When he shifted, his leg brushed mine, and a flame of emotion snaked through me. But when I checked his face, the scowl was still there, his forehead still creased with worry.
Just go to sleep, Claire, I told myself. You have a big day ahead of you.
So I did. I made a good go of the sleeping thing. I tossed. I turned. I counted sheep until I got to 374. I tried to sleep, but I did just about everything but.
Finally, in exasperation, I got up and started walking into the trees.
My phone said it was 3 a.m., but something told me murderers didn’t typically venture out this far into the forest to find a clueless city girl to kill. Besides, if I had stayed lying there any longer without sleeping, I would’ve gone crazy.
Every one of my footsteps was loud in the quiet night. I used my phone’s flashlight to light up the path ahead of me. Its beam lit up glimpses of things: grass, shrubs, tree trunks, a frog with glinting eyes. I walked in a fairly straight line so I didn’t get lost. Blake already thought I was an idiot; I could only imagine how pleased he’d be if he had to hike out and find me. That was if he didn’t decide to just leave me to my lost fate.
I had started walking to have something to do, but I kept walking because I liked it. It was nice here; the air was cool and clear. Everything was so empty, so untouched. Being alone like this was a relief. Right now, I didn’t have to do anything but walk in a straight line and avoid getting hopelessly lost. Here, there were no expectations, nothing to do or say, no “right” way to go about doing things. The only goal was enjoyment.
I liked it here.
After a while, my legs moved of their own accord, my thoughts moving similarly. I imagined myself living here for good, alone, hunting in the forest, living off the land. Would I like it?
My flashlight beam glanced off a red bush, the first one I’d seen this entire time. I paused and stared at it, thinking of all the things I was missing being out here. It had been years since I’d been off social media for this long, and my timeline was going to be insane when I finally did make it back. And yet, this was the first time I had thought of either of those things. That was probably because I’d been fleeing for my life these past few days, but still, I couldn’t deny the relief I felt. I didn’t want to be concerned about what some girl I hated from high school was doing with her life or posting a selfie by my pool to get a few likes from women who didn’t really like me and men who wanted to date me.
No, I didn’t miss those things, and maybe, just maybe, I would like it if living here was all I had to do, if it was just me and the land. Or maybe I was just romanticizing a life I’d never lived and wouldn’t be able to. Who knew.
The wind picked up and shook the trees. Rain was in the air. I turned around, shining my phone flashlight behind me. Barely visible was the path I’d taken here, a path of beat-in grass—the one that should have been straight but instead was a circuitous slant. Clearly I hadn’t been walking in a straight line for a while now.
“Crap,” I muttered.
I set off back the way I’d come, shining my flashlight on the indentations where my shoes had hit the grass and dirt, squinting to make them out. As long as these indentations were here, I could get home. Slowly, surely, and annoyingly, but I’d be able to do it.
Mother Nature, however, clearly had other ideas.
She laughed great gusts of wind at my plan, great puffs of “ha ha” that flung my hair into my eyes and threw the grass to and fro, making it hard to make out the indentations.
And so I stumbled forth, slower still, while Mother Nature scoffed at my determined attempts. She laughed so hard that she cried big, sloppy tears that hammered down everywhere, the rain scattering the grass further, obliterating all signs of my former path. I tried running ahead to catch a glimpse of the last traces of prints as they disappeared, but soon I was back where I’d started, back where I’d paused the first time by the red bush.
I stared at the stupid, mocking thing for a minute before scrambling around, searching, searching for a sign I didn’t find, for anything. All the grass here was trembling with rain and wind and laughter—laughter at the dumb girl who had wandered off into the forest in the middle of the night, who was never seen again.
After another harried dash toward what looked to be an indentation from my foot, I slipped on the wet grass and collapsed to the ground. It turned out that what I’d thought was my foot’s indentation was actually just an imperceptible stick buried in the grass. At the sight of it, my own tears started streaming down while frustration bubbled up my throat.