Dear Cassie (23 page)

I hiked between Nez and Troyer, Rawe in front of us, leading us into the gut of the woods. I had a pack on my back. It was heavy, slogging, as much weight as carrying another one of myself.

The tall pine trees above us rustled in the wind, doing a really shitty job at keeping the sun off our faces. Up the trail ahead of Rawe, the boys’ camp walked in a line behind Nerone. They moved like they were each dragging a sled behind them, their backs bent and chins jutting out in front of them.

When we met up with the boys that morning, Ben kept looking at his boots, staring at them like they were going to tell him the secrets of the universe, which let me know he didn’t want to look at me.

I guess my freak-out in the infirmary
had
scared him off. It was hard to want a girl who turned into a pile of snot and estrogen at a moment’s notice. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore.

But without him, would anyone worry about
me
anymore?

As I hiked, I could feel the three cigarettes I had left, stored horizontally in my bra strap like bullets. Sweat was starting to pool on my lower back, dampening my shirt, making it stick to me. We had been walking for hours when I finally had to stop. I sat down on a log and took a drink from my canteen. Troyer ran over and tried to pick me up and pull me along, her lips almost pointing toward Nez and Rawe up the trail. It looked like it was hurting her face—seemed to me it would have been easier to talk.

“What?” I asked. “I need a break.” She shook her head, hard, fast. I wished she would tell me what she was thinking for once.

“Wick!” Rawe yelled from fifty feet ahead. She didn’t look tired at all. Nez stood next to her, grinning. Troyer ran from me to where they were standing, a blur of white-blond hair.

“Wick,” Rawe said again.

“Yes,” I huffed, “here.”

“Here.” Rawe chuckled. “No,” she said, halting her laugh to let me know no part of this was funny. “Here!” She pointed to the ground in front of her, like I was a dog.

And, like a dog, I had no choice but to obey. I got up, hung my canteen back at my waist, and walked, head down, to where they were standing.

“You didn’t get the rules yesterday, so I’ll give them to you now,” Rawe said.

I looked at Nez. If she were smiling any harder, her teeth would fall out.

“No breaks till I say there’s a break,” Rawe said, ticking off a finger. “No talking till I tell you to talk. And no fighting. I will not put up with that crap out here. We have enough things against us to be against each other.”

“You should talk to Nez about fighting,” I said.

“I’m not doing anything, Cassie,” Nez replied.

“Did you hear what I said?” Rawe asked.

“Yes,” I said, not moving.

“You don’t look like it,” Rawe said. “What’s rule number one?”

“No breaks,” I said.

She looked at me, stared, really, her eyes fixed on my very tired ass. I started walking before she could say anything else. We kept moving in silence, the breaking branches below us and the birds in the trees above. Every so often something would buzz past me—a fly, a bee, a mosquito, and because we weren’t supposed to talk I couldn’t say,
Fuck! Get this fucking thing away from me.
All I could do was smack at it or run from it, the pack on my back working to push me down into the ground like a nail being hammered.

After a ten-minute lunch and pee stop, Rawe started leading us in this weird march call. The silence had been better.

“How far will we go?” she yelled.

As far as we need to,
we were supposed to answer. We did, but certainly not with the gusto she had.

“How far will we go?” she yelled again.

“As far as we need to,” we answered again, with about as little energy as I’d ever heard from people who were supposed to be shouting. Of course, Troyer wasn’t saying anything, so I guess even my and Nez’s sad attempts were better.

I knew Rawe was making us say this for more than the distance we were walking. I didn’t need a psychology degree to understand that going deep into the woods was supposed to help us go deep into ourselves.

Lucky me.

I’d had enough going deep into myself via my Assessment Diary and at the infirmary. I still felt like an empty husk from what had happened there. Writing and thinking about the things inside my head had turned me into a girl I didn’t recognize: quiet, scared, ready to cry or scream at a moment’s notice. I couldn’t find the anger that I’d used to hold it all together anymore.

“Wick, tell us something you’ve never told anyone,” Rawe yelled from the front of the line.

“Why?” I complained.

“What’s rule number three?” Rawe said, not even stopping to yell.

“I’m not fighting, I’m asking,” I said.

“Stop stalling,” Rawe said.

I
was
stalling. There was really only one thing I hadn’t told anyone, and there was no way in hell I was about to reveal it here.

“Wick, answer or we keep walking,” Rawe said.

My guess was we were going to keep walking anyway. It didn’t look like the boys were stopping anytime soon. It made sense to keep us moving, make us tired—less chance we would sneak out of our tents at night. Not that I had the balls now that we were out here to even unzip my tent.

“I’ve never kept anything from anyone,” I said, but I’d kept everything from everyone.

Even my brother didn’t know the whole story. Even Aaron didn’t. I knew that even
I
really didn’t. I had kept myself from the pain, the real pain. I had to. That was what I had felt at the infirmary.

That was what had scared Ben away.

“Uh-huh,” Rawe said, turning her head to make sure I knew she was yelling at me. “I’m waiting.”

“It’s not my fault I got poison ivy,” I said. I knew she was still angry about that. Angry because she didn’t have proof to punish me, but she wanted to. I guess this was how she was going to.

“Jeez,” Nez huffed. “I’ll tell you two things if it means we don’t have to hike anymore and Cassie stops whining.”

“Wick!” Rawe stopped to yell. “Don’t you dare test me. This forest is five hundred miles across and we will hike every step of it until you speak.” She turned and started walking again.

She wasn’t letting up. I had to say something, but it couldn’t be
the
thing. It could never be
the
thing. Besides, I was afraid if I said
the
thing I would melt into a pile of mush again.

I turned to Troyer. Her forehead looked like it was going to pop out of her skull. Her way, I guess, of saying,
Fucking say it Cassie, I’m tired
.

“Fine.” I sighed. I looked down at my feet, one boot moving in front of the other.

“Still waiting,” Rawe said.

“I never told anyone I got stood up on prom night,” I mumbled.

“Again,” Rawe said, “I don’t think your chin could hear you.”

Rawe wasn’t going to make this easy. But why should she?

“I said—” I tried to speak more loudly, even though my throat was so dry the words felt like sand. “I got stood up on prom night.”

“That’s dumb,” Nez said.

“Well, it’s true,” I retorted quickly. That was all I was sharing. Rawe could make us walk until my feet fell off. I was keeping my mouth shut.

“You’re going to accept that?” Nez asked Rawe. She was probably hoping I would say something that she could use against me later—something even more embarrassing than what I shared. What must Nez have been through to think it wasn’t?

“And why didn’t you tell anyone?” Rawe asked, still leading us down the trail and thankfully ignoring Nez. Maybe she was happy that for once I’d finally answered her.

“Because it was humiliating,” I said, thinking quickly. “People who get stood up are losers.” I looked at the trail. At least the boys were too far ahead to hear me.

“Well, that’s true.” Nez laughed.

“Shut up,” I said. “No one cares what you think.”

“No fighting,” Rawe said.

“Hey, I’m agreeing,” Nez said. I could see her hold her hands up like someone was aiming a gun at her.

“Wick, is that what you are choosing? You can pick anything you’ve never told anyone,” Rawe said.

“That’s what I pick,” I said. It was the safest. And if I wanted to get deep about it, which I didn’t, that was how it all started, wasn’t it?

“Okay,” Rawe said. “Yell it.”

“What?” I asked.

Nez laughed.

“Yell
I was stood up on prom night.
It’s the only way you can free yourself from it.”

“I don’t need to free myself from it,” I said.

“Well, I say you do,” Rawe retorted.

“C’mon Cassie,” Nez said. “Loud enough so Ben can hear.”

I lifted my hands up to push her but stopped myself. I turned around and glanced at Troyer instead. Her face was sad, but of course she didn’t say anything.

“I was stood up on prom night,” I said.

“Louder,” Rawe said.

“Yeah, louder,” Nez hissed.

I looked at Nez’s back and repeated it, again and again, until my throat ached. I wanted the sentences to be like bullets going through her pack and her uniform into her perfect brown skin.

I could yell and scream those words easily. What I couldn’t do was even say the word for the thing I had really kept from everyone.

One word that I couldn’t even whisper, that I couldn’t even write down, like Troyer.

If Rawe was right and saying something out loud freed you from it, how would I ever be free from something I couldn’t even admit to myself?

We sat around the campfire, all nine of us: a man, a woman, and seven fuckups against the wilderness.

Probably not the best odds.

The whites of our eyes looked pink in the firelight. Each of us had our lips around a metal mug, our only utensil for the next six days. We slugged at it like it held one hundred sleeping pills. Apparently there would be a lot of drinking, and not the kind I liked, in our future.

We sipped on lip-scalding broth in silence while Nez stared at Ben and he tried not to stare at me.

The fire was pretty sad, like what a homeless guy might have been able to build with the scraps he found in an alley, but we had to keep it small so we didn’t alert anything that we were out here. Anything that included a rescue plane and, more importantly, the grizzly bears Rawe warned us would break us in half like a candy bar.

When we first arrived at the camp that afternoon, Rawe and Nerone had us dig the holes that would be our toilets for the night while they went and “checked the perimeter.” As I worked, I couldn’t help wondering what the clinic had done with whatever was inside me. I’m sure no one dug a grave for it. I don’t think anyone at the clinic said a prayer or did anything special. I think whatever was inside me went into a plastic biohazard bin. Which I guess was supposed to make you feel like it wasn’t just a garbage can, but really it was, just with a fancy sign on it.

I kept looking at Ben. I needed his fucking lighter. I figured we could get a quick smoke in before Rawe and Nerone got back, but Ben was acting like he was Superman and my face was kryptonite.

Perfect fucking timing.

Troyer was working next to me. At least with her I didn’t seem like a total zero, even though that was what I felt like. I felt the way I did in middle school before I realized I could scare people, when I used to be afraid of them instead. Ever since I had come here, ever since that day at the clinic weeks ago, the same vulnerability was just below the surface of my skin. Like someone could reach in and rip my heart out by looking at me. Or not looking at me.

Stupid fucking Ben and stupid fucking boys.

Troyer wrote on a piece of paper and passed it to me.
You really got stood up for prom?
That was what she chose to ask me about. Not why Ben was pretending I didn’t exist, not why I was fuming, trying to pretend I wasn’t fuming.

I guess being stood up for prom really was that bad—not like Troyer knew what I was comparing it to.

“Yes,” I hissed. “Did you even go to your prom?” I sounded angry, even though I wasn’t at all mad at Troyer. It was easier to be cold than to let people be cold to you. That was something I’d learned from my mother.

The only thing I’d learned from my mother.

Of course,
she wrote.

Of course she’d gone to her prom. Eagan had probably even gone to his prom; Eagan who had already fallen in the hole he was digging. That’s what normal kids did, even what abnormal kids did. Total fuckups like me got stood up for their proms, got arrested, and then got in “trouble” and had to do something about it.

Total fuckups liked me scared away total fuckups who were actually being nice to them.

I dropped my shovel and punched deep into my stomach, once, twice, till the pain made me nauseous.

Why do you do that?
Troyer wrote. She had noticed. I didn’t think anyone had because no one ever asked me about it. Maybe everyone had noticed but it was too weird to ask me about.

It was definitely too weird to explain.

“Why don’t you talk?” I asked. It was mean, but I didn’t know what else to say. I couldn’t answer her, so I attacked instead.