“Yep,” agrees Eli. “You’re apparently going on an incredibly important bridge-fixing mission and we’re going to help you, because we’re both very skilled at hiking and camping and fixing bridges.”
He’s being slightly sarcastic, and I nearly smile.
“Is that dad’s frame pack?” I ask, eyeing the ancient-looking hiking backpack he’s got on.
“Yeah,” he says. “It was the only thing we could find last-minute. Fits, though.”
“It does,” I agree. “You two ready?”
“Nope,” says Eli. “I’m raiding your pantry first, then we go.”
I sigh, my annoyance and irritation spiking.
“We’re losing daylight.”
“Stop it,” Eli says, his pack already off, halfway into one of my cabinets. “Caleb, entertain him for ten minutes, will you?”
I glare at my youngest brother, who shrugs.
“You like card tricks?” he asks.Fifteen minutes later, we’re finally piled into Caleb’s hatchback. Eli gives me the front seat without even arguing about it and shares the back with Hedwig, which must mean he’s worried about me, and we make the drive to the Jagger Ranch Trail mostly in silence.
I spread the map on the roof of Caleb’s car, explain where we’re going. I distribute the bridge repair supplies over the three packs, though I go a little easy on Eli since I think the last time he went backpacking might have been as a teenager. Hedwig has her own backpack. I think she likes having the responsibility.
I focus on this: the map, the supplies, the changing colors, asking Eli if he’s got a warm enough sleeping bag. I glance at the sun, wonder if it’s too low in the sky. I double-check that I’ve got my first aid kit, because Eli’s going to have blisters.
And I don’t think about anything else.Chapter Thirty-OneJuneWhen I get home, I shower. I avoid my parents. I hole up in my room and I try to apply for some jobs — in Washington State and Idaho and even British Columbia, Canada, because yes I am willing to work in another country, fuck yes I am — and I try to read and finally I just try to find some good pictures of meerkats for my next HypeFeed assignment, but nothing works.
I can’t concentrate. My mind feels like it’s a hall of mirrors, like every thought I have is refracted back at me again and again increasingly distorted forms, only in one of the mirrors is Levi saying I thought I mattered and I can’t get out, I can only run into myself again and again.
I decide I’m going for a drive. I need to get away from here, and away from people, and I absolutely, definitely, certainly don’t want to go for a hike or anything like it so a drive it is. I grab my stuff, shout some excuse to my parents who are doing something or other to the mostly-dead garden in the back yard, and get into my car.
Only for Silas’s SUV to pull in behind me.
“Stop ruining my life!” I shout at the rearview mirror, all my windows safely closed so he can’t actually hear me. “ARRGH.”
I hit the steering wheel. It feels good.
I’m just getting a hold of myself when there’s a knock on my window, and I plaster a smile on, greet my brother.
“You’re in my way,” I tell him.
“No, you want to go a stupid way,” he says. “Are you still… uh, is everything okay?”
I know I look like hell, and it’s very clearly making Silas uncertain and more than a little uncomfortable.
“Everything’s fine,” I say, grinning like a maniac. “I’m super good, I was just going to go…”
I trail off. I can’t even think of a lie.
“Go,” I repeat, shrugging.
“You’re going to go go,” he says suspiciously.
“I meant what I said,” I tell him with all the false bravado I can muster.
“Are you sure everything is okay?” he says, leaning down, resting his elbows on my car window frame. “You don’t look okay.”
And… cue the waterworks. Why is it that someone saying you don’t look okay instantly makes you not okay?
“It’s nothing,” I say, grabbing at the stash of fast food napkins I keep in my driver’s side door, like a normal person.
“Uh huh,” Silas says, sounding completely unconvinced.
Then he sighs.
“C’mere,” he says, and leans in through my driver’s side window.
He somehow gets his whole torso into my car, wraps his arms around my head, and holds me awkwardly against his chest for several long moments.
“You wanna talk about it?” he asks.
I sniffle. It’s a disgusting sound that does nothing to dissuade my brother.
“I dunno,” I say.
“Talk about it or we’re staying like this forever,” he says, giving my head an extra and particularly uncomfortable squeeze.
I sigh. I swallow hard, and even though my neck is at an angle I don’t love I lean a little into Silas.
“Fine,” I say. “Get in, loser.”
“Should you be driving?” he asks, unwinding himself.
“You think I’ve never driven while crying before?”