffed backpack out of the trunk. “We’re going to hike a ways. I’ve got water. I assume you brought your Jel -O.”

“Yeah, but…”

“We won’t walk far.” She squeezes my elbow. “And we’ve got all afternoon. We can go as slow as you want.”

*

Our timing is perfect—sort of. By four it’s still warm enough that the worst of the bugs have retreated, and Willa and I pass through the woods relatively unmolested. Within ten minutes of hiking I take my jacket off and tie it around my waist. I hesitate to do it, but eventually I push my long sleeves up too. Willa has already seen and touched my arms. She knows what they look like.

Willa calls a break after half an hour and fishes two water bottles out of her backpack.

“Are you doing okay?” she asks as I sip. Her fingers wrap gently around my free wrist. I would think she was just being nice and maybe even a little flirty to touch me like that, but I know it’s really a subtle way of feeling my pulse.

I lift my hand and rest two fingers against her neck. “I’m fine.” Her heart is racing. But she’s not even winded. What the—?

Willa smirks and takes my hand off her neck. She doesn’t let go, though. She keeps a loose hold on my fingers and starts walking again.

I adjust my hand to hold hers properly.

Willa measures our trek in half-hours, though that’s no way to track distance. The longer we walk, the slower my pace becomes. It’s hot and I wish I hadn’t worn a black wool hat.

Willa notices that I’m struggling and puts an arm around my back, lending me her shoulder. I would be embarrassed if this wasn’t a great opportunity to put my arm around her. I indulge my imagination in the idea of the two of us as a real couple, out for a leisurely hike…and getting touchy. Variations of this scenario occupied my thoughts before Willa picked me up today. I even patched my Hickman up in case things got…interesting.

Willa steers us over to a fallen log and makes me sit down.

“Is it the heat?” she says. She crouches in front of me and opens her backpack to dig for more water.

“Among other things.”

“Anything I can do?”

“Just give me a few minutes.”

Willa asks if I have an undershirt beneath my tee. I tell her I’m not going to take my shirt off.

“well the wool hat can’t be helping. Leave it off for a while.”

“No.”

“It’s not like—”

“
No.
”

Willa swallows whatever she was about to say. “Walk behind me,” she suggests quietly. “I won’t look.”

“Please stop.”

Willa sits back on her bottom and hangs her forearms over bent knees. “Okay. Your call .”

We stay by the log for fifteen minutes—long enough for me to eat a Jel -O cup to keep my sugars up.

Willa sips at her water bottle, saying nothing. I take one of the hands that hangs over her knee and she doesn’t pull away.

“How far are we from where we’re going?”

“Not far now. Maybe another twenty minutes at our slowest pace.” I wonder if she knows how much it means that she said ‘our’ slowest pace, not mine.

“That far?”

“Don’t quit on me now, Harper,” she teases.

“I won’t.” I squeeze her hand and she actually smiles. I didn’t know she had it in her to be this welcoming. This…happy.

I lean in to kiss her and she pulls away slightly. I’m left hanging there, bent over and lips parted for a kiss that isn’t coming.

“I’m doing the best I can,” she says. At least her tone is apologetic. I still feel like an idiot.

I sit back up and clear my throat. “Sorry. I should have, uh…”

“Kept walking? Yeah, good idea.” Willa stands abruptly and shoulders her backpack.

So much for that.

But she still lets me hold her hand.

*

“Almost there.” Somewhere nearby I can hear a creek.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

The trees break off suddenly, opening into sloping beach beside the creek. It’s sudden appearance surprises me and Willa’s hand slips from mine as she continues walking.

“Frank used to take me here when I was little. There used to be trees all the way up to the bend,” she points to where the creek winds away from sight, “but there was a fire here a few years ago—lightning strike on a pine. So now it’s all sand and dirt.”

I look around at the gap in the trees, at the dark brown sand and river-smoothed pebbles. It’s beautiful, but I can’t shake the thought that this place is one giant scar.

Willa stops and turns to me with a curious expression. “You coming? I brought us a little picnic.”

*

It’s amazing how much Willa managed to fit in her backpack. An old bed sheet is our picnic blanket.

To drink she brought two bottles of orange and mint iced tea, and the ‘food’ fits in three thermoses. Willa laughs at my enthusiasm as I open each one and smell the contents. One is vegetable soup, the second is the sweet milkshake she left in my fridge on Elise’s birthday, and the third smells like raspberries.

“Appetizer, entrée and dessert,” she says proudly.

“This is great. So what are you eating?”

Willa nudges my shoulder. “You’re going to learn to share.”

I shake my head and reach for a spoon. “No way. I flunked that shit in preschool and it’s too late to learn now.”

Willa takes the cup lids from each thermos and pours one-third helpings out for herself. I can’t eat as much as she’s left me in the thermoses. I tell her that and she tells me to just shut up and eat. The soups and shakes aren’t a smooth puree. Willa left chunks in these. She trusts me to handle solids now.

We eat slowly, languidly, talking about school and family and crap TV. She’s easily amused by stories about Elise and Eric. I tell her about the time Elise crawled into the dishwasher as a toddler, just to explore, and the spring-lock door shut behind her. We didn’t find her for a whole hour.

“Was she scared?”

“She didn’t want to come out when we did find her.”

Then there was the time Eric and I found a dead raccoon in the backyard and carried it inside, swinging it around by the tail.

“I once gave a cat a haircut,” Willa volunteers.

“Was your mom mad?”

She smirks. “It wasn’t our cat.” She tells me the story as she packs up the empty thermoses—how she lured the cat onto her lap with leftover bacon bits and proceeded to cut big patches of hair off its back with her mom’s pruning sheers.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time. I was only five.”

Willa puts the thermoses away and zips up her backpack. I don’t want to leave yet. I lie back on the blanket and fold my hands behind my head.

“This would be a great spot to stargaze.”

“You’re into that?”

Actually I think it’s dorky and cheesy, but it also has the potential to be a romantic activity. I tug gently on Willa’s shirtsleeve to get her to lie down next to me.

“We should come here at night sometime.”

“Maybe this summer.” I can hear the real meaning underneath the words:
When you’re well enough to

do it.

“After the grad dance.”

“What?”

“We said we’d make plans the night of the grad dance, remember? Let’s come here.”

“Thanks.”

“Sure.”

“No, I mean, thanks for not trying to talk me into going to grad with you instead, since we’re…seeing each other now.”

I’ve never been one for school dances or formal occasions in general. I wouldn’t want to attend prom,

but if Willa did, I’m sure I could find the enthusiasm to go with her.

“I won’t be graduating this year.” I think it’s obvious by this point, but it still warrants saying.

“Me neither,” Willa says. That surprises me. She’s a good student. How can she be short on credits?

Willa looks over at me and sits up on her elbow. “You have a beetle on your hat.” She pinches it between her thumb and forefinger and lifts it away. Its little legs flail in the air until she sets it down beyond the edge of the blanket. Cool—a girl who isn’t totally freaked out by bugs.

Willa brushes the spot on my hat, dislodging a few blades of grass from the black wool. She smirks.

“You know, before I knew your real hair color I pictured you with black hair, like Elise and Eric.” It’s both pleasing and disheartening to know that she pictured me as being healthy. Pleasing because I’m flattered she cares so much, and disheartening because the mental picture is probably a lot nicer than the reality of my appearance.

I shake my head. “No. I got all the recessive genes. Eric used to tell people that I was adopted.”

“It must have been hard on your parents when you were born a ginger,” she teases me. “But at least they had Eric—one normal child.” She laughs and I tell her that Eric can hardly be considered normal.

“He’s obnoxious at best.”

“And what are you?”

“Charming?” I roll onto my side and put an arm over her waist. “Interesting? Witty?”

“You’re an idiot.”

Willa rolls over too—away from me. For a moment I think she’s turning cold, but then she takes my wrist and adjusts my arm around her waist. She scoots back until we’re practically spooning. I have to say, snuggling in the open feels damn good. It absolutely tickles me to think of all the guys who only wish they could do this with her.

“Do you think you’ll ever want to make it official?”

“Make what official?”

“You know, do the whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing with me.”

“I’ve never had an exclusive boyfriend,” she muses aloud. I don’t know whose benefit she’s saying that for. I fiddle with one of the buttons on her shirt.

“I wouldn’t be enough for you?” She deserves someone who doesn’t exist in pieces. I wouldn’t be anyone’s first pick, least of all hers. She can do better than me and she knows it.

“I didn’t say that. I just said exclusivity would be a new thing for me.”

“Is there someone else?”

“Not necessarily.”

“If I wasn’t sick…?”

“Don’t.” Willa rolls over slowly and sits up on her elbow, studying me. “I care a lot less about the fact that you had cancer than you probably think.”

“You should care—”

Willa lays her finger over my lips, cutting me off. “Don’t project your self-loathing onto me. I wouldn’t have called you beautiful if I didn’t mean it.”

I take her hand away from my mouth. “This isn’t some…I don’t know, fetish, is it? You’re always saying how beautiful your sister was bald. Are you just, like…
into
cancer patients or something?”

Willa smirks. She gives a short, unintentional snort, which breaks into a full -blown laugh. I feel ridiculous.

“I’m into you,” she says. “But you’re not just a cancer patient. And no, it’s not a bald fetish. Empowered people are beautiful.”

“I’m not
empowered
.” I’m totally pathetic.

“You’re stronger than I’ll ever be. You’re close to your demons, and that’s a hard thing to find in a person, especially at our age.” Willa leans forward on her elbow and kisses me softly. When she starts to pull away I lean in for more.

Willa puts a hand on my collarbone to keep me back. “But I still intend to kill you.”

I roll my eyes. “Enough with that, okay?”

“Nope.”

“well then get on with it so I can kiss you again.”

Willa has a little chuckle at that. “I am killing you,” she announces with a kind smile. “You’re bleeding to death and you don’t even realize it.”

I can’t tell if she’s joking or speaking in metaphors or just delusional, but her words take me back to a cold, frightening place. I really did come close to bleeding to death—twice.

“That’s not funny.”

“Wasn’t meant to be.” Willa’s hand leaves my collarbone to stroke my cheek. “Where did you go just now? You looked scared.”

“Nowhere.”

“Whatever.”

“Tell me what you meant by that.”

“Tell me what kind of cancer you had,” she returns. It’s a guaranteed stalemate of things neither of us wants to tell .

“I told you it doesn’t matter. I don’t have it any more.”

“It could still kill you faster than I ever could.”

I move her hand away from me. “You’re a little messed up, you know.” Who says shit like that to someone so lately in remission?