When we get back, you go straight to bed. You sleep through my packing, adding your own soundtrack of wheezy, poisonous breaths. Lark brings a wheelbarrow, and we carry all my stuff around the lake. You get to keep the trailer, and I’m stuck in the half-built yurt at the end of the trail where, until now, your mother was carrying on her affair with Marshall.
When we get there, I can’t help but look for signs. I feel a sick compulsion to find something, anything—messed-up sheets, stray hairs, a condom wrapper. But it’s spotless. They removed all evidence they were ever here. There’s just a folded cot against the wall, a rickety dresser, a little table and chair, some hooks on the wall. The only sign of life is a small crystal hanging in front of the window, spreading rainbow polka dots of afternoon sun through the room like a disco ball.
“It’s not as nice as the trailer, I know,” Lark says. “But better this than getting what Sadie has, right?” I nod. “I’ll go get you some sheets and blankets and a lantern. The cot’s really comfy, actually.” She doesn’t mention how she knows that.
Lark leaves me to my new house, and I put my clothes away in the dresser, set up the cot by the window, wipe it down with a wet cloth, doing everything I can to push the thought of bodily fluids from my mind. The two small windows have thin screens stapled across them, with no glass or shutters or curtains. The walls are an octagon of naked beams and particleboard. There is no electricity. The canvas roof is missing, with only rafters and tarps keeping the elements out. A porch hasn’t been built yet, and there’s just a wobbly crate as a step. The only shade is inside the yurt, but it’s so stuffy it’s no relief. This is a skeleton of a home.
I look across the lake at what used to my home with you. It is so strange to see it from this perspective, surreal almost, like I am living in a mirror. I look to the right and see Dylan’s small cabin, with nothing outside but a chair on the porch and some empty beer bottles. Everyone is gone, out in the fields or doing other chores. It feels like a ghost town. And I am the ghost.
I sit in the doorway with my feet on the crate, trying not to feel sorry for myself. But I don’t know what else to feel. I suddenly feel so lonely, like whatever anchor was keeping me connected to the earth has come loose, and now I’m floating away, but nobody even knows I’m gone. Home isn’t here, not in this half-built tent, not in this place full of friendly strangers. Home isn’t even in Seattle, not at my parents’ house, not in that place full of unsaid things. I wonder if it’d be different if this isolation were what I was raised to be used to. Like you, who has felt like an alien in your family since the day you were born, who’s never felt like you were at home anywhere. Maybe you’re the lucky one for not having expectations.
When we were kids, you always said you were jealous of my family. You’d stay over at my house as much as you could. We’d fantasize about my parents adopting you, of us being sisters, of you never having to see your dad and step-mom and half brother again. But that all stopped last year. Suddenly your house became the better place to stay.
With you around, I don’t have to think about these things. But without you here taking up space, without your voice and your needs and your big dramatic feelings, all that’s left is me. Everything around me is quiet. The only things to hear are the thoughts inside my own head.
So I take a nap. I lay out a towel and stretch out on the cot and try not to think about what else has happened on it. I trust sleep to silence me for a little while.
I wake to the dinner bell ringing in the distance. I feel sticky, and for a moment I don’t know where I am. “Sadie?” I say, but you are not there.
At dinner, I sit with Beverly and Simon and their seven-year-old son, Micah. I have never met such a well-behaved kid in my life. He sits there, calmly eating his food, listening to us talk as if he’s actually interested. During a lull in the conversation, he announces, “I love kale!” and I can’t help but laugh my amazement. They tell me how they met in college in Colorado and ran a vegetarian restaurant for a few years before coming here. We don’t talk about much of importance, but it’s nice to have a conversation without some kind of drama attached to it. I realize that it’s the first real conversation I’ve had with anyone besides you since we got here, not counting that awkward exchange with Lark at the clinic. I look around the patio and realize I haven’t really talked to any of these people yet; I don’t even know most of their names, even though we’ve already been here well over a week. Up until now, you have required all of my attention. We’ve worked by ourselves in the fields rather than join the others. We’ve stayed isolated on our remote edge of the lake. The only social contact we’ve had is at mealtimes, and even then you always choose the least crowded table, and we always leave as soon as Doff announces the next day’s assignments. All this time, we’ve been surrounded by all these nice people, and we know none of them.
I want to stay. I want to play board games and try Ezra’s homebrewed beer with the others after dinner. But I make you a plate and fill a thermos with tea. I rush off without saying goodbye.
“Hey, Max!” I hear someone yell after me. I turn around and see Maria waving. “Where are you going? Don’t you want to hang out?”
“I have to take this to Sadie,” I say, holding up the food and tea as evidence. “I’d love to, I really would.”
“Okay,” she says. “Tell Sadie we all hope she gets better soon. And one of these days I’m going to kick your ass at Scrabble.” She turns and runs back to the house, long skirts flowing behind her, and I want to follow her. I want to let her kick my ass at Scrabble. I want to throw this food in the bushes and forget about you for one night. I wasn’t brushing Maria off, but I have enough experience to know how people give up after you’ve turned them down enough times. People at school who have invited me to do things, guys and girls who have asked me out on dates—after the second or third declined invitation, they all give up. I have plans with Sadie, I’d always tell them. I’m doing something with Sadie. Sadie, Sadie, Sadie.
As I walk the path to the trailer, I realize I’m nervous. About what, I don’t know. Nervous to see you? Nervous about you seeing me?
When I knock on the door, you don’t respond. I open it slowly and step inside. It is stuffy and smells like sweat and bad breath. I open the windows and prop the door open. “Sadie?” I whisper. You don’t move beneath your pile of blankets. I set the plate and thermos down on what used to be my bed.
“Sadie.”
“Mmmmm?” you mumble into your pillow.
“I’m going to take the beanbag chair,” I say. “And a couple of pictures. Okay?”
“Mmmmkay.”
“How are you feeling?”
You roll over onto your back and look at the ceiling.
“I brought you dinner,” I say.
You don’t respond.
“You’ll never guess where I’m staying,” I say. You remain still, but your eyes shift to finally look at me.
“Why aren’t you talking?”
You point to your throat, then motion like you’re strangling yourself.
“Oh,” I say. “I’m sorry. Do you want some tea?”
You nod and sit up. I hand you the thermos. You try to open it, but you’re too weak, so I do it for you. I pour you a cup. I sit on my old bed as you take little careful sips.
“Can you talk at all?” I say.
“Yes,” you croak. “A little. But it hurts.”
“Do you need some more Advil?”
You nod. The open bottle is sitting on the bedside table within your reach. I move to get it for you, but something stops me.
“It’s right there,” I say.
“Oh.” You reach over and get it yourself.
I look around the room as you take the pills. Everything is in the same place as it was before, but it seems like everything has changed.
“I miss you, Max,” you say, your voice surprisingly normal despite the pain you claim to be in.
“I miss you, too.”
“I hate being stuck in here. It’s like I’m in prison.”
“It’s a nice prison, though.”
“I guess.” Your eyes drift off to somewhere in the distance.
“It looks weird from the other side of the lake,” I say.
“Will you bring me some new books tomorrow? I’m so bored.” You are staring at your wrist, poking it with your finger.
“They couldn’t have put me any farther away,” I say.
“I think my wrists are losing weight.”
“Guess who’s my new neighbor?”
“Is that possible? Can wrists even lose weight?”
“Sadie, are you even listening to me?”
You look up like you finally just noticed I’m here. “Huh?”
“I’m staying in the yurt next to Dylan,” I tell you. “We’re, like, next door neighbors.”
Your eyebrows narrow into a frown.
“The yurt isn’t even finished, but I guess it’s the only place they had left to put me. It’s crazy; I can practically see into his cabin from my window.”
Your fingers tighten around the bottle of Advil. I feel the room get suddenly hotter. I imagine the lake outside boiling in sympathy with you, steam rising, scorching the earth around it. You glare at me with fire in your eyes. I cannot remember you ever looking at me like this.
“Sadie, what’s wrong?”
“Fuck you.”
“What?”
“Fuck you.” You throw your blankets off your shoulders. All your fatigue and weakness is suddenly gone. “How can you come in here and say something like that?”
“Like what?”
“You’re just shoving it in my face.”
“ ‘Oh, Sadie, you’ll never guess where I’m staying,’ ” you mock. “ ‘Oh, Sadie, you’ll never guess how awesome life is out there. You’ll never guess what a great time I’m having while you’re stuck in here.’ ”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Whatever, Max.”
“I’m sorry.” I can hear my voice getting higher. I can feel the tears pushing at my eyes. “I swear, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m so sorry.”
If it is you who is hurt, why am I the one crying?
“I’m sorry,” I say again. I keep saying it over and over. I’ve been saying it forever.
But what if I’m not sorry?
“I’m going to go now,” I say.
“Fine.” You cross your arms at your chest. “Go.”
What if I have nothing to be sorry about?
“Don’t be like this,” I say.
“Be like what?”
“It’s not my fault you’re sick. Don’t take it out on me.”
You pull the blankets back up around your shoulders.
I can feel you watching me from your corner as I collect the beanbag chair, a vase, and a couple of framed pictures off the walls.
“Can you close the windows before you go?” you say flatly.
“Don’t you want some fresh air?”
“No.”
I close the windows.
“I’ll bring by some books tomorrow,” I say. “Is there anything else you want?”
“My life,” you say. “I want my life back. Can you get me that?”
“I don’t think so,” I say. I walk out the door and close it behind me.