I have been inside the crowded and unbearably stuffy room for hours now, staring at and  supposedly saying my goodbyes to Beth, and yet I don’t believe that she 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 more than a bit guilty, I focus on the two long shadows gliding across the pavement as Trevor and I quietly move between parked cars.

 From the moment I entered that building I’d been waiting for an opportunity to leave it. When Trevor asked if I wanted to slip out of the service early I accepted without hesitation. 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 spent together, just how much he’s changed. His neck and jaw line have thickened, his frame widened, and the crls in his blond hair have 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 as if to acknowledge the changes both of us have acquired with time. Once this would have driven me crazy, that he could know what I was thinking by simply looking at me. But time, and the events of the past few days, have changed Trevor’s effect.

 “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, along with the rumble of the old engine and the sound of the evening wind moving across the car. I realize, thought, that he is waiting for some sort of response. I mumble something in agreement, hoping it will satisfy him and that he will let me be.

 It works and a comfortable silence between us ensues. I’m thankful to him for taking me away from the church and from the mourning, but that does not erase the resentment I feel building up inside of me towards him.
 All I want right now 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 the 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 from the base thundering out of the van beside us. The lights change 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 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 form the words I recognize the road we’re on and know where he is 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 of getting into the car with him in the first place. I should have expected something like this. He is, afterall, just like everyone else. All anyone has been trying to do to me since I got back from Mexico is force me to talk.

 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 to guide our way as we leave the gravel road behind us and follow an old, narrow, dirt road that enters into the thick 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 late autumn wind brushes up against them. Their withered yellow and brown papery remains seem to point at at Trevor and I as we walk between the trees. I can’t help but feel as if they are watching us. I move closer to him, close enough to smell the spicy undertones of his cologn, and I study the shape of his thick silhouette against the trees. I remember a time long ago when all I had ever wanted was to be this close to him.

 The first layer of snow of the season has stretched itself lightly across the path and it crunches under our feet with each step. It is so sparse that it is more of a heavy frost that  snow. I cringe from the grinding sound of the crunching underfoot. It reminds me of fingernails being scratches 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. I realise what I’m doing in time to pull back my hand before he turns his head at me and gives 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 grund is uneven here. The elms have given way to several bare apple trees and the stench of rotting fruit that litters the path fill 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 off the path and heads into the forest. I begin to follow him, but pause after my first steps. 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 into the field, but I’m only able to take a step before Trevor 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 clamy 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 through I have not been here since I was fifteen I remember the shape and smell of the forest as if I were here only days ago and not years. Trevor has brought me back to the camp our families once spent their summers, the place where our friendship was born and was always its strongest.

 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 the two of us spent most of our time in the heat of summer days. It is a spot very near to the waters edge where there are remenants of a massive stone fireplace, likely from an old farm house.

 Trevor sits down along part of the stone foundation.

 “I know I haven’t been around 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 Beth’s family or the cops about what happened.”
 I can’t believe that Trevor has the nerve to try to make me open up to him, of all people, after all that has happened. In many ways he may as well have drowned Beth that night in the pool. I can feel rage building up inside of me towards him. He was supposed to have been there with Beth in Mexico. Not me. It would have changed everything.

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

 I open my eyes and try to push the haunting image out of my head and move towards the pebbly shore of the lake. I can feel Trevor’s eyes on me, waiting. But I don’t dare look at him. I’m afraid of what I might do, I want to hurt him too much for bringing me here and trying to make me open up.

 The summer that we were thirteen Trevor and I got our dads to help us build a primitive dock on the lakeshore in front of the stone ruins. It still stands, years later, although the winders have been hard 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. My voice is monotone. He looks at me incredulously without moving. I start to peel my cloths off.

 The summer we built to dock we spent endless hours playing a game where we’d take turns picking out a stone - never just any stone, there had to be 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. The other one would dive off the end of the dock to try to catch it before the rock hit the bottom. The point was to make a wish, and somehow we had come to believe that if we caught the rock it meant it would come true. I don’t remember who start 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, it would usually involve stealing a beer from either parent’s coolers or some sort of dare sexual in nature.

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

 “Samantha!” he starts, “don’t-“.

 But he is too late. Even as he realises what I’m about to do he can’t move fast enough to stop me. I’ve already chosen a rock and throw it with all my strength as I fly across the end of the dock before he has time to stop me. My flight before I hit the water seems endless, but yet not enough time to make all the wishes I want. I wish I had never told Trevor about Beth when I found out they would be attending the same university. I wish that I had never offered to introduce my summertime best friend to my school year best friend, my two dearest childhood friends. I wish that I had not insisted on taking Trevors place and making Beth go to Mexico after things went bad between them...

 I hit the water with my eyes closed and see Beth’s waterlogged body beckonning 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.

 The freezing water seeps into the thousands of pores and crevices of my body. My brain joins my limbs and begins to numb. I wish I had the strength to resist Trevor, who, I realise is moving me up through the water and into the stinging air. 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 that 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, and suddenly we are back in his car, the engine running with air pouring out of the vents. Trevor has removed his clothing and places a blanket around himself and is struggling to get my wet underclothes off. The cold has paralysed me and I cannot move to stop, or 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’s eyes go large and round in the moonlight that spills through the windows, his pupils are so dialted that looking at them I feel like I’m falling into a black hold. I realise with horror that someone else was falling with me me when I tried to go back to beth. I had counted on being the only one.

 All wet clothing removed at last, Trevor lies down and presses his good-pimpled flesh against mine. Both of our bodies are convulding under the scratchy woolen blanket, but I am beginning to feel my extremities again and my head isn’t pounding quite so hard. I don’t want to feel though, 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. Trevor doesn’t try to make me talk again. Instead, we lie on the backseat of his car, nakes bodies intertwined and spent, for the rest of the night waiting in silence for the sky to bleed.