I let out a full-bodied moan and roll out of bed.
2
Shawn
The number of times you wake up naked outside should really start decreasing after you hit thirty. Realistically, it should drop after you hit twenty-five. When your knees start to creak, at least. Which, because of a semi-hereditary hypermobile joint problem, really started around twenty-three.
Coincidentally, the number of times you get blackout drunk should also start going down as you get older. The two might be related, but I haven’t checked the statistics.
This is an excellent way to die of exposure, and really, I should stop enabling this. This is also a fantastic way to get ticks in really hard to reach places.
I blink a few times before I realize I have leaves sticking to my face. I sit up and realize I’ve rolled a few feet from my campsite. It doesn’t look like much of one, just the smoldered remains of my fire, a bedroll and a completely unzipped sleeping bag, and a mostly empty bottle of Jack.
I pick myself up and, scrubbing a hand over my face, drag myself over to the bottle. I pick it up and swirl the little aconite petals floating in the bottom around, contemplating it.
It’s an old family trick, for restless nights.
Casting a look around for my clothes however, I’m starting to think it didn’t work. I thought I’d put more than enough of the flower in, but I suppose not when I find that my shirt, jeans,and boxers are all torn one way or another. I pause to count the flowers, swirling them around. Usually this is enough to assure a much quieter night for this phase of the moon, a mere quarter of it barely visible in the sky between the tree branches.
Luckily, I am a firm believer in bringing a change of clothes with you, no matter where you go. If that means folding them like Marie Kondo says until they can fit into a fanny pack, then that’s what it takes.
I go down to the river to rinse some of the dead leaf bits from my face. I pull on the shirt I took out of my pack and dry my face on the inside of the collar. It’s a morning of gnashing teeth and grumbling to the empty air. Best to get the grievances out before I actually get home.
Home.
I wonder how much it’ll be like before I left—if anything will have changed about the place. Mom was still rebuilding the front porch then, and in eight years, I doubt either of my brothers will have found the impetus to move out. I wonder if they’ll have turned my old room into a reading nook like they always said they would.
I kind of wonder if they’ll have decorations up for my brother’s wedding. Mom was always big into decorating for every holiday, I wouldn’t think she’d pass up the occasion.
Then again, she kind of did when it was mine.
There’s some sort of irony that what brings me home is the same thing that kept me from it all these years.
It’s hard not to be at least a little bitter about coming home for my brother’s wedding when I couldn’t get any of them tocome to mine. Then again, he didn’t pick the wrong girl the way I did.
If you really loved her, you wouldn’t have lost her, ya dingus.
My youngest brother’s words come back to me in the early morning. I’m repacking my backpack, watching the sun rise through the clearing. It’s time to break camp and get back on the trail. It was one hell of an “I told you so,” and it’s crossed my mind more than once to say some similar shit to him every time he goes through a breakup.
I pause and rub the heel of my palm into my eye. I just know it’s a conversation that’s going to come up at dinner.
3
Elise
I lay perfectly still for several moments, inspecting the grainy, wooden floorboards my nose is hovering over, the fraying woven rug, and then a surprising amount of dust accumulated under my bed. How long has that been there?
I push myself off the ground and climb back into my bed, rubbing my head. My alarm went off an hour ago, but my phone is under my pillow, muffling the sound.
Weird dream. Weird, very horny dream. I’ve had unusual horniness-driven dreams before. I just don’t think they’ve ever felt that real.
It’s one of those dreams I can’t really shake the memory of, leaving me a little perturbed. What is my subconscious thinking—sex outside? Where I can get ticks? I’m sorry, I was a little traumatized by that one episode ofHouse MDwhere the girl had a tick up her vagina. I could never. My pussy is an indoor kitty.
And it’s a little easier to focus on the thought of getting ticks in unsavory places than to confront the other part of my dream, at least before coffee.
Pulse still thrumming between my legs, I don’t really know what else to do except grab my vibrator and finish the job. The battery is low and it’s not actually all that satisfying.
Whatever. I glance at the clock, and it’s already too late to get to work on time.
