Be Not Far from Me(10)

“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.

“Okay,” I say to myself, voice barely rising above the din of the storm. “Where do I stand?”

I immediately start laughing, because I can’t even stand. My foot hurts so damn bad it’s all I can think about, my brain constantly processing pain signals and not allowing for much else. But I’ve got to, because I can either lie under this tree and think about how shitty I feel, or I can do something about it.

Doing something is what I’m good at, Dad always says so, and that I got it from Mom. He’ll lean on a shovel in the yard and look at a tree that needs to go in the ground for twenty minutes, talking out the different ways to go about digging a hole unless I kick the shovel out from under him and just start digging it.

At this moment I’m in a hole for sure, and one I dug myself.

I have nothing, and I’m injured. That’s the first thing that comes when I decide to take stock. It’s a shit answer, and one sure to send me into another panic if I let it. So I stare it down and call it wrong.

I have a shirt, a bra, and underwear. I have a pair of jeans—thank God I didn’t change into the cute little shorts Meredith insisted I pack. Right now my shirt is on my foot, something that needs to be rectified. Putting it back on soaking wet is only going to chill me further, but once this rain stops I’ll need to dry my clothes. I also need to keep my wound clean, which is my first problem.

I unwrap the shirt gingerly, wincing as the last few inches come away and the big flap of skin lifts up with it. The only thing holding my foot together is my foot, the bones a bright, shining white in a sea of pink. I’m definitely swollen, but everything looks reasonably clean enough, and I’m not bleeding anymore.

Well, at least from there, anyway.

Shit.

I prop my foot up on a branch and lie back on the carpet of needles beneath me, surprisingly soft on the bare skin of my back. I blow out a long breath, thinking about all the things in my pack. Food. Dry clothes. Tampons.

Menstruating in the woods is not a big deal, usually. Duke used to make a lot of stupid jokes about bears (I laughed because I thought I was supposed to), but it’s no different than anything else. The old question “Does a bear shit in the woods?” can easily be changed into “Does a woman menstruate in the woods?”

The answer is the same. And just like the bear, nobody ever witnesses it because it’s really not that remarkable. Unless you’re lost and verging on a toxic-shock-syndrome situation sometime in the near future. I’ve got enough problems as it is. I decide I’d rather wander through the forest for the next week smelling like an uncooked roast than have a headline read, LOCAL GIRL, 17, KILLED BY TAMPON.

I snort out a laugh, surprising myself.

I should be a lot of things right now. Scared. Sad. Angry, even. But apparently I’m amused by my situation.