History of Wolves(69)

“What’re you doing here?”

“I’m not here.”

“Who’s this in my bed, then, Girl Scout?”

“Some fantasy of yours.”

“Fuck you.” I could feel his mouth smiling into my scalp.

“Okay,” I whispered, pulling away. “Try.”

As I was sliding out of his arms he pulled me back. He squeezed me tighter. I could feel my own ribs in his arms, even through my canvas jacket—the bones pushing back against his weight. I liked that. I liked how the more I fought, the more tightly he held on. I squirmed free of his grasp, half sitting up. I twisted around but before I could swing my legs to the floor, he grabbed me around the waist and pulled me back down. I wanted more. I wanted more. He started to pull open the buttons on my coat, and on impulse, I bent my leg and kneed him in the chest, hard, so he started coughing. Sitting back on his haunches in his boxers, he looked confused. I felt the chill of that moment hit my skin like a splash of water. Morning light caught the pores on his face, so it looked rough as sandpaper.


“What’s going on?” he asked, now fully awake. His thin white shoulders looked rectangular against the wall. He’d taken the stud from his tongue so his words had no click to them. They sounded softer than usual, simpler, wetter.

“Nothing.”

That’s when he saw my big backpack at the door.

“What is this? Where’re you going?”

“I came to say good-bye.”

“Good-bye?” He blinked at me. “You’re going back to Ass-crack Nowheresville. Right now.”

I pushed off the bed, straightened my jacket. I went to the door where my backpack was waiting, and as I hoisted it to my shoulder, I turned back to look at him, huddled in bed across the room. He had one hand on his left eye, pirate-style.

“You’re going to a place where the wolves eat the fucking dogs?”

I shook my head. “That was Alaska. An anecdote.”

“It’s been what, like, almost two years?”

“I talked to my mom. It’s planned.”

“We’ve been happy, right? What is it you think you did that you can’t be happy?”

“Happy, happy, happy,” I said.

“Happy,” he flipped the word over, made it innocent again.

“Don’t be a baby,” I sneered.

He must have seen something ugly in my expression because he found his shirt and plunged his head inside it. For an instant, his face was a white cotton mask, blank indentations for mouth and eyes. Then his head was free and he was zipping up his pants. He was getting his cell phone from the dresser, and I found I could speak to him as myself again, more deliberately. “Don’t be childish about it. I came to say good-bye, okay? I came to say thank you and good-bye.”

“I’m being childish? Listen, listen.” He took a few steps forward, his T-shirt catching on the hill of his belly. “Do you remember when you told me about that little kid?”

“That little kid?” The thought of Paul went like a breeze right through me. I put up a hand to stop him from going on. “I didn’t tell you about any kid.”

“I mean you, Girl Scout. The easiest prey in the world. House of old hippies, girl left behind.”

“That’s not what I said. That’s not what it was like.”

“The Fool.”

“No.”

“Walking off a cliff every time you take a step. Poor little girl, with, like, no shoes and an empty belly. Who was taking care of you?”

“That’s not how it was. I was fine. I was fine.”

“What kid did you mean?”

I sucked in a breath. “Nobody. He died.”

“Who did?”

“Nobody. He’s fine.” As I said it, I reached into my pocket, found the smoothness of the Swiss Army knife, and thrust it out toward Rom.

He stepped back. “What the—”

It was the one he’d given me for Christmas, shiny and red. All the blades were tucked in—but maybe he didn’t see that. Maybe the memory of me kneeing him in the chest was too recent. He laced his fingers over the top of his head, and I could see the scraggly hair under his arms through the gaping sleeves of his T-shirt. After a moment, he let his arms fall to his sides. “Whatever. Keep it.” He shook out a breath. He slid his hands into his pockets. “Keep it, Fool Scout.”


I found myself thinking of that church lady as I waited to board the bus. Heaven and hell are ways of thinking. Death is just the false belief that anything could ever end. I lingered till the last minute in the waiting area near a blind homeless man on his cardboard island—reluctant to get on, reluctant to climb the steep stairs onto the coach. It’s not what you do but what you think that matters. I didn’t want to board, but once I was on the bus I saw the windows were unexpectedly tall and wide, tinted against the bright morning sun, and I had the two-seat row to myself. The coach slid effortlessly through city traffic. It glided around the cloverleaf and onto the highway, passing even the semis going downhill. As the bus angled north, as we left the city behind, I watched the leaves on the trees through the window go from deep green to pale mint to nothing. I watched snow appear in banks on the roadsides again, and somewhere along the way—despite myself—I started to feel a sleepy, sweet, intoxicating calm. Perhaps it had to do with the speed and height of the bus, the feeling of soaring over the highway and going fast enough to kill somebody. Speed is one kind of magic. I’ve always felt that. But the wash of calm also came from seeing the lakes frozen over again at the shorelines, patches of bluish snow on the ground, black fields gone white and empty. After a few hours, I started seeing fish huts rise up from the lakes in compact, exact little cities. I could see crows circling the air above looking for scraps.