Chapter 9 Chris #3
“She died in a way that I’m having a hard time processing,” I said.
“What happen—”
Woofarine veered hard to the left after something in the grass. He caught it. And the moment went from calm to chaos in a split second.
It was a snake. A very big snake. Larissa started screaming.
I pulled the leash, but he took the snake with him.
“Woofarine! Oh my God!” Larissa yelled. “Let it go! Chris, get him!”
“I’m trying!”
He was moving so fast I had to pick him up by the harness, hoping he’d drop it. He didn’t. Woofarine dangled there, four feet off the ground, shaking the snake and snarling like a honey badger.
“Can you grab it?” she shouted while the dog whipped it violently back and forth.
“I’m not touching a snake!”
Woofarine snarled and gave it one final sonic-speed shake, then flung the snake to the ground. It was disemboweled and writhing on the black asphalt.
I stood there, still holding my dog by the harness like a six-pack of beer. He was rotating midair, covered in guts and looking proud of himself.
Larissa was staring at us, wide-eyed. She had blood splashed across her white shirt.
A guy on a bike chimed his bell, waved as he passed us, and ran over the half-dead reptile, putting it out of its misery.
It was a long moment before she said anything. “Woofarine Christopher Wright,” she whispered.
I looked at our unhinged little dog. “We’re gonna need therapy after this,” I breathed.
“Couples therapy,” she said. “We’ll get half off.”
That did it. I started laughing and so did she.
None of this was humorous. The snake was dead, we were covered in gore. The whole thing had taken less than thirty seconds and we were both in shock, but it was so fucked up it was funny.
I was wiping tears from my eyes when I finally got it together.
“The poor thing,” Larissa said, shaking her head at the snake.
She looked for a stick and pushed the limp body to the side of the trail.
I set Woofarine down and he darted for it again, but I wrapped my hand around the leash and held him back.
She looked down at herself. “Gross.”
“You have some… It’s on your cheek.”
She wiped her face with the back of her hand and recoiled at the smear.
I pulled a sanitizer wipe from my fanny pack and handed it to her.
“Woofarine Christopher Wright?” I said, watching her wipe her face.
“He’s your son.”
“You’re his mother.”
“Not today.”
I smiled.
“This isn’t doing it,” she said, dabbing uselessly at her shirt.
“Maybe we can find a stream,” I said.
We walked for another half mile before we heard the trickle of water.
We had to hike down an embankment to get to the creek.
We did the best we could to clean up. The water was freezing.
I washed the dog. He looked like a wet rat when I was done.
Then Larissa took off her shirt to rinse it while I stood with my back to her on the side of the trail.
“I’m sorry,” she said from behind me. “I can’t walk six more miles with snake brains on me. I have to get this off.” I could hear the shuffling of wet rocks as she hopscotched across the stream to the little clear pool I’d used to wash the dog. “I can’t believe this,” she mumbled.
“This would make a really good Two Truths and a Lie.”
“Ha. My dog killed a snake and covered me in innards when I was lost in the woods. I graduated high school. I met my boyfriend while I was barefoot after a Jaxon Waters concert.”
I blinked out at the field. “You never graduated high school?”
“Nope.” More splashing. “Ugh, it’s gonna be see-through until it dries,” she said.
“Do you want my shirt?” I asked over my shoulder.
“You’d give me your shirt?”
“If you need it, yeah.”
She groaned. “I might have to take you up on it. My bra is lace. I don’t want to flash anyone—Oh! I have my sweatshirt. I’ll just wear that.”
“No.” I was already peeling off my tee. “It’s too hot. We don’t even have good water, you’ll get heat stroke. Here.” I handed it over without looking. A moment later I felt her take it. I was glad my back was to her so she couldn’t see me blushing.
I was in decent shape, but my body was nothing compared to Mike’s. Why did her seeing me shirtless make me self-conscious? Maybe I’d care if it were Becca or Xavier’s wife, Samantha, too?
But I knew even as I thought it, I wouldn’t.
This feeling was something very specific to Larissa, and I didn’t know why.
I cared if she didn’t like what she saw—and then I felt so shitty about that that I wanted her to see me with my shirt off and compare my pitiful physique to her personal trainer boyfriend’s as punishment for my brain even going there.
I was simultaneously hoping she was disgusted when she looked at me and hoping that she wasn’t.
“At least it’s cold water,” she said. “Good for getting blood off.”
“It could be worse,” I said over my shoulder.
“And how is that?”
“It could have been a skunk.”
“Don’t jinx us, Christopher. This day isn’t over yet.”
I smiled out across the field of wildflowers in front of me. “You still glad we kept going instead of going back the way we came?”
“Yes,” she said from behind me. “You know what I think about a lot?” she said.
“What?”
“There was this book I read once that talked about the psychology of people in survival situations. How humans have a hard time rewriting the script in their head. Did you know in an emergency people tend to escape out the door they came in, even if it’s not the safest route, because that’s the door they know?
They’ll run right into the danger they’re trying to get out of, just because it’s familiar.
I think about that like once a day. Most people go their whole life like that, escaping out the door they know.
It actually changed the way I live my life. ”
“How’s that?” I said.
“I ask myself if I’m doing something because it’s what I’m used to, or if I’m doing it because it’s objectively the best thing to do.”
“And going the way we haven’t already gone was the objectively best thing to do?”
“Well, it was at the time.” I heard her come up behind me again. “Dressed.”
I turned to look at her. She was standing there in my T-shirt, holding hers in her hand.
“Better?” I asked.
“I’m just glad the mess was on my shirt and not my pants.”
“Can’t have you running around the park Winnie-the-Pooh style,” I said.
She laughed and held up the wet shirt. “I wrung it out, but it’s cotton. Hopefully it dries soon.”
“We should hang it off your backpack. That way it gets full sun.”
I attached it to her bag for her, making sure to spread it out.
When I was done, she turned back around. Her eyes flickered for a split second to my bare chest. She cleared her throat. “You should probably put sunblock on. I can do your back.”
“That’s okay,” I said quickly. “I’ll just do what I can reach.”
She shook her head. “You’re going to burn.”
“No, I won’t.”
She looked at me like I’d lost it, but there was no way I was letting her touch me.
Mike wouldn’t care, it wasn’t even about that. I just didn’t feel right about it. Again, I knew I should probably unpack that, but not right now.
“If we do my back, we’ll run out of sunblock and we don’t know how much longer we’ll be out here,” I lied. “Why don’t you let me wear the backpack. It’ll cover me.”
She nodded. “Okay.” She took it off and handed it over. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m good,” I said, shrugging on the pack. “So why didn’t you graduate?” I asked, trying to change the subject.
“I had to drop out in the eleventh grade so I could work because of the stuff with my dad. Are you sure you don’t want some sunblock?”
“I’m sure. You never thought about going back?”
She shrugged. “It’s not like I can afford college anyway, so what’s the point.”
“You could get student aid, student loans.”
She glanced at me. “I have to work three jobs just to afford to live, Chris. It’s not that easy.”
No. I guess it wasn’t. Sometimes I forgot how privileged I was growing up.
I’d had to work when I was in college, but I didn’t have to work to afford my school. I’d never given any thought to what it would be like if I did. Maybe I wouldn’t be a pharmacist right now. Maybe I’d be the one working three jobs.
We walked in silence for a moment. “How old are you?” I asked.
“Twenty-seven. How old are you?”
“Twenty-nine. The stuff with your dad goes back that far?” I asked.
She puffed her cheeks. “It goes back to before I was even born. He always had a problem but it got worse as I got older. He left us in a foreclosed house without a dime when I was fourteen. The car, the electricity bill, the phone bill—you name it, he didn’t pay it.
We found out we were homeless when the eviction notice from the bank was taped to the front door. ”
I stared at her. “Where is he now?”
“I do not know and I do not care.” She plucked a leaf off a bush and started rolling it in her fingers. “How was your dad? Was he nice?” she asked, smiling at me.
I laughed dryly. “He was great. Sorry.”
“Yeah, that doesn’t really surprise me. You give me I-grew-up-in-a-normal-family vibes.” She handed me the leaf. She’d rolled it into a rose.
I took it and smiled.
“I didn’t have a normal family,” I said.
“Why is that?” she asked.
“My parents were in their late forties and fifties when they had me. I was not planned. Only child.”
“Your parents were in their sixties when you were in high school?” she asked.
“Yup.”
“Wow. What was that like?”
“Lonely? All their friends’ kids were already in college by the time I was born. I don’t have any cousins. Honestly, the guys were my family growing up. I did everything with them. Especially Mike.”
“Huh. Ever think of marrying Janessa?” She gave me a playful look.
“Uh, no.”
“Why? Not your type?”
“She isn’t, actually.”
“What is your type, then?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
She rolled her eyes. “You don’t know what you like? Come on.”
I knew what I liked.
I changed the subject. “Do you want to hear my two truths and a lie?” I asked.
“No. I want to hear what you were going to tell me about your mom before Woofarine did murder on the trail.”
I scoffed.
“So your dad’s gone,” she said. “And your mom died recently. And you’re having a hard time processing it. Did you get to say goodbye to her?”
I stared out ahead of us. “I got the call and I went out there. She was living in Florida. Spent a few weeks with her while she was in hospice. I was with her when she passed.”
“Was it unexpected?”
“It was.”
“How did she die?”
I paused. “Liver failure.”
She nodded slowly. “It’s not a peaceful way to go I take it?”
“No. It isn’t.”
They were pulling liters of fluid from her abdomen. She was covered in bruises, jaundiced and in pain, and her whole body itched. I didn’t want to tell Larissa that. I didn’t want to tell anyone that. I wished I didn’t know it either.
“I’ve been dealing with nightmares,” I said. “Not really sleeping.”
“She couldn’t get a liver transplant?” she asked.
“She wasn’t a candidate.”
I dropped it after that. I guess I wasn’t ready to talk about it to the degree that I thought I was.
Thunder rolled overhead.
I looked at the sky. “Was it supposed to rain today?”
“I only checked the morning. I didn’t think we’d still be out here past lunch,” she said.
“Let’s speed up. Maybe we can outwalk it.”
We couldn’t.
It poured. Torrential, thunderous downpour. One of those freak Minnesota rainfalls that come on quick and dump on you, complete with wind and dark skies.
Woofarine was completely unaffected. He barreled on, pulling at his leash, soaking wet and plowing through puddles.
We’d been in it for ten minutes with no sign of stopping when Larissa nodded to a break in the trees. “Look!”
It was an outhouse. I had never been so happy to see a creepy dilapidated restroom in the middle of nowhere.
We ran for it and stumbled inside just as another crack of lightning broke overhead. I wrestled the door closed and locked it. We stood there, peering around the tiny room while the door rattled in the wind.
It was just as disgusting as you’d imagine.
Concrete floor with scraps of toilet paper on it, an empty roll on the dispenser, a used tampon applicator in the corner.
Flies and spiderwebs and a snakeskin. Woofarine darted for the tampon applicator and I heaved him up by his harness seconds before contact and held him against my chest while he struggled to get free.
Larissa stood there, two short feet from me, water dripping off the ends of her hair.
She slumped with her back against the wall and pulled her ponytail over her shoulder and wrung it out.
“So,” she said, watching Woofarine snap at a fly.
“You think we’ve officially trauma bonded by now or do we need to find a dead body or something? ”
“There’s probably one in that toilet.”
She burst into laughter. I laughed too.
We were soaked and sunburned. We had at least two more hours of walking, water that tasted like grape blood, no food, a homicidal dog wriggling in my arms for the chance to eat a discarded menstrual product.
The room literally smelled like shit. Even after everything that was this fucked-up, unbelievable day, all I could think was how I wouldn’t change a thing.
Not what I’d told her about Mom. Not getting lost. Not even that Mike didn’t come.
Especially that.