Chapter 13 - Michelle
I woke up to the sound of the fire crackling beside me. Other than the light of the fire, it was completely dark outside, and the wind was rushing through the trees. I pulled the blanket up to cover me some more and felt a collar. I pulled it up to check and saw that the blanket was actually Brent's jacket.
"Brent?" I called out. "Where are you?"
But there was no response. Only the crackling of the fire punctuated the silence of the night and the rustling of the leaves.
I haven't gone camping in a long time. I wasn't sure this was the context I imagined for my next trip in the wilderness.
"Brent?" I called out again, but there was no answer but the wind.
I was starting to get creeped out.
And the terrible anxiety that been thankfully missing since the start of the day now returned with a vengeance.
"He didn't want you here," it said. "He ran off, just like he ran off when you were teenagers. Why did you think things would be different?"
I shook my head violently as if to throw the negative thoughts straight out of my mind so that they could be whisked away by the wind.
No, I thought to myself. Brent is a changed man. He tried to show me another part of him that I didn't really see before. And he cared for me, and tried to keep me warm in the loneliness of this forest.
"Then why did he run off again," said the voice of anxiety. "Your mother was right. She was right about men."
I shook my head again, attempting to rid myself of the thoughts once more.
It's true that my mom never had luck with men. Well, that'd be putting it lightly.
I remember coming to our home in high school and hearing the sounds of argument as I neared the front door. It was a new voice. It had always been a strange voice, coarse and uncaring.
And then I would enter my home and see her crying, begging the strange man to stay. But they never would. I never liked them anyway, but she always ended up finding someone to be with, and then hate, and then bargain with.
It was on a night just like that when I had come home, eager to get ready for Brent's graduation.
I ran inside and threw my bag down.
"What are you so excited about?" my mom had said.
"Brent's graduation," I had replied. "It's tonight."
My mom had rolled her eyes.
"What?" I had asked her.
"Nothing."
I was remembering the look of disdain as she rolled her eyes as I went into my room to find what I had set out to wear. It was a purple gown with silver buttons and gently curving open top like a Medieval stain glass pattern. I guess it had made me feel like a queen from olden times and I was waiting for the right moment to wear it. Brent was to be my king and I was his queen.
I had gone back to the door to get going but my mom was sitting in front of it.
"You're going out in that?" she had asked.
I could smell the alcohol on her breath.
"Yes," I said. "It's a special occasion fro Brent."
My mom had sighed.
"Michelle, do you think that's going to keep him?" she had asked me.
"What do you mean?"
"Do you think he's going to stay around after graduating? That dress is just going to be recorded on the photos. But that's it. He won't remember a thing."
I had furrowed my brows.
"No," I had said. "We have something."
"What are you two going after he graduates?" she had asked with hostility.
"We're going to figure it out as it comes," I had said, crossing my arms.
My mom had pointed her head up and laughed.
"Don't bother, Michelle. Don't waste your time. He's graduating, all right. But graduating from you."
I had looked at her, my eyes starting to tear up.
"Why are you saying this?" I had said.
"You don't understand men," my mom had said. "They're all like this. They use you and move on."
I had stormed out the door, the tears now fully flowing down my face.
When I was at his graduating ceremony, I couldn't help but be influenced by my mom's words. I saw Brent talking and laughing with some other girls, and I could hear my mom's voice over my shoulder: "see, I told you, he's already moved on." Only that time, I couldn't ignore her voice whispering in my ear. As much as I tried, her doubts became my own, and all I saw that evening of the graduation was the finality of all Brent and I had tried to build. The finality and its end, just as my mother's relationships so predictably ended.
***
A crack of thunder roused me from my recollection of the past and the darkness of the forest was laid out before me again, like a pit of nothingness. I didn't want to end up like my mother, as blunt as it sounds. And yet I saw myself sabotaging any chance of true love before even the buds could sprout.
That was why I had married Melvin Small. It was a safe way to play, to play by the rules she had established in my mind:
1. Don't get hurt.
2. Everyone get hurts.
3. So don't bother.
It was operating from those principles embedded deep in my subconscious that I had spent too many pointless nights with Melvin Small, too many dull moments that blended into a forgettable haze. And I had gone along with it, like a zombie, because I had no choice, that part of me had been surrendered on terms I never got to fully investigate. No, that's not what I wanted anymore. I didn't want that, at all.
I stood up from the bed and rubbed my eyes. The dull pain of my rib still followed me but it was much better now. Actually, what I was wondering about the most was where Brent was.
"Brent!" I shouted again, hearing my voice echo from the rocks behind me and dissipate into the silence.
Where did he go, I wondered. Now I was starting to worry.
I had heard all sorts of rumors about the weird stuff that would go on in forests like these. There'd be small cults composed of people who were chewed up by the entertainment industry on the West Coast and then just break down. Then they'd find themselves recruited by some abusive but charismatic leader like Charles Manson who'd get them to do their bidding.
There'd always be people like that that others looked up to, but ended up hurting others.
Thankfully Brent wasn't like that. He was a leader, but he never took advantage of people. He only pushed them to do their best and strive to achieve their goals.
But my mind returned to the fearful possibility of some deranged cult members lurking in the darkness. Or wolves. Or bears. Or who knows what.
I had to distract myself from all those thoughts, somehow. But I didn't want to venture out of the rock shelter.
That's when I saw the emergency bag Brent had left. I opened it and took a look inside.
There was a first aid kit, some toiletries, some vacuum dried food, a flashlight. But then there was a small notebook. It had an elastic seal around it which I popped over so I could hold the book open in my hands.
It was filled with messy handwriting. I reflexively smiled as I realized it was Brent's. The writing was just as messy as it had been during high school.
I remembered once a teacher had rejected his assignment because the writing was so illegible. "I don't get paid enough to decode this monstrosity," she had said, holding up several pages of what looked like indecipherable squiggles. But Brent's writing was so invariably messy, and he had to submit it again by the end of the day. That was when I ended up helping him, my writing on the other hand being as clear as an official document you would sign your life to. But as Brent read out his essay to me, I saw how brilliant his ideas were. The handwriting itself was laughable, sure, but his thoughts were clear and his analysis was incisive. "What's the point," he'd ask me, as we worked on it together, "everything is already there. You just gotta squint a bit to make it out." That's how he saw it. The whole submit the assignment to the teacher thing was just a necessary step of boredom in expressing what he wanted to express. It just slowed him down and that was something he couldn't tolerate. That's why I found it doubly surprising that he wanted to take me to watch the sunrise together. I knew he liked nature, but that's a different way of enjoying time together. Something more patient, something slower. Something with more commitment.
I leafed through the pages and saw some drawings of plants and animals. There were various numbers - temperature readings, maybe measurements from his plane and coordinates as he walked.
But then I saw a number of entries, an unmistakable journal entry in his hand. It was tough to read it, but I sat beside the fire and squinted, concentrating on every word.
"Today is the day I truly know I am alive," it began. "I was imagining talking to her of our plans together. What we wanted to accomplish and become." My heart sank as I looked up at the date of the journal entry. It was dated days before I had arrived to work here.
The terrible conclusion hit me like a punch in the chest.
It was written for someone else.
For another woman.
Not me.
The journal flinched in my hands as a tear fell off my cheek and onto its pages. I closed the book with a thump and set it down on the ground, then wrapped my arms around my knees, ignoring the pain in my rib as I bent forward to make myself as small as possible.
I shouldn't have been so dumb, I thought to myself. I shouldn't have thought any of this was really for me. I was just a guest of his. I was just one of many girls he had here. He probably takes every woman up on the plane. We were just unlucky enough to have an accident. Maybe the storm was just a sign to tell me that this was an accident. That I wasn't meant for this. That right before the dawn of something new, it would be snatched away from me. From being so foolish to ignore the signs, for ignoring what my mother had told me about long ago, so many times.
The pain from the realization was so harsh. It was like being stabbed past the real pain in my ribs, right through my heart, and then slowly dragged out to emphasize how foolish I was. It tore me up and left me bleeding.
I began crying more heavily, like I couldn't tell where the rain now sweeping into the shelter began and where my tears ended. I had to get away from here. I had nowhere to go. No one to run to. But I had to get away.
I got up and looked into the darkness of the forest.
That was all I had. That was all I was left to become. It was the only friend I had, as I closed my eyes and felt the pain envelop my body. That was it: the darkness that was abandoned when hearts turned towards each other in joy and shared in their mutual light. No, I did not have that, and I never would. "I told you so," my mom's voice whispered through the forest. "I told you so."