Be Not Far from Me(7)

“Ashley,” Duke says, taking a step toward me.

It’s all those good things I’m thinking about when my fist flies. I’m pissed, yeah, but not at this last bad thing. It’s all the good stuff I was relying on that just got taken away from me that makes me do it.

I know how to throw a punch. I know where to hit and how hard, my knuckles caving in the bridge of his nose as easily as dry leaves under my boots in the fall. I knock him clean off his feet, the impact jolting up to my elbow as Natalie pulls up her shorts and gets the hell out of there.

Duke just stares up at me, dark blood dripping onto his chest in twin rivers, his hands cupped over his broken nose. He doesn’t yell though. Doesn’t argue or call me a crazy bitch or anything I’ve heard other guys do when their girl gets up in their face about something they totally deserve to be dressed down for. Duke doesn’t do those things, because he’s taken beatings for stuff in his life that weren’t his fault, letting his dad’s fists rain down on him for leaving the trash cans on the curb even though it was his little brother that did it.

This is on him, and he knows it. So he took his beating, and now he’s just sitting there waiting for the rest, maybe a kick to the ribs or a ball-crushing from the arch of my foot. But I don’t have it in me anymore. All the rage pulsed out in that one savage arc that left the smell of blood in the air, tinged with the scent of sex soaking into the forest floor. It’s him I smell around me, every bodily fluid he’s got filling my nose as he starts crying tears to match mine, both of us hitching big sobs that can’t be put back inside.

“Ash . . .” He reaches for me, slow, like I’m an animal in one of his live traps that might bite. And that’s just what I am and exactly where I’ll be if I stay here one more second, because I can’t look at this boy who I hurt in return for hurting me. I can’t hear my name on his lips without loving it, even though another girl’s mouth was just crushed underneath them.

If I stay, he’ll stand up and I’ll go to him, fitting my head into that spot under his chin where I fit so perfectly. And, yeah, I’ll get blood on my face if I do that right now, but he’ll forgive me and I’ll do the same for him and I won’t ever have the courage to walk away because he’s the only boy I ever had for my own.

So I do what any scared animal does. I run.

I have no idea which direction I’m pointed or how far I’m going. All that’s important right now is that I go fast, away from Duke and the smell of him and her. I’m still barefoot, because I never bothered putting my shoes back on after hearing that low hum of satisfaction. Sticks are breaking under my feet, a good sharp jab going into the arch and stealing my breath, but not enough to make me stop crashing through the brush and tearing like a crazy woman down a ridge and back up another one.

It’s a good, hard fall that finally gets me. My bare toes jam underneath a boulder sticking out of the hillside, and the whole thing shifts. I throw myself to the side, pinned foot crushed as the boulder rolls. There’s a moment when my foot resists but then gives under the superior weight of the rock. It’s like stepping on a big spider or smacking a fat winter fly. There’s a moment of resistance and then . . . something gives. Except it’s no bug that just got crushed, but my own bones. The rock tears downhill, taking out saplings as it goes, but I’m stopped for good as the pain takes hold, puncturing the drunkenness.

I try to stand but pitch forward instead, grabbing for a tree so that I don’t roll downhill along with the rock. I hit the ground again, a knotty root getting me right in the stomach so that I’m lying facedown in a cloud of my own stale breath, shoeless.

“Fuck,” I manage to say, rolling over so that I can get a good lungful of air. The first one hurts, like it always does after a good punch to the gut. But I pull it in anyway, forcing everything in there to open up and keep going.

The moon stares down at me from an angle that says daylight’s a long way off. I don’t know how far I ran or which way the camp is. Yelling for my friends and Duke is going to bring a lot of questions about why I took off and what happened to his nose, and where had he and Natalie gone off to in the first place, and why.

I don’t feel like answering those questions right now, maybe not ever, so I pull myself the rest of the way up the ridge and take a look at my foot. It’s smashed to shit, my little toe nearly flat and the two next to it scraped wide-open. It’s dark, and I’m too drunk to feel much, but I know I’ll be hurting in the morning. It’s still bleeding freely, so I pull my shirt off and wrap it around my foot, knowing full well it needs cleaning, but I’m in no shape to do it.

The adrenaline that sent me into a mad dash has faded, and the beer in my bloodstream is reasserting itself, fading the edges of my vision and telling me to lie back down, fast. There’s a stick in my back, and the wind blows a leaf right into my cleavage, frayed edges crackling against my skin as I roll onto my side, exhaustion claiming me. I’ll find everyone in the morning, face Duke and their questions and Natalie’s snide smiles. Right now all I’ve got is self-pity and a throbbing pain in my foot, so I let both take me down into unconsciousness.

Because it’s so much better than being aware right now.





Part Two


When I Was Lost





Day One