Shit. There’s going to bescreaming. I can’t even think about that right now.
“Probably not,” I say to Josie and consider simply sprinting into the woods to avoid this. I don’t think it would work for long.
“Out of the car,” she orders, and as much as I don’t want to, I follow her through the tiny parking area and through the gap in the trees to Camp Wildwood.
It’s not really a camp. Or it used to be, but now it’s a clearing in the woods, deep in the Cumberland National Forest, with four cabins and a fire pit in the middle. I built one of the cabins, and Silas, Gideon, and Wyatt built the others because Silas got some sort of lease deal on it or something. I actually don’t know the logistics. Do I ever?
The camp—cabin collective, whatever—is still and pretty in the early morning, a fire smoldering in the fire pit, dew still on the grass. Something clanks in a cabin, and I can smell coffee, and then I spot Wyatt in a chair by the fire pit, staring into the coals. He’s a mess.
I think I might throw up from the guilt.
Then Josie shouts, “HEY! I FOUND HIM!” and it stops being quiet.
“You calledSearch and Rescue?!”I’m shouting. “What the fuck?”
“You were gone for three days. What the fuck were we supposed to do?” Gideon’s not shouting, but he can be very loud when he wants to be and right now he apparently wants the whole damn forest awake.
“Not call my mom!” I shout, making some wild gesture with both hands. “Not call myfather! Now half the Navy is probably going around Norfolk and Virginia Beach, hanging upHave you seen this unfortunate young man?posters!”
“We didn’t call your father,” Silas calls from across the clearing, practically falling out of his cabin door. He’s still pulling his shirt on and looks like he was asleep ten seconds ago.
“Someone fucking did!” I call back, because apparently my father’s been texting for updates. “You called the cops? You calledSearch and Rescue?”
“Your car was here and you weren’t.” That’s Gideon again, sounding even more pissed off. “Tell me, what were we supposed to think?”
I don’t have a good answer because the real answer is too stupid. I can’t sayI had a good idea for a hike and forgot to tell anyonebecause then they’ll start wondering if I’m too dumb to have a driver’s license. Maybe I could if this were the first impulsive, irresponsible thing I’d done in the past two years. Maybe if it were the fifth.
I should have texted someone—anyone!—about my plans, but I didn’t, and now here I am, acting like I’ve got some secret when the secret is I forgot something—again.
JesusChrist,though, they had to tell my dad? They had to call Search and Rescue?
There’s a small voice in the back of my mind whispering that I’m being an asshole right now, but I’m too pissed off to listen.
I shove the door to my cabin open, and it bounces off the wall, shuddering. Every time I open it, I half expect the whole structure to fall down. It hasn’t, yet.
I built this. I had plenty of help, but I built it: I scavenged the plywood for the walls, the old barn doors for the floor, the corrugated metal for the roof. I even scavenged the windows and the skylight, though scavenging the skylight might have been the wrong call because it leaks when it rains too hard. Right now, there’s an orange five-gallon bucket under the spot where it drips. The only thing I actually bought was the insulation for thewalls because apparently you’re not really supposed to scavenge that.
I can hear people talking behind me. I know they’re probably talking about me because I’ve fucked up very badly in an exciting new way. I need tothink. I need to contain this somehow—convince my mom I’m okay and keep my dad from having me kidnapped and sent to military school. I’m not sure they do that for thirty-year-olds, but if it’s possible, I’m sure Admiral Lopez will find a way.
Fuck.Fuck.
All my pencils on the table are lined up. They’re squared with the sketchpad that’s also on the table, and both things are squared to the edge of the table, and I know I did not leave it that way. I don’t know how I left it, but I’ve met myself before. I turn around, still in the doorway, and everyone stops talking.
“Did you go through my shit?” I ask.
“We were hoping you’d left a note.”
That’s Silas, who’s standing there with his arms crossed over his chest and his feet bare, looking tired and relieved and pissed off, and fuck him. I know exactly why they went through my shit, and for a moment I’m so fucking worn out and tired, and I can’t believe that two years of toeing the goddamn line doesn’t get me three days of privacy.
“You find anything?” I ask, trying not to shout. I think I’m failing. “Anything at all? Some pills? A beer bottle? Did you find a fuckingSnickers?”
This is—I—fuck. I think my voice is shaking, my pulse is hammering, and I’ve got that awful feeling that things are really going to shit, like a train careening off the tracks.
“No,” says Silas, who’s finally raising his voice. “We also didn’t find asingle fucking clueof where you’d gone for three days without telling anyone.”
I shove a hand through my hair. I feel like I’m derailing in slow motion. I can’t think of a lie to save my life. I can’t sayI fucked my stepsister and then went looking for monsters, and I can’t sayI forgot, that’s all. That’s fucking ludicrous.
“I don’t owe you knowledge of my every movement.” I cross my arms over my chest. “You don’t have to keep an eye on me.”
