Wildlife (22 page)

As much as I want to see Michael and try to make things okay, it’s not going to be possible to have any boy house contact until tomorrow.

So I tackle the other conversation.

Back in Bennett, with a stomachful of home truths from Lou, I ask Holly to come with me to the laundry/drying room. We’ve got ten minutes till lockdown.

It feels like so much longer than seven weeks ago that we had our first toasties here. I didn’t know if I’d be going out with Ben. Everyone was all
ooh
and
aah
about the dumb billboard. We were excited about the idea of camp and dreading it in equal measure.

Now I can run. My face still turns into a tomato, but I’m fitter and stronger. I’ve had sex, and decided to backpedal on that because it feels like the right thing for me. I’m still not one hundred percent sure if I
am
right, but I have to trust my gut, or it’ll stop working.

And I’ve kept believing that Holly would come back to me, that we’d get back to the good place in our friendship. Now I don’t even know if we can recover, or even if I want to. Lou was right, I need to grow a backbone.

“How did you get the letter?”

“He left it right on his bed.”

“What were you doing there?”

“Visiting Vincent.”

“Was the letter in an envelope?”

“Yes.”

“Addressed?”

“It had your name and
not to be sent
on it. So naturally I took it. Always got your back, hun.”

I look for it out of habit, but my “Holly being Holly” excuse has disappeared. She’s dragged me into such cruelty I could not have imagined. I don’t even know how I’m going to look Michael in the eye tomorrow.

“How could you do that?”

“How could
I
? Shouldn’t you be asking how could he write that weird crap?” She laughs again, shaking her head, remembering it. And then has the effrontery to be indignant. “I thought you’d appreciate it. I had the guts to shine a light on the way that guy thinks about you.
Someone needs to show you what’s going on. Have you read the rest of the letter?”

“I don’t think I should. He didn’t mean it to be read.”

“Oh, please, don’t be such a goody-goody. It starts,
My dearest Sibylla
… It is full-on. You’d think he really loves you.”

“Perhaps he does.” I know he does. “But only as a friend. That’s not a crime.”

“The letter doesn’t talk about friendship. It talks about
love
.”

The letter is still in my pocket.

“Come on, Sib, what are friends for? You’re not saying I shouldn’t have shown you?”

She’s taking such pleasure from the drama. Humiliate Michael? No problem. Embarrass Sibylla? Bring it on. Too easy. Right now, this minute, I hate her.

“You went too far with Michael,” I say. Feeble start, when I feel like strangling her. I’m trying to keep Lou’s sane words in mind, trying to be myself. Only I’m too upset to construct a sensible sentence.

“He went too far. You should read the letter. He used to eat your hair, for fuck’s sake—and you’re okay with that? You don’t think that deserved a little airing?”

“I’m sure he doesn’t do it anymore.” Hmmm, no doubt unusual behavior, but I’m not going to be distracted. “How do you think Michael is feeling right now?”

“He should be feeling ashamed of himself. Trying to shoehorn his way in with someone else’s girlfriend.”

“I don’t belong to Ben. You know I hate all that stuff.”

“So you thought you’d have a bit on the side with Michael?”

“Don’t be stupid,” I say.

“Exactly, so what’s the problem? Will you at least admit he’s weird now, a creep?”

“He’s—Michael. He’s lovely. He’s not a standard-issue boy. He’s my oldest friend.” I feel a punch of nausea as I try to imagine what he is doing right now. Did he go back to his house? Did he get anything to eat? Who is looking out for him? Will the other guys give him a hard time, or leave him alone?

“Who has creepy thoughts about you,” Holly continues.

“Creepiness is in the eye of the beholder. He is not creepy. I still can’t believe you did that, Hol. In front of everyone. It was so nasty.” Tears come into my eyes.

“Honesty is the best policy.”

“I don’t much like your way of being honest.”

“Does Ben know how defensive you are about Michael? Do you remember who you are actually going out with, where your loyalty lies? Because someone listening to you wouldn’t be able to tell. Did it ever occur to you that Ben might be jealous of your friendship with Michael?”

“Alas the day! I never gave him cause.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

friday 23 november (late)

Michael’s gone.

Run off into the night. It’s the worst thing he could have done.

For someone with a sophisticated understanding of the world, he has no real concept of “front.” He should have faked it. I, Lou, the grand mistress of fakery, could have shown him how, no sweat. Too late now.

They come to Bennett at 11:30
PM
.

The interrogation happens in the staff room.

Sibylla and I tell them yes, he was upset, no, he didn’t say anything about planning to run off, yes, he
was
upset, some kids were teasing him, can’t remember who, no, can’t remember about what, yes, he did leave the dining hall seeming a bit agitated, no, he wasn’t being systematically picked on, bullied, or intimidated.

There is no point amplifying his distress by blabbing details to the teachers.

We didn’t even need to coordinate our stories. The code of kid versus teacher communication is understood. Everything is on a “need to know” basis.

It seems like just half an hour ago the night was clear.
Now a huge wind is whipping around the campus, and the rain is starting to bucket down. There’s a nearly full moon, which would possibly help Michael, wherever he is, if the rain clears.

Where are you?

His face is going through me and through me on a loop. As he looked at me, looked at my reaction to the letter, he was white. He was afraid. He wasn’t afraid of public humiliation. He wasn’t afraid of Holly’s nastiness. He was afraid I cared so little. I betrayed him. He has run away thinking I don’t care at all. I care very much. How have I managed to treat him so ill? The cold rain will be nothing to him compared to my coldheartedness. As I sat there surrounded by the laughers and jokers and laughing along, I had lost myself.

Lou is right; why was I trying so hard to be a part of that? Is that the price of going out with Ben: that I don’t know how to be myself anymore?

Holly said I get to choose. She was so wrong. Things happen around me, and I react, ad hoc. I haven’t stayed strong enough to be myself.

(late)

Mom has told me that when kids went AWOL in her day, yes, it happens nearly every year: there’s always someone who can’t hack the isolation, the pressure, the homesickness, the general
Lord of the Flies
ness of it… the whole school would fan out in formation and start walking the countryside in a search party.

These litigious days they probably wouldn’t do that anyway, but even less so with gun-carrying hunters in the mountains.

They have rung the police, and Michael’s parents, who are on their way up. Two teachers, Helen Ladislaw and our math teacher, Jerry Epstein, are taking off against the advice of the principal, Dr. Kwong, who tells them that they are under no obligation to risk their own safety, etc.

We’ll sign a disclaimer, says Mr. Epstein. I’m not going to face Michael’s parents and say we sat here and didn’t go and look. Mr. E has kids of his own. His whole family lives up here. I can see he is simply doing what he would want someone to do for one of his kids. Michael is his equal favorite person in class, with Van Uoc, and me, probably.

I give them as much detail as I can on Michael’s favorite running routes. The two teachers will take the Paradiso
path wearing their boots and reflective jackets; armed with flashlights, sat phones, optimism. The police will go out along the Coldstream trail. An emergency crew will be free in a couple of hours, and they will take the inland trail to Hartsfield, and work their way back toward school.

Sibylla and I ask to help, and are not allowed. Sibylla is crying.

There is good reason to worry. You only have to run fifteen minutes out in any direction to start coming across some really nasty, rocky falls, some cliffs, loose ground, narrow paths. You’d be unlucky to get shot, but you’d have to be lucky to avoid one of those hideous falls in the dark. The rain will make things slippery, but will also slow him down, cool him off. Maybe on balance, it’s a good thing. A good weather “event.”

An almighty crack of thunder shakes the windows as they leave.

Seems like hours later, but it’s only 1
AM
when I check, someone brings hot chocolate for us. Sibylla is still crying, which is getting annoying, but at the same time, I completely understand.

I imagine Michael falling, broken, alone.

Be safe be safe be safe.

We are allowed to wait up. His parents will be here in two hours.

Why did Holly do this?

And why didn’t I think to respond as Lou suggested? It would have defused things so quickly. Why do I whirr or stall when I need to be going zip zip? I froze. I go over and over and over my rejection of him. I know the face Michael would have seen: it was my
erk, ee-ew
face. A look of squeamishness, repugnance, revulsion. That is the face I showed my old friend. That face shoved him out of there, white, into the hollow lap of this bleak night.

Fear pours through me. Don’t die. Please come back safely.

Let me say sorry. Please let me say sorry.

I hate myself; even now, I am thinking of my comfort.
I
will feel better if I can say sorry. I’m no friend to you, Michael. But if I am allowed to say sorry, I will mean it from my heart, and never treat you carelessly again.

Tears keep slipping out. Love, self-pity, self-loathing, regret, hope, all leaking from my sorry heart.

I wake up with a jolt on the sofa in Dr. Kwong’s office, which has become emergency HQ. Lightning horror-movie-bleaches the view outside.

Lou shakes her head, no news. Thunder thumps through the sky, and I’m wide-awake again.

*     *     *

One of the great things about our art teacher, Ms. Bottrell, is that she’s an old-school technician. She might not be completely comfortable with conceptual art, but she’s the bomb on color theory. It’s way out of fashion, and not considered to be very creative or whatever, but I love knowing that stuff.

There’s an exercise she did with us. She held an orange in front of a large piece of white sketch paper and said, “Gaze, gaze. Still gazing. Don’t stop gazing.” After a couple of minutes she took the orange away. “Continue looking at the paper. What do you see?” Those of us who had dutifully gazed saw a burning spot of blue, the absence of orange. The opposite of orange. Anti-orange.

Now that Holly has stepped away, I see the opposite of friend, anti-friend, in the place she has been standing all these years. And I see the childishness of my sometimes-embarrassed feelings about Michael. He is not someone for when there’s no one else around, or a basket case who needs the odd bout of babysitting. He isn’t just a relic from childhood. He’s smart. He knows himself. He knows me. He has always been a friend to me, despite my own flickering and inconstant friendship toward him.

Lou is there, too, in the burning blue space. A friend brave enough to be truthful—very different from Holly’s “honesty.”

(late)

The night brings us nothing, gives nothing away.

It’s 3:30
AM
, and a car arrives: Michael’s parents.

I’m not sure why Sibylla and I are even allowed to be here. Perhaps it has something to do with proving to his parents that Michael was having a fine time here at Camp Disaster: look at these two lovely, concerned friends.

His parents seem nice; they’re worried. His mother gives Sibylla a hug, and makes a point of telling me that Michael has told them about what a fine voice I have, and how he enjoys my company in math. I can see that she knows about Fred: she is not talking to a girlfriend.

The police make contact.

They have covered a certain amount of terrain, and they will backtrack and head north again, but beyond that, there is little point in doing anything else until first light, when they can get a helicopter out,
if
the weather clears a bit.

The wind has dropped to a moan, and it is still pouring. It’s actually weather Michael loves running in, but I don’t say that; it is unlikely to be received well.

And I hate to guess what state of mind he was in when he ran out into the night.

It’s something I have to do now, before I think it through—I pick up the megaphone they use for safety drills and walk out into the storm, flicking the on switch.

It is dumping down. A waterfall, and I’m wet through in a matter of seconds.

I announce to the night, to the school, to the warring elements, to the universe:
Michael, you are my oldest friend, my best friend. I’m sorry. I am so lucky to have you in my life. I won’t let you down again.

(late)

I’m holding Sibylla’s hand. She’s sitting with a towel hooded over her wet hair, ignoring the latest in the series of hot drinks.

She is anguished. Maybe she thought the boy who would do anything for her would also come in from the night if she yelled hard enough.

He didn’t.

She is even whiter than usual. I can’t bear knowing how much worse it’s about to get for her if Michael doesn’t make it back.