The cop assigns each of us to sections of a grid, telling us to stay arm’s-length apart and keep our eyes on the ground. “Watch out for wildlife and tripping hazards,” she says. “Don’t touch anything you find. Just stop where you are and put your hand in the air, and someone will come find you.” Her eyes settle on me again. “Just wait for someone to find you.”
Or maybe things won’t be okay.
A hundred feet away, Roya’s mother is talking to another group of people, probably telling them the same thing. Roya is in that group, but it’s like she feels me watching her. She turns and her eyes meet mine and she says something to her mother, who waves her off. She walks over to our group just as we’re lining up and stands next to me. She’s in her old beat-up uniform from when she was on the intramural basketball team in sophomore year. I guess she isn’t worried about ticks. The shirt is a little too small and the shorts are a little tighter than they were then. I remember yesterday, when I was too busy checking Roya out to notice how tired and worried she was, and I reprimand myself. I look at the ground. Don’t be a jerk, Alexis.
“Did you get assigned this part of the grid?” I ask.
“No,” she says, and starts taking measured steps forward but not even pretending to look at the ground. “I just wanted to be over here. By you.”
I sneak a glance at her. “Cool.” I try to say it normally, but it comes out a whisper.
“How come you didn’t come over and say hello?” she asks, stepping over a tree root.
“I don’t know.” I look at a tree fifty feet ahead of us. Am I supposed to go around it? Of course I’m supposed to go around it, that’s a stupid thing to think, it’s not like I could go through it. “I didn’t think I was, um. I didn’t know if you wanted me to.”
“Why wouldn’t I want you to?” Roya asks. Her voice verges on impatient. I sneak a glance at her, but I can’t read her face at a sidelong angle like this, not while I’m trying to pretend I’m not looking.
I don’t say anything. I let myself get absorbed in picking my way around a four-inch-tall thistle. How do I answer a question like “Why wouldn’t I want you to?” The real answer is, “Because you secretly think you made a huge mistake yesterday,” or “Because you don’t like me the way you thought you did,” or “Because I’m a bad lay.” Or “Because I might have ruined our friendship by having sex with you and you don’t know how to tell me that you don’t want anything to do with me anymore.” But all of those answers will sound like I’m looking for her to comfort me, or like I’m needy, or like I expect yesterday to have meant something more than what it probably did. So I don’t say anything. Roya waits for me to answer her, but she’s not very good at waiting. She does a big I’m-being-patient sigh and then immediately loses her patience.
“Hey, about last night … ?” She says it slowly and my heart sinks. “If you didn’t, um. If you didn’t want to have that mean anything, or if you didn’t want it to be a thing …”
“No,” I whisper before I can think better of it, even though I probably should say that it’s fine and it’s whatever and I don’t care. “It meant something. It meant a lot.” I focus on the terrain, looking for spiders or lizards or prickly plants that will snag my jeans. I try to feel the way the dry patches of grass crunch under my sneakers. I wish my heart would slow down. I wish she would stop looking at me.
“Well. It meant a lot to me, too.” She reaches over and grabs my hand—we’re supposed to stay arm’s-length apart, I think, and even as I think it, she draws me a little closer to her. And then closer, and then she’s walking right next to me like we’re on a date instead of pretending to look for a dead boy in the woods. It meant a lot to me, too. What does that mean? It’s the kind of thing you say to make someone feel better. It feels like a pat on the head. I shouldn’t have said anything. Did I say something? I can’t remember.
It’s so hot outside, and so bright, and the air is so close and so thick. And Roya is so close.
She’s right next to me. Mint smell and warmth. Something cool bumps my wrist, and I look down to see what it is—she’s wearing the bangle again. She’s been wearing it a lot lately. She stops walking, and I realize we’ve come to the tree that I noticed before, the one that will need to be gone around. But Roya doesn’t let go of my hand. I can’t make myself look at her face. My heart is pounding and the tree is in the way and she won’t let go of my hand but she also hasn’t said—
A finger under my chin, gentle pressure. She turns my head until I’m looking at her face. “What’s going on?”
My eyes burn. “I’m really scared that you’ll change your mind.”
“Okay.” That’s all she says. She’s looking at me, and she’s so close. I wait for her to say something else—to tell me I’m being stupid, or that I shouldn’t worry, or to ask what I think she’ll change her mind about. But she doesn’t. She waits.
So I keep going. “I don’t want to start something if it doesn’t mean the same thing to both of us. I—I know that you probably don’t feel the same about me as I do about you and I just really don’t want to make a mistake.
