The Heart's Ashes
Page 44
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“Damn it!” I hit the steering wheel, calling to anyone who cared. I did this. I forced Mike and Emily together. I just can’t believe it. I can’t believe Mike would do that—that he’d kiss me, then jump into bed with my best friend.
And Emily should know better! She knows how I feel about Mike. She had no right to touch him. No right!
I hate her. I hate her.
The numbness took over; my arms felt heavy, empty, and my face dropped, all the muscles going flaccid and lazy, like I was sleeping. Easing my foot off the accelerator, the car came to a slow roll in the middle of the road before common sense kicked back in and I turned the wheel a little, not really caring if there was verge to pull up on—or if I’d just drop off a cliff.
I forced myself to pull on the handbrake, then sat with my head against the chair back, my eyes tearing, blurring the reflection of headlights off rain, while my ears tried to block the sound of angry thunder. It sounded like a busy street; the wind as the roar of a train, the rain on the roof the patter of a thousand footsteps, and the shelter, the closed-in feeling of the car, like being packed between twenty bodies—too warm, too tight—suffocating.
I lurched from the car and slipped, landing chest-to-floor with slimy pools of mud oozing through my fingertips.
The thunder was louder out here, its angry growl seeming to touch the tips of the trees, gently brushing them like a hand along a wall.
With tightly closed fists, I stood up looked back at the car. What now? I had no idea where I was or what time it was. My car fuel light had come on and the rain was soaking the dash inside, leaving moist friends behind to stink my car out tomorrow when the heat returned.
I kicked the door shut with my heel then, shaking clumps of mud from my hands, wandered toward the tree line. At least with the headlights on, I could make out that they were actually trees. When I reached the other side of the road, I looked past the leaves and branches, but saw no houses. No mailboxes, no driveways.
Suddenly, I felt very alone.
With the sky hidden behind the leafy canopy and the cluster of storm clouds, I couldn’t make out north or south from my own arm.
Retreat became imminent, until the rain slowed to a soft patter, opening up to a gentle breeze, the fruity scent of water mixing with the light scent of pine within it. I took a closer look at the shoulder of the road beneath my feet. Dirt. Brown dirt lining bitumen on both sides. I knew then that only meters up ahead the road turned completely dirt and a pair of evergreens would be there to greet me, sentries to a world I once knew only with David.
“The lake.”
Just being so near it again, I could feel the memories, feel David, the love we had, the way we held hands, the way we talked about things we’d never share with anyone else—the way he knew me better than I knew myself. I wanted to cry for him, but somehow, just being in the one place left in the world that was our little secret, I felt closer. So I walked instead. Heel over toe, balancing each step carefully, looking only at my feet until the bitumen became dirt, well, mud, and the mud became trees. I looked up at the evergreens, welcoming me with the swaying bows. The branches had grown since I was last here, and gently brushed my face and neck as I ducked beneath them and entered the darkness of the forest trail.
Though the storm and the squeaking of branches, moved by things unseen, should’ve made me feel very small in a place so big and uninhabited, it didn’t, because the feeling, like coming home, hugged my shoulders a little—making the cold less bitter, the dark a little lighter, and the vision of my best friends fornicating, a little fuzzier. The leaves under my feet were crunchy, stripped of moisture from the summer heat, but seeped into the ground of mud that bedded them, making my steps cushioned. Everything was so much slipperier with the heavy rain—not helpful in the dark—and I tensed a little, unable to see my own hands in front of me, walking completely blind, just waiting for that little cluster of rocks David always steered me around. My toes found it instead. I managed to stumble forward, keeping my balance just long enough to drive my heel down on a slippery patch of leaves and end up sidelong on the ground, my ear breaking my fall; my lips opening to allow a cough of air past my clinking teeth.
Ouch.
I felt like a total idiot, which only made the self-pity, the humiliation and stupidity of not noticing my two best friends falling for each other spread over me like water on rocks. I closed my eyes around the vision of them in bed, the pain of my fall making the images more vivid; their naked bodies, the warm yellow glow of light, the murmured giggles and moans of pleasure I probably never actually heard. I was sure I heard them laughing at me, too, but I doubt they did.
And the truth is, I pushed Mike away, so I have no real right to be mad—or to want him back.
I sat up and tucked my arms in to my body.
I’ve no right to want him back, but I still do—maybe even more than I did before. Almost defensively, like I could scratch Emily’s eyes out.
But at the same time, she’s so right for him. She’s the chocolate to his orange. One sweet, the other good for you, but mix them together and you get the scent of dreams.
But just because it works, doesn’t mean it’s right.
I stood and winced at the squelchy feel of mud down the back of my jeans, then started walking again, not really sure if I was even headed to the lake. For all I knew I could be headed off a steep drop or into the deeper depths of the forest. David’s words, the day he told me about the signs bordering this land, how they warned foxes not to stray, that those foxes would be killed if they did, echoed in my thoughts. It only occurred to me right then that he wasn’t talking about foxes.
But cringe as I may have once, I just didn’t care.
I dare him to come. I dare him to kill me. I’d happily die right now just to see him again.
Overhead, the cold wind had ceased, leaving behind a dense, murky cool, the kind you might feel on one of those tours inside a cave—just at the entrance—where you can still feel the warm grasp of the sun outside, but know that deeper, if you take just a few more steps, you’ll be enveloped in its darkness. The dead calm, the eye of the storm, made my steps seem awfully loud, and the brisk, short breaths I took, tired from walking longer than I remembered this trail being, sounded a little like panic.
By the time I reached the tree line by the lake, the rain began to pour into the open space again. My feet stopped dead with a skid in the mud, and my heart jumped in my chest when I saw the rock where we used to sit. It was like I could see him there, just a silhouette of perfectly formed muscles and soft brown hair under the moonlight. I closed my eyes, savouring the image, and when I looked back up, the silhouette evaporated. But all around me, sitting on the cusp of the clay-scented pines, was the sweetly familiar scent of orange and chocolate. Like an Easter morning hug from someone you love.
And Emily should know better! She knows how I feel about Mike. She had no right to touch him. No right!
I hate her. I hate her.
The numbness took over; my arms felt heavy, empty, and my face dropped, all the muscles going flaccid and lazy, like I was sleeping. Easing my foot off the accelerator, the car came to a slow roll in the middle of the road before common sense kicked back in and I turned the wheel a little, not really caring if there was verge to pull up on—or if I’d just drop off a cliff.
I forced myself to pull on the handbrake, then sat with my head against the chair back, my eyes tearing, blurring the reflection of headlights off rain, while my ears tried to block the sound of angry thunder. It sounded like a busy street; the wind as the roar of a train, the rain on the roof the patter of a thousand footsteps, and the shelter, the closed-in feeling of the car, like being packed between twenty bodies—too warm, too tight—suffocating.
I lurched from the car and slipped, landing chest-to-floor with slimy pools of mud oozing through my fingertips.
The thunder was louder out here, its angry growl seeming to touch the tips of the trees, gently brushing them like a hand along a wall.
With tightly closed fists, I stood up looked back at the car. What now? I had no idea where I was or what time it was. My car fuel light had come on and the rain was soaking the dash inside, leaving moist friends behind to stink my car out tomorrow when the heat returned.
I kicked the door shut with my heel then, shaking clumps of mud from my hands, wandered toward the tree line. At least with the headlights on, I could make out that they were actually trees. When I reached the other side of the road, I looked past the leaves and branches, but saw no houses. No mailboxes, no driveways.
Suddenly, I felt very alone.
With the sky hidden behind the leafy canopy and the cluster of storm clouds, I couldn’t make out north or south from my own arm.
Retreat became imminent, until the rain slowed to a soft patter, opening up to a gentle breeze, the fruity scent of water mixing with the light scent of pine within it. I took a closer look at the shoulder of the road beneath my feet. Dirt. Brown dirt lining bitumen on both sides. I knew then that only meters up ahead the road turned completely dirt and a pair of evergreens would be there to greet me, sentries to a world I once knew only with David.
“The lake.”
Just being so near it again, I could feel the memories, feel David, the love we had, the way we held hands, the way we talked about things we’d never share with anyone else—the way he knew me better than I knew myself. I wanted to cry for him, but somehow, just being in the one place left in the world that was our little secret, I felt closer. So I walked instead. Heel over toe, balancing each step carefully, looking only at my feet until the bitumen became dirt, well, mud, and the mud became trees. I looked up at the evergreens, welcoming me with the swaying bows. The branches had grown since I was last here, and gently brushed my face and neck as I ducked beneath them and entered the darkness of the forest trail.
Though the storm and the squeaking of branches, moved by things unseen, should’ve made me feel very small in a place so big and uninhabited, it didn’t, because the feeling, like coming home, hugged my shoulders a little—making the cold less bitter, the dark a little lighter, and the vision of my best friends fornicating, a little fuzzier. The leaves under my feet were crunchy, stripped of moisture from the summer heat, but seeped into the ground of mud that bedded them, making my steps cushioned. Everything was so much slipperier with the heavy rain—not helpful in the dark—and I tensed a little, unable to see my own hands in front of me, walking completely blind, just waiting for that little cluster of rocks David always steered me around. My toes found it instead. I managed to stumble forward, keeping my balance just long enough to drive my heel down on a slippery patch of leaves and end up sidelong on the ground, my ear breaking my fall; my lips opening to allow a cough of air past my clinking teeth.
Ouch.
I felt like a total idiot, which only made the self-pity, the humiliation and stupidity of not noticing my two best friends falling for each other spread over me like water on rocks. I closed my eyes around the vision of them in bed, the pain of my fall making the images more vivid; their naked bodies, the warm yellow glow of light, the murmured giggles and moans of pleasure I probably never actually heard. I was sure I heard them laughing at me, too, but I doubt they did.
And the truth is, I pushed Mike away, so I have no real right to be mad—or to want him back.
I sat up and tucked my arms in to my body.
I’ve no right to want him back, but I still do—maybe even more than I did before. Almost defensively, like I could scratch Emily’s eyes out.
But at the same time, she’s so right for him. She’s the chocolate to his orange. One sweet, the other good for you, but mix them together and you get the scent of dreams.
But just because it works, doesn’t mean it’s right.
I stood and winced at the squelchy feel of mud down the back of my jeans, then started walking again, not really sure if I was even headed to the lake. For all I knew I could be headed off a steep drop or into the deeper depths of the forest. David’s words, the day he told me about the signs bordering this land, how they warned foxes not to stray, that those foxes would be killed if they did, echoed in my thoughts. It only occurred to me right then that he wasn’t talking about foxes.
But cringe as I may have once, I just didn’t care.
I dare him to come. I dare him to kill me. I’d happily die right now just to see him again.
Overhead, the cold wind had ceased, leaving behind a dense, murky cool, the kind you might feel on one of those tours inside a cave—just at the entrance—where you can still feel the warm grasp of the sun outside, but know that deeper, if you take just a few more steps, you’ll be enveloped in its darkness. The dead calm, the eye of the storm, made my steps seem awfully loud, and the brisk, short breaths I took, tired from walking longer than I remembered this trail being, sounded a little like panic.
By the time I reached the tree line by the lake, the rain began to pour into the open space again. My feet stopped dead with a skid in the mud, and my heart jumped in my chest when I saw the rock where we used to sit. It was like I could see him there, just a silhouette of perfectly formed muscles and soft brown hair under the moonlight. I closed my eyes, savouring the image, and when I looked back up, the silhouette evaporated. But all around me, sitting on the cusp of the clay-scented pines, was the sweetly familiar scent of orange and chocolate. Like an Easter morning hug from someone you love.
