Animals We Are

by Valerie Brandy

  “Again?” The word makes my skin prickle.

  “You still don’t remember?” he asks. His tone isn’t sad— it’s angry. His gloved hands curl into fists, the fidgeting momentarily interrupted.

  “Let me help you,” he spits, his voice tinged with disdain. “Stood anyone up lately?”

  My pen-pal from the dating app. The one I cancelled on when I met Mike. The cute rhymes we shared back and forth. The clues were clues in more than one way— they rhymed so I would remember.

  “My profile picture on the app,” I think out-loud. “It was of me on Halloween. I was wearing—”

  “Wings.”

  “Josh?” I ask. He nods.

  “You don’t look like your photos.” I feel stupid as soon as I say it. Of course he wouldn’t use his own pictures.

  “Those aren’t of me. I like my privacy,” he smiles at me, as if my current predicament proves his point.

  “Is Josh even your real name?”

  “Could be,” he shrugs, making me sure it isn’t. The mystery he shrouds himself in casts a shadow down the spine of the mountain. This man’s refusal to tell me who he is makes him less of a man, and more of an idea. There is no Logan. There is no Josh. Just this shape, this body, this amalgam of the philosophical nothingness I fear most.

  “How did you find me? I didn’t use my full name.”

  “Your work,” he answers. “You said you were the manager at the Delune hotel. I stopped by once. You were annoyed when I asked you how to get a room, like you couldn’t be bothered. You should really work on that, Zoe.”

  He was the customer who complained about me.

  “You had a beard then,” I remember aloud, images of the strange, bearded man superimposing themselves over Josh’s face. The man followed me around the lobby for an hour, always staring, always asking, but never booking a room. I recognize him now, but only by his eyes— creaseless, narrow, calculating, but somehow still forgettable.

  “I hated to shave it off. I look like a kid without it. But I couldn’t have you recognizing me, at least not right away,” he answers.

  His hands grip the cable as he steps forward. We’re nose-to-nose now, every pore on his forehead made visible. He grabs my chin and pulls my face close to him. I want to bite him, but something in me whispers, not yet.

  “All I wanted was for us to try again,” he says, his breath hot on the side of my cheek.

  “We’re the same, Zoe. You have no idea what your messages meant to me. And then, finally, when we were about to take the next step, you stood me up. And when I held you accountable, you cut me out of your life. Do you understand what that does to a person? To a man? You owe me. I gave you plenty of chances to turn things around. I sent you signs, Zoe. So many signs…”

  There must be a question in my eyes, because he presses on, his voice urgent, seeking. “Didn’t you think it meant something when the flowers you planted at your new place were destroyed?”

  I can still smell the sweetness— broken pink and purple petals spread across the stoop— flowers Mike and I had planted only days earlier, pulverized, their flailing roots covered in earth, homesick for carefully dug holes they’d never belong to again. My gut churns with guilt. We blamed Cassandra, but nothing she ever did was violent. I should have known it wasn’t her.

  “And the mail? I took it from the box for you month after month. I left it by the door, so you wouldn’t have to walk to the mailbox,” he continues, his speech quickening, as if remembering the deed gives him a rush of adrenaline. “I was trying to show you the kind of partner I’d be, the love we could have. His I threw away of course— you shouldn’t even be sharing an address with him.”

  The mail. We thought Cassandra was stealing Mike’s mail out of obsession, or devotion. How wrong we were.

  “You need me, Zoe,” he continues, his gloved fingers digging into the side of my face. “I can show you the kind of person you need to be to function in this world. I can save you from being hurt ever again. I let you explore— let you get the bad guys out of your system— but now it’s time for you to come back to me, especially after everything I’ve done for you. I thought you were tiring of him— thought you were ready to give into your true nature— but then I saw him buy the ring, and I realized you might say yes. And what would I do then? I had to stop you from making the worst decision of your life.”

  A ring? Mike bought a ring? There’s no time to process. I have to stay focused.

  “Because the truth, Zoe, is that no one really cares about you enough to give you what you need. No one besides me. I planned all of this for you. To show you your true, inner nature, and the nature of all beings. By leaving Mike behind in the forest, you would have realized that love is a name we give to physical, chemical reactions. Nothing more. There’s no one in this world worth dying for. There’s only people who can keep you safe, and people that can’t. I can keep you safe. I can teach you how to protect yourself from the worst of this world.”

  He runs a finger over the edge of my mouth, and I shiver. “I thought you’d leave him, but you surprised me,” Logan whispers, and I almost think he’s going to tell me he’s decided to call the whole thing off, now that he’s seen what real love looks like.

  “Clearly, you’re more lost than I thought,” he adds, shattering any hope of a stalemate.

  He lets go of my face with a shove, pushing me further away from the cables. We’re standing on ice, a thin level of frost above the soil. My feet slip, and without the ropes, there’s nothing nearby to grab onto. I fall onto the ground, my ungloved fingers going numb.

  “You and I belong together, Zoe, if only you can let go of fantasy, let go of illusion. I’m sorry it’s come to this, but I’m afraid I have to push you to the brink to help you grow,” he smiles at me. “You have a choice to make. Mike’s at the top of the mountain, at the end of the cable walk. We can hike up there together, and you can die by his side,” he opens up Mike’s pack and pulls out a handgun he’s stored in the back pocket. He points it at me, but I don’t flinch.

  “… or, you can take my hand. And we can leave here, together.”

  He holds out his other hand, waiting for me to take it. He crouches down to my level, whispering like he’s talking to a child.

  “I would never take the choice away from you, Zoe. You have to be the one to decide. Is your love for Mike so real you’re willing to die with him, or do you recognize that it’s nothing but a biological illusion? If it helps you in your decision-making process, you should know that Mike’s been lying to you. He didn’t tell you, did he Zoe? He didn’t tell you about Cassandra, or what he did to her.”

  My eyes must give me away, because Logan’s runaway mouth curves upward into something between a frown and a smile.

  “It’s his fault she’s the way she is. He broke her. He destroyed her, and then he walked away. One day, he’ll do the same thing to you. Somewhere inside, you know it’s true.”

  His words pull me under like heavy anchors, dragging me deep into the place I try not to go. Boxes unpack themselves. Glass sculptures of the Mike I know shatter. His unwillingness to disclose why they broke up, the fact that he never got a restraining order— all of the blank spaces in his story bubble up, ending my game of mad-libs where I fill in answers I think I can live with. Cassandra’s message to Mike replays in mind; “It was your fault.”

  “You’ll never be safe with him” Logan continues, still holding out his hand. “He didn’t ask me about you. Not once. You’re right, not to trust anyone, Zoe. Except me. Let me help you. You’re tired. Let’s go home.”

  My arms shake, and my stomach churns, because he’s right— I am tired. My body is weak with hunger, burnt from the cold. It’s a sickness worse than anything I’ve ever felt, as if every piece of me is shutting down at the same time. Darkness swallows me and I can’t resist it. The truth I’ve always known grows like mold over my skin, taking the dirtiness within and externalizing it into flesh. My blood runs brown and d
ishwater grey, pounding in my ears, confirming the thing I’ve resisted for so long. No one is to be trusted, and everyone is alone.

  Mike’s been lying to me.

  My inner ogre stirs, standing face-to-face with my wolf, and the two of them look at me, waiting for me to decide. It’s a moment I’ve been avoiding since the day I met Mike, but now it’s here, and something needs to be done. I’m either all in, or I’m out. I either trust him, or I leave. I look out across the vast expanse of the world, which drops off at the edge of half-dome, taking in the light one more time before turning to face the comfortable darkness.

  Slowly, carefully, I reach toward Logan, my fingers trembling. My red hand slips into his, and he pulls me up to standing. The gun slacks by his side. He leans in to pull me closer…

  And that’s when I elbow him in the face.

  The sharp edge of my forearm connects with his eye, and I put whatever strength I have left into it, watching as his jaw flies upward.

  The motion makes him lose his footing. He’s not holding onto the cables anymore, and he skids backward, landing on the snow.

  If I hesitate, he’ll shoot me, so I move without thinking.

  My boot slams into his nose. A crunching sound echoes across the mountain as it breaks. Red splatters of blood drip onto the Earth.

  I want to try to wrestle the gun from him, but he’s clutching it with both hands, and could shoot me in the struggle. Instead, I grab onto the cables, running as fast as I can up the mountain. My inner wolf howls, a wild thing set free, searching for her partner.

  Hand over hand, I push my way up the mountain, relying on the cables to keep me from tumbling down the trail. The hike is a forty-degree incline, the ground solid rock. Puddles of melted slush have frozen solid, creating pockets of ice over the surface of the mountain.

  As my speed increases, so does the chance of slipping. A single misstep could send me careening over the edge of half-dome. The valley sprawls out beneath me, dotted with green trees the size of pin-heads and rivers as thin as thread. Should I fail, an eight-thousand foot fall awaits me.

  There’s no time to be overly cautious. Maintaining my head-start requires speed, and depends on how quickly my adversary recovers from a blow to the face. A glance over my shoulder reassures me: he’s not behind me. There’s nothing in my wake but snowfall and my own boot-tracks.

  Upwards, upwards— the ascent never ends. Steel cables rub my hands raw. Blood coats the wires, and it takes me a moment to realize its mine. My head spins, but it isn’t the elevation— I’m dehydrated, malnourished. Everything in me wants to quit, but I’ve come too far.

  Finally, my hand moves to grab the next spot on the cable and meets nothing but air. The cable-walk ends, and the ground levels out, revealing horizontal rock.

  I’ve made it to the top.

  The mountain’s peak is other-worldly. Coated in snow, it’s so tall that standing in certain places reveals nothing but sky, creating the illusion that half-dome is the world’s end. It’s a two-color palette of white and blue, familiar and strange all at once, as if I’ve landed on some alien planet that’s the inverse of our own. Gravity wields less power here, and my boots pad over the undisturbed Earth like it’s nothing but moon-dust.

  Up here, the snowfall is thicker, and my eyes strain to see against the blinding shower of white. Then, a figure emerges in the distance, crouched against a rock. The planet’s spin slows, and the mountain waits; still, breathless. All events leading up to this moment have happened in real-time, but now, Time stops counting, abandoning her post to watch. Clouds lean in, listening. The wind ceases to blow, preferring to lie stationary. Everything in the natural world inhales and steps aside— for us.

  I move closer, and the figure comes into focus. He’s been so beat to hell he’s barely recognizable. Purple bruises mar his eyes. His cheek is swollen, and a deep cut on his arm burns with infection. He’s lashed to the rock by too many ropes to count, tied up by someone who deeply fears his escape. Dry lips and crows feet by his eyes— lines I’ve never seen before— signal dehydration that’s as bad as my own. He’s in bad shape, just like me. But is he alive?

  “Mike?”

  He doesn’t stir.

  19

  Please be alive.

  Careful steps on undisturbed snow. My own hands reach out across the rock, detached from my body as if they belong to a stranger.

  I tell myself a story, not caring if it’s true. I tell myself that love makes it impossible to lose someone. When you love a person, they become a piece of you, and you become a piece of them. The sound of his voice. The way he folds the laundry. The infinite, tiny mannerisms that build a person— all of it weaves its way into your being, leaving indelible traces behind like veins beneath the skin. No worldly separation can remove the imprint, and even when he’s gone, the reflection of him remains, like a nuclear shadow after a flash of light. I remember the tree, its roots wrapping themselves around Brock’s body, and I know that Mike will always be a piece of me. Even if he’s gone from this world, my cells are entangled with his, and I’ll find him across any distance, no matter how wide. In the deep, empty spaces of the universe; in the hollows so tall and the holes so bottomless; in the places where there is no up or down, no North, or South, or East, or West; love is how we find each other.

  As I reach out to him, I tell myself that even if he’s not alive, he’ll still be with me.

  But please let him be alive.

  Our hands touch, the numbness in my fingers making it hard to gauge where I end and he begins. His skin is cold, and at first nothing happens, but then his eyes open. He recognizes my touch. He’s alive. I silently thank the Great Everything, promising to marvel at her beauty— at her infinite complexity— every day for the rest of my existence.

  It takes him a moment for him to place where he is. Whatever drug is in his system hasn’t worked its way out yet. A discarded syringe by his feet signals consistent dispensing of some kind of sedative. When awareness comes, horror floods his irises.

  “Zoe—” Mike’s voice is strained, panicked. “You shouldn’t— you can’t— be here.”

  He’s somewhere between sober and drunk, and I wonder how long it’s been since the last time Logan drugged him. Mike tries to stand, but he’s still tied up. The snow blankets us, falling thicker now than ever before, flakes of white resting on our eyelashes. The cascade of powder is so heavy that if we sit here long enough, undisturbed, we’ll be buried alive like two statues, holding hands for eternity.

  “Logan, he’s been stalking you, he’s—” Mike starts to say, but I stop him.

  “I know,” I answer, neglecting to mention that Logan could appear over the edge of the mountain any minute, gun in hand.

  Mike rests his head on the boulder behind him, defeated. “You shouldn’t have come. You have to go, Zoe— right now— it isn’t safe.” His speech is clumsy and slurred, but even through through the fog, some things remain clear. He scans my body the same way I scanned his, taking inventory of the shape I’m in, wondering if I’m strong enough to run.

  “I couldn’t leave you,” I answer, and suddenly my body is heavy, as if it senses it’s safe with Mike and can finally allow itself to feel everything I’ve been ignoring. The exhaustion, the hunger, the cold, the wound on my leg— it all hits me at once. I sink deeper into the snow, wondering how long it will take for us to disappear beneath the shreds of white. “You’re part of my pack, so I couldn’t leave without you,” I continue, my eyes watering, warm tears spilling onto my hand, melting the frost off my skin. “I’m a wolf, did you know that?”

  Mike manages a smile, getting more alert the longer we talk. I expect him to tell me that I don’t make any sense— that I’m hallucinating, driven to insanity by too many nights in the wild— but instead, he nods.

  “Of course I did, Zoe” Mike answers seriously, looking straight through me in that way he has about him, like he’s met me in a thousand lifetimes before this one. “I’ve alw
ays known that.”

  He says it with so much understanding that it makes my ribs split open, and suddenly it occurs to me that maybe Mike’s always seen me. He knew I was a wolf. Despite my attempts to hide the worst in myself, he’s seen glimpses of my inner ogre, and he’s loved me anyway. The desperate ache inside— the desire to be known— fades, replaced by something else.

  Now, we’re kissing, all danger forgotten. We’re the only two people left in the world, battle-scarred and broken. Aware that death might come at any point, we kiss with a purpose: to say hello and goodbye all at once. If it’s my last act, it’s a perfect one.

  When we part, Mike looks at me, and something in his eyes has changed. There’s an unspoken, animal charge to the air. Electrons buzz. The forest quivers, delivering a warning.

  “He’s down there, isn’t he?” Mike asks, even though he’s already intuited the answer. I nod.

  “Does he still have a gun?”

  I nod again, wishing I’d tried harder to take it from him. Mike shakes his head, because he can see what I’m thinking— it’s written all over my face.

  “You’re a hero, Zoe. You did great. Better than I did.”

  The silence settles. We both know this is it. We’re going to die. There’s no other way off the mountain, and the second we head down the trail, the man called Logan will shoot us— assuming he doesn’t hike up here first to finish the job before we even attempt escape.

  Mike scans my face like he’s memorizing every detail in case he never sees it again. “You know, I believe I suggested we go somewhere tropical for vacation…” he says, defaulting to humor like he always does in times of trouble.

  “You’d still be tied up and about to die,” I remind him.

  “Yes, but I’d have a margarita in one hand, and you’d be in a bikini. Not the worst way to go,” he laughs, his eyes searching the mountain. A moment passes, and we fill it imagining all the things that could have been. Then, Mike’s eyes harden. His posture changes— it’s the movement of a man who’s not ready to die.