Deep Woods

She looked away, embarrassed. But when she looked back at me, I was still gazing at her. I mean it.

She reluctantly nodded. And then we were caught, trapped in each other’s eyes. The forest seemed to go quiet around us. I felt us start to move, so gradually it was almost imperceptible, both of us leaning closer—

I caught myself just in time and stopped, my heart thumping.

She stopped, too. “Those scratches need to be cleaned,” she told me, all brisk and business. “Sit down.”

I sat down on a log and took off my shirt and t-shirt, and she got the first aid kit from my backpack and went to work.

I sat there silently watching her for a few minutes. She was leaning close to my bare chest, her face only inches from my body, her long black hair thrown back over her shoulder so that it didn’t get in her way. Those soft brown eyes were laser-focused on what she was doing and it was a rare opportunity to just gaze at her without getting caught doing it.

Her lashes were so long and those lips, the way she nibbled at the lower one when she was concentrating…. I felt like I had when I’d seen that deer in the forest, on our hike to the smallholding. Like I was lucky, like I was seeing something truly special. I felt that pull again. It would be so easy to just reach down and take her under the chin, tilt her head up to look at me and—

I looked away before I did something stupid. “You always want to be a doctor?” I muttered.

“My mom is a physiotherapist,” she told me. “Her mom was a pediatrician. Her mom was a nurse, during the war. It’s what we do. Instinct, or something.”

Instinct. She just wanted to help people. She’d helped Rufus, she’d tried to help me. And I’d clammed up and pushed her away...and nearly lost her.

Before I knew what was happening, I was speaking.

“I used to dream about the city,” I said. “Not any particular city, just the city. Someplace with skyscrapers and sports cars and everything made of concrete and glass. All I’d ever seen was the local town, and that was no bigger than Marten Valley. I used to lie in my room, when I’d done all my chores, and just think about city life: the parties and the technology and the cars and the w—” I cut myself off before I said women. “I begged my dad for a trip to the city,” I told her. “Finally, for my fifteenth birthday, he says we’re going to Seattle. We’ll do all the tourist stuff, have a meal, and stop in to visit with my mom’s sister, who’s just moved there from Europe.”

Bethany was looking up at me in shock. In the whole two weeks we’d been together, this was the most I’d said in one go. This was stuff I’d buried deep, long ago, and it hurt, coming out. But it was nothing, compared to the fear I’d felt when I’d seen her in danger.

“For weeks, I can’t think of anything else,” I said. “The day comes and I’m sitting there next to my dad in the pickup, craning forward in my seat, watching the city get bigger and bigger on the horizon. Then we’re moving through it and it’s crazy...so many buildings, so many cars. Pretty much the only cars I’d ever seen were pickups and station wagons and now suddenly there were stretch limos and sports cars: a Porsche drives by right next to us, bright blue, and my dad was laughing because my jaw was on the floor. I’m hunkered down in my seat, trying to see the tops of the skyscrapers.”

Bethany had started working on my wounds again but her hands moved slowly as she listened. There was something about her that was so calming...it eased the tightness in my chest, allowing the words to flow.

“We spend all day looking around. Everywhere I look, there are reflections and technology, big animated signs, beautiful people. My dad starts saying we should head home—it’s a long drive back. But I keep asking to stay one more hour. Night falls and the whole city lights up. I’m standing there gaping at billboards and restaurants, theaters covered in millions of little lights. It’s incredible.” My voice caught. “I want to do everything. I want to get one of those coffees everybody’s carrying, in the huge cups with the whipped cream on top. I want to ride an elevator up to the top of one of the skyscrapers. I want to go to one of the clubs with the music pumping out of it.”

“And then…” I slowed. Stumbled. “We hear a...scream. A woman’s scream. From an alley just a few steps from where we are. We look at each other and then look around. There were no cops on the street and the other people walking past….they don’t stop. They just give this worried look and keep on walking. And suddenly, the city doesn’t seem exciting.” My voice went cold. “It just feels scary as hell.”