Page 33 of Be Not Far From Me

The fish is small and goes down easy; its tail flapping against the roof of my mouth for a brief second before it’s gone. I sit on the bank, feel it make a cold journey, still twitching, down into my stomach. It rests there for a moment as if confused, then stages a last revolt, panicked and flailing in my gut.

It’s too much for my shriveled stomach and I vomit, bending forward onto hands and knees as the fish makes its way back up my throat, accompanied by a handful of fern fronds. It breaks out from between my teeth and lands in the stream, bile-coated and shocked, but alive. I blink and it’s gone, and I’d swear the whole thing never happened in the first place if it weren’t for the scales coating my lips.

I lick them off, take a drink of cold water, and keep moving.

At camp they told us the story of Jonah and the whale, how God asked Jonah to do something (I forget what) and Jonah didn’t like it, so he got on a boat and went the opposite direction of where he was supposed to. There was a storm, the boat sank, and Jonah would have died except for a whale swallowed him, and he lived in that thing’s belly for three days, praying for deliverance, and the whale burped him back out. Then Jonah went and did the thing he was supposed to do in the first place, feeling properly chastised.

I don’t know if that fellow I ate was saying a fish version of a prayer as it flipped and flopped in my belly, but the result was the same. It came back up and maybe right now it’s going to go do something it’s supposed to do with its life, delivered from certain death. I’m contemplating whether fish have a purpose other than making more fish when I get spots in my vision and have to sit down.

I haven’t moved far from where I slept, maybe only half a mile. I’ve got creek water and bile in my stomach, but that’s about it. It sloshes as I go from sitting to lying, my head fuzzy and my eyes still far from clear.

At camp they told us that Jonah’s story was about second chances, that God wanted something out of him and Jonah went against that but had the opportunity to try again. I don’t know if I’m going to get a chance to fix things I’ve done wrong, but I know what they are now, if nothing else.

I need to tell Duke I’m sorry I broke his nose, because I am. He sure as hell deserved it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel bad about it. I used my hands to break his bones and shed his blood, and that’s as wrong as what he did with his.

I need to tell Dad I don’t mind the trailer so much, that living there with him has been the best thing in my life. He’s the only person that’s been true to me through thick and thin, and I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t exactly made it easy for him. He’s stuck it out and always made being a dad the most important thing in his life—more important than finding a girlfriend or hanging out with his buddies. He’s never left me behind, and I’m not sure I can say the same.

I need to tell Laney Uncapher that she would’ve beaten me on that cross-country course if I hadn’t busted her eye, and that she shouldn’t give up running just ’cause she’s a mom now because it’s the things you don’t do that you regret. She should know that.

I need to tell Meredith that we don’t have a damn thing in common but I love her right down to her bones and that she can put makeup on me anytime and I’ll try to hold my face right and maybe I’ll take her hiking without giving her shit every five minutes. I need to fix the things that have gone wrong between us, because when you’re Ashley Hawkins you only have so many friends and you need to put the work into keeping them.

I need to tell Kavita she’s the strongest person I’ve ever known, stronger even than me because she does it without hurting anyone. She puts up with all the comments about her skin and the boys asking what color her nipples are and she just holds her head up like they aren’t anything to her, when I’d be busting skulls. I never did bust a skull, or even open my mouth when other people threw shit at her. I just assumed she could take care of herself and didn’t want the help, same as I would. But maybe she could’ve used a word from me, and I should’ve said it.

I need to tell my momma I did need her after all, and maybe I could’ve tried harder to sit still while she brushed out my hair or let her braid it once in a while.

There’s a lot of things I need to do, but I am so tired.

Day Fourteen

I sleep for an entire day and night under a tree, at one point feeling the soft paws of a squirrel on my face, curious. I wonder if it’s the same one from the beginning of all this, and if he’s been following me all along, wanting to know how it would end.

I’m wondering about that, too.

Day Fifteen

I get back up, and it’s because of Coach.

At the end of the district championship race my sophomore year I collapsed after the finish line and couldn’t get back up. Somebody ran to get Coach, and he knelt in front of me and said, “You can’t go home unless you get on the bus, and I’m not carrying you.”

So I got up.

This might be one fucked-up 5K—and a hell of a lot longer—but the idea is the same. You aim for the finish line: that’s your goal. But beyond that, you get to go home, and you only get to do that if you’re moving.

I’m hitting a finish line today. I don’t know which one, or what home is behind it—the one with my dad in it, or the one that everyone at Camp Little Fish kept telling me about—but I’m fucking going. And it’s today.

I unsling my foot because I’ll make better time without crutching along. Davey’s sock is filthy and soaked through from an afternoon rain by midday, but it doesn’t seem to matter much anymore. I can’t remember what I own that is mine and what is Davey’s, or which one of us is who either. Maybe I am still back in that tent, and the fish and my long sleep under the tree and everything happening now is just a fever dream as I slip away, dying next to a boy I admired maybe a little too much.

Maybe it’s Davey walking through the woods now, my flesh on his bones, making his way back to a family that loved him and a future brighter than mine. Maybe I came out here to give something back and he’s going to break out of the trees and tell everyone that Ass-kicker Ashley showed up to save him, and her life is in him now and we are finally one.

“That’s fucking weird,” I say, which seems to have some effect on bringing me into the present. That, and the sharp end of a stick that pokes into the soft ridge of my good foot, bringing a bright flash of reality that snaps my mind back from where it had been roaming.

I sit and pull my foot up to see what kind of damage I’ve done to myself this time. There’s a decent scrape but no puncture. I lift the corner of my blanket and wipe the sweat from my face. I’ve been tempted to dump it once or twice, but I only own so many things at this point, and I admit to being attached to my moldy meth blanket.

I’m staring at the scrape, noticing how it’s shaped almost like the scar on my knee from where a neighbor laid down his dirt bike when I was seven and riding on the back, when I realize the rain doesn’t sound right. It’s falling in small drops, fat lazy ones like winter flies, but that’s not what has my attention. Somewhere nearby, they’re pinging off metal.

I don’t know what to expect when I follow the noise, my path crooked and shaky. I come to a break in the trees and there in the middle of the woods is an oil well. It’s the only sign of humans that I’ve seen in weeks, so I sit down and take it in.

It’s a dead thing, the head no longer rising and falling the way it was made to. Normally I’d be pissed at seeing this thing left out here to rust and bleed out into the ground. But right now it’s a slice of civilization, proof that someone, at some point, stood here. It’s got a bit of its own beauty to me for that reason, and I call it downright gorgeous when I get to its best quality.