Once our tent is ready, we clamber inside and Morgan begins to set up his creature comforts. I notice he did not bring his own sleeping bag, but he positions his pillow at the head of mine as if he expects me to share.
Next comes a wicker basket, into which he lovingly places a box of Cocoa Puffs, deodorant, a travel toothbrush and toothpaste, hair-texturizing salt spray, papers scribbled with notes about paranimals, and a bottle of cologne labeledPolar Night.
“Polar night, hm?” I gesture. “Did you bring that for science, too?”
“It’s for your benefit. Things are going to get grim after walking around all day, so you’ll be glad I smell like Mount Everest instead of a decaying small intestine.” He removes arogue hazelnut from my hair. Pops it in his mouth. “Well. Mount Everest with fewer corpses.”
“But not zero?”
We snack on beef jerky, mushrooms, freeze-dried strawberries, and hazelnuts, which don’t quite go together, but at least they fill our stomachs. As I climb into my sleeping bag, Morgan raps his knuckles idly against his jaw, watching. “Soooo…”
I hand him his pillow. “Good night.”
His face falls. “Your poor Morgan is going to be cold out here, all alone, without a blanket.”
“You can lie on top of my sleeping bag, or underneath it.” I can’t invite him inside. The thought makes my head spin.
Morgan begins to push back, so I add, “There’s a sweater in my bag that you can borrow. It’s nice and cozy.”
He inspects the sweater. Frowns. “Do you have anything in happier colors?”
I switch my lantern off. Night bathes us in one fell swoop, the forest beyond projecting onto our vinyl walls as if they’re movie screens. The silhouettes of crooked tree limbs could be a monster’s long fingers, reaching for the tent’s zipper. Focusing on this imagery relaxes me.
I am not going to allow myself to think about what is actually happening. I will not think about Morgan’s long body lying inches from mine. What it felt like earlier when I brushed his fingers and his hand fitted itself into mine. I won’t dwell on that dark, curious gaze, like the fathomless pits of twin cauldrons…hair as black as shadows beneath a grim reaper’s hood. What would it be like to touch it? To pass the strands through my fingers? I stare at the backs of my eyelids, so stillthat I’m barely breathing, envisioning vines worming out of the dirt to cuff my arms and ankles.
“Well, I for one am not thinking about you-know-what,” Morgan announces loudly.
The vines are slithering about my clavicles now, not terribly constricting, more like a hug. I imagine the cool smoothness of wintercreeper leaves, an invasive species, weaving a fortress over my supine body. Soon I will be nothing but bones and greenery, chlorophyll where the blood once flowed.
Morgan turns onto his side, his breath fanning over my cheek. “The two of us alone. Together. Atnight. The possibilities that are…possible.”
From under my shrubbery, my heart beats fast, skin flushing. “The only possibilities are you sleeping in here or you sleeping outside,” I grind out. “Tread carefully.”
“We could have a lot of fun, you and I,” he says, his voice deeper, tone suggestive. My vines gopoofinto nonexistence, protective layers gone.
“Not happening.” I twist a bit, and Forte growls. He’s spread himself across my ankles. “Try to put the moves on me and I’ll dump your Cocoa Puffs in a stream.”
“You’re ruthless.” The way he says it sounds almost admiring. He’s quiet for a while, long enough that I think maybe he’s actually going to try to sleep. And then he says: “I do mean it, but I don’t know how to say it right. Not when it’s real.”
My mouth opens. There is a shift in his tone that gives me pause, that warns me not to immediately respond with something snide. “What?”
“I’m the boy who cried ‘I like you,’ ” he explains. “Notcriedcried. The wolf story? You know? It’s like a…a fable or something.” I hear one of his arms fall across his forehead. “I can’t even get near this conversation without jumbling it up. Am I cursed?”
I stare into the dark. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” I begin slowly, “but I’m not sure I follow.”
“The big gold rib cage,” he blurts.
“What?” Now he’s definitely spewing gobbledygook.
“Your big gold rib cage jewelry-looking thing, I don’t know if it’s a necklace or a top or what. I like it.”
What on earth. I think he’s referring to my rib cage corset, which I wear on Mondays, often over a black lace dress. “Oh. Thanks?”
“And your blue cacti earrings,” he goes on, a note of desperation tugging his voice upward. “See? I pay attention to the small details, and if I wasn’t genuine, I wouldn’t notice. That should tell you something.” Morgan groans. Lets a silence linger. “Who knew I’d actually be bad at this? I’m only good at this when it doesn’t mean anything.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, Morgan. You’re bad at plenty of things.”
He laughs tiredly. “Ohhhhh…kick a man in his spleen, why don’t you.”
