the dried crimson looked so bleak against the white of the fabric. I ran my fingers over the small dots then touched the back of my head where water still freely dripped. It occurred to me that I should be very grateful to be alive, but I couldn’t help but be mad at myself. Why hadn’t I just kept walking when I heard those gunshots?
A knock on the doors startled me from my stupor.
“Okay in there?” Charlie called.
“Um…yeah, fine,” I croaked.
I opened the door and there he was, bouncing from foot to foot. I saw the end of a cigarette on the floor and the beginning of a second in his mouth.
“Better?” he asked.
“Yeah…thank you.”
He nodded and smiled at me, a gesture that made my heart beat faster than I wanted it to. I had to distract myself.
“You shouldn’t smoke so much.” I shook some of the water from my hair.
“You shouldn’t wander ‘round truck stops at night.”
I glared at him and tried to look mad but instead wrung my hair out and flung some of the water out in his direction. “Touché, sir.”
I followed him back to the cabin and tried to remember my way. Luckily, we didn’t come into contact with anyone, although Charlie said that midday and midnight were some of the busiest times, so they were probably the safest times for me to be wandering around. Still, around every bend he insisted I stay behind him and he took the extra precaution of looking both ways to make sure there was no one coming when we crossed the stairways.
Once inside the cabin, my eyes had to readjust to the pale light. In the hallway everything was lit by fluorescent bulbs, but Charlie’s cabin only offered the stale lighting of the lamp. It made me feel cramped and confined. I stretched my arm to the wall and tried to picture a window there but my mind couldn’t manage it.
When I turned and saw him sitting on the bed next to his stack of papers, he seemed more relaxed than I had ever known him to be. He had a notebook on his lap and a pencil in his hand, furiously working away at the paper, doing something I couldn’t see. Every few seconds he looked up at me.
I stared back.
“Huh?”
“What are you doing?”
“Nothin’, just hold still for a minute.”
“If you’re doing nothing, then why do I need to hold still?”
He responded by scratching the tip of his nose and rotating his wrist. When I looked back at his face he had smudges of lead on his nose and chin.
“What are you laughin’ for?” he asked when I started to giggle.
I covered my mouth. “Nothing.”
I quickly grew impatient and ambushed the notebook, which he tried to keep away from me.
“You had better not be doing what I think you’re doing.”
“No! It ain’t finished yet!”
I sat next to him on the bed and settled for wiping the lead from his nose, an act that unsettled us both. He watched me with wide eyes that threatened to unhinge the frame of me—in this light he looked kind; his irises were now a soft cerulean.
“Thanks.”
“You looked ridiculous.”
“I’ve heard that ‘afore.”
We both laughed.
“You’re movin’ your mouth too much.”
I almost choked. “Excuse me?”
“You can’t talk if I’m sketching ya. It messes it up.”
I smiled. “I thought you said you weren’t doing anything.”
“Just stay still for five minutes, will ya?”
It was really much longer than five minutes, but I was desperate for a distraction. I focused all my energy on remaining as motionless as I possibly could, trying to pretend I was a statue or one of those ugly ceramic figurines Mom used to buy from yard sales. It was better than thinking of Robbie and if he would still deploy on time. Would the few acquaintances and professors I knew from school care that I was missing? Would Dad tell Aunt Maggie? Or would he avoid it, knowing it would probably only deteriorate her health? I wanted to laugh—it was probably the only time in my life that it was good to have so few people that cared about me.
“Are you done yet?”
“Almost.” His brow was furrowed and his back was hunched. He bit his lip with such concentration I thought he might bite a hole through it. As he worked, I thought about the other sketches of me. Though I wanted to ask him about them, I still didn’t feel comfortable about it. I resolved to put it off until later, telling