Far From You

34

TEN MONTHS AGO (SIXTEEN YEARS OLD)

“We’re lost,” I insist.

“No, we’re not.” Mina navigates Trev’s truck down the dirt utility road we’ve been on for the past thirty minutes. It’s dark outside, and the Ford’s brights cut through the forest as we rock back and forth on the rough road. “Amber said off Route 3, down the second road to the right.”

“We’re totally lost,” I say. “No way there’s a campground out this far. There’s nothing here but trees and deer.”

Mina sighs. “Okay,” she says. “I’ll turn around. Maybe we missed a turnoff or something.”

The trees are too thick to get a signal, so I can’t call Amber to tell her why Mina and I are so late to join her and Adam at the campground. Mina backs the truck up slowly—the road we’re on is cut out of the mountain, hugging a cliff that’s so steep, I can’t see the bottom in the darkness. The wheels skirt close to the slope and Mina bites her lip in concentration, her knuckles white against the wheel. After a few false starts, she finally gets us turned around, but we only get a half a mile before a thunka-dunk, thunka-dunk reverberates through the cab, and the ride gets even bumpier.

“Crap.” Mina slows to a stop. “I think we have a flat.”

I grab the flashlight from the glove box and follow her out of the truck, shining the beam on the tire.

Mina frowns. “Do you know how to change it?”

I shake my head and look down the road. It’s at least three miles back to the highway. I rub absently at my leg, thinking about how much it’s gonna hurt, walking that far.

Mina pulls her phone out and stomps around, trying to get a signal. I don’t tell her it’s useless, because she’s got that determined look on her face and she keeps throwing glances at my leg, like she knows the hurt I’m anticipating. I lean against a big piece of slate that’s embedded in the mountain looming over us like a gray giant, and wait for her to admit defeat. It’s August, but it’s still cool at night, and I like the little shiver that goes down my back, the prickle of goose bumps over my skin. It’s nice being out here in the forest; loud in its own way, the rustle and cracks in the undergrowth—hopefully a deer instead of a bear—the groan of the branches in the wind punctuated by the steady crunch of Mina’s boots against the road. I close my eyes and let the sounds fill me.

“You don’t have any signal?” Mina asks hopefully after about five minutes of walking back and forth, waving her phone around.

“Nope. We should start walking,” I say. “It’s not like we’re blocking a main road. We’ll get Trev to come change the tire in the morning.”

“Don’t be stupid. I can’t make you walk that far. I’ll go get help and come back for you.”

“I’m being stupid? You’re the one who failed the wilderness skills part of Girl Scouts. You’ll probably get eaten by a bear. You go, I go.”

“It’s a road. I can’t get lost following a road. And anyway, you couldn’t walk that far,” she says.

“Sure I can.”

“No way,” she says, her mouth set mulishly.

“You can’t tell me what to do. I’m coming.”

“No!” Mina says.

“Yes,” I say, starting to get annoyed. “What is up with you? Stop treating me like I’m—”

“Weak?” she finishes for me. “Disabled? Hurt?” Her voice rises with each word, trembling and high-pitched, like they’ve been stuck in her forever, now finally free.

I jerk back from her, like she’s hit me instead of just telling the truth. Even though she’s standing ten feet away, I need more distance from her. I stumble, achingly aware of my clumsiness in that moment. “What the hell, Mina?”

But I’ve inadvertently unleashed something in her, and she keeps talking, the words spilling out in the night. “If you walk that far, you’ll use it as an excuse to take more of those stupid pills. And then you’re gonna be all dopey and zoned out, like you always are lately. I know you’re in pain, Soph; I know that. But I also know you. You’re hurting yourself, and either no one else has noticed or they’re not saying it. So I guess I’m going to say it. You need to stop. Before it becomes a problem.”

Panic and relief twine inside me. Panic, because she knows, and relief, because she doesn’t realize how bad it is. She thinks I’m still at the edge of the hole, ready to throw myself off, instead of in it so deep that I can barely see her at the top.

There’s still time to fix this.

To lie my way out.

I don’t even think about taking her seriously, because I’m fine. I’ve got it under control, and it’s none of her business.

It’s partly her fault.

“Please, Sophie, I need you to hear me,” she says. Her eyes are wide and concerned in the glare of the headlights, and I stifle a wild urge to tell her, for a second, about how far I’ve gone, what I’ve done, what I’ve become.

But then the love she has for me—whatever kind that is—will be gone. I know it. How could she love me when I’m like this?

“You’re right,” I say. “I’ll talk to my doctors about it, okay?”

“You will?” she asks, and she seems so small. She’s tiny, of course, but right now she sounds it. “Really?”

“Really,” I say, my stomach turning at the lie. I tell myself I will ask them, that I’ll do it for her.

But deep down, I know I won’t.

I can’t.

She gallops back to hug me. The scent of vanilla floods me, the smell of damp and green from the forest mingling with it to make the best perfume. Her hands are warm, looped around my waist, her face pressed into my neck as she breathes, the relief pouring off her.

She heads off into the night with a flashlight and a water bottle, and I stay obediently in the truck like a good girl.

I wait until she’s out of sight before fishing out the container of pills in my bag.

I shake out four and swallow them dry.