“Like I’m lost in a forest and I can’t find my way out.”
“The first thing you have to do is ask for help, and then receive it.”
“I don’t know how to do that,” I say. Tears pouring down my face now. She always makes me like this. Cry and cry until I can’t get anything else out of my mind. “I’ve been relying on myself for too long. I’ve been taking care of my mother for too long. I feel so alone.”
She sits down in the ottoman in front of my seat and I open my eyes to her. She’s staring right back at me. Her eyes bulgy, concerned, like they’re feeling so much sorrow for me.
“You’re so hard on yourself, Blythe. You know that? You don’t have to be so hard.”
“Is there any other way?”
48
ALI
My phone has only three bars in Truth or Consequences.
I text Raj and Sammi a selfie of me in the fuchsia hammock in the dusty backyard. The yellow-and-white-striped fabric blowing in the wind behind me. The sun just about to go down.
Sammi sends hearts and smiles.
It’s such spotty reception out here. No bars now. And when you can’t talk on your phone and you’re stuck in the desert, you gaze into space. The stars are bright and enormous out here, sparkling satellites, nothing that I’ve ever seen before.
I want to write things down. I want to carve it into the ground with a branch from the sage bush. I want someone to read my story years from now.
I want to tell my mother everything that happened. What it feels like to have a man on top of you who won’t let you go. Will I want to be with anyone ever again? Crickets chirping. Classical music streaming from someone’s trailer down the road. All of it, desert sounds. My own breath hot, and my face wet from tears.
I’m homesick. I’m everything-sick. I don’t want to be anywhere.
My mother appears like a vision through the curtains.
“You can’t sleep out here, honey. Too many wild animals.”
I quickly rub the tears away. I don’t want her to see me, even in the dim light of the lantern.
“Ali? Are you crying?”
“No.”
She curls around behind me, leaning into the hammock.
“When you were little, I used to do this thing to your back,” and she tickles her fingers up and down my spine. “Spiders going up. Spiders going down.”
My body melts as she does this. It’s kind of the best feeling ever.
“Do the crack-an-egg,” I say.
I close my eyes, and my mother lightly hits her fist at the top of my head, spilling her fingers across my hair and neck and down my back.
“Crack an egg on your head, let the yolk trickle down,” she whispers.
* * *
In the morning, my mother and I bike over to Riverbend Hot Springs because everyone bikes in Truth or Consequences. No helmets required. I wear sweats and a bright green trucker cap that looks like it’s from 1975. My mother owns a collection of hats.
We pass an orange van that’s been parked there for five years. It’s very T or C. People sometimes drive an orange van here and then just never leave. It’s the kind of place people come to drop out of reality. People like my mother.
We ride into the parking lot, and the sign is bright blue, the same color as the sky behind the mountains. At Riverbend, the woman at the front desk is sweet and cheerful with braids in her hair and tanned cheeks. There’s a sign on the door that says LEAVE WITH A SMILE.
I want to smash that sign.
I woke up angry and I can’t shake it. I want to stamp on things. Even the little yellow flowers that follow the footpath to the front office. I want to bully those who have bullied me. I want to make everyone pay for it.
* * *
It’s a rocky little climb down to the pool. It faces the river and mountains and we have it to ourselves.
I’m in my T-shirt and bra and undies and we dip down into the pool. The water is hot, as in 103 degrees. My shoulders release into the water. I lean my head back on the rock and stare ahead at the mountains across the river.
My mom reaches out with her foot and touches mine under the water.
“Your feet used to be so tiny.”
“They’re bigger now. I’m a big girl.”
“Your dad told me what happened at the house, Ali. The graffiti. You gonna talk to me about it?”
But I don’t say anything and my mother sinks down into the pool. Her lips surface at the water’s edge. Blub, blub, blub. Her curls flatten out around her face.
I hoist my body up out of the water and perch on the wall. Stare at my mom. Blubbing in the pool. Taking the heat. Sammi’s mom braids her hair before breakfast. She doesn’t have to ask her dad to drive her to the store to get tampons. Her mother knows exactly what she needs. And it’s just there in the cabinet or next to the toilet. Magic. Sometimes Sammi will walk into her house and see her mom sprawled out on the couch and Sammi will spread herself across her mother’s body. Like they’re the same person.
My throat tightens, and I want to hold back all the tears that are fighting to break through, but I can’t. I splash the water on my face so that they’ll blend in. Doesn’t matter. I can’t stop crying. I hate it. I want to shut myself off. My mother lifts herself up, her skin pink from the heat, then reaches out and touches my hand.
“I could have used you around the past couple of months,” I say.
“I’m just a phone call away; you know that, honey.” But she sounds like a commercial.
“So you’re just going to pretend like everything is great because you live in this weird little town
