It was a barn raising, so to speak, but it wasn’t a barn. Eight of us worked in concert, starting from the raw materials.
Just as I’d run after Carl, I felt momentum carry me from this point on. I wasn’t sure how I’d been able to tell, but I’d somehow known that the challenge here wasn’t in making the choices, so I didn’t have to make any. I rode a cresting wave like the glimmers of light in the water did. Enthusiasm, cheer. They passed me another drink.
When I showed that I actually knew stuff, that I’d learned from my time with the old man, that I had talent.
I’d almost forgotten what that felt like. To have people praise me. Even the old man’s praise had been tempered, mild. But these guys, a few of them were drunk, and they held nothing back in telling me how amazing I was.
Even in the cool fall air, we got hot. One of the guys elbowed me, pointing for me to look – Teeth was in the water her back to me, swimming with no top on. One of the guys and Never-blinks ran to join her.
It was nice. The me of the past had found it a reprieve from weeks of hard farm work. The me of now found it a break from the hostility and grind of the Drains.
It took maybe four hours to get the chicken coop and surrounding fence up, between eight of us, though half were drunk or playing around by the time the job was done. I’d been content to work, because this sort of thing came easily to me. Putting stuff together. I had ideas about the roof, and I’d wanted the praise that came with making those ideas happen.
It was dark by the time we were done, and we were sitting on the steps of the nearest cabin. I had a beer in my hand, and it wasn’t my second, or even my third. My eyes were on the cresting waves with green-purple light marking the peaks and the foam on the sand, pitch black marking the ebbs.
Carl offered me a joint. I refused it, passing it to the girl next to me instead.
Even if I’d hopped on my bike now, it would have been two or three in the morning by the time I was back.
I’d told myself I had a job to do. Part of a job.
I’d then convinced myself it was only a job that I might get fired from if the jacket and boots weren’t sufficient. A job he’d been willing to fire me from.
Fungus-face took my hand, pulled me to my feet.
Mute, I followed as she led me to her cabin.
I couldn’t see her face in the dark. I could only feel her lips on mine, her cheek against mine as she hugged me tight. There was very little ugliness here, because there hadn’t been much holding me back then. Nothing that needed translation.
“I like the scruff,” she said.
“I’ve always hated it,” I replied, speaking for myself more than I spoke to her, convincing myself I still had some volition in the middle of this scene. “Makes me feel homeless, reminds me of this night, right here.”
She pulled off my shirt, then pulled me down on top of her.
Actors and actresses on a stage. Even I played a role here, because I couldn’t be the me of the present day in the midst of this.
The me of the past felt better than okay, for the first time in ever.
■
“Basics only,” Teeth told me. The teeth were less pronounced. Unfamiliarity and discomfort translated to ugliness, but the group was getting more familiar, more comfortable for me.
“Right,” I said.
“Only stuff we can’t get on our own. We’ve got the cow, the chickens, and the veggies.”
“Yeah,” I said.
She squeezed my arm. “You okay, Blake?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Toilet paper?”
“Yep.”
I grabbed three packs.
Teeth grabbed another three.
“That’s a little overboard,” I asked.
“I’m going to be polite and sum it up by saying girls use more than boys. Trust me on this. Better to have too much than not enough.”
“Right-o,” I said.
Pushing a cart burdened by toilet paper, I stopped in my tracks.
The old man. The farmer I’d been working for, a basket in one hand.
I’d never actually said goodbye or gone back.
The look he gave me was one of disappointment, as he reached past me for a box of sealable plastic containers. Wordless, he moved on, leaving me behind.
Yeah, I regretted that. Not making the trip by bike, not saying something to him there in the grocery store.
Even now.
God, I hated this place. I had to remind myself of that. I hated this place, because it was such a petty asshole of a place, to make me face even stupid little moments like this.
“Hey,” you said. “I’m starving. You want to grab a snack?”
She squeezed my arm again, offering me a mischievous smile. “A little something. Or we’ll get in trouble with the others. I can’t wait until we have the farm plots up and running.”
“Yeah,” I said. My eyes were on the old man’s back.
I averted my eyes.
■
Snow fell.
Of course this place expected me to go through it all.
A bit of anger fueled my strength as I brought the hatchet down.
With deft cuts, I removed branches from a tree.
In a matter of hours, this tree I’d just brought down would be firewood.
“Blake,” a male voice.
“Food?” I asked.
But when I turned, the Scalded Guy had a serious look on his face.
“What?” I asked. I slammed the hatchet into the tree, then met him halfway.
He looked a little freaked out.
“Something happened,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Who?”
“Better you hear it from her.”
Her.
Even on hearing that, I’d known.
By the time I reached Carl’s cabin, a suspicion had worked its way into my heart.
Fungus Face, sitting on the bed that doubled as a couch. The others stood at various points around the room. Ten of us, altogether.
There was only thing that would make one girl look that miserable, the other people that concerned.
“Whose is it?” I asked.
Callow, stupid, insensitive me of two years ago.