I Am Girl Power

by Katie Cross

  In desperation, I tried calling Mom once I got back to my cabin. She would loan me some money just to get me through August—even though bringing this up at a time when her marriage was struggling felt trite. But she didn’t answer, even though I called three times. Finally desperate, I tried calling Dad, but his phone went right to voicemail. Livid, I tossed the phone across the room and stared at the ceiling.

  Every hour crawled by with irrepressible leisure that night, one minute ticking into the next until I could hardly stand it. My mind whirred with the ugly truth—no matter what I chose, something would suffer.

  Dad’s distress in the restaurant bounced around my head. Mom’s swollen, bleary eyes. The pain of their discord struck a deep note that resonated into my bones. Such disharmony had been avoidable, surely. People mattered more than careers or accolades or job offers. Mark, JJ, the staff, even Atticus—they meant more to me than anything.

  Which meant I shouldn’t take the job.

  But determination, sacrifice, and talent had fueled my impressive career. Adventura would end soon. My life—my need for a job—wouldn’t. My mind spun through all the people I’d helped, the lessons I’d learned, the families I’d met, all in the pursuit of something good. I belonged in the hospital. Besides, this flight-nurse opportunity would solve my debt issues. No creditors calling. No further marks on my credit to hurt me in the future. No loss of car or home. Mark and JJ would understand.

  I should definitely take the job.

  Finally, at three in the morning, I fell into a restless sleep. A syringe and stethoscope chased me in my dreams. I ran but barely stayed ahead of the gleaming needle. Just when I thought I’d escaped it, Blake blocked my path, despondent. I skidded to a stop, but the needle slid into my back, right near my heart.

  A heavy thud on my door woke me at six the next morning. I jerked awake, nearly falling off the narrow cot.

  “Up, blister,” Mark called. “Campers arrive soon.”

  Yawning, I crawled out of my sleeping bag. I still had ten hours to make my decision.

  Tick, tick, tick.

  That afternoon, dust billowed around the broom as I swept dirt from the lodge floor into the fireplace. Most of Adventura lay quiet and empty except for the occasional shout from the campsites, where the campers were eating lunch. The clock ticked in the background.

  Decide. Decide. Decide, it seemed to say.

  I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.

  The radio attached to my hip crackled seconds before Mark spoke. “Hey, Megan. Can you come out to the rifle range?”

  I paused mid-sweep. The rifle range? Images of bullet holes and bloody limbs drifted through my mind. No one should be out there right now.

  “Uh, sure. Everything okay?”

  “Soon as possible.”

  “Injury?”

  “No.”

  I propped the broom against the wall and left, enjoying the sunshine as I rambled down the two-track road out to the rifle range. Every now and then the boom of a shotgun rolled over the open range. Dad’s old Chevy caught my eye, parked just outside. My heart leaped into my throat. I jogged the rest of the way.

  “Hey,” I said, a little breathless. “I’m here.”

  JJ leaned against the rifle range wall behind the gun tables, arms folded across his chest. He’d never been a big fan of firearms. No one spoke. Dad reloaded in his usual record time, glancing over his shoulder to me with a nod before resuming his concentration. After his final round—right in the bullseye—he lowered the rifle to his side.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked him.

  Dad loaded two slugs into a nearby shotgun, pressed it to his shoulder, peered down the barrel, and closed one eye. “In the area. Thought I’d stop by. Your mom is on her way.”

  With his foot, he tapped a clay pigeon machine. An orange disk hurtled into the air. Dad pulled the trigger, and the flying clay disk exploded. Everything about this felt weird. JJ’s averted gaze. Dad’s focused attention. Mark’s tense jaw. The strangely calm scene sent me into a vortex of panic. Why weren’t Mark and Dad arguing? They always argued. Even in jest.

  Why was Mom coming while Dad was here?

  JJ lounged back, eyes on the horizon, as if he were somewhere else. The rigid lines of his body had tightened. Mark’s brow furrowed in a heavy bank over his eyes. I pressed a hand to my stomach, feeling sick.

  Moments later, Mark grabbed a handgun, loaded three clips, and proceeded to unload them as fast as he could into the closest target. The ping of the falling shells echoed in the range. I stood next to JJ. He leaned against me until our shoulders touched, and I welcomed his steady, warm reassurance. No one spoke. Communication seemed like more than any of us could bear in such a looming quiet.

  Fifteen minutes later, Mom’s SUV tore up the road, a cloud of dust billowing around it. Dad loaded the gun and prepared to shoot again.

  Like a scene from a movie, Mom’s car rolled to a stop. The car door closed. Her feet ground on the loose gravel, and then she stood there wearing sunglasses. Her short-cropped hair shifted in the wind.

  “Hey,” Mom said, forcing a bright tone. She didn’t take her sunglasses off. “Thanks for, uh, meeting your father and I here. I don’t have long. I have to head to work.”

  Mark emptied a fourth clip, cleared the gun, and set it down on the counter. When he turned around, his eyes had hardened into circles of steel. JJ straightened. His shirt whipped in the wind. I wanted to hide behind him. Mom shifted.

  “Just say it,” Mark said, breaking the interminable silence.

  The corners of Mom’s lips turned down. She reached for him, but he stepped back and nearly ran into me.

  “Mark, honey—”

  “Say it!”

  Dad stood several feet away from Mom, hands on his hips, looking at no one. That’s when I knew. That’s when I saw the dark shape that had been standing between all of us. They’d come to tell us the bad news—this was the end for my parents.

  I sank. Down, down, down. Into the murky depths of disbelief, where the truth waved around me like faint ripples of light from far above. All I had to do was reach out and touch it. But when I did, it shimmered away without substance.

  “Jim,” Mom said, motioning to us as a group. Her voice caught. “Why don’t you go ahead and tell them?”

  He cleared his throat.

  “No secret there’s been problems,” he said. “No reason to beat around the bush either.”

  Next to me, JJ tensed. I reached over and grabbed his hand. He squeezed my fingers. Mark’s hands tightened into fists at his side. Dad looked up, peering at us from underneath the brim of his hat.

  “We’re divorcing,” he said. “We feel it’s for the best. We love you kids. More than anything, of course. That will never change. But it’s time for Kelly and I to move forward, and we’ve realized we can’t do that together.”

  Mom showed no visible reaction. For the span of a full minute, only the wind brushed past us in the background. My hair bounced behind me, trailing in long brown strands. Dad licked his lips, his gaze on the ground. A tear trickled down Mom’s cheek and dropped onto her shirt.

  Words threatened to pour out of me, but I swallowed them back. They clogged my throat like a heavy stone. Had I been wrong to hope? Had the writing been on the wall the whole time, and I just hadn’t seen it?

  Mark’s feet shuffled against the dirt, drawing our attention. “Thanks for letting us know,” he said, his voice cold with cordiality. “But I need to go finish a few things. So do they. It’s a work day.”

  Mom reached for him again. “Mark,” she murmured, but he moved away, stepping out of her reach. He disappeared down the road, striding with a long gait. JJ pushed away from the wall, and without looking to either parent, followed Mark. Mom and Dad’s stares landed on me.

  “Meg,” Mom said. This time, she didn’t reach out. “We’re so sorry.”

  Panic welled up in me, hot and fast. Stop! I wanted to scream. Stop acting so ca
lm when everything is falling apart!

  My voice spoke, but I didn’t recognize it as my own.

  “I know.”

  Dad kicked a rock with the tip of his cowboy boot. “Has nothing to do with you.” For a brief moment, his eyes met Mom’s. They both looked away.

  “We should have waited, Jim,” Mom said under her breath. “I told you we should have waited until the end of the summer.”

  “They would have been just as upset then.”

  “Mark has a camp to run!” Mom snapped, whirling around to face him. “And now we’ve just broken his heart.”

  Dad’s nostrils flared. “He would have been more upset if we’d waited until it was final. He’s a man. He can handle bad news like a man.”

  Mom scoffed, a tinge of wild hysteria in her voice. “Right. That’s rich coming from you.”

  My head collected their words like a butterfly net. They bounced around in a whirl of confusion. Then the wind tunnel that blew through my mind obscured their voices. Spittle flew from Dad’s mouth as he countered a rebuff from Mom, who gesticulated with her hands. I covered my ears.

  “Stop!” I screamed. “Just stop!”

  The wild echoes ceased when they both turned to stare at me. Tears trickled down my cheeks, but I didn’t know when they’d gotten there.

  “Don’t you see that I’m right here?” I thumped my fist on my chest. “This isn’t just about you, you know. You’re tearing apart our family, and now you’re fighting in front of me like a bunch of twelve-year-olds.”

  Both of their faces dropped. Another tear fell down Mom’s cheek from behind her sunglasses. “Meg.” She stepped toward me. Like Mark, I retreated.

  “Dad.” I wheeled around to face him. “You ignored me when I tried to apologize and haven’t come by until now. And Mom, you’re running away to work and ignoring us. We’ve hardly seen either one of you all summer. You say it’s not about us? You’re right. Nothing is about us anymore. It’s about you and your problems and your avoidance of your problems.”

  I scrubbed the tears off my cheek with the back of my arm, sniffling.

  “I’m sorry this happened,” I said, teary. “I really am. My heart breaks for all of us. But I … I need time to think and … I’m leaving.”

  The moment I said the words, the decision cemented in my heart. Yes, I thought in relief. Home. To flight nursing.

  Mom’s eyes widened.

  “I just landed a job as a flight-nurse at West End. Nathan broke up with me the week before I flew out here. The next morning, I was laid off. I’m in debt. So badly in debt that I literally have no money in my bank account, and creditors are calling me. I have to have money by August tenth, and I just received an offer, so I’m taking the job.”

  Releasing the weights that had been pressing on my shoulders felt like flying. Why hadn’t I done this sooner? The euphoria almost erased the pain. Almost helped me forget the strangling feeling of not knowing what to say.

  Mom’s mouth worked up and down. Dad’s eyes tapered.

  “Meg, why didn’t you say something?” Mom whispered.

  Tears filled my eyes.

  “I tried. I called. I even kept your secret. But when could I have asked you for help? When was it ever about us and not the two of you?”

  Dad closed his eyes. Unable to bear it, I shuffled back. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “But I have to go.”

  With tears streaming down my face, I yanked my duffel out from underneath my cot and shoved clothes inside. If I slowed my momentum at all, I’d question everything. I had to go. The light in the cabin dimmed. JJ stood in my doorway, leaning one shoulder against the wood. He watched my panicked movements for almost a full minute before he broke the silence.

  “You’re going back?” he asked.

  “I have a job offer for a flight-nurse position,” I said. Tears blurred my vision. My lip trembled. “That’s the call I received yesterday. I’m over two thousand dollars in debt to a credit card company and have no money. The new job needs me immediately. I’m going to call my friend Rachelle, beg her to put money in my bank account, then go to the airport and change my flight to this evening.”

  His jaw tightened. JJ’s touch-oriented nature and natural compassion made him the most understanding person in our family—but also the most sensitive. Unfortunately, I had already passed the point of no return. I closed my heart off to the whispers of doubt and kept going forward.

  “Why didn’t you tell us you were having money problems?” he asked.

  I chuckled without humor, shaking my head. “Were you going to loan me the money? Adventura has you farther in debt than I am.”

  His silence responded for him.

  “Are you really leaving because of the job?” he asked. “Or is this about Mom and Dad? Mark and I are upset too. We—”

  “How can they do this, JJ?” I asked, fixated on the way my fingers were shaking. “How can they just give up on each other?”

  His shoulders slumped. “I don’t know.”

  “I can’t stay. I-I can’t.”

  Something passed between us that tied my stomach in knots. Everything seemed to shake, although nothing moved.

  The strap of the duffel bag bit into my shoulder when I jerked it off the cot and set it on the floor. I grabbed my backpack next and tossed my toiletries inside. Random belongings still littered the cabin. Old sneakers that needed to be thrown away. A half-eaten protein bar. Two mismatched socks that hung from the window ledge. I’d miss this musty, cold place.

  Once I finished, I slung the backpack over my shoulder and grabbed the duffel. “Do you remember the day we went climbing when camp first started?” JJ asked. “I told you I was worried about Mom and Dad. You lied to me, didn’t you?”

  His words sent me into a panic spiral. The edges of my nails dug into my palms. I licked my lips, my mouth dry.

  “I didn’t lie.”

  “But you didn’t tell me the truth. Isn’t that a lie?”

  The gentle, even cadence of his voice gave him away. This had been a surprise for JJ. Maybe not a total shock; he’d known something was going on. But if the betrayal and pain in his eyes meant anything, Mom and Dad hadn’t included him in any of their sordid updates.

  And neither had I.

  “JJ, I promised Mom—”

  “That you wouldn’t tell me anything? Give me a damn heads-up?” He shook his head with a bitter hiss. “You also promised that I’d always have you to rely on. That even if something bad happened with Mom and Dad, we could still be a family.”

  JJ glanced down at my bag.

  “Sure looks like it,” he said. “Doesn’t it?”

  Twenty seconds passed before I could wrestle beyond my pain well enough to speak. “JJ, I can’t stay. I’m sorry that you feel betrayed, but so do I. And you’re right. I should have told you, but I had also promised Mom I wouldn’t. And I … I didn’t want it to be real. Like a fool, I believed they’d work through it.”

  The words fell from my lips like a dying wind.

  “Mark is out on the trails,” he said, pulling in a deep breath. “He’s cleaning up the campsites, but I suspect he’s really just burning off some energy. You need to at least talk to him before you go.”

  “I can’t.” My voice caught on the words. Facing Mark would destroy my dwindling resolve. I’d see in his eyes what my departure would mean. Perhaps I already knew what would happen if the only licensed medical person left.

  “Can’t?” he asked. “Or won’t?”

  A thick lump rose in my throat.

  “Both.”

  He shook his head, his jaw tight. Tears welled up in my eyes. “I’m sorry, JJ,” I whispered. “I have to go.”

  He didn’t move as I shuffled past him and ran out the door as fast as I could, a sob blocking my throat.

  Megan: Blake, I’m in. I want the job.

  Blake: Awesome! Can you be here ASAP?

  Megan: Just got a ride to the airport and my flight switched to toda
y. I will be there tomorrow morning.

  Blake: See you then.

  Chapter 21

  It’s My Word

  The humid summer air nearly choked me when I returned home that evening.

  The moment I stepped out of the airport and into the thick heat, I missed the dry scent of evergreen. City lights dotted the landscape. Even the whir of cars whizzing by felt out of place. I’d only been at Adventura for seven weeks, but it felt like a lifetime.

  “I grabbed a pizza for dinner,” Rachelle said as she pulled into traffic. “Let’s just go to your house and … uh … sort things out.”

  I sank lower into the seat.

  “Thanks.”

  Rachelle sent uncertain glances my way the whole ride home. We didn’t speak. I didn’t want to talk about it. She must have had so many questions—why didn’t I call Lexie? Why was I back early? Why did I need to borrow money? But she asked nothing. Which was precisely why I’d called her.

  We’re divorcing. I kept hearing my dad’s voice in a loop in my head. It’s for the best.

  An hour later, the door to my townhouse squeaked open. After weeks, the air smelled musty and old. Everything remained where I’d left it, though a light layer of dust coated the house. Rachelle flipped on the lights while I dropped my bags, advancing farther into the room.

  “I should have come over and opened it up before your flight came in,” she said, her nose wrinkling.

  I waved it off. Remnants of everything I’d left behind cluttered my table and counters. An old headlamp that didn’t work. A dirty pair of jeans. My stethoscope draped over the back of a kitchen chair. I walked past it without touching it.

  “So,” Rachelle said, following me into the kitchen, tossing the pizza box on the table. She wore a pair of jeans and a Walking Dead t-shirt. “Do you want to talk about what happened?”

  “Not really.”

  “Too bad. We’re going to talk anyway.” She flipped open the pizza box and sank her teeth into a slice with a light moan. “OMG,” she groaned. “I’ve missed this. Just … don’t tell Bitsy, okay?”

  I grabbed the teakettle and pushed it under the water spout. The stream of water sputtered for a second before flowing free. Telling her about my cowardly exit—and the demise of my parents’ marriage—would force me to relive all the pain and shame. Not something I felt inclined toward. But Rachelle had lived through her parents divorcing. Another of the many reasons I’d called her instead of Lexie.