I will not cry.
For one thing I’m not lost, so it would be stupid. For another—whether I’m lost or not—it’ll dehydrate me. And last, suppose Duke or Kavita or Meredith comes up on me while I’m sitting twenty yards from the camp in my bra and crying.
“Nope,” I say to myself at the thought. “Not happening.”
I. Am. Fine.
So I get up, and I look for blazes.
Natalie—bless her dirty little soul—was right about the blazes she mentioned last night. They’re useless at night, but in the daylight they should stand out against the trees. I’m off-trail, no doubt, but I can’t be too far off. I steady myself and look around, straining my eyes as far as I can see, ignoring the quick dash of a squirrel and knock of a woodpecker. All I want in the world right now is a blob of white paint.
I don’t see one.
“Well, shit,” I say.
I have options.
I can try to find my shoes. Even the thought of putting my crushed toes into them makes me flinch, but I can at least put my right one on and make better time back to the road . . . once I find the trail. And if I can find my shoes then surely—surely—I can find the campsite. I didn’t wander too far just to take a piss, and the white of my socks should show up like a beacon in all this brown and green.
It’s true. I should be able to spot them right away, and that simple fact both comforts and terrifies me. Because finding them should be easy . . . unless I ran so far away last night that I can’t see a flash of bleached white in the middle of a gray afternoon in the woods.
“It’s okay,” I say. “You’re fine.”
I don’t know why I’m talking, but the words break up the thoughts that were starting to form. If I can’t find the campsite, then picking up the trail is going to be . . .
“It’s not impossible,” I say, biting down on the words, wanting them to feel more substantial.
Around me, the woods have fallen quiet, the unfamiliar echo of my voice sending everything into a standstill, tiny ears perked. Mine do too, my mouth closing. There’s a questioning chirp from a robin, the answering knock of a woodpecker, and then a squirrel climbs a tree about forty yards away, circling it as he ascends. He’s unconcerned, tail big and bushy, not in any kind of hurry.
And that means nothing good for me. If I’m anywhere near my friends, the woods would be quiet, their morning-after grumblings and good-natured teasing carrying into the trees, hushing the birds and keeping every animal on the alert. There’s nothing like that here. As soon as I went silent, the woods around me came to life, carrying on as if there was no predator in the area.
Because there’s not.
Which means I’m alone.
“Shit,” I say. “Shit, shit, shit.”
The squirrel peeks out at me from between branches, surprised. He chatters to let everyone else know there’s a problem and keeps an eye on me, well aware I can’t do anything to him from the ground. And I can’t. I couldn’t do anything to anybody other than freak out on them right now. It pisses me off, so I grab a handful of dead leaves and toss them in his direction, which only gets me another earful from him and dirt in my hair as it falls back on me. The squirrel adds his last thought, then pops into his nest.
“Dick,” I mutter.
It comes out funny because I’m about to cry, my mouth all twisted up. It sounds a little like my boyfriend’s name, actually. But I’ll die right here with my shirt on my foot and my back against a tree before I yell for him. Somebody else though . . . I might have to admit that calling for help is where I’m at.
Except that word is ugly to me, like how Meredith won’t say God in front of dammit. So it’s her I’m thinking about when I yell, and her name bounces back at me off the trees.
“Meredith!”
It kills the woods dead, everything hearing the edge in my voice, sending my fear right into them. Except that damn squirrel. His head comes up out of his nest like he’s afraid he might miss something. I try again, taking a deep breath right down to the bottom of my lungs and screaming my friend’s name so loud that it hurts in my foot.
“MEREDITH!”
Nothing. I picture her still wiped out in a tent, hands flat under her cheek the way she always sleeps, like one of those stupid baby angels in a painting. I don’t know if I’m thinking about it that way because I want so badly for them to still be here, or if I just like the idea of someone else being warm.
Because I’m not. The breeze has picked up, sending the mottled shade around me into a kaleidoscope as the canopy shakes. With it comes a smell I usually love, but not right now. Rain.
“KAVITA!”
I tell myself that her name is sharper, will travel farther. Nobody answers.
“DUKE!”
It tears out of me before I said it could, desperation in my voice that’s got everything to do with being alone, not only just right here, right now. But there’s no calling back, no voice to answer me. I think of Jason, yelling girls’ names all the time, and I think this could have been his moment, but he’s not here for it.
“STEPHANIE!”
It’s my last shot, and it takes all the breath I’ve got left, three syllables projecting in a voice that the drama teacher kept begging me to put on the stage ever since all the mics got blown out in a power surge. There’s no response. I can’t remember the brothers’ names, which leaves Natalie.
I consider it for a second, my mouth hanging open in indecision.
“Fuck that,” I say instead.
There’s no point, because there’s no one here. They probably woke up, hungover and grumpy, maybe not even noticing I was gone until they took down the tents, expecting me to be inside of one. I imagine Duke keeping his head low, trying to hide his nose, Natalie breezily ignoring any questions about when she saw me last.
Maybe they would come clean. Explain that I’d come across them in the woods, talking. I’m sure that’s all they would admit to, leaving out that neither of them was wearing pants. Duke wouldn’t be able to cover his nose forever, and everyone would know I broke it, and they’d probably guess why.
And if I was mad enough to do that, I was probably done with the whole thing, and every one of them, too. I probably left. I bet they imagined a pissed-off Ashley, headed back to the road and hiking into town, getting a ride home from my uncle Chuck at the gas station. I can hardly blame them for thinking it, since that’s exactly what I should have done—and would have if I hadn’t been so drunk.
Somebody would’ve grabbed my pack, doing me a favor.
With that thought comes the first grumble of my stomach.
Things change from going to rain, to definitely raining pretty quick. The fast pattering of drops deflected by leaves switches into a downpour without much warning. I’ve got nothing for cover, and no time to make any shelter. I remember seeing a decent-size spruce tree back the way I came, so I lurch onto my good foot and try a few hops, grabbing for anything to keep me upright as I go. I’m drenched when I find the spruce again, water running down my nose right into my mouth and more following the path of my spine down to my underwear.
I’m wet in every place I’ve got, so it doesn’t matter a lot when I drop to the ground and slide under the lowest boughs of the tree, knocking loose the droplets clinging to each needle. It doesn’t make me any wetter, but it doesn’t make me any warmer either. The rain sitting on my skin might be stealing my body heat, but the drops that land fresh are cold and not finding a lot of warmth left to take. I push with my good foot and drag with my elbows until I’m up against the trunk, the tree shielding me not from everything but from a lot of it.