8.
I wasn’t fooling anybody – she must have noticed the way I looked at him sometimes. The way I’d always outstay my welcome.
The way I wanted, desperately, to feel just a fraction of the things she felt. The disgusting, drunken passion of course - but also the accusations and recriminations and, maybe, even the fear.
Because wasn’t it better to row and fight and love and hate somebody than to feel nothing at all?
Nothing real.
Yet when he finally touched me that evening I had recoiled – repulsed by my own desire and what it might undo inside me.
Again, I began to run. Away from them, away from the cabin.
Then, all of a sudden, I was flying. For a moment no part of me touched the ground – an empty, weightless feeling cut short by thudding pain as my body connected with the earth once more and I plummeted down the steep wooded bank.
I’m not sure how long I was unconscious. It felt like less than an instant - but the blood had caked slightly by the time I lifted my face from the tarmac.
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9.
I must have sat up too fast. The world went reeling. I gripped my head, trying to hold everything together.
The road was bare and straight, a slick, black line that seemed to run on forever in both directions. The forest rose dizzyingly on either side, monochrome walls of trees and snow, unravelling gradually to grey. My chin was sticky, and the money taste was back, lining my throat, but I was numb. Hardly daring to hope.
I touched the tarmac again, my fingers shaking. The road was cold and real. I felt the engine before I heard it. A small, quivering life beneath my palm.
Somehow, I managed to stand as the car approached. The trees rippled and whispered. The white sky pressed closer. I staggered forwards, waving my arms. I was keenly aware of every brittle movement and yet everything was happening at a distance, as if to someone else.
The car, small and blue and battered, slowed and then pulled over. The tarmac twinkled between us, laden with stars. Stumbling across them, I caught the ruddy health of the driver’s bearded features. And then I saw the woman with a baby in the back.
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“Theresa?”
The name bubbled over my lips, half hope and half curse. Wasn’t she dead yet?
The thrum of the engine drowned out the drip, drip, drip of the forest at last, and clouds of exhaust breathed hints of blessed civilization. I wanted to shout with joy but I could force no sound through the empty metal taste. I swallowed.
“Can I help you?” The driver – not Jed after all – wound down the window. “Has there been an accident?” His eyes darted to the side of the road, perhaps looking for evidence of a wrecked car, perhaps looking for a group of thugs ready to drag him out of the vehicle. It didn’t matter.
I sank to my knees on the road, my ankle giving up at least. Bloodied fingers held the edge of the window, supporting me. “I was attacked,” I said, my voice cracked and harsh. “I was camping. Up there.” I glanced behind me at the monochrome forest. “I ran. I fell.”
The man glanced at his companion, asking an inaudible question. I followed his gaze and she glanced at me, the baby still and silent on her lap. Her nodded reply to him saved my life.
I put my weight against the warm car bonnet and tried to clear the stars from my eyes. The woman in the back leant forward to speak, pushing waves of patterns past my vision in her wake.
“Sis are you ok? We lost you back at the gas station. Jed honey give her a hand.”
The click of the car door quivers through warm metal to my hands. I stare at the woman through the weaving patterns and catch her profile in the light. Familiar but not my sister.
“Theresa are you ok?” Said the man. I look to the woman and then back to him, he is staring at me.
The patterns clear and I see my face reflected in the rear window. But the window is down. I lower myself to look in the wing mirror, touching Theresa's lines, I see her soul in my eyes. A sonic wave of nausea moves through me, balance lost as Jed places me in the back of the car.
“We best get moving if we're going to make the cabin before it snows”. The man starts the engine.
The woman takes my arm and whispers, “This is what you wanted isn't it? Or did you expect to keep yourself too?”
Overwhelmed with a feeling of raw protectiveness, I half stumbled, half lurched at the car door handle, pulling it as hard as I could. “Get out, get out Theresa” I screamed, my voice sounding like someone else’s; someone with courage, someone who knew what they were doing. I could do this I told myself I could finally rescue my sister, I could make up for not being there when she needed me most, not understanding her pain was real… But of course the car door was locked, and Jed was no longer slowing down but revving up, my mind wasn’t able to catch up quickly enough to what was happening. I felt a sudden nausea as my clothing got dragged along, then there was an almighty ripping sound.
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