by Erin Zak
Penn’s face falls, as do her shoulders. Julia is pleased, but her heart is still in her throat. Jail at seventeen is not a shining moment, and honestly, she hadn’t planned on telling anyone, especially Elena. But now she’s going to have to.
“Seriously, Penn, I don’t mean to sound like a bitch, but you have got to stop trying to make me look bad. All it does is make you look bad. And you already look pretty bad.”
“Don’t attempt to give me advice,” Penn mutters, hanging her head.
“I’m just trying here.”
“Yeah, trying to ruin my chances.”
“Um.” Julia lets out another laugh. “You ruined your own chances when you decided to fuck Elena over and leave with no warning. You did that.”
“You think I don’t know that? I’m trying to fix it!” Penn shouts. Her blue eyes are piercing, and she’s holding her black cowboy hat in both hands. It’s actually taking a lot for Julia to not feel bad for the woman.
“Did you love Elena?”
Penn takes a breath as if she’s going to respond but stops. She runs her hand over her face. “Y’know, your car is done. It’s been waiting down at the auto body shop for the past month. Ray told me Elijah paid for it.”
Julia stands and gathers her boots. She knows exactly what Penn means, and it makes her stomach twist. “Look,” she says, her voice calm, even though she feels like there’s electricity coursing through her veins. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I know your type. You’ll run. Your type always does. All I have to do is figure out how to make that happen.”
“Well, good luck.”
Penn places her hat back on her head, swipes two fingers over the brim, and looks out over the river. “You’re the one that’s gonna need the luck, sweetheart.”
* * *
“Do you need help with that tent?” Elena asks Julia, motioning toward the pile of polyester and poles.
“I know I might not be a cowgirl, but I certainly know how to camp.” Julia tilts her head, grabs the tent pole, and gets to work. In no time at all, the two women have the tent erected and the stakes hammered into the ground. Julia holds her hand in the air. “Awesome job!” she says, waiting for Elena to high-five her. Elena is still looking at the tent when she nods, and Julia shakes her head. “C’mon, Elena, don’t leave me hangin’!”
“You want me to high-five you? For putting up a tent?”
“Yes!”
Elena high-fives Julia. “You are a child,” she says.
Julia pulls the brim of her baseball cap down. “Yeah, but at least I’m cute.” Julia beams, her hands in the back pockets of her Wranglers. She watches Elena’s cheeks fill with pink, and it makes her heart swell. “So, now what?”
“Well, there’s the campfire.” Elena motions toward the roaring fire where the rest of the group has congregated. Cole is laughing along with Ed; Benjamin is regaling some tale to Agnes and Toni, who both seem to be enjoying whatever is being said; Elijah has his arm around Caroline, and it’s sickeningly sweet; and Scooter and the rodeo clowns are singing their own rendition of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” (it’s actually quite good, and Julia is impressed). “Which is what we’ve been doing the last three nights. Or you could come with me.”
“Where you gonna take me, Miss Bennett?” Julia asks quietly, a smile creeping to her lips.
“It’s a surprise.”
“You know,” Julia glances back at the fire and then at Elena, “I typically hate surprises.”
“I feel like you might like this one,” Elena whispers as she leans into Julia’s personal space.
* * *
“So, you want me to follow you into the dark with only a flashlight to protect us?”
“Oh, come on, don’t you trust me?” Elena has slipped a black fleece over her shirt and has a folded blanket over her arm.
Julia shakes her head. “I don’t trust anyone.”
“Come on.” Elena nods. “I know this area like the back of my hand.”
“You sure?”
“Julia, you realize that ‘trust me’ means that you actually need to do just that?”
“Fine, fine.” Julia sighs, following as Elena takes off east, blazing her own trail. She slips her hands into the front pocket of her hooded sweatshirt. They’re walking for a good ten minutes before Julia realizes she has absolutely no idea where the edge of the mountain is. “You’re not gonna march me off a cliff, are you?”
“I probably would have when you first started.” Elena chuckles, glancing over her shoulder. “But I’ve actually grown to like you since then.” She reaches back to wrap her fingers around Julia’s forearm. “I won’t let you get hurt. I promise.” She squeezes gently. “Besides, this is where I’m taking you.”
They take a few more steps, and they’re on rock instead of dirt. Julia looks out and notices that they’re almost to the edge of the mountain. The light from the small sliver of moon is enough to make it clear that Elena was not marching her off the side of a mountain but damn near close. Julia takes a deep breath and looks over at Elena. She can make out Elena’s facial features: the curve of her lips, her gorgeous jawline, her perfect cheekbones; the sight takes her breath away.
“Here,” Elena says as she snaps the blanket into the air, and Julia helps spread it out onto the rock surface. She sits promptly, reaches to grab on to Julia’s hand, and pulls her down beside her. “Now, look up.”
There are so many more stars in the night sky than Julia has ever seen, and she’s been looking at the stars her entire life. Wishing on them, wondering about them, trying her hardest to understand them, and now…Now she’s sitting next to Elena Bennett on a blanket in Colorado with no earthly idea how to handle what’s happening between them, and she’s more at peace than she ever has been. “Elena,” she says, one hand on her chest, the other pushing her hair back from her face. “I can’t…I can’t find the words.”
“That group of stars right there?” Elena points. “That’s my favorite constellation.”
“What is it called?” Julia whispers, still barely able to form a sentence.
“Pegasus,” Elena says. “Gloria used to say she was my Pegasus. And I was her muse.”
Julia can feel her chest tighten. “That’s pretty powerful,” she whispers, keeping her eyes on the sky.
“Have you ever…” Elena’s voice trails off, and the silence that follows is deafening.
“Have I ever what?”
“Loved someone like that?” Elena asks. “Like they were your everything?”
Julia finally pulls her eyes from the sky, focuses on her hands that are now folded in her lap. “No,” she replies, softly.
“Oh.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I sure thought I was in love a number of times.” Julia looks back at the sky, at Pegasus, and fights back tears—which is making her so uncomfortable. Why does she want to cry right now? “Never had someone be my everything, though.” Julia kind of hopes that Elena will say something, but when Julia looks out of the corner of her eye, it’s clear that Elena isn’t going to talk right now. “I’d like to think that I could,” Julia breathes. “But how do you keep a handle on who you are if you’ve let someone else be your everything?”
“You find who you are when you love someone like that,” Elena whispers, her voice cracking.
Another silence falls between them. It’s not awkward. It’s comfortable and reassuring, especially when Julia feels Elena lean into her and hears Elena’s deep breaths and can smell her fabric softener and her deodorant, and everything about it is intoxicating.
Elena raises her finger toward the eastern sky. “That’s a satellite,” she says. Julia follows the direction Elena is pointing and sees the light moving across the sky like a slow-moving shooting star. She pulls away a little and looks at Julia. “You ever going to tell me more about yourself?”
“I hadn’t planned on it,” Julia mumbles. “It’s not a good story.”
“I’d still like to kn
ow you. The good and the bad.”
“Well, the me you want to know and the me I really am are two different things.”
“Are they?” Elena asks. “Because I can’t believe that.”
“Elena.” Julia sighs. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”
“You can’t tell me at least one thing?”
“Why, Elena? Why? You said you wouldn’t push me, yet you always seem to. I don’t get why you want to know so badly. So you along with everyone else that has come and gone from my life can finally know that I’m a fucking screw up? That I’m a huge mess? That I’ve done some really stupid fucking shit? Because I don’t think I want you to know that.”
“We’ve all done stupid shit, dear.”
“I was in prison six years ago.” Julia looks at Elena and sees her eyes go wide. “Yeah, that face right there?” She motions to Elena’s expression. “That’s exactly why I didn’t want to tell you.”
“Look, I’m sorry,” Elena says. “It just took me by surprise.”
“Why? Because I don’t look like a convict?”
“No, Julia, come on. Don’t be like that, please. It just surprised me. That’s all.”
Julia can’t fight the tension coursing through her veins.
Elena takes a deep breath and shrugs. “You can’t let the horrible define you.”
“Oh, yeah because it’s super easy to just forget about the time I spent there. The sleepless nights, the solitude. You have no idea what the hell I went through there and in the rest of my life. And here?” Julia pauses and looks back at the sky. “Here no one knows. No one needs to know my background for me to be able to scoop horse shit into a wheelbarrow. So, why is it so important to you?”
Elena doesn’t answer right away. And even though Julia does not want to talk, the silence is killing her. All it’s going to take is a little more pushing, and Julia’s floodgates are going to fly open, and all of her past is going to come spilling out. And Elena will be the one running this time, straight for the hills and not looking back.
“Julia,” Elena says as she leans forward, crosses her legs on the blanket, and bends her head down. “Is it that out of the realm of possibility that I might actually be interested in learning more about you because I really like you? Do you honestly think I’m going to use anything you tell me against you? Because I can assure you, I will not. I don’t want to hurt you.” Elena looks back at Julia. “I want to help you.”
The insinuation that Julia needs help pisses her off. Why the hell would she need help? “Help me do what?” Her voice is laced with the irritation she’s feeling, and she hopes Elena is getting the message.
“Help you see that you’re worth it.” Elena shrugs. “Worth getting to know. Worth fighting for. Worth falling for.”
And just like that, the pissed-off feeling, the irritation, it all falls away and leaves Julia speechless. Her mouth has gone dry, her hands are aching, and she wonders if she is really in this moment or if it’s a dream.
“So, take that chip off your shoulder and try to remember that. Okay?”
Julia takes a deep breath, waits one beat, two beats, three, before she finally finds a little bit of courage to trust Elena and says, “I met my real parents right before I ran this last time.”
“Julia,” Elena says, barely above a whisper.
“And they didn’t like me.” Julia fights back the tears threatening to escape. “And this is why I don’t want to talk. Because who wants to talk about their parents not liking them?” The laugh that follows is not because it’s funny; it’s because Julia cannot handle this emotion. She has never been able to do this, to open up, to trust, to be human.
“Julia, honey, how do you know that? How could they not like you?”
“Because, Elena!” Julia shouts, and the echo it creates is eerie. She sucks in a breath and twists her hands. She knows she shouldn’t yell at Elena. But dammit, she can’t help it. “My real father said it. I heard it with my own ears. He said they didn’t want anything to do with me. And my mother sat there and didn’t say a thing. She didn’t protest it. She didn’t fight for me. I don’t know why I thought she would fight. She didn’t want me to begin with, why would she want me now?” Julia stops and looks down at her hands. She’s shaking. She’s only opened up one other time, and it turned out awful, and now that there’s a crack in her façade, she can’t stop talking. The words just keep coming. “They knew I had been in jail. That’s ultimately how they found me, and they asked what happened”—she shakes her head—“so, I told them everything. I started at the beginning, from my first foster family until the last, and laid it all out. I told them everything, Elena. How I only did what I did to survive. They’re supposed to love me unconditionally, right? Isn’t that what parents are supposed to do? Love their child no matter what?”
There’s no noise coming out of Elena. It hardly even sounds like she’s breathing. And there’s a part of Julia that feels as if maybe she should just shut the hell up. Stop talking, stop sharing, and start running again because now another family is going to disown her. But when she feels Elena’s warm hand cover hers, something that feels an awful lot like strength springs to life inside her chest, and she tells the story of Johnny and Sophia, the only foster parents she ever loved. She remembers the time when Johnny brought her a new set of markers and pens to draw with, and Sophia had taught her how to draw, and it was so much like a family that it for once felt normal. And then Johnny was killed at work at the steel mill. Sophia couldn’t take care of Julia anymore, so she had to go to a different family.
“His name was George. And her name was Franny. And he beat her all the time. She was a lovely woman with beautiful eyes, and she would always play the piano. But he was horrible. I will never feel bad about hitting him with that car.”
Elena gasps.
“Jesus, Elena. I didn’t kill him.”
“Well, what the hell happened then?”
“I tried to run away a lot, but Franny would always find me and ask me to come back. She said I helped. I don’t know if that’s really the case. It felt nice to be needed. So, I stayed. One day it got really bad, and I had enough. He had my car on lockdown, though. I ripped apart his garage to find the keys, and I came up empty, so I said, ‘fuck it’ and stole his car to run away. He came out of the house and saw me in it, so I tried to peel out. He kind of jumped in front of me, and I swerved, but I was so shaken up that I slammed into him.” When Elena seems to stifle a chuckle, Julia can’t fight the urge to laugh right along with her. “Yeah, looking back on it now, it was kind of funny. I mean, I really slammed into him. He flew up onto the hood, broke the windshield; I think it broke some of his bones.”
“Julia, my God, you weren’t kidding,” Elena still cannot contain her shocked laughter. “What did Franny do?”
“Well, she didn’t want to press charges, but George, of course, did, so…I was right on the cusp of being a kid and an adult, so George pushed and pushed until they tried me as an adult.” Julia leans back and looks up at the stars. “The judge was a total dick and believed George’s lies. So, to prison I went. Franny came to visit me in jail, though. A couple times. She was such a nice lady.”
“Julia,” Elena says softly. “Wow.”
“Yeah…”
“Let me get this straight.”
Julia glances at Elena and smiles. “Are you too shocked to comprehend it? It is a little convoluted.”
“No, I promise,” Elena says. “So, you were in jail for four years, got out, found a way to live a life on your own, and then your parents found you? What took them so long?”
Julia shrugs. “I mean, I guess I was hard to find since I was in and out of the foster system. And as soon as I got out of jail, I pretty much flew under the radar. Stayed out of trouble, of course.”
“Wow.”
Julia laughs at Elena’s response. “That’s all you have for me, eh?”
“Well, you were right. It’s a lot to put on a perso
n.” Elena nudges Julia’s side. “But I can handle it.”
“You sure?”
Elena nods. “So, your parents?”
“What about them?”
“They didn’t even give you a chance, did they?”
Julia rubs her hands over her face. There is still a fine layer of dust covering her skin, so all it does is make her feel even uglier and more like an outcast. “They didn’t want to even try,” Julia whispers. “So, instead of dealing with my own feelings of rejection, I packed up my car, and I ran from everything again.”
“Now I know why you don’t want to talk about it.” Elena takes a breath, runs her hand down Julia’s back, and then back up it. Her voice is so caring and wonderful that it makes Julia’s heart hurt.
“I’m so messed up. I run. I never want to stay because I’m a fucking wreck.”
“You’re not old enough to be a fucking wreck,” Elena says. She runs her hand up and down Julia’s arm, then reaches up to her face, cupping her cheek and slowly urging Julia to look at her. She lightly brushes her thumb across Julia’s bottom lip. “You can stop running now,” she whispers.
And Julia’s only response is to lean forward and capture Elena’s lips, kissing her as if she is her lifeline, tethering her to this place that has started to feel an awful lot like home.
* * *
When they get back to the camp, the fire is still roaring, as are the men plus Toni and Penn, who are settled next to Benjamin, and Penn is saying something to Toni that is making her laugh. Benjamin is annoyed, clearly, but what the hell is Penn doing? Doesn’t she know that Toni is off-limits? Julia nudges Elena. “What the hell is going on there?” she whispers as they approach the fire.
“That’s Penn being Penn. Trying to make me jealous.”
“Is it working?” Julia asks.
Elena looks at Julia, her perfect eyebrows raised. “You’re joking, right?”
“I’m just asking.”
“Stop, please,” Elena says. “You have nothing to worry about.”
“Where have you two been?” Elijah asks, his eyes shifting from Elena to Julia and then back to Elena. “Did you take her to the looking point?”
