The Map to You

by Lindy Zart

  Each time I tell him something I’ve never done, he looks shocked, but also kind of sad for me, and I don’t want that. I know my experiences are lacking—I don’t want Blake to know I’ve never even been on a four-wheeler before. When Blake thinks of me in weeks, and years to come, I want him to only remember good things. Fun things. Happy things. Like I will when I think of him.

  “Do we need helmets?” I ask, touching the dusty seat of the ATV.

  Blake laughs and shakes his head. “No. Let me get it out and I’ll take you for a ride. We can see more of the land that way.”

  The thought of traveling the countryside via four-wheeler spins my pulse with excitement. I trot from the shed and jump to the side of it, breathing in the fresh air, taking in the blue skies as I wait. I love where I am. I couldn’t ask to be anywhere better. There isn’t a single comparable place. I hear the engine pop, stutter, and chug to life, picking up strength as it warms up. The four-wheeler roars in reverse from the shed, bringing dust and Blake with it. I hop up and down, shaking with eagerness.

  Blake looks up, the sun catching his grin, and my stomach shoots from side to side. His eyes glow with the promise of mayhem. “Ready for some fun?”

  With a little squeal, I clamber up behind him. And then I hug his legs with mine, and Blake freezes, and things get awkward. Fast. “Um…so. Where do I put my feet?”

  “Foot pegs,” he says faintly. “Behind mine.”

  “Oh.” I drop my feet to the narrow metal slabs below, feeling my skin heat up.

  He glances over his shoulder. “Have you not—”

  “I so have,” I interrupt. “So many times I’ve forgotten how.”

  Facing forward, Blake nods. “Put your arms around my waist,” he instructs, and I happily oblige.

  He pushes on the throttle, and with me whooping, we speed along the terrain. Blake’s laughter waves over the wind when I cry out and reflexively tighten my grip on him as we hit a small ditch. The ride is bumpy and noisy, and the wind rushes at my face, blowing hair in my eyes and mouth. A few times I think I’m going to fall off the back of it. But I hang on, my heart racing, and I have a grin so wide stamped to my face that it actually begins to hurt after a while. Up and up we go, passing trees and narrowly missing others. We’re in a forest of sorts, and it’s magical.

  Blake navigates the ATV to flat land and kills the engine.

  My legs feel unusually stretched and sore, and I sort of slide from the side of the four-wheeler, aware that Blake is silently amused by my actions. My knees buckle and I straighten them, wobbly on my feet. I turn toward the sound of water, slamming into something warm and good smelling. Blake. His hands scald my skin where they rest upon my hips, and as if he too is burned by the touch, he hastily drops them and takes a step back. I pretend not to notice. Maybe he’s working on replacing the walls he took down, just like I should be.

  Which one of us is smarter, I wonder. The one who decides to keep the walls down, or the one who thinks they need them back up?

  “It’s beautiful here,” I state without looking at him. I pretend my hair isn’t a snarled helmet on the top of my head, and that I’m not covered in a layer of sweat.

  “It makes you want to stay, doesn’t it?”

  My gaze flies to his, seeing a flash of understanding in the darkness of his features. Blake leans one shoulder against a nearby tree, his arms crossed. His black hair is rumpled from the ride, and my body warms at the image of my fingers running through it. The My Little Pony T-shit shirt gives him an abnormally masculine vibe and the straight-legged jeans make his legs seem endless. He is the essence of what a man who belongs in the wild looks like. I stare at his hard mouth, imagining it softened with need in the throes of a passionate kiss. Remembering it as exactly that less than two hours ago.

  “It’s peaceful here, enough to make everything in life seem simple, conquerable,” he continues, rubbing the side of his jaw. “It’s an illusion, but it’s a nice one.”

  “I like illusions. Reality is boring.”

  Blake’s eyes lock on mine. “But isn’t this reality too?”

  My breaths come faster, and I look down from his probing gaze. He’s asking about us, and what this is. What it will become, if anything. It’s a reality that will soon become an illusion. A memory that will change over time, and fade, and become different from the truth.

  Heaviness fills me, and I fight it. I straighten my spine, and put a smile on my face. “Reality, illusion, whatever. It’s been fun, Blake. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  His gaze doesn’t waver, and I know he’s about to call my bluff. “That’s odd, because I thought we had a moment that first night when we were outside—you know, when you decided to take a nap in my truck.”

  “Oh? Tell me about it,” I encourage silkily. That night was twenty emotions ago. Fifty confessions ago.

  “I’ll tell you all about it, Opal.” His promise is deep and low, sending shivers down my spine.

  He’s mocking me, but it’s dipped in playfulness. I mimic his stance against the tree, satisfaction unfurling and weaving through me when his eyes narrow. The bark is rough and pricks the skin it touches. He angles his body toward me. I do the same, nothing but the smallest of spaces dividing us. Whispers scream in the silence surrounding us, shout that this is dangerous, that I shouldn’t antagonize an unpredictable beast. I ignore them, ignore the sensible part of me that says to not give in to how Blake makes me feel.

  I love how Blake makes me feel.

  “The birds were chirping—”

  “Those were bats,” I cut in with a wink.

  He gives me a look and continues. “The sunset was beautiful, the sky alive in colors of red and pink and purple.”

  “It was black out,” I correct.

  “A warm breeze—”

  “We were both shivering. Anything else?”

  The corners of Blake’s mouth move up, and just as suddenly, go back to their flat line.

  “Actually, you’re right. We did have a moment,” I state, tucking hair behind my ears. It sprouts back to where it wants to be.

  “Enlighten me.” Blake’s voice is menace wrapped up in a purr.

  “It was that instant when you were near the truck door, and you looked at me, and…I’ll remember it always. It was…poetic.” I smile, imitating the candor of his tone.

  He blinks, his mouth turning down.

  “You looked right at me, and…you said—and I can’t explain the sheer beauty, the unparalleled poignancy, of your words—you said…get out of my truck.” I close my eyes and inhale with a look of bliss on my face, opening them to watch emotion trickle away from the sharply cut features before me.

  The mask falls away for the briefest of instances, like a window blind allowing light into a dark room only to close, leaving the blackness to grow in its absence. Blake’s jaw shifts forward and the stillness encasing him in ice alludes to the havoc thrumming, unknown and unseen, through his taut body.

  “You’re going to miss me, aren’t you?” I say. “Life will be so much duller with me gone. You’ll have to talk to yourself and answer in my place, just to have any kind of joy.” I bite back a smile at Blake’s glare. I touch the roughness of his jaw, wanting to kiss the frown from his lips. He’s going to miss me, and I’m going to miss him.

  Shutters snap over his eyes, neither denying nor affirming it.

  “It’s okay. You’ll tell me when you’re ready. But I want you to know that you don’t have to hide it.” I lean closer, my head at level with his collarbone. I lift my eyes to his and say softly, “It doesn’t have to be one of your secrets.”

  Somberness takes over his face. “There’s a reason for the secrecy, for why I hide. I’ve done shitty things. I’m not exactly a good person.”

  “Well, you’re not a bad person.”

  “Really?” Blake holds my
gaze. “Did you not listen to anything I told you about my past?”

  I shake my head and sigh. I’ve screwed up—a lot. I don’t dwell on every mistake I’ve made. Instead, I try to not make them again. “Bad choices don’t make you a bad person. As far as I’ve seen so far, you’re a pretty decent person.”

  “Oh, yeah? And how did you come to that conclusion?”

  “Feeling vain, are you? You need me to list every good deed you’ve done since I met you?”

  Blake shifts his jaw and rolls his shoulders, turning his face from my view.

  “Stop thinking about the crap you’ve done in the past and start focusing on what you can do in the future.” I touch his bicep, feel the muscles bunch, and then I flick his ear, just because.

  Blake turns to scowl at me, and I kiss the scowl from his face. He pulls away to tell me, “You’re nuts, you know that?”

  Grinning, I shrug. “Life is pretty mundane without a little chaos.”

  His throat bobs up and down as he swallows. And then with movements so fast I don’t see them, I’m in Blake’s arms, and he’s kissing me as he walks. I kiss him back, hungrily—inconsolable with the knowledge that soon my lips will no longer know the feel of his. Before I can make a move or sound in protestation, I’m sitting in a creek with Blake beside me, and he’s laughing at the look on my face as cold water hits me.

  I splash water at his face.

  Blinking, Blake shakes water droplets from his eyes. And then he smolders them at me, like he has been known to do. “You’re asking for it, Opal.”

  “Oh?” I splash more water at him. “Asking for what, Blake?”

  He puts his face inches from mine, and I get lost in the swirling gray depths of his eyes. “A little of my chaos.”

  “Just a little?” I ask, my voice like a whisper of air.

  Blake turns his head the slightest amount and puts his mouth beside mine. “Or a lot.”

  And we’re back to kissing, and other things.

  * * *

  Opal

  We spend the day walking around the land, Blake telling me stories and memories as we traipse across the immediate countryside.

  At one point, he holds my hand.

  He tells me how his grandfather got the pond dug out with the intention of it being a swimming hole for the kids staying at the future shelter, but that was as far as he got before he passed.

  I tell him about the time when I was thirteen that I was bet to eat a cup of honey mustard for ten dollars. I ate it, and got my ten dollars. I also got a stomachache.

  Another time, he puts an arm around my shoulders and pulls me to his side.

  Blake tells me he personally finished the pond a handful of years ago. He tells me of all the many dreams his grandfather had, and how a lot of them died with him.

  I tell him that dreams don’t die, even if the people who have them do. And then I go on to tell him about a dream of mine I used to have where Freddy Krueger was my dad.

  He laughs. He laughs so much, and I realize as I listen to the deep roughness of it, that I want to hear him laugh all the time.

  Blake tells me all kinds of things about his grandfather, and nothing about himself. Even so, I learn a lot about Blake, just by paying attention to the way he talks about his Grandpa John.

  And when he gets quiet and sad, I hug him, and then I make him laugh again. I’m not sure what I say or do that is so funny. I don’t even have to try to be funny, and he laughs. I like that.

  He loved his grandfather fiercely. He loved him the way everyone should be loved.

  I would like to be loved that fiercely.

  By the time Blake puts away the four-wheeler and we go inside to eat and wash up, my skin is crispy, and I’m tired. My muscles ache, and there is a blister from my boots on the back of my left ankle. Once I’m stable enough in work and home, I’m going to need to invest in some tennis shoes. But that’s an undistinguished plan with no immediate way to be established. And I can’t really picture myself content anywhere, working some aimless job.

  Drawing has always been my passion. I just don’t know how to make a career out of it, or if I can. Or if I’d succeed. I tell myself not to let fear override my dream, and it helps. What is fear if you don’t give in to it? Nothing. It has no power unless you feed it.

  In the first floor bathroom, I watch Blake run fingers through hair damp from a recent shower, my eyes dropping to his bare back and the black boxer briefs covering some of my favorite parts to leer at.

  “If you want me naked again, just tell me,” he says as he faces me.

  I strive for a casual pose as I roll my eyes and bang my elbow against the wall. Swallowing back a curse word, I tell him, “You wish.”

  Blake winks. “I don’t have to wish.”

  “Get out. I’m taking a bath,” I command, pointing to the doorway. I’ve been aching for a bath for days, and I’m determined to have one before I leave here.

  His eyes rake over my frame. “Need me to wash your back?”

  When I don’t answer, Blake shrugs and leaves.

  I quickly set about filling up the claw foot tub with steaming hot water. I pour a good amount of manly smelling shampoo into the tub and watch the suds grow. And then, with a happy sigh, I immerse myself in it, not even caring how the heat makes my skin sting. I’ll gladly take it, to feel this content. Blowing at bubbles, I make a path between them with my breath before dunking myself and popping back up. I close my eyes and sink deeper down into the rub, the water gently lapping against my chin.

  The relaxed atmosphere lasts all of three minutes.

  A black, whiskered face and paws pop up over the tub ledge and I scream, unintentionally splashing water onto the animal. Teeth flash at me as the cat shows its discontent before ducking away from any further water attacks. Heart pounding, I look at the door I forgot to close and then peer at the floor near the sink where the cat is. It has to be the unfriendly cat from the other night—the one who sent me a death wish with its eyes while I swam in the pond.

  “Blake?” I call, my eyes locked on the feline.

  The cat glares up at me with yellow eyes. It meows, the sound deep and growly. So far, it appears to be an anti-social, possibly rabid, cat.

  “It’s not like I invited you in here,” I grumble.

  A growl is its response.

  “Yeah?” Blake replies from somewhere in the house.

  “Do you have a cat you forget to tell me about?”

  The cat meows again, letting me know it is not okay with me talking.

  “What?” he barks in a voice that sounds much closer than it did a second ago.

  “A cat!” My voice is high and strangled. I like cats, but this one doesn’t seem to like me. “There’s a cat in here!”

  “What the hell?”

  Something flies through the air and plops into the water with me. I catapult upright with a shriek and fall over the tub ledge and onto the floor in my haste to get away from whatever it is. Wincing at the feeling of hipbone and elbow smacking into hard tile, I lie still in a puddle of bathwater as I catch my breath. Was it a mouse, a bat, what? I flip wet hair from my eyes and look into yellow ones. The cat looks bored, but it’s clearly covering up its evil deed. I swear the lips around its teeth lift up in a nasty grin.

  “What kind of a cat are you? You’re satanic,” I tell it.

  The cat yawns and licks a paw.

  Tiny bumps of cold raise my flesh as I slowly get to my feet, and I look around the room for a towel. There’s one hanging over the door, all the way across the room. I have to pass the cat to get to it. I don’t especially want to do that.

  “Blake, where are you?” I demand loudly, frustration darkening my tone.

  Arms wrapped around my upper half, I gingerly make my way to the tub and peer down. Floating on top of the water is a m
isshapen brown thing. I lean closer, toes inching forward in the pool of water I’m standing in. Taking a bottle of shampoo from a nearby shelf, I poke at it a few times. It sinks down and pops back up, causing me to jump.

  “Don’t be a baby,” I tell myself.

  The black cat agrees.

  I glare at the cat sitting by my feet, its tail lazily flicking at my legs. “What did you throw in the bathtub, and why? Is Blake yours? Is that it? If it comes to a fight over him, you can have him.”

  When I get no response, I turn back to the tub.

  “What is it?” I wonder. My calves get nudged by a furry head and I tense up, wondering if I’m about to get attacked. “Stop it.”

  A foamy layer of suds has blurred the object more. It can’t be a living thing. There was no sound, no struggle. The trepidation I first felt has turned into exasperation—namely aimed at me. I square my shoulders. “Okay. This has gone on long enough. It’s obvious Blake is not going to come to your rescue, so just take care of it already and find out what’s in the tub.”

  Cringe in place, I lean down in slow motion. My hand is outstretched, toes solidly planted on a slippery floor. And then my feet begin to move apart. I look down, watching my legs get farther away from one another. It gets to the point where I fear I may do the splits, or worse, move the wrong way and knock myself out on the tub ledge.

  “Opal? What are you doing?”

  Panic sets in, obliterating the knowledge that Blake is near. Arms pin wheeling, I fight to stay upright when it’s clear I am meant to fall. The catalyst of the moment is when the devil cat rams its head into the backs of my legs, just hard enough to send me to my inevitable uncoordinated landing.

  Hands grab me, fumble with the slipperiness of my skin, and eventually manage to halt my descent. Blake holds me like he just dipped me during some strange dance. Straightening us, he says, “If you really wanted your back washed, all you had to do was say so. You didn’t have to call in a stray cat to get me in here.”