Chapter Five
HECTOR
Forget the headache. Forget the girl.
I need to focus on living and surviving. I can handle this.
It’s about a two-mile hike back to where I hid my stuff. Yesterday after I’d disembarked, I’d listened to the required boring lecture on camping before quietly disappearing down the nearest trail. The campgrounds were already deserted, but I couldn’t take the chance of being found inside one of the camping shelters. I’d found a dry, hidden ring of evergreen trees and sat there hugging my bag, twitching every time I heard a twig snap. It was only a few hours before I was starving. There was no way a fire would be a good idea, so I rummaged through my supplies before taking out one precious bag of trail mix.
God, it had been cold. When you’re hiding and not moving, your heat gets sucked away so easily. After the sunset, I’d curled up in my sleeping bag. Having been on constant alert since I ran away, my brain was fogged, begging for rest. I didn’t want to waste flashlight batteries, and it’s not like I had anything else to do. I hadn’t brought any books, and island pamphlets were shit for company. Which left me thinking. And I didn’t like what I was thinking about. So I slept.
Or at least I’d tried. I shivered all night long, because the wind forced its way into my sleeping bag. Rocks and sticks dug into my side, and my folded hands made for a crappy pillow. Now here I am. I’m dirty. I probably smell like a locker room drain. And my left shoulder aches from sleeping on the ground, but I’m alive, I think, as I walk back to camp. It’s a damn long walk, but I have all winter. I’m in no rush.
But I’m not alone.
The memory of that girl in her parka and nightgown won’t leave me. Worry seeps into my bones, but I can’t let it stop me. In the meantime, I’m starving. Again. Maybe today I should start fishing, since the food I packed is only for emergencies. I’ll also have to start exploring the rest of the island, maybe the ranger’s quarters and the camp store. There might be an ax and leftover food supplies. I’ll need to build a fire, since I have no intention of becoming a sushi lover anytime soon.
Cracks and snapping twigs echo in the forest, but they’re mostly from me. And yet I stop in my tracks constantly to do a three-sixty. I don’t see the girl, or any other animals, but I can’t shake the feeling that there are eyes on me. Through the far trees, the lake ripples with a twinkle, as if winking at me. A few gulls cry out far above, circling. Somewhere on this hunk of island, there are wolves.
I spend the rest of the time hiking back to camp gripping the hilt of my knife.
The temperatures slowly rise to the point where I’m a sweaty mess after half an hour. Soon, I recognize the clustered trees where I hid my stuff. An empty plastic bag lies on the path only a few feet away. I pick it up, shoving it into a pocket. It could come in handy. I can’t waste stuff that other campers left behind. A few steps farther, and I see more plastic on the ground. This time, it’s a Ziploc bag. It’s riddled with puncture holes, and a scattering of peanuts roll around inside.
Wait.
Oh, no.
I tear through the brush to my hidden camp and glimpse a flash of orange and black fur. A fox scurries away into the brush with a tiny yip of glee.
“No, no, no, no.”
It looks like a cherry bomb exploded in my bag. The zipper has been tugged open only a few inches, but it’s enough. My stuff is everywhere. The jerky bags have been ripped through, and some are empty. My bathroom stuff has been left alone, but the food baggies have been tossed everywhere. Oats and curly dried apples mingle in the dirt.
I howl a string of curses at myself and the fox, but mostly myself. How, how could I be so goddamned stupid? Who knew foxes could get into a bag like that?
Well, I should have known. I’d punch myself in the face if I could right now. I deserve it. Stupid fuckup.
I collapse onto the pine needles and drop my head in my hands. Panic rises in my chest, hot and acidic, and my head feels like it’s going to explode. A voice chants inside my head, but it’s not my own.
How could you be so careless, Hector?
My shoulders hunch over the pine needles. I can only make myself so small, but I try, even if there is no uncle pacing back and forth before me. I hunch over further, cringing, shaking my head, but I hear it anyway.
“How could you have lost your job? This house costs money. The food you eat costs money.”
All I want to do is go to my room, lock the door, and pretend I’m dead. That would be a relief compared to this.
My mouth is so dry, but I force the words out anyway. “Maybe we can ask Dad for more money.”
“No. No. He does enough for us already.”
I say nothing. When he gets like this, there is nothing I can say that won’t make him more furious. Even my silence fuels his anger. Though I’m almost the same height as him, he’s twice my weight. He has the same intense eyes as my dad, the same strong nose, but being half brothers, my uncle always passes for white. People who don’t know us always ask if I’m adopted. They look at my uncle like he’s a saint.
When my uncle sees the clothes hanging off my lean frame, he tells me I’d be more of a man if I didn’t have my mother’s piss-yellow blood in me. And then inevitably after his tirade, he’ll apologize. He’ll beg for me to forget all about it. I’ll find him staring at me in that greedy way that makes me want to crawl out of my skin. But he’s not at that point yet. He has more anger to spend before he gets there.
He yells and yells, and eventually, all his complaints empty out. His feet stop pacing and land in the square of rug where I’m staring. His hand rests on my shoulder.
I like it there. I hate it there.
“Look. I’m sorry.” He sighs, but I refuse to look up to see his face. “I lose it sometimes, since money’s a little tight. I don’t want to stress out your dad more than he already is. Take this.” He hands me a few bills. “Go pick us up some TV dinners and two beers. Fill out a few job applications while you’re at it.”
I nod and walk quietly to the truck, while my uncle paces the living room behind me. I take the truck and drive down the street, parking in the lot by the FoodMart. In the cupholder, there’s a crumpled pack of cigarettes with two left. A book of matches has been shoved into the cellophane wrapper.
I love the smell of a freshly lit match like I love the smell of gasoline. I could incinerate the truck, but that wouldn’t get him out of my life. I could have made him angrier and tempted him into pounding me with a golf club. But no, he’d never do that. He’s too clever for such obvious violence. He gets money from the foster agency for keeping me, even though we’re family. He’ll lose that if he hits me.
On the record, everything is my fault. I’m the one who skips school. I’m the one failing English and history. I’m the one who won’t listen to teachers, always on the cusp of throwing a punch. I’m the one who got dragged to the doctor every month for a year, because I was throwing up daily for no reason.
He never takes me to the doctor after the blackouts, though.
Every time I’ve run away, the police have just brought me back. I could go out and pick a fight, but there are quieter ways to contain my fury. So he leaves the cigarettes for me.
It’s the kindest thing he does for me, and he has no idea.
I light a cigarette and take a few deep puffs, letting the smoke curl deep inside my lungs. Maybe it’ll kill me from the inside out. I push up my left sleeve and read the scars there. Ten round burns, each one more healed than the last. Within me, the fury boils and scalds, waiting for release.
I take the cigarette from my lips, aim, and close my eyes.
My eyes snap open.
My whole body is shaking, and it’s not cold out. Inside, a craving turns itself over and over in my stomach, different from the hunger I’d felt before. There are no smoldering cigarette butts out here. It’s just me, but the compulsion to quiet my anger claws incessantly.
My hand falls automatically to the knife at my waist. I unsheathe it and watch the flickering light through the treetops reflect on the blade’s edge. My thumb tests the sharpness, gently touching it all the way to the tip without pushing hard enough to draw blood.
I roll up my left sleeve and rest the blade against the skin just above my last scar when a cry pierces the quiet.