Part 20 (2/2)

”Louder,” Rawe said.

”Yeah, louder,” Nez hissed.

I looked at Nez's back and repeated it, again and again, until my throat ached. I wanted the sentences to be like bullets going through her pack and her uniform into her perfect brown skin.

I could yell and scream those words easily. What I couldn't do was even say the word for the thing I had really kept from everyone.

One word that I couldn't even whisper, that I couldn't even write down, like Troyer.

If Rawe was right and saying something out loud freed you from it, how would I ever be free from something I couldn't even admit to myself?

We sat around the campfire, all nine of us: a man, a woman, and seven f.u.c.kups against the wilderness.

Probably not the best odds.

The whites of our eyes looked pink in the firelight. Each of us had our lips around a metal mug, our only utensil for the next six days. We slugged at it like it held one hundred sleeping pills. Apparently there would be a lot of drinking, and not the kind I liked, in our future.

We sipped on lip-scalding broth in silence while Nez stared at Ben and he tried not to stare at me.

The fire was pretty sad, like what a homeless guy might have been able to build with the sc.r.a.ps he found in an alley, but we had to keep it small so we didn't alert anything that we were out here. Anything that included a rescue plane and, more importantly, the grizzly bears Rawe warned us would break us in half like a candy bar.

When we first arrived at the camp that afternoon, Rawe and Nerone had us dig the holes that would be our toilets for the night while they went and ”checked the perimeter.” As I worked, I couldn't help wondering what the clinic had done with whatever was inside me. I'm sure no one dug a grave for it. I don't think anyone at the clinic said a prayer or did anything special. I think whatever was inside me went into a plastic biohazard bin. Which I guess was supposed to make you feel like it wasn't just a garbage can, but really it was, just with a fancy sign on it.

I kept looking at Ben. I needed his f.u.c.king lighter. I figured we could get a quick smoke in before Rawe and Nerone got back, but Ben was acting like he was Superman and my face was kryptonite.

Perfect f.u.c.king timing.

Troyer was working next to me. At least with her I didn't seem like a total zero, even though that was what I felt like. I felt the way I did in middle school before I realized I could scare people, when I used to be afraid of them instead. Ever since I had come here, ever since that day at the clinic weeks ago, the same vulnerability was just below the surface of my skin. Like someone could reach in and rip my heart out by looking at me. Or not looking at me.

Stupid f.u.c.king Ben and stupid f.u.c.king boys.

Troyer wrote on a piece of paper and pa.s.sed it to me. You really got stood up for prom? That was what she chose to ask me about. Not why Ben was pretending I didn't exist, not why I was fuming, trying to pretend I wasn't fuming.

I guess being stood up for prom really was that bad-not like Troyer knew what I was comparing it to.

”Yes,” I hissed. ”Did you even go to your prom?” I sounded angry, even though I wasn't at all mad at Troyer. It was easier to be cold than to let people be cold to you. That was something I'd learned from my mother.

The only thing I'd learned from my mother.

Of course, she wrote.

Of course she'd gone to her prom. Eagan had probably even gone to his prom; Eagan who had already fallen in the hole he was digging. That's what normal kids did, even what abnormal kids did. Total f.u.c.kups like me got stood up for their proms, got arrested, and then got in ”trouble” and had to do something about it.

Total f.u.c.kups liked me scared away total f.u.c.kups who were actually being nice to them.

I dropped my shovel and punched deep into my stomach, once, twice, till the pain made me nauseous.

Why do you do that? Troyer wrote. She had noticed. I didn't think anyone had because no one ever asked me about it. Maybe everyone had noticed but it was too weird to ask me about.

It was definitely too weird to explain.

”Why don't you talk?” I asked. It was mean, but I didn't know what else to say. I couldn't answer her, so I attacked instead.

Troyer ripped a blank piece of paper off the pad and dropped it on the ground next to me. I guess that was her way of saying she wasn't talking to me anymore.

Fine, now I was totally alone. Even Troyer had deserted me. Not like I could blame her.

I guess I crave loneliness. I certainly try to create it. I do anything I can to cover up the loneliness that comes from knowing I had something that would have been connected to me for my whole life and I destroyed it.

I can never be alone enough to snuff that out.

6 f.u.c.king Days to Go I woke up alone in my tent, which was good considering that was how I'd fallen asleep. I don't know what I was expecting. That Ben would come and see me during the night? That he would actually not have given up on me, so I could push him away again? At least his attention had been something I could count on, until I'd f.u.c.ked that up, too.

I should have known I'd push him too far. I push everyone too far.

I looked at the red top of my tent and couldn't help wondering if this was what the thing inside of me saw before it was no longer inside me-safety and red and soft all around. If it was floating in that light, until I forced it out into the world.

Kind of like me, except I was waiting for Rawe to come wake me up and tell me how far I was going to have to hike before I was allowed to get in here again. The thing that had been inside me had no choice to come back.

I had made the choice for it.

Choice.

Calling what I had to do a choice was a joke. Anyone who described what I had to do as freedom of choice has never had to do what I had to do. There is no choice in it. Who would actually choose what I put that thing inside me through? What I put myself through? What I'm still going through?

I listened to the birds. Felt the sun filtering through the red of the tent. It was going to be another long day of Rawe trying to break open our sh.e.l.ls. Well, really just mine. She didn't seem to be pus.h.i.+ng Nez and Troyer the way she was pus.h.i.+ng me.

I pictured Rawe like someone at a seafood buffet, a plate of crab legs and lobster tails in front of her. She was wearing a bib, drooling, waiting for my sh.e.l.l to open so she could get her claws into the soft parts I hid from her. The soft parts that probably even she herself hid.

The soft, scary parts Ben had seen at the infirmary. The ones that were too much for him.

”Breakfast in ten,” I heard Rawe call. I knew she'd put her hands around her mouth like a megaphone. Knew her braid was tight, tight, tight.

I unzipped my tent and stepped out, feeling even more bleary-eyed than I had when I was sleeping in the cabin. Newsflash, sleeping on the ground makes you feel like dog s.h.i.+t.

Everyone was milling around the dead fire from last night, waiting for instructions from Rawe and Nerone. I guess it was sort of the way it had been in school, where you would be sitting in the auditorium with your cla.s.smates waiting for someone to go up on stage and tell you something you were going to ignore, or in my case, that you would skip out on entirely. Except here Rawe and Nerone had our undivided attention and they were far too boring to deserve that.

”Troyer, Eagan, you're on breakfast duty,” Nerone muttered.

Rawe stood next to him like they were bookends, one with a square head and one with a pointy head. I guess they weren't picking our duties without thought. Considering Stravalaci's past, it was probably a good idea to keep him away from anything he could poison.

”Yes, sir,” Eagan lisped.

Troyer stood there.

”Leisner, Stravalaci, Claire, you're on tents,” Nerone said.

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