Something Of A Kind (6 page)

“Oh yeah,” he nodded, moving to unlatch the other side.
“They’re just being jerks because they like you. And because they’re
jerks.”

“I see.”

She wondered what business she had here. In Kingsley, she had
always been close with her cousins, Francesca and Giovanni. With
Fresca age sixteen and Gi seventeen, they made Aly the eldest by
four months. They had never been too distant in age, and it seemed
in the time they lived together the trio had fused. But since her
mother’s death, her other friends disappeared one by one, wedges
and distance that began during the original diagnosis taking total
control after the loss.

They either didn’t understand her grief or couldn’t bear it, and in
her selfinflicted isolation she let them go. She hadn’t wanted the
burden of reassuring them and she hadn’t wanted to be consoled.
Now it seemed allies, whether or not they became confidants, could
be a salvation in Ashland.

If she couldn’t make Alaska work by the end of the summer,
there were ways of retreating to Kingsley, starting with the sole
abandonment of dreams for a new start. It was clear her father
wasn’t going to assist in any adjustments, but Noah was already
making strides.

This could be a really good thing.

Jumping from the mini-trailer, he landed in a stand on the
pavement before her, pushing a mass of plastic into her hands before
disappearing to start the ignition. Easing the helmet over her head,
she gratefully accepted the hand he offered as she mounted the seat.
Her arms slid around his waist as the ATV lurched forward.

The roar of Luke and Owen were quickly added at her back.
Wind whipped her face as heat pooled at the back of her head. His
laughter evaporated the stress as they jerked to each side turning
corners or bounced with the rocky terrain.

The soft fabric of his hoodie was as inviting as the smell of
cologne, or the way his body heat combatted the fierce wind. It
grounded her to the bike as she watched the trees fly by. The
experience was more rugged than observations from the passenger
seat of a car. Even jolting against an uneven ground with her calves
nearly burning against the engine, the trip was easier than a fiveminute drive with Greg.

As they stopped, the rush still pounded in her veins causing her
face to flush. Her heart pounded from the embrace of arms tangled
around Noah. Climbing down with a buoyant lift to her step, she ran
a hand over her head to smooth the helmet’s dishevelment. The
gentle breeze was a stark contrast to the propulsion of the quads.
Despite the shield of the bright yellow helmet, her exposed cheeks
tingled in the absence of wind.

“Man, Hunt told you not to try and kill her!” Luke said, ripping
the helmet from his head like a BandAid. “If I were you, Miss
Alyson Glass, I’d get another ride on the way back.”

“You’re not supposed to show off if she’s on the back,
Locklear,” Owen teased, offering a wide smile encased by turquoise-
banded braces. “Wipe outs can be nasty.”
“I bet,” she agreed, observing as they parked the ATVS next to a

lean-to.

“There’s a series of camp sites a little ways up the trail. They’re
not going to be rented for another week, so it’s a first come, first
serve type of thing.” Owen pulled the cords of a navy draw-string
pack over his arms.

“I can’t imagine there are too many people up there now,” Noah
said, staring at a steel gray cloud bank. It clung to the distant tree
line, just above the visible slivers of the late-afternoon horizon.

“Man, just look for a fire pit.” Luke pulled a box of matches
from his pocket, waving it like a splayed deck of cards.

 

Noah grabbed it from his hands as though Luke was about to set
himself on fire. Common amusement dismissed his protests.

“It was only that one time. Come on, man.” Luke spread his
hands in frustration, his expression both unoffended and annoyed at
the mistrust. He seemed more bothered that it was mutually agreed
on than the actual notion.

“Three times, Young. Three times. Two of which had the warden
involved. No way,” Owen chastised.

Luke turned to Noah for back-up. He shook his head.
“I think I’ve enabled one too many of your pyromaniac
experiences.” He smacked the package against his palm like it
reiterated the point.

“Hence the confiscation,” Owen added. “Young, you are a
danger to yourself and others – besides, Noah has a guest. She
almost died once today, you don’t need to set her ablaze.”

She glanced at Noah, looking for reassurance that the notion was
a
continued joke. Seeming
to read her thoughts, he
gave
an
understanding nod, rolling his warm eyes at their banter.

“What happened to forgive and forget, bro’? You’re killing me.”
Luke continued, looking defeated.

 

“Better than you killing us,” Noah added. “I swear, you’re going
to destroy the last frontier.”

Parting fingers over her lips like a curse slipped out, Aly laughed
at the alarm on Noah’s face. She allowed him to loosely take her
wrist, leading her down the rugged trail. Owen took the lead. A worn
gas station map was unfolded in his hands as he pointed out
numbers in red bubbles. Luke followed, lazily continuing to argue
his futile case, refusing surrender.

They barely walked half a mile before stopping at a barren
clearing. Logs sagging with age made a triangular seating area
around a circle of blackened rocks, a few yards from the tree line. A
cast-iron park grill was rooted in the center.

“I’ll get the kindling then,” Luke announced, darting into the
trees. He
seemed fixed on a
particular spot, his gawky
lope
predatory, as if the wood could escape.

A yelp slipped from her lips as Owen slung an arm around her
waist. He tossed her over his shoulder, bolting up another trail and
back again. Nearly buckling under his own laughter at her protest,
his arms slacked.

She pulled away in escape, dropping into the space at Noah's
side. He grinned, tucking a final match into the tinder, stuffed
beneath an array of sticks. As he
gently prodded, the modest
collection lit up.

The last time she had seen fire was during witness cremation.
Though seeming both aloof and grave, Greg was curious. Aly
needed the finality, to know her mother was no more. The process,
of course, was traumatic to attend. Smoldering doubts in Vanessa’s
absence left her wondering if her mother lingered within the broken
flesh, waiting to awake for healing that would never come.

A balding man in an oatmeal suit popped a cardboard top over
her box, offering a grimacing pat as she rolled into a fiery machine,
like a cheap assembly line. For three hours, she watched an angry
red scorch the glass with a cold stare, arms and legs crossed,
perched on the edge of a stained waiting chair. No dust to dust, only
ashes.

Aly had shredded herself at the wake,
a
patchy
red
face,
hiccupping tears. Greg hadn’t purchased a
funeral and Lauren
refused to push. They
had unassuming
farewells days before.
Coworkers set up the open-doors of a small denomination. She took
a seat in a plastic lawn chair beside Vanessa’s photograph, stilted
with an oversized, gilded frame. The outlet-mall church managed
dying flowers, an inflatable baptistery, and a unisex bathroom. Her
mother’s taste was rich, but her life was modest. It suited the times.

Vanessa was terminal. They gave an almost accurate six months.
Greg flew in from Alaska, but left the week before she passed. There
was an exciting lead, too ambiguous to share, and doctors claimed
she was momentarily stable. He never did say what kept him.

Visiting hours missed Aly by three minutes, but they whispered
gut-wrenching goodbyes the night she went comatose, forty-eight
hours prior. The five year fight ended at 6:52 AM. The morning was
unremarkable, pre-sunrise, of an abnormally snowless New York
December. It was silent while it rang, a quiet end her mother
would’ve been unimpressed with.

Aly belonged to Lauren, according to Vanessa’s will, but her
father had never been present enough to require relinquished rights
or revoked custody. An online validation overlooked the misstep,
and after two visits to state court a judge handed her father her
chains. Aly had no fight, and no one ever argued. Her aunt never
fought, always glancing away with guilt when Aly’s pained eyes
pleaded silently.

A father wasn’t part of her plan, not in a near or distant future.
She would live with Lauren and Vincent until she was eighteen, and
finish high school in Kingsley. When she met the age minimum, her
mother’s life insurance would get her started at reasonable art
school. The plan was what they talked about. Vanessa’s last direction
became Aly’s rigid outline. Greg was the only one to question it.

She didn’t plan for Alaska. She certainly didn’t expect to be
perched on a log in a state park of the last frontier, sitting around a
fire and thinking of death. With the soreness of playfully rough arms
throbbing at her waist, the wind blew smoke into the faces of strange
instantfriends. Her lungs burned with laughter she didn’t deserve.
She hadn’t prepared for Noah, either.

His reflexive shiver
sent her spiraling
down
to earth. She
jumped, and he apologized quietly, studying her alarm.

 

He’s looks at me like a person reads a book.

“No, really, it’s okay,” she assured, unsure what to do with her
fluttering hands. Finally, she tucked them behind her knees and
nibbled her lip, waiting for a break in the silence.

“You’re so jumpy, girl.” Smirking, Owen’s hands were crossed,
gripping a hairy knee. His long legs were bent up to comfortably sit
in a low place, his heels digging back and forth in the dirt, kicking
up a cloud of dust in drier patches.

“Oh, don’t mind Noah. He just thinks he’s better than everybody
else” Luke ribbed, his attention finally pulled away from the
flames. The way he chewed his cheek and stared, occasionally
chucking handfuls of grass was troubling.

“I do not,” Noah groaned. Betwe
en his tone and the instinctive
drop of his head into his hands, it wasn’t difficult to tell it was a
reoccurring taunt.

“-because Gabriel took him out of town for burgers on his
birthday and he came back with a tattoo.”

Failing to resist the urge to scan his exposed skin, her gaze
stopped on black ink curled around his wrist. She watched as a tense
hand anxiously covered it, like protective custody. He moved again,
crossing his arms, looking away. His reaction was too intense. Aly
knew better than to ask. She forced herself to look away, focusing on
his eyes as she smiled.

Straightening her back, she swiveled her legs forward, turning
towards his friends. Raising her brow, she added in mock disbelief,
“The archangel?”

“Tony Gabriel,” Owen corrected. “All around bad influence.”

 

“Real nasty drunk, that one. Thinks he's going make Noah the
next Hannah Montana.”

 

“That I’d like to see,” Aly teased. She nudged Noah's tensed
elbow, hoping he’d loosen up.

“Real, real nasty drunk. Drove him all the way to Anchorage,”
Luke repeated, gouging her response. She politely ignored Owen's
stare, and dismissed the comment.

“Happy belated birthday,” she answered simply, bursting a
concrete silence.

“So, you move to the middle of nowhere, and instead of
vampires, you get Noah Locklear.” Luke’s words brimmed with
hints of a motive. He sounded like a deranged teacher excited over
the cruelty of a pop quiz.

Owen tossed him a bag. She watched as Luke split the plastic,
loudly crunching on the snack.

 

“How are you coping, Alyson?” Owen joked. She elevated her
hands in surrender, a testimony to innocence.

 

“I don't know anything about that. You're talking to the
Tamagachi generation.”

“My God,” Luke gasped, his mouth full, head leaning back to
shake a fistful of trail mix across his tongue. He leapt from the log,
his outstretched arm pointing dramatically. “This girl. This girl is
amazing. Seriously, marry me?”

“Paws off, Young. Aly here’s respectable.”
“Hey now, I'm just saying. If Noah won’t-”

 

“Knock it off,” Noah sighed.

 

“I might,” Luke snickered.

 

“Young, don’t be sick,” Owen chastised. Amusement cracked the
faux-serious tones in his voice.

Luke wiggled his eyebrows, dimples peaking as he pretended to
zip his lips shut. With a flick of his wrist, an imaginary key was sent
blindly flying into the shadows of a tightly knit tree canopy.

As she released a smile, Noah’s posture relaxed.

Their giggles were
throaty but boyish, piercing
the night's
muteness. Aly gave in, Noah eventually joining, the mirth virally
contagious.

Owen crossed his arms, covering his eyes weeping with laughter.
He leaned backwards, rocking with a guffaw. Veins ripped across the
muscles of his forearms as he tried steadying himself. Failing to
catch the fall, he toppled into scattered pine needles.

Luke crossed his arms over his chest, falling backwards, crying
out, “I regret nothing!”

 

Aly blinked away images of her mother, cold and blue, as the lid
closed her into the darkness.

 

She doesn’t have to be everywhere. Stop thinking about it.

 

“You okay?” Noah asked.

She realized her shoulders had hunched. Blinking away a daze,
she forced the corners of her lips to curve upwards. She nodded, her
gaze locked on the trees.