It’s then that I decide I need to know if he’s alive.
I make a detour home that takes me longer but it also takes me by the wall. I look at his message for a moment, wondering what to say back. I think of a hundred things that I immediately cast off as stupid, lame, boring, too obscure or too suggestive.
And then it starts to rain. There’s no prelude to it, no soft pitter patter of tiny first drops leading the way. No, it downpours from moment one, soaking me to the bone in a matter of seconds. On the bright side, my rain bucket upstairs will be full in no time and I will have fresh water. On the dark side, the one that seethes inside my soul and throws zombies off rooftops as part of a stress management system, I’m reminded yet again that my adventure was all for nothing. I nearly died multiple times and all for not. It’s not a new thing in my life, I’m just painfully aware of it right now. As I am painfully aware of a lot of things lately.
Finally inspired, I pick up the brick on the ground, cross out a part of his message and write one word of my own. It’s not pretty and it’s not poetic, but it is honest.
When I wake up in the morning I still can’t find the calm. The numb. The tap out I need in order to be the me that survives. It’s troubling and I blame Ryan. One more thing on the poor guy’s shoulders, I know, but credit where credit is due. This is his fault. I thought about telling him as much last night on the wall.
You gave me the sickness.
I don’t know a lot but I know enough to know that sounds dirty. I don’t know how he’d take it, I’m not sure what types of books he’s been reading, but I doubt it would have been interpreted as I meant it.
I give it another day before I decide I feel enough like myself to be trusted in the outside world. I spend my time indoors watching The Breakfast Club and letting myself laugh audibly. It feels weird but I like it. And when the credits roll I’m still smiling because I noticed something about this movie that I’ve never noticed before, even after countless watchings: I can relate.
I am a brain.
An athlete.
A basket case.
A princess.
A criminal.
And when I step outside and cruise past the wall, expecting to find it washed clean of our small scribblings, I notice something else.
I’m no longer alone.
Chapter Nine
We’re writing almost every day now and I feel like it’s getting dangerous. It’s dangerous for us to develop a routine that the Colonists can track. It’s dangerous to leave these messages in my neighborhood that anyone can see. It’s dangerous to have him sneaking here to write them because eventually someone will see him do it. It’s dangerous to have my back turned, unguarded, as I write stupid things to a guy I’ve only met once and should have walked away from at the start.
But I didn’t and everything has changed because of it.
I’m crouched down under a tree, waiting like a snake in the grass for a bird to leave her nest so I can steal her eggs, when I hear him. His voice rings out, echoing through the park and resonating in my ears. It startles both me and the bird, alerting it to threats in the area and I lose all hope of scoring those eggs today. That boy cannot help but mess up my world.
It’s been a month since the night I met Ryan and I’m surprised that I recognize his voice immediately. He’s in the far side of the park, near where we ran into his friend Bray, and I crane my neck to look for him. What I see first is a tall, thin blond guy a few years older than I am. He’s somewhere in his twenties with a weathered face and sharp eyes. I sink back down low, scurrying silently into a patch of tall grass and ferns. I’m hiding from him. I don’t realize it until I’ve already done it, but I’m glad because his eyes make me nervous. I watch through the patchy green blur of leaves and blades as he moves languidly through the brush, barely rustling it as he walks. Beside him is another unfamiliar face, an older man with dark hair, probably somewhere in his forties. He’s moving with far less care, almost crashing through the grass and chuckling with his head bent down. He’s laughing with Ryan.
I can see him now. He’s slightly behind the other two, walking farthest from me near a bank of trees. He passes in and out of shadows under the canopy of the foliage, the sunlight shining on his dark hair, brightening it then losing it to blackness. When he glances my way, looking at the older man beside him, he’s smiling broadly.
I feel a small pang. An itch in my chest that I can’t understand and I can’t scratch.
They keep thundering through the forest; Ryan, the older man and the lithe footed guy with the freaky eyes. I follow them. This, I acknowledge, is stupid. But I’m seventeen and I’ve never done a stupid thing in my adult life. I figure I’m long past due. Besides, that pang in my chest will not be denied.
Eventually the tall blond holds up his hand, says something inaudible to the other two and they quickly scatter. They fan out and create a triangle around a small area of low lying grass just at the edge of the trees. In under a minute I can’t see or hear any of them. It makes me sick to my stomach to see it because I realize I could come walking through this area and cruise right past all of them, never knowing they were there. Not until it’s too late. Suddenly I wonder if I haven’t done that already. Do they already know about me? Have I been spotted before?
My hands are clammy and my heart begins skipping painfully in my chest.
Odds are I have been. I’m stealthy, clever and quick, but there are a lot of eyes in this area, it seems. It’s unrealistic to believe I’ve gone unnoticed by all of them. I sit and fret about this until my legs go numb, but I don’t move. I can’t move, not until they’re gone. I’ve gotten myself into this situation and now I have to wait it out. They’re obviously hunting and their patience is impressive and annoying. I wish they’d get bored and move on already.
Then I see what they’re waiting for. Moving into the clearing slowly and with great caution is a buck. He’s tall and broad. A big, hulking, powerful package of meat and deliciousness that has my mouth watering just looking at him. I’ve seen old advertisements in decrepit, broke down fast food joints and I know what used to make people drool. It was the end product. The final presentation of a piece of meat after countless ugly, messy and thoroughly disturbing things happened to it all at the hands of someone or something else. Tell me the phrase ‘mechanically separated chicken’ doesn’t send a chill down your spine. I read it on a bag of dry dog food once (yes, I ate the dog food) and I almost gagged at the thought. Not on the dog food, though. That was tasty.