Sloth (26 page)

After a moment, he tore himself away and headed toward the gap-ridden metal fence that surrounded the heart of the refining complex. Ducking through a huge, jagged hole just to the left of a rusted
NO
TRESPASSING
sign, he emerged in the land of forgotten machines. One of the burned-out buildings was missing a large piece of its wall, allowing him to step inside. He wandered past the towering tubes and smokestacks, skirted the giant husks of machines made for smashing and sifting and smelting and sorting, and tried to pretend the whole place didn’t feel like it was about to collapse.

In the middle of the refinery he stopped, turning slowly in place, soaking it in. He wanted to remember every detail. But he barely registered the rusted machinery or the blackened walls. He saw only her face.

The pain hit him, raw and scalding. He couldn’t stand to be here, surrounded by her absence. He couldn’t even think about the time they’d spent here—because when he thought of her now, all he could picture was a burning
heap of metal, a lifeless hand, a wooden cross. Someday, maybe, he’d be able to remember the way she was, not the way she ended up. And then he would want something to remember her by.

Reed knelt to the ground and grabbed the first thing he saw: a thin, curved piece of metal half buried in the ground. Half of it was rusted, but the other half was polished smooth and looked almost new. It was about three inches long and an inch wide, and curved at almost a right angle, one end flaring out into a hollow tube shape and the other rounding to form a small, silver sphere. He clenched it in his fist, enjoying the warmth.

It would make a good souvenir. He walked back to the car, hesitating for a moment before he got inside.

“Good-bye,” he said aloud, feeling like an idiot.

I’m not coming back
, he said silently, wishing he could believe he wasn’t just talking to himself. He gripped the small piece of metal tighter, and the flat end dug sharply into his palm.
But I won’t forget.

Bourquins @ 3?

Miranda hadn’t expected the text message and didn’t know what to do when it arrived. So she fell back on the default option: Obey Harper.

She hadn’t responded, but she’d shown up, arriving a few minutes early so she could grab her coffee and be sitting down if and when Harper arrived. She needn’t have bothered; Harper, as always, was late.

Harper didn’t bother to stop at the counter; she just came straight to the back corner, where Miranda had snagged a table next to the window. The heavy pink drapes
were drawn back, and a splash of sunlight fell across her lap. If they stayed long enough, they’d be able to watch the sunset; it didn’t seem likely.

Miranda waited. Harper sat down without saying anything, and for a few moments the two girls just stared at each other. Miranda refused to speak first, no matter how difficult it was to stand the silence.

“So,” Harper finally said.

Miranda decided that didn’t count, and kept her mouth shut.

After another long pause, Harper rolled her eyes. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t ... the thing with Kane, it wasn’t ...” “So what was it, then?” Harper shrugged.

“Do you want me to hate you?” Miranda asked— realizing, once the words were out there, that maybe that was exactly it.

Harper looked down at the table. “Do you?” she asked quietly.

Miranda sighed. She scraped her spoon around the bottom of her empty coffee mug, then tapped it a few times against the rim. “No. God, Harp, I love you. Don’t you get that?”

Harper didn’t look up. She drew her arms close against her body, as if for protection, though Miranda suspected she didn’t even realize she was doing it. She held her body rigidly still. She obviously wasn’t going to say anything, but Miranda remembered those boxes in the back of her closet, and decided to keep going.

“I’m your best friend,” she said simply. “I want to help. I know you don’t think I understand, and maybe I don’t,
but I get that you miss—” Miranda paused. She’d been so wary this month of saying the name by accident, dropping it into concentration and setting off some kind of emotional explosion, that it required a force of will to spit it out now. “Kaia. If I don’t understand the rest, it’s because you don’t tell me anything.”

Harper was now trembling, and still staring down at the table.

“I can do whatever you need me to do, but you have to
tell
me. Whatever you need, I’m there. But if you don’t need me . . .” Miranda took a deep breath. She didn’t want to get angry or hysterical—she just needed to get this out so that she would know she’d tried everything she could. “If you want me to stop bothering you, fine. I’ll go away. You just—I need to know what you want. Just
say
it.”

Harper finally looked up. She took a deep, shuddering breath, opened her mouth, then shut it again.

Long minutes went by, and nothing happened. Miranda shook her head in disgust. She stood up, pushed her chair in, and gave her best friend a curt wave. “See ya.”

She’d turned her back and already walked away when Harper finally spoke. “I do ... I need you.”

Miranda turned slowly but didn’t come any closer, as if Harper were a wild beast she was liable to frighten away.

“I just need some time, Rand, okay?” Harper was looking down at the table once again, her voice high and tight. “Can you just . . . wait for me?”

It wasn’t much, but Miranda suddenly felt weightless. “Sure,” she said, trying to sound like the whole thing was no big deal. “And when you’re ready—I’ll be there.”

The truck skidded to a stop a foot in front of her. Reed’s face peered out from the open window. “Get in.”

“What?” Beth’s mind wasn’t at its sharpest these days, and, given that it had been days since she’d expected—and hoped—never to see him again, the scene took a moment to process.

“Get in.” He leaned across to the passenger door and pushed it open for her. “Come on, trust me.”

Never, Beth thought, in the history of the universe, had the words “trust me” led to anything but disaster. But she didn’t have particularly far to fall.

She got in.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “About before.”

“Okay.” She waited for him to elaborate, but he was apparently done talking. Beth shrugged and turned to look out the window as the desert streamed by. They drove for a little under an hour, without conversation or music. Beth closed her eyes, listening to the steady hum of the engine and the snap, crackle, pop of rocks and sticks kicked up by the tires and clattering against the underside of the truck. She’d almost drifted off to sleep when the truck made a sharp turn, swinging off the main highway onto a narrow, bumpy dirt road that seemed to wind into an expanse of nothingness.

Beth wondered if she should be concerned—then closed her eyes again and let the bumping and rocking of the truck guide her back toward sleep.

“We’re here,” Reed suddenly said, pulling to a stop. He grabbed a couple bottles of water from the back and tossed one to Beth. “Let’s go.”

They were deep in the desert, standing at the foot of an unnaturally smooth, bright white expanse. A dry lake, Beth realized, as they hiked across—there were a few of them sprinkled across the area, but she’d only ever seen them from a car window. As they crossed the lake, it appeared on the horizon: an enormous cone, hundreds of feet high and wide, spurting out of a field of jagged, reddish-black rock.

“Salina Crater,” Reed said, as Beth’s eyes widened. “It’s prehistoric.”

They followed a gently sloping path into the crater’s center, climbing over hardened lava rolls and scrambling up a slippery trail toward the top. The afternoon sun beat down on them, and Beth gulped her water greedily, pouring a tiny trickle down the back of her neck. She shivered at the delicious touch of cold. She was breathing too hard to speak, but it didn’t matter; the breathtaking size and alien beauty of the place had stolen all her words. It felt like they’d traveled back in time and that, when they emerged at the top of the rim, they would see a panorama of roiling volcanoes and wandering dinosaurs stretched out before them.

There were no dinosaurs, but she still gasped at the view. The white lake stretched out to their left, dwarfing the tiny strip of black that marked the highway, and in the other direction, a range of low, rolling mountains dotted the horizon.

“This is amazing,” she breathed. She’d been feeling alone in the world for so long—but now, here, she actually understood what that would mean.

The rim was at least ten feet wide, and Reed sat down
toward the outer edge, gesturing for her to join him.

“I can’t believe this place,” she said quietly, not wanting to disrupt the absolute calm and stillness of the setting.

“My dad told me about it,” Reed said. He should have looked totally out of place up here, in his black, ripped punk rock T-shirt and dark, stained jeans. But somehow, he fit perfectly. “I always wanted to check it out, but just never, you know.”

“So why today?” she asked. The sun was dipping toward the horizon, and part of her worried that they should start back down so they wouldn’t have to hike in the dark. But she didn’t want to go anywhere.

“I wanted to go somewhere new.” He chewed on the edge of his thumbnail for a moment, then shook himself. “I wanted to—”

And then his lips brushed against hers, so lightly that, if she’d had her eyes closed, she might have thought she imagined it. They were soft, and tender, and then, before she knew what was happening, they were gone.

“Reed . . .” Beth covered her face with her hands and leaned toward the ground, as if she were praying. What was she supposed to do? Not this—she was certain of that. Not with him.

His hands grabbed hers and gently pried them away from her face.

“You don’t even know me,” she whispered. “You don’t know what I’ve done.”

“I don’t care.” He was still holding her hands. “Screw the past. We’re here,
now.
”

“I
want
to tell you . . .” But she knew she couldn’t.

“Don’t. Let’s just . . . be.” His lashes were so long, and
dark, like a girl’s. And in his eyes, which she’d once thought were a deep brown, she could now see flecks of blue, green, silver, even violet. He was looking at her like he could see into her—like he knew everything.

Of course he didn’t.

But maybe he really didn’t want to. Maybe they could make a fresh start, and help each other forget the past; or at least move forward.

“Your move,” he said, his lips turning up into a half smile.

She moved.

It was the kind of kiss you imagine when you’re a kid, dreaming of a fairy tale romance: soft, chaste, quick, and perfect. Beth broke away first. If she was going to do this, she was going to do it slowly.

Reed stood up and took her hand, pulling her off the ground. He led her to the edge of the rim and put his arm around her. She nestled against him, and they stood in silence, watching the sun blaze toward the horizon. The desert stretched on forever, still and silent, miles of emptiness in every direction. It seemed like civilization, and along with it, her life, her problems, and everyone else in the world were just figments of her imagination.

So it was especially strange that, for the first time in months, she felt like she wasn’t alone.

Harper huddled under her covers with the phone cradled to her chest for more than an hour before she got up her nerve to call.

He didn’t answer, and she almost hung up—but she stopped herself, just in time.

“I know I told you to leave me alone,” she said after the beep, talking quickly before she lost her nerve, “but—”

She couldn’t say it.

I need you
—it wasn’t her, no matter how true it might be.

“Just come find me when you get this. Please.”

She told him where she’d be, and hung up. Her parents, who’d thankfully given up on the nightly family bonding sessions, were downstairs watching TV and would be only too delighted to let her go out and meet a friend for “coffee,” even if it was a school night. Harper promised them she’d be home early, then hurried out to the driveway, forcing herself not to look up at Adam’s dark and empty bedroom window.