He’s looking up at me right now, from huge brown eyes with lighter brown streaks. They remind me of the tiger’s eye stone on my dresser back home. I swear he’s telling me something with those eyes.
I’m going to keep this baby. He was a gift from the river. He’s mine. I’ve been all by myself, barely even exchanging words with strangers. But he was sent to me, somehow. I feel like I was meant to find him.
I’m holding his little hand, looking at that bracelet as he wraps his fingers around mine. The moonstone just caught a sun ray and reflected a pearlescent rainbow at me. That bracelet is his only possession from his life before the river. I want to make sure he’ll always have a part of himself, but the bracelet might fall apart or get lost. So I’m going to call him Wolf. That way, no matter what else happens, he’ll always have his name.
Camellia
“I can’t read anymore,” Camellia said. “My eyes are too wet.”
“Same,” Wolf admitted. He was still driving. She’d been reading from the diary for a while. “Let’s take a break, huh?” He reached for the radio dial, but only turned it on low. Soft country music cushioned the space between them.
“Yeah. How much further?”
“Another five hours, give or take.”
“We’lldefinitelyneed another meal.”
“Yeah, and to figure out what we’re doing when we get there,” he said. “It’s a national park. We don’t have a reservation.”
“Oh, I know. I did some checking earlier. There won’t be internet or cell service down there, and they don’t have cabins to rent.”
“There a motel nearby?”
She liked how he said motel. With the accent on themo. “No, but there are campsites available.”
He glanced her way, then at the road, then at her again. “I haven’t been camping since I was four.”
“I have. Dad used to take us. That gigantic duffle in the back. That’s our gear.”
“Oh,” he said. “I thought you were just a heavy packer.”
She laughed a little bit, wishing she could’ve heard his thoughts when she’d thrown that four-foot-long duffel into the truck bed. And yet he hadn’t said a word.
“Dad was always so proud he could get everything we needed into one large bag.” She shrugged a shoulder at him, like a challenge. “We can stop along the way for anything else we might need. Fresh batteries, a couple of tanks of propane, some food and water.”
“You’ve thought this through.”
“Like I said, I didn’t sleep last night.”
He nodded, was quiet for a moment, but she could feel him working up to something. Eventually he said, “Do you really think this ex of yours?—?”
“Earl,” she said. “Stafford.”
“You really think he’s capable of violence?”
He was asking if Earl had ever hit her without asking if he’d ever hit her. She said, “I wouldn’t have been so scared of him if I didn’t think he was capable of violence. I even bought a gun.” And it was in her bag, and nobody but her needed to know about that. “He never hurt me, but he was getting more… I want to say radicalized, you know, against a lot of things, but mainly women. And I started feeling like I wasn’t safe around him. Like it was progressing. Right before we split, he shoved me once when I defended a woman he was griping about, a congresswoman.He shoved me so hard, I fell on the floor. So that seems like progression to me. And now, the girlfriend.”
“Yeah.”
“It has me shaken, I admit it. I mean, a few miles ago I saw a big black Blazer just like he used to drive pulling into a rest area. My heart liked to pound right through my chest.”
He looked at her hard. “Was it his?”
“Different plate number.” She lowered her head, blew out a sigh. “Sorry. I got off topic. So? Are you up for camping?”
“I guess I’m up for camping,” he said. But he was looking at her with a combination of concern and ferocity in his gorgeous eyes.
“Cool. I’ll reserve us a spot.” She tapped her phone as an excuse not to gaze into those tiger’s eyes for too long. Then she got genuinely distracted. “There’s a site open near the river!” And then she tapped again.
