What She Found in the Woods

‘What happened?’ I repeat, louder

. I’m angry now because I can see it all like a sad little movie in my head.

Two young boys meet out in the woods. They become best friends. And then, one day, the city boy starts caring about clothes and who sits with whom in school, and all the bullshit that was my bread and butter not too long ago, and Bo is nothing to him any more. And some dickhead breaks the biggest heart I’ve ever stumbled upon in my ridiculous excuse for a life.

‘Who was he?’ I ask.

Bo looks over at me, suppressing a smile. ‘I’m sorry I brought it up,’ he says gently. ‘It’s OK.’

‘It’s not OK,’ I snap. I realize I’m yelling. ‘Just tell me his name and he’ll be the sorry one,’ I promise.

Bo looks troubled. ‘I believe you,’ he says. ‘That’s why I’m not going to tell you.’

Then he’s kissing me, and I can’t be angry any more because my thighs are on fire. How does he do it? I mean, really. How does he light me up when I’m such black hole? I’m on the same dosage they give PTSD war vets. I’m supposed to be emotionally bulletproof.

But I can feel Bo. He’s so real. So present. Every sound I make, it’s the first time he’s ever heard anything like it. Every place he touches me, it’s the first time he’s ever felt that.

It’d be so easy to slip into symbiosis, just one body instead of two. It would be the most natural thing in the world. Like coral – half animal, half plant. Me, red in tooth and claw, and Bo, green and open to the wide sky. The line between us is already blurred in every way but the physical. He and I were always meant to share a body, I think.

Still, I stop him.

‘Wait,’ I whisper, pushing his hips away from mine. ‘I’ve never done this before.’

He’s flushed, and pale, and shivering, and sweating, and coiled tight, and loose as melted wax, and vulnerable, and powerful, and pretty much the whole world and everything in it to me right now.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers, pulling back. ‘Did I hurt you?’

‘No.’ I roll my eyes a little. He could kick me down a mountain, and it wouldn’t hurt me. I’m frigging Teflon. ‘I just think, maybe not here, right now,’ I say, looking pointedly at the leaf litter we’ve stirred up around us and the sticks poking us pretty much everywhere we’ve managed to shimmy out of our clothes.

Bo laughs sheepishly as he sits up and pulls on his shirt. The getting-mostly-naked bit happened fast. Like, really fast. I think it scared him. And now I’m worried. I don’t want anything about him to change, especially not the way he throws himself at me with a boldness that can only come from utter innocence. I love the way he’s shy-not-shy.

‘Look, Bo, it’s not that I don’t want to,’ I begin, but his head suddenly spins around and his whole body tenses.

‘Shh,’ he hisses, and goes still. He listens intently for a moment, his eyes scanning, and one of his hands stretched out to me.

Moments pass. His tension dissipates but doesn’t disappear.

‘Come on,’ he says hastily. He helps me up to my feet, and we hurry on our way.

I know enough to stay quiet until we’re nearly back to there.

‘What was it?’ I ask. ‘That noise you heard.’

Bo shakes his head. ‘Not sure.’ He shrugs and lets out a long breath. ‘Maybe nothing.’ He looks up at the canopy. ‘It’s almost sunset.’

‘I’ll have to run,’ I say, finally noticing a shift in the light after so many days out here. ‘You should get back, too. I don’t want you stumbling around after dark.’

Bo opens his mouth to argue, but he can’t. It simply isn’t safe to go hiking at night with no flashlight. Even with a flashlight, it’s extremely dangerous.

‘Bye,’ I say, but Bo catches my wrist and pulls me back towards him.

‘I know you want to,’ he says. It takes me a moment to recall that he’s addressing what I said before we were interrupted.

‘Oh, you know, do you?’ I say huffily.

His smile is almost cocky, but it isn’t. It’s confident. The difference is ego. Bo has none.

‘I’ll go as slow or as fast as you want,’ he tells me. ‘You’re in charge.’