Be Not Far from Me(38)

“I’m so sorry, Davey,” I say, my voice breaking as I cry.

I’m crying for him and for me, because wild woman or not, I know that Davey Beet had the best chance of anyone to make it out of this place alone, and he didn’t. I didn’t think I had much of a shot left when I lost my head, so adding all the hurts from rolling down the ridge didn’t do me any favors.

But it led me to him, so I can’t exactly wish it back.

“I’ve been looking for you,” I tell Davey, settling in beside him.

And it’s true. Maybe not in the beginning, but certainly once my thoughts started going to this boy, like there was something connecting us, something that drew me to his hat, then to where he carved his name, and now here, to Davey himself. Like maybe all the thoughts I spent on him went up in the air and got twirled around together, and maybe I wouldn’t be kidding myself too hard to suppose he was thinking about me every now and then, too. And maybe those thoughts made something like cordage between him and me, enough to bring me here, now.

“Is that what happened, Davey?” I ask.

I end up asking Davey a lot of things, about whether he thought I’ve done a good job in the woods up to now, and if he thinks I should feel bad about killing that possum, or if it was the right thing to do. Because Davey Beet would know what was the right thing, and he’d do it, every time.

I want him to know that I listened to everything he ever told me, that I made a fireboard and ate the right plants, that I used my own hair to make cordage, and built a shelter out of pine boughs. I want him to know that all those things added up so that I wouldn’t die out there, and led me here.

To the place where I wanted to be.

So I lie down in the only bed I’ll ever share with Davey Beet, and I close my eyes.





Day Twelve




I wake to the sound of rain pattering on the roof of the tent.

There’s a leak in one corner, so I’ve got cold rainwater dripping down my neck when I notice a picture stuck above me in the supporting poles. I can only assume this is the girl that broke Davey’s heart, and I want to cry just looking at her.

She’s everything I’m not. Blond. Well dressed. Legs that look like they never grew hair in the first place, let alone need shaving. The kind of tan that doesn’t have white lines from a sports bra. She’s got on makeup and it doesn’t look funny on her like it does me. I always hold my face wrong, worried about smearing lipstick or weirded out by the fact that I can see my own eyelashes. Meredith stopped giving me makeovers because she said I always look like I’m about to either sneeze or vomit.

Apparently neither one of those looks attracts boys.

But the girl looking down on me right now didn’t have that problem. She looks like she knows how to talk to boys and what to do with them later too. And while they don’t look a thing alike, I feel my fists curling up just looking at this girl because whatever it is she has, Natalie does too, and it makes boys like Duke and Davey act like fools, leaving girls like me to sit by themselves and wonder what we’re lacking.

“Goddammit, Davey,” I say, shoving him in the back. There’s not much left of him, so he goes over a little bit, arm sliding down to slip over his face, like he’s hiding from that girl even now.

“What was it about her, huh?” I yell at him. I’ve been spinning this great idea about how we were supposed to be together, cheated by time and chance, and here Davey died staring up at this girl who’s just so damned . . . city.

Maybe he never gave me a second thought. Maybe I imagined that lingering glance at the gas station. Maybe I was always only just a kid to him, a little sister tagging along that he could teach things to. And maybe it’s my own fault for making Davey Beet into a hero in my mind, the perfect guy for me that maybe didn’t ever exist in the first place.

Or maybe he did think I did a good job growing up. Maybe he was coming out here to get this girl out of his system for good. Maybe he looked up at his ceiling once or twice and thought about me, or at least wondered what I was up to.

Maybe this and maybe that. I’ll never know for sure because the only person who can answer my questions is dead next to me, the closest we’ve ever been, years too late.

“Shithole,” I say, because it’s the only thing I can think of and I’ve already told everything from the sky to the ground to fuck off. It stops raining, the drops tapering down to bits of nothing so that I can probably get moving again.

I sit up at the thought, gasping at the pain in my rib but already halfway up so I finish the job. I laid down last night thinking that if Davey Beet couldn’t make it, then I sure as hell won’t. But after a good sleep and a temper tantrum, I’d like to prove otherwise.

I think it’s that girl, to be honest.

Some people said Davey Beet came in here never meaning to leave, that she had broken him to a point that he couldn’t come back from. What if they’re saying the same about me? What if Duke’s busted nose and Natalie’s snide little smile make everyone think Ashley Hawkins would rather be dead than without him?

“Fuck that,” I tell Davey. “I’d rather be alive with half a foot and a busted rib and a sprained wrist and covered in my own blood and mostly naked and wearing a moldy blanket, but a-fucking-live.”

“Damn straight,” I say back to myself, because I think that’s what Davey would’ve said.