You had forgotten about the cut, but now that she’s dabbing at it with a T-shirt, you can feel the sting again. Her body is near to yours, and she smells like campfire and vanilla shampoo from two days ago. The rain has completely stopped, leaving behind an eerie soundlessness punctuated only by dripping. There are tears in your eyes, but you’re not sure if it’s because of the pain or her fingers in your hair.
Others gradually unfold from their fetal positions, and rise like the kids in your childhood theater class when you had to pretend to be flowers growing. In a daze, they leave the tent, one at a time, wandering out into a new world. But Diana doesn’t go. Instead, she stays next to you.
“I saw him last night,” you say.
“Where?”
“By the fire. He was saying strange things.”
She dabs at you again, and when she brings the T-shirt down, you see it’s covered in dried blood. If you were home, you’d go to your mom, the nurse who’s never off duty, but here, in this moment, there are no adults to help you pretend the world is safe.
“Do you think he’s coming back?” you ask.
More than anyone else’s, it’s her opinion on this that you want to hear. She knows how to read people. Or at least she used to.
“You know what I think?” she says finally. “I think we can’t keep doing this.”
“I know!” you say. “That’s the whole point. Without him—”
“No,” she says. “You and me. We can’t keep pretending.”
“Oh,” you say. “That.”
“Is that really what you want to do out here: just pretend we’re strangers? Pretend that Sean’s not gone, and that you didn’t abandon me when everything was at its worst? Is that your plan, Case?”
She pulls her hands away and brushes them together. You don’t want to look at them and see your own blood.
“I don’t know,” you say.
“Just tell me right now if that’s what you want to do, and I’ll cut you loose. I can do that. I’ve been doing it my whole life. Just tell me.”
“Diana…”
“You really hurt me.”
You take a breath.
“I’m sorry,” you say. “I just…”
You want to say more, but nothing comes out. And while you try to build the courage to continue, there’s a commotion outside, a chorus of rapid voices. You hear the crunch of footsteps moving closer to the tent. Diana doesn’t look away from you, but you’re still unable to speak. She reaches up to her face, and just before someone tugs open the tent, she wipes away what must be a tear from her own cheek. Then Fran dips her head in. She looks at the two of you funny, then she regains her composure.
“Guys,” she says. “I think you need to see this.”
FOURTEEN
At first you don’t even notice Troy.
You’re too busy wondering how you’re all still alive. There are trees down around you, maybe five or six, just snapped like matchsticks. And one of your canoes is lodged in some brush fifty yards away. It looks like someone picked it up and flung it there in a tantrum. All the while, Troy stands patiently before you. He doesn’t say anything, but eventually when you finish surveying the broken landscape, you look at him and you see what he’s holding.
A small white circle.
It looks like a cap.
The cap to a pill bottle.
Only there is no bottle.
“It’s gone,” he says.
