What She Found in the Woods

‘Maybe,’ I reply, pushing my way inside.

16 JULY. MORNING

I used to be really popular.

But the problem with having a packed social schedule is that you can’t always go where you say you’re going to go. You make promises to acquaintances, to parents, to guys, and you mean to follow through, but then things happen. And before you know it, someone is hurt or angry or disappointed.

It’s hard to be perfect and popular. When everyone wants something from you, eventually you reach a breaking point. Someone is going to be let down. But I thought I was so clever. I thought I came up with the perfect solution. Actually, it wasn’t just me, but that doesn’t matter any more. I’m the one who took the fall.

‘Are you going for another hike today?’ Grandma asks, interrupting my reverie. ‘By yourself?’

‘Do you need me to stay here and help you with something?’ I ask.

‘No, it’s not that,’ she says through a forced smile. I notice she looks fluttery and anxious, like she either skipped one of her pills this morning or took one too many. ‘You spend so much time alone. Aren’t you going to see your friend?’

It takes me a moment to understand. ‘Oh, you mean Rob? I think he’s taking me to a barbecue tonight,’ I say, threading my arms through the straps on my backpack.

Her face relaxes. ‘How nice,’ she says. ‘Well, enjoy your hike.’ In her mind, as long as I’m social, as long as I’m ‘getting out there’, then she needn’t worry.

‘Thanks, Gram,’ I say, because there’s no point in trying to explain to her that some of the sickest people I’ve ever known were also some of the most social. And I put me, as I was a year ago, at the top of that list.

It’s not her fault. My grandparents take everything at face value. The scary part is, I don’t think they realize how shallow that makes them. That sounds mean, I know, but it’s true. They only go so deep, and asking for more from them is pointless. They’re easy to live with, as long as I fit into their picture-perfect idea of what life should be like. As long as I seem happy, they’ll be happy to have me here.

So I play along. I smile, I joke, I follow their rules – which is easy to do because they don’t ask much. When I came here, I knew what kind of contract I was signing. Only perfect and pleasant will be tolerated. Just like my dad. Don’t make it hard, or you have to go.

I hike back to the place by the river with the flat green bank and the little waterfall. I don’t have a name for it. I just think of it as there in my mind, and I picture it rather than name it. I don’t feel like I have the right to name it, actually, because it doesn’t belong to me.

I think the whole way, which is a terrible mistake.

I set up in my spot and take out my books. Walden is not happening right now. Neither is the Longfellow I’ve brought. My eyes keep scanning the words ‘This is the forest primeval’, but they can’t seem to get to the next line in the poem.

I look at my notebook.

I hear a pounding sound, and I startle.

It’s coming from behind me, so I twist around and look up the sheer wall that drops about seven feet to where I’m lying.

The pounding stops, and a deer comes flying over the edge. I scream and duck and cover my head as a few hundred pounds of terrified animal lands on my picnic blanket and narrowly misses crushing me to death.

‘Oh, shit!’ I hear. And then something big and heavy lands on top of me. I realize it’s a large, dirty boy.

He rolls, keeping his weight off me as we tumble across the blanket. The deer struggles to get her legs under her. She kicks and makes an almost human sound as she screams. The boy drags me as far away from her thrashing hooves as he can and protects me with his body until the deer hauls herself up and trots off with a laboured, uneven gait.

I’m too stunned to speak.

‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry,’ the boy keeps repeating.

‘What the hell?’ I manage to choke out.

‘Are you OK? Did I hurt you?’ he asks, and he starts inspecting my head and upper arms.

‘I’m fine. I mean, I’m not fine, but I’m not hurt,’ I say, pushing on his bare chest. Wow. He’s really solid.

He looks down at my hands, touching him. He shakes and pulls back. Then he jumps off me as if stung. He sits back on his heels and nervously starts handing my books to me although that makes no sense.

‘I got it,’ I say, gesturing for him to stop. I look at my blanket. It’s streaked with mud and blood. ‘What are you doing out here?’

‘I live here,’ he says with a shrug. ‘What are you doing here?’