Wildfire

by Carrie Mac

  If my mother hadn’t hit the deer, where would she have taken me?

  Away.

  It doesn’t matter. Away would’ve been bad enough. Away from my dad, away from Gigi. Away from Pete.

  After she died, I sometimes had to shove away a terrible kind of relief. Relief that she wouldn’t try to take me again. But then that would be followed by an even more terrible sadness that she was never coming to take me away. That’s a bad kind of tangle in the heart and head for a little kid. Even for a big kid too. I take the letter out again and unfold the paper. I fold it up. Unfold it. Fold it up, stuff it back into the envelope, and jam it into the very bottom of my pack. I won’t burn it today. But I might burn it tomorrow.

  Pete doesn’t wake up at all, just keeps breathing deeply, his lips chapped, his cheeks so red that in the lavender-blue light of the hour before sunrise, I wonder how I didn’t notice that he got so sunburned yesterday. I put the back of my hand to his forehead, which is also bright red. His skin is hot, and even though I know that he likes to sleep hot, I can’t help but unzip his sleeping bag to his waist, because surely a person shouldn’t be that hot when he sleeps.

  * * *

  —

  I try to go back to sleep, but the birds get louder and louder until there is no way that I can sleep through it. The smoke from the Elephant Creek fire thickened overnight, and I wonder if the birds know something we don’t. It’s too hot to be in the sleeping bag, even though the sun is hardly up. Pete is still snugged into his. He’s always cold. I roll over, face to face with Pete. His breath stinks, but I don’t care. For almost six months when I was fourteen, we didn’t get to have sleepovers because Everett was dating Victoria Who Owned the Tanning Salon, who figured she knew everything about being a parent even though she didn’t even have a cat, let alone kids. She convinced him that we were having sex, and even though Pete’s dad believed us, and my dad believed us, Everett told us no more sleepovers. Thankfully, that rule only lasted as long as she did.

  Victoria Who Owned the Tanning Salon clearly didn’t understand one basic truth. If two people want to have sex with each other, they do not require a sleepover. Truck, car, any room in either of our houses, the backyard, several hookup spots at school, behind the baseball bleachers. These might just be places I’ve considered now and then, in that way. But Pete doesn’t want to now that he has Preet. Even if he did want to, even just briefly, before.

  I can say that he is my best friend, and I can also say that I wish we were more, even if that’s the stupidest thing ever because it might “wreck our friendship,” which always seems to be the problem in the movies. Or books. Or songs. Whatever.

  I put my hand in the warm gap between his body and the bag at his shoulders. I would be lying if I said I haven’t thought about sliding my hand into his sleeping bag.

  I pull my hand back.

  I’ve never done it because it never occurred to me before Preet asked him out. And now he has Preet, so I won’t.

  Honestly? I’m not even sure if I think of him that way. Sometimes I think it’s my brain being stupid, and I tell myself that runs in my family. Don’t do the stupid thing, Annie. Don’t be like your mother.

  * * *

  —

  I stare at him, his sunburned face so close that I can feel his breath on my cheek. I can see the scar over his eyebrow from when he slipped on a big rock at the beach and smashed his head on an even bigger rock. He should’ve had stitches that time too.

  We’d gone across a little inlet to look for agates and hadn’t paid attention to the tides and got stuck, thus the need to scramble over the algae-slick rocks to get back to Gigi, who was already waiting to take us home. We were an hour late, which was her limit before she decided that we were dying, or dead. Hence the rush.

  “Wake up?” I only whisper it. “Wake up, wake up, wake up.”

  I don’t want to admit it, but we are way behind schedule. And with Pete’s leg, it’s going to take even longer to get to Loomis.

  * * *

  —

  I get up and get dressed and get water from the creek and filter it into our pot and set up the stove.

  The water boils in just a couple of minutes.

  I find our mugs, add all the right ingredients in the right way in each of them, and stir. I crawl back into the tent—miraculously not dropping either mug—and hold his coffee close to him.

  “Mmm,” he says, a big grin on his face even before he opens his eyes.

  “I love you, Annie Poltava.” He takes the mug and carefully sits up with it. He winces.

  “The leg.”

  “It’s fine.” He blows on the coffee. “You did perfect first aid.”

  “Maybe it needs stitches.”

  “It’s got the Steri-Strips. It’ll be fine.” He grins. “It will make a great story to tell our kids.”

  Of course he doesn’t mean our kids, the ones we’d have together. He means the kids he and Preet or whoever will have, and the ones I’ll have with whoever, which I don’t plan to have.

  A great story to tell our kids.

  * * *

  —

  He pulls out his leg, wincing as he does.

  “Show me.”

  “It’s fine,” he says. “Promise.”

  He swings his legs into the tiny vestibule so he can get his shoes on.

  I’m digging in my pack for my toothbrush. He peers out the flap. “Pretty smoky,” he says. He focuses on his laces. “Where is it coming from?”

  “Everywhere,” I say. “West, mostly.”

  He gropes for the walking stick and helps himself up. I follow him out.

  “You can’t put your weight on it?”

  “I can. See?” He hobbles a few steps. Yes, he’s still putting some weight on it. But not much. The mint hot chocolate taste in my mouth becomes sour panic. This is worse than not good. This is bad. Very, very bad. All of a sudden I think about how stupid it is that I spent the morning mooning over him, as if actually being with him were ever, ever, ever an option, instead of figuring out how we’re going to get out of this wilderness, with the edges burning ever closer.

  * * *

  —

  “You can’t hop the rest of the way, Pete,” I say as we’re eating our oatmeal in those same mugs a few minutes later.

  “It’s getting better.”

  I pull his leg across my lap. The outer bandana is crusted with dried blood and dirt.

  “It smells.”

  “Just the dirt on the outside of the bandage. Mixed with old blood. It’s fine underneath. Three layers of protection.”

  “I’m going to bandage it again.” We carry only the minimal supplies for one trauma each, so I’ll be using my bandages this time. The last of them.

  “No.” He pushes my hand away. “Maybe later. We have a few days to go, so let’s not use yours until we have to.”

  I say nothing because I don’t know what the right thing to do is. As I’m thinking about it, the wind picks up, and for a moment the air is just a little bit clearer. But I smell something other than smoke too.

  “Do you smell that?” Pete says.

  “Sulfur.”

  “The hot spring!” Pete grins. “It has to be close.”

  * * *

  —

  If we find the hot spring, we’ll be back on track. We can even connect with the PNT if we go straight north after. Then we could get help for Pete’s leg or find someone with a sat phone. Pete is limping now, which is better than hopping. We pack up the tent and our packs and head toward the smell, which is conveniently northeast of us.

  The smell gets stronger and stronger, and after just ten minutes or so of walking, Pete stops on the trail and points ahead, where wispy clouds of steam roll up and away from the pool, which we can’t see yet. As we get closer, we see t
he pool itself, about the size of my living room, edged with small boulders slick with mineral deposits. The most surprising thing? No garbage. Even though people have been here. There’s a little path to get in, two plastic chairs with their legs sawed short to use to sit in the water, and a couple of hooks drilled into the nearest tree, and beyond that is a shallow rock-lined ditch from the creek just above it, with a makeshift plug of rocks in a plastic basket at the top so you can control how much cold water is let in.

  “Last one in is a rotten egg!” He drops his stick and his pack and starts running—well, hobble-running. I pass him easily, but he reaches out and grabs the back of my shirt.

  “Cheating!” I yell. And then we’re both down on the ground, and he’s on top of me. It occurs to me that we end up like this way more often than best friends should. I want him to stay right there, long enough for him to understand that I can be better than Preet, but I throw him off, because as much as I wish I were Preet, I respect her even if I’m not. “Get off me, asshole!”

  He rolls off, laughing, and jumps up, as best as he can, one-legged. Less than five seconds. He was on top of me for less than five seconds.

  “Kidding,” he says as he strips down to his underwear. It’s the we-should-probably-check-if-we’ll-be-boiled-alive-first moment.

  Pete dips his foot in, while I go back a few seconds to when he was still on top of me. I draw out the moment. Imagine it lasts six, seven, eight seconds. He leans. Kisses me, just like he did last summer. No, even longer. Deeper.

  Everything shifted a little after that. Not enough to push us apart, but just enough that I know that I still think about it and he doesn’t.

  “The water is perfect up here. Avoid that smaller pool below.” He arranges one of the chairs in the shallow, silky pool but doesn’t get in.

  “Your bandage?”

  “I’ll take it off after,” he says. “Mineral waters are healing, but the bandage will keep out the dirt.”

  Nine, ten, eleven seconds. His arms above my shoulders, the weight of him on me. A minute. That would be the longest time. Mostly, that’s all I want. Just a minute to be that person to him. Not to push Preet away.

  To be a unicorn?

  I shake my head. No! Not like that. Don’t be stupid, Annie. Don’t you dare screw up the best thing in your life.

  Like we almost did that night of the Orionid meteor shower, when we biked along the Cascade Trail to find a good dark spot above the Skagit River. It was late October, so Preet had already been at our school for six weeks, and Pete had noticed her enough that I was worried she would take him away. But that’s not why the kiss happened. Pete lost the bet about how many stars we’d see in an hour, and he took it badly.

  “You cheated!” He threw his hat at me. “You did not see three that I didn’t see.”

  “I did!” I threw the hat back and tossed my water bottle at him too. “My three plus your one plus our six. Makes ten. I win.”

  “You saw two, maybe.”

  I shoved him backward and pinned him down. In that moment, I was thinking that I could see our breath, and that the ground was cold, and that if we didn’t start biking back right then, we’d get shit from our fathers. But what I did was lean down and kiss him softly once, and then one more time, pressing my lips harder. He kissed me back, lifting his head off the ground to make it last longer because I was already pulling away. This could ruin everything. This could ruin us.

  I could feel his erection pressing against me, and that’s what scared me the most. He wanted this too. Even though that’s not who we were. Who we are. What we need each other to be. I jumped off of him.

  “It’s late,” I said as I shoved my things into my pack. “Did you charge your light? Mine’s good. You can ride behind me if you didn’t.”

  A very long, uncomfortable pause, and then he spoke, his voice catching just enough to give away that he was messed up about it too.

  “Yeah. It’s charged.”

  “Good, good.”

  “Yeah. Good.” He turned on his light, making a narrow beam on the trail. “Annie? Maybe we should—”

  “Should get going,” I said. “We should.”

  So it was me who ruined what could’ve been. If I’d let it continue, if those seconds had become that minute, maybe we could’ve stayed like that.

  * * *

  —

  A week later, Preet asked him out and he said yes. It took him almost another week to tell me, which was further proof that the night of the shooting stars was just as confusing for him as it was for me. It’s the only thing he’s ever kept from me, except for my mother’s letter. Those two things are enough for a lifetime.

  * * *

  —

  I peel off my five-day dirty clothes until I’m standing there in just my underpants and bra. Proximity rule. I know that my body is sexier than Preet’s. She is lanky and bony and has tiny breasts. I have the body he wants. Or the type he always said that he liked, before Preet. A plump, round ass, a waist with curves, and breasts that he’s told me are a ten. Even if that was two years ago when we found a joint his dad had left on the windowsill behind the washing machine, where he puts everything he takes out of pockets before he does laundry. We were looking for change, but that was even better. We both got super giggly and ended up talking about boobs. Lady boobs. Man boobs. My boobs. Also, important note: he was talking about them as a ten in general, not specifically for him.

  “I speak for all humans who like boobs,” he said. “You have very nice boobs, Annie Bananie. Banana boobs. Banana split. Want one?”

  * * *

  —

  I step into the pool. It’s so hot that I gasp, but then I sit in the wobbly half chair with the water up to my armpits and close my eyes and relax into the heat, so busy enjoying the deep, muscle-unknotting, tension-unlocking water that I don’t think of Pete for a minute, until I hear him gasp. Gasp differently than I did. A painful gasp.

  I see him, in just below his knees. Just above the bandages on his right leg.

  “Hurts, hurts, hurts,” he growls. “Hurts, hurts, hurts, hurts.” He minces over to his chair and collapses into it.

  “For someone in a hot spring, you’re pretty pale, Pete.”

  “I’m going to throw up.” He stands all of a sudden and tosses the chair out of the pool. He scrambles out and bends over, vomiting onto the soft blanket of moss and slime, then rights the chair and eases himself into it, his knees nearly at his chin because of the shortened legs.

  All of this happens before I can even stand up, let alone get out.

  “Pete?”

  “I’m okay.” He nods, eyes closed. “All good now.”

  I jump out, the quick movement making me dizzy. I lean over and brace my hands on my knees for just a moment.

  “Pete?”

  “That’s me.” He opens his eyes. “I’m fine. I just won’t put my leg in.”

  I help him get his chair in a spot where he can just step in with his good leg and pivot and sit, leaving his bad leg propped up on the bank. I put my chair beside him and stick my legs out too.

  “That bandage looks extra gross now,” I say. It’s sopping wet and bloody, sagging away from his calf.

  “Good thing that I know you’ll do a beautiful job of bandaging me up all tidy when we get out.”

  * * *

  —

  We had to drink all of our water just to get steady enough after the heat of the hot spring to get going again, and so then we had to set up the gravity filter and fill our bottles and bladders, which always takes longer than I think it will. Once we’re ready to go, Pete takes out his phone to set a GPS waypoint for the hot spring so we can come back again. His screen is black.

  “It’s dead,” Pete says.

  “But how?” We’ve been so careful to turn it off after we checked t
he maps.

  “I must’ve left it on at the waterfall.”

  “Okay,” I say. “That’s fine. We have the paper maps.”

  “I don’t think we’re on them anymore,” Pete says. “We’re still south of the PNT, but other than that, I’m not sure.”

  “Pete,” I whisper, not sure what to say. “I don’t have the maps on my phone. Because I didn’t even know we were going.”

  “I know. I know. It’s fine,” he says. “We just keep going northeast. Loomis is that way.”

  “Northeast.”

  “North.” He orients one outstretched arm. “East.” Points the other.

  “O”—I angle my arms in the same way—“kay.”

  We walk slowly, across steep slopes of scree that land us on our asses more times than I bother to count. Through forests dense with skinny pines that let the sunlight in like those blinds that hang vertically, half-opened. We move slowly because of the loose rocks and lack of trail, but mostly because of Pete, who hobbles along with his stick, which we tied a shirt to, bunched at the top, so he could use it as a sort of crutch too. Neither of us mentions how far we’ve gone. Or how far we have not gone. We don’t talk about his leg. We don’t talk about the wildfires, and how the smoke is thicker now, making us cough. Making our eyes sting. When we stop for the day, it’s so late that it’s almost dusk. As it gets darker, I keep scanning the edges of the steep ridge we just crossed, half expecting to see actual flames.

  There’s been only one other time when Pete and I were very far away from home and no one knew where we were. That was almost a disaster, but then it was also magical. To this day, the dads don’t know about it. We told Gigi, but she was different. She was our secret keeper. Pete’s secret keeper too, as it turns out.

  Gigi was in charge, in theory only. She was an adult, yes. But we didn’t need a babysitter. Pete was already sixteen and had just gotten his provisional license a week before. He wasn’t supposed to drive with anyone under twenty, but we didn’t care. Everett and Pete had been fixing up Luca’s old truck for Pete, and it was in better working order than it had ever been.