Even after hours of staring at her in the  dim, crowded and unbearably stuffy room where we were to say out last goodbyes I cannot believe that Beth is gone...

  Outside at last, I am surprised that there is still a blush of color lingering in the evening sky, and that time has moved on outside of the church. Dressed in black, and feeling guilty, I focus on the two long shadows gliding across pavement and concrete as Trevor and I quietly move between parked cars.

 I’d been waiting for an excuse to leave, so when Trevor asked if I wanted to slip out of the service early I readily accepted. As we move through the jammed lot I try to remember the last time I was alone with Trevor. It was lifetimes ago. I watch him unlock the door to his old blue Volvo and see, for the first time in the last two days we’ve been together, just how much he’s really changed. His neck and jaw line have thickened, his frame has widened, and the curls in his blond hair disappeared. He catches me staring and I realize that something in his eyes has changed, aged beyond the rest of him. He just smiles and nods his head at me as if to acknowledge the changes both of us have acquired with time. Once this would have phased me, that some guy could know what I was thinking by simply looking at me used to drive me insane. But time, and the events of the past few days, have changed Trevor’s effect on me.

          “So, I was thinking, “ Trevor says, taking off his suit jacket, “we need to get away for a bit. From all the old faces and condolences. Beth’s parents will understand. That’s all that matters right?”

          “I spent most of last night with them,” I say as I pull the shoulder belt across my lap and buckle it. I look out the window.  “They were pretty out of it, talking about all the stuff I had done with them and Beth. It was rough. I don’t think they’ll notice we’ve left early.”

           Trevor starts the car and turns to me, saying something about meaning more than just leaving the service early. But I’m lost in my own thoughts and his voice is background noise to me, along with the rumble of the old engine and the sound of the evening wind moving across the car. I realize, though, that he is waiting for some sort of response from me. I mumble something in agreement, hoping it will satisfy him and that he’ll let me be.

           It works and a comfortable silence between us ensues. I’m thankful to him for getting me out of the church and away from the mourning, but there are still feelings of resentment inside of me towards him. All I want is to be left alone.

          I lean my head against the window. The blush is gone from the sky now, and in the streets electric blood has begun to pulsate through signs and lamps as they light up and the city awakens. A few people litter the streets, and as the car idles at a stop light my head rattles lightly against the window as base thunders from a van beside us. The light changes and the van speeds off. Trevor rolls down his window and I close my eyes. I let the evening air run along my skin and through my hair, I fall asleep exhausted from going two days without sleep.

          I wake up as Trevor is turning onto a gravel road. I’m groggy and look at him confused. The clock on the dash tells me  he’s been driving for several hours, it is late. Or, rather, very early. I start to ask him what’s going on, but before I can even form the words I recognize the road we’re on and understand where he’s taking me.  I turn and glare at him but he pretends not to notice and focuses on the winding road. Shrinking down in the seat I wonder at what I was thinking getting into the car with him in the first place. I should have expected this.
 Trevor pulls the car off the road and parks it in an open field. He gets out of the car without saying anything and waits for me to do the same. He’s taken the keys with him so I don’t have much choice; he knows I won’t stay in the car alone.

 On the horizon the moon is full and bright,  it is the only light for Trevor and I to see by as we leave the gravel road behind us and follow an old, narrow, dirt road that enters the forest. There are still some leaves hanging precariously off the elm trees that line the worn road we follow. Tree branches undulate slightly, causing the leaves to stir and whisper quietly as the early November wind brushes against them. Their withered yellow and brown papery remains seem to point at Trevor and I as we walk between the trees. I can’t help but feel as if the trees are watching us. I move closer to him, close enough to smell the spicy undertones of his cologne, and I study the shape of his thick silhouette against the trees.

 The first layer of snow of the season has stretched itself lightly across the path and it crunches under our feet with each step we take. It is so sparse  that it is more of a heavy frost than snow. I cringe from the grinding sound of the frost-snow under  by my  boot. It reminds me of fingernails being scratched along a chalk board. Without thinking I reach for Trevor’s hand. I want to feel the callousedness of his palm and fingers against mine, to reassure me that he is not merely a ghost-like shadow leading me into the forest.  But the road  is overgrown with brush and very narrow, making it too awkward to walk two abrest, and I realise what I’m doing in time to pull back my hand before he turns his head to give me a curious sidelong glance.

 The road turns sharply and we are out of the forest, winding along its edge beside a frost glazed field.  We walk beside an  old rusted wire fence that runs alongside a small stream. In the still water I can see the moon’s reflection. The moon is high in the sky now and it looks cold and frozen in the  water. I see my own face reflected back at me and wonder at how pallid and ghostlike I appear.

 I turn my face from the stream and focus on the path. I can feel my ankles rolling slightly with each step; the ground is bumpier here. The elms have given way to several bare apple trees and the stench of the rotting fruit that  litters the path fills my nostrils. There is no sound apart from our  breathing, grown heavier as Trevor picks up his pace, and the soft crunch of our footsteps on the earth. We walk with silence between us.

 The ground begins to slant downwards as Trevor turns away of the path and heads back into the forest. I begin to follow him, but  pause after my first step.  The trees here are thick and coniferous evergreens; the moonlight barely penetrates their canopy. The darkness begins to smother me and I panic. I start  to back out further into the field, but I’m only able to take a step before Craig is at my side. The moonlight falls across his face and his dark eyes are shining brightly against the blue-white frostbitten landscape. He says nothing and presses a clammy palm into my own frozen one.

 I look back to the moon once before allowing myself to be devoured by the dark prickly treed forest.

 Even though it has been years since we were last here I remember the shape and smell of the forest as if I was fifteen only days ago. Trevor has brought me back to the camp our families once spent our summers.
 Through the shadows of the trees I now can see moonlight reflecting off water. Instead of heading down the road to the cottages Trevor is bringing me back to where we spent most of our time in the summers; to the stone remenents of a massive fireplace, likely from an old farm house, near the edge of the water and about a 10 minute walk from any of the cottages in the area.

 Trevor sits down along part of the stone foundation.

 “ It’s not like I don’t know I haven’t been around in the last while, but you know that wasn’t exactly my choice.” He says, looking at me. “I still know you Sam, and if you think I don’t you couldn’t be more wrong. You need to talk, and you know I don’t mean regurgitating that speech you’ve been giving to Beth’s family or the cops about what happened.”

 I turn away from Trevor and stare at the black water. I close my eyes and Beth’s body floating in the blue-green pool dances behind my eyelids. She is suspended in the luke warm pool water, face up,  of the  Mexican resort where we were spending spring break. Her dark hair twists and winds in slow  seaweed like waves across her pale face, tangles around her neck and arms. Her flesh looks rubbery in the eerie nighttime green glow of the underwater pool lights. I cannot see her brown eyes, but I know they are open. Unlike me, she was always one to face things head on.

 I open my eyes and try to push the image that has been haunting me out of my head and move towards the pebbly shore of the lake. I can feel Trevor’s eyes on me, waiting.

 The summer that we were thirteen or fourteen, Trevor and I got our dads to help us build a somewhat primitive dock on the lakeshore in front of the stone ruins. It still stands, six years later, although the winters have been hard on it and one side has sunk and the other pushed up so that it almost twists over on itself. I step up on the end of it and turn around to look at Trevor.

 “Find me a rock.” I tell him. He looks at me incredulously without moving. I start to peel my clothes off.
 The summer we built the dock we spent endless hours playing a game where we’d take turns picking out a stone - never just any stone, there was always  something different about it like it’s colour or shape or texture so that it could be identified upon retrieval - and tossing it into the lake as far as we could while the other would dive off the end of the dock to try to catch it before it hit the bottom. The point was to make a wish, and somehow we had come to believe if you caught the rock it meant it would come true. I don’t remember which of us started this game. As we grew older the game changed shape into one of truth or dare; if one of us caught the rock before it sunk to the bottom to settle among the thousands of others resting there, (this was fortunate for it made it impossible to cheat) the other was forced to pick from the two choices. Depending on our moods at the time it would often involve stealing bear from one of our parent’s coolers or  a dare sexual in nature.

 I’ve undressed to my underwear and Trevor hasn’t moved. I don’t think this is what he’s expected in bringing me here.

 “Samantha ! “ he starts, “don’t -“.

 But he’s too late, even as he realises what I’m about to do he doesn’t move fast enough. I’ve already chosen a rock and I grab it, throw it with all my strength and fly across the end of the dock before Trevor has time to stop me.

 I hit the water with my eyes closed and see Beth’s waterlogged body beckoning to me. One of her arms is reaching out to me, sweeping back and forth gracefully through the water. Her twisting hair floats away from her face and I can see her eyes, wide open, unafraid, and knowing. She is where she wanted to be at last, and the only thought in my mind as I feel my body begin to go numb from the sharp cold of the water is that I want to be there with her.

 It feels as though the freezing water is seeping into the thousands of pores and crevices of my body. My brain joins my limbs and begins to feel numb as I wish I had the strength to resist Trevor who I realise must be causing me to move up through the water and into the stinging air because I have no desire to be making myself do this.
 Somehow he is moving the both of us through the forest and I’m using the little energy I have to beat against him and scream to go back to the water. I need to go back for Beth. But I have no energy to fight him, and I must pass out because suddenly we are back in his car, the engine running with air pouring out of the vents, and he has removed his clothing and placed a blanket around himself and is struggling to get my wet underclothes off. The cold has paralysed me and I cannot move to help him.

 The air from the heater has warmed and is slamming itself against my skin. I think it is burning my flesh and I start to scream. Trevor eyes go large and round in the moonlight that spills through the windows, the pupils are so dilated that when I look at them I feel like I’m falling into a black hole. I realise with horror that someone else fell with me when I tried to go back to Beth. That hadn’t been my intention.

 All wet clothing removed at last, Trevor lies down and presses his goose pimpled flesh against mine. Both our bodies are convulsing under the scratchy woolen blanket, but I am beginning to feel my extremities again and my head isn’t pounding quite so hard. But I want to stay numb, I don’t want to feel my body again or have to think, or know. I try in vain to pull away from Trevor and throw off the blanket but even though his breathing is heavy and laboured he is bigger than me and uses his exhausted body to pin me underneath him to the backseat of the car.

 We lie there, naked bodies intertwined and spent, for the rest of the night waiting in silence for the sky to bleed.