18

Saturday, 27 June

Day Six

On Saturday nights, Kate learned, it was camp tradition to vote on a movie to watch.

The film would be projected from a laptop onto a wide white wall in the mess hall. Portable speakers, plugged into the laptop, were powerful enough for the small audience to hear sufficiently.

Tonight’s majority vote landed on the Disney animated film Moana. Kate had only seen it once, long ago, on a plane, and was looking forward to watching it again. Few men stayed, and Kate was the only staff member in the room, snuggled up by herself on the old sofa set against the wall. Most of the audience lay on the rug on their sleeping bags, like a slumber party, some on the other sofa facing the projection.

About twenty minutes into the film, Ben crept through the mess hall to the kitchen. Stealing glances, Kate determined he was making himself tea, despite being capable of doing this in his trailer. A few minutes later, the gentle swoosh of his cargo shorts approached. The swooshing slowed and, unexpectedly, turned her way. His thigh brushed against her toes as he sat down. They exchanged smiles as he sipped his flower-scented tea.

Despite being exquisitely comfortable in the loving arm of that old sofa, Kate shifted off her legs and sat upright to be in whispering distance to Ben.

“I wouldn’t have thought this was your kind of movie,” she said.

“Frida liked it. Now, she probably considers it childish.”

“Isn’t she, what, fourteen?”

“Nearly.”

“Which, I guess, means she thinks she’s no longer a child.”

“Yep.”

Kate shook her head. “I am so sorry.”

Ben grinned and leaned back against the sofa, cradling the ceramic mug in his palms. Maybe he was cold. It was chilly tonight. She wore a lightweight black hoodie with the Boulder College logo embroidered over the left chest, but he was dressed for summer.

She watched him as he watched the movie. He had his hair pulled back high, a blip at the back of his head. Tresses poked out here and there, and he’d trimmed his beard. Not a bad look for him. Not at all.

When he finished his tea, he returned his mug to the kitchen. To her surprise, he sat right back down. He smiled at her before turning his gaze to his hands, not the movie.

Two movie watchers went to the kitchen and turned on the light. Microwave popcorn started popping.

Kate’s gaze traveled to the tattoo on Ben’s left forearm, then flicked to his right where the Tree of Life sprawled, its boughs and roots connected to the other objects. Clever artistry. On his left forearm, nested within a fury of ink, was a sun or a compass with what looked like runes woven alongside it, some of which she could read. The hair on his left forearm was shorter than that of his right, likely having been more recently shaved prior to tattooing.

His gaze shifted from his hands to her.

“May I look?” she asked, her hand tentatively hovering over his forearm.

His expression, which had been hinting at amusement, sunk into something worse than neutral. Something like dread. But he nodded and turned his left arm palm up. She drew closer to his side.

The students who had made popcorn turned off the kitchen light and returned to the mess hall. The darkness muddled her vision, so she lifted his arm closer to her face.

Beginning at his left wrist, she traced the designs and found a faint ridge running the length of his underwrist. When she touched it, he tensed. His gaze was no longer on her or the movie, instead fixed to the middle space.

Wondering what the roughness was, she bowed closer to examine his arm. But he pulled his arm away, mumbled that he should get to bed, and stormed toward the door with clenched fists. His sandaled footfalls made little sound, but he was nonetheless storming—away from her, from her touch, from social interaction, from the movie.

Concern eventually goaded her off that cozy sofa. As she stepped outside, a loud bang startled her—Ben slamming his trailer door behind him.

Curtains drawn, lights off.

—

Chest tight, Esben struggled to breathe.

The usual scenes flashed through his memory: The barren sunshine-yellow nursery. Lina crying and shrinking from his touch. The pair of them screaming or not speaking at all. Frida asking why Pappa was bleeding.

Heart pounding and nerves on fire, he sat on the bed until he found the constitution to walk to the shower.

The too-small shower. The built-for-normal-bodies shower. He could fit, but the curtain was useless, and water spilled out over him onto the floor. The bathroom had a second drain for this reason, but it made him feel extra fat.

Still clothed, he dipped his head in, turned on the cold tap, and let the flow relax him. The water was barely warmer than ice, but he welcomed it—anything to numb the hateful fire within.

He shivered but enjoyed the sensation. After his head, he stuck his left forearm under the water. All his parts that were on fire, he iced piecemeal. Too cold to think or feel—that was the goal.

No longer hyperventilating, he turned off the tap and sat on the adjacent toilet seat. His sodden clothes dripped everywhere in that bathroom nook as his body shook with constrained sobs and shivers, fighting against Lina’s voice echoing in his mind.

‘Why are you crying? You’re always crying. Selfish fat fuck.’

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

These tattoos were a lie. A weak, pathetic lie.

Kate stared at the dark ceiling of her tent.

She’d spent the remainder of the movie staring at the projected colors changing on the wall, hearing everything but processing nothing. For that last hour, her thumbnails scratched against the sides of her index fingers. They would’ve been raw were they not already so calloused.

Whatever had happened with Ben was her fault. That much was obvious. She’d only touched his arm, but maybe that was too far beyond friendship, beyond colleagueship. Maybe she’d pressed her body against his just enough for it to be offensive.

Another fuck-up. Another instance of misreading someone and consequently pushing them away. Another friendship demolished.

Come morning, Jorunn or Alex would come to her before breakfast and ask her politely, or not politely at all, to leave. They could do without an osteologist this summer. No big deal. They had books about it in the house for students to read.

Shit.

Her breaths came quicker. Too quick.

Five. Ten. Fifteen…

The blade hung menacingly above her neck.

One hundred. Ninety-five. Ninety…

Shit. Shit, shit.

Kate crawled to her backpack, felt around for her plastic trazodone bottle, and washed two pills down with whiskey she’d bought at the airport.