As the credits roll, it hits me that Thanksgiving is about five months away and…what if I don’t hear from my sisters before then? What if Nadia and I are still strangers who happen to live in the same dwelling? I’ll have the literal opposite problem that Lorelai and Rory had. Everyone will be doing their own thing for the holiday. And they’ll all have forgotten me.
I know this thinking is a bit dramatic, but right now, it not only feels possible, it feels probable.
I take a breath and stand, brushing the s’mores crumbs off my clothes. And then I put on my garden shoes and step outside.
The sky is brilliant, with the clouds lined up from one side to the other, appearing white and a thousand shades of blue in the shadows against the setting sun. There’s the ever-so-slightest chill in the air, and I wrap my arms around my middle as I make my way to the backyard.
I sit in the middle of the moss-and-grass mixture, between the roses climbing over the half-rotted wooden fences and the cedar trellises holding vines of cucumbers and tomatoes. Nadia’s growing a lot of unusual heirlooms this year—yellow cucumbers that look more like lemons than any cucumber I’ve seen. Tomatoes that aren’t rounded but instead are the shape of icicles, the colors of fire—iron oxide, orange sunset, solar flare yellow, even little dots of the blue of flames—all on a single fruit. “Anyone there?” I call.
There’s a loud rustle of leaves from beyond the cliff, and then, climbing over, is a black bear.
I know this bear. She used to come and play with me when she was a baby during last year’s spring, while her mother ate the soft lettuce shoots and not-quite-ripe raspberries in Nadia’s garden.
“Lily,” I say, the name I gave her because after smelling a daylily, she sneezed the most perfect baby bear sneeze. She smiles in the way only bears can and meanders my way.
Our gifts always come with aknowingthat is hard to describe in words. Iknowwhich animals care for me and which ones don’t. Although my gift allows me to tune in to all the animals in my area—even the ones inside the skin of the ocean miles away from me right now, enveloped in wild, cerulean waves—not all animals want a connection with me. This must be respected. A relationship that is one-sided isn’t a relationship at all.
The ones who do come to me, or allow me to come to them, it’s because consent in having a friendship has been established by nonverbal communication. It’s almost like a piece of my soul runs out and says to the animal’s soul:Is it okay to play?And then my soul returns with the answer, which honestly comes through as a simple knowledge in my belly.
Lily has always wanted to be friends. When she reaches me, she plops over, belly up, doing a silly bear growl until I scratch her. Her fur is coarse, with a couple of dried leaves stuck to her. “How have you been, lovely?” I ask.
And before I know it…I’m crying. The tears drip off my face and onto her fur. They catch the last remaining light in the sky, reflecting the halo of deep gold and orange around me. It looks like she’s wearing jewels. Citrine and yellow diamond tears.
I take a shuddering breath and ask her a question. It’s a dangerous one, but it’s one that’s been in the back of my mind for a long while. For two years, even, ever since I returned to myself and awoke inside the hollowed-out cavern of an ancient oak tree.
“Why doesn’t anyone want me?”
It comes out in a whisper. It comes out alongside two, three, four more tears. Four more jewels beading upon her fur, which is as deep brown as roasted coffee beans, or the darkest percentage of chocolate you can find in a bar.
It’s not just the fact that no one wants me romantically. It’s also friendship. It’s alsofamily.
How can I have spent eight years alone in the woods, only to return to the World of the Living and feel more lonely than I ever have in my life?
In a good portion of Nadia’s books, protagonists who are like me, who are alone and forgotten by those closest to them, end upfindingfamily. Found family is maybe my most favorite trope of all time. It provides more hope than any other, in my opinion. It means that I can create family, somehow, even if I’m starting with little to nothing.
But what happens when no one outside of my little-to-nothing situation will even give me a chance?
After I fell, Sage couldn’t bear the pain so much that she moved away.
Maybe that’s what I need to do. Save up money and find a new home. And there, finally find my true family.
What are you up to, Salt Sea Girl?
I lay in bed for a long time after crying all over poor Lily’s fur. She licked up the tears and nuzzled the crook of my elbow, letting me lean on her until I relaxed enough to come back inside.
And now I’m still in bed, staring at the message from @tryingsomethingnew. Wondering what, or even if, I should write back, considering the mood I’m currently in.
Exhausted. Wrung out. Heart still aching a bit too much for my liking.
Hey, I finally type back. I’m simply too starved for human communication, I reckon, to just ignore the closest thing I have toa real friend right now.I just had the absolute shittiest day. Hope yours is better than mine.
I’m sorry to hear that. Damn. No, mine was rather shitty, too, actually. Do you want to talk about it? Your day, I mean?
I close my eyes, trying to find the words. It’s so much easier to talk to the nonhuman animals most of the time.Someone was cruel to me. I don’t want to get into details. What made your day shitty?
There’s a long pause. And finally, he writes,I got into a fight with a friend. Totally my fault. Now I’m just in bed, eating my feelings with this ridiculous chocolate pudding I picked up from the store.
A photo comes in of the pudding—chocolate, in a plastic container. Topped with crumbled cookies and a couple of rainbow-colored gummy worms.
