Zhanna Slor - At the End of the World, Turn Left

Tristan, now close enough that I can smell several weeks of non-showering on him, motions for me to meet him farther away from the group, near a cluster of trees. I follow him. He may not be my sister, but he is the closest I am getting to her at the moment.

I get straight to the point. “Where’s Anna?”

“Anastasia? She’s long gone,” Tristan shrugs. At least this time he isn’t pretending not to know who I’m talking about. This is a step in the right direction.

“Gone where?” I ask.

Tristan shrugs again, but he must know more than he’s letting on. The fact that he’s calling her by her Russian name clues me in that their relationship is more serious than I previously thought.

“We, uh…” he pauses, looking a little bit ashamed. “Didn’t end things on a great note. Whatever. It happens.”

“So you haven’t spoken to her? Then why were you at my friend’s house yesterday?”

He shrugs. “It’s still a good idea. Your sister is hella smart,” he says.

I find myself scowling at him, then fix my face. It won’t help matters to show my disgust. “Yeah. Just imagine if she put that brain of hers to good use.”

Tristan’s eyes narrow at me. “How do you know she isn’t?” he says. Then abruptly his glance falls on something behind me. I turn, and Liam is there.

I frown. “What are you doing?” I ask Liam, before turning back to Tristan.

“She’s fine,” Tristan tells me, starting to back away. “Stop looking for her. She can take care of herself.”

“I can’t do that,” I say. “She’s my sister.”

He softens a little. “It’s really cool how much you care about her. I wish I had someone out there looking for me,” he mumbles. Then he shrugs again, backing away some more until he is almost too far to hear. “But if she doesn’t want to be found, you have to respect that.”

He has a point, but not one I particularly want to admit to right now. Tristan seems, despite his ragged appearance, to be a nice and loyal person. So maybe Anna isn’t so confused after all. Of everything going on in Milwaukee right now, her actions appear less and less terrible the more I learn of them. Except for the stealing anyway. But everything else? My dad’s appalling behavior could explain a lot of it.

Abruptly, I hear the sound of sticks breaking, and then Liam is propelling himself beyond me. He stands between us, a nervous laugh tumbling out of his mouth. “I have to give you some props,” he says to Tristan. “I’m tough to surprise.”

“Can you give us a second?” I ask him, annoyed that he followed me out there, after I specifically asked him, and he declined. Why did he change his mind? And right when I was getting somewhere. “Go back to the car.”

“Fuck no,” he says. He takes out the knife I’d seen moments earlier and points it in our direction. Tristan doesn’t even blink. He must have already noticed it. He raises his hands in the air innocently.

“Is there a problem here?” He lets out an arrow of smoke and then drops the half-finished cigarette on the ground. My heart rate begins to speed up. I have to keep reminding myself this is my life, that I’m not watching a movie play out in front of my eyes. This is me in the woods at night with two angry guys who look ready for a fight. This is me using nothing but moonlight and the smallest remainder of nerves to keep standing upright.

“Yes, we have a fucking problem. I want my goddamn money back, you fucking junkies,” Liam says, pointing the knife at Tristan’s face in a manner that makes it pretty clear he’d never aimed a weapon at anyone before. I know from Krav Maga and watching way too many detective movies with David that someone could make one move on Liam’s wrist and grab it in less than a second. More, I don’t buy it. He isn’t a violent person. For a moment it makes me less scared, remembering this. I am level-headed enough to ask him what’s going on.

Tristan sighs again. “Dude, you’re really not as interesting as you think you are,” he says. “Just because you were the cool guy in high school—”

“Can you put that thing down?” I ask Liam. “You don’t really intend to stab this guy for twenty bucks, do you?”

Liam snorts. “More like eight hundred bucks. She took it out of the drumhead in my closet when I was sleeping.” The ends of his mouth curled. “Like a whore .”

“ She ?” I ask.

“The fuck did you call—” Tristan starts.

“Yeah, I called your little girlfriend a whore, because that’s what she is,” Liam says.

“What? Are you talking about Anna?”

“Her name is Anastasia,” Tristan says. “She doesn’t like the name Anna.”

“Since when?”

“Since always.”

I move on to the more important questions: “Why would you keep that much money in a drumhead?” Then, confirming my growing suspicions, I ask, “Why was she there when you were sleeping?”

Liam shakes his head at me like I’m a moron, which, maybe I am. “Why do you think ?”

As all the information begins to settle on me, I become more and more confused. Even knowing she was stealing, I hadn’t really considered how she was stealing. With the Craigslist scam, I assumed she would only come to people’s houses and report back to Tristan if it was worth breaking into. But now it looks like she took money from people herself. It sounds like something a stranger might do, not my happy-go-lucky kid sister Anna. I’d never once imagined her being able to use people like that. Or being involved with someone like Liam, who is his own type of addict, someone she would never have a future with. He was never letting go of his open relationship doctrine, it was obvious. Not to mention Tristan and his blue hair and his train-hopping. At least Liam had a house.

More importantly, if she really is dating either guy, and they are both here , then where is Anna?

“You need to take your petty grievances with you and leave,” Tristan tells Liam. But Liam has no intention of fleeing. While we are standing there staring at each other, out of the corner of my eye, I see Liam shift, the glean of the knife reflected by the moon; then, even faster, Tristan moves past him, until the two of them are suddenly wrestling on the ground. A second later, Tristan is sitting on top of Liam and has taken the knife out of his hand.

“Not cool, bro,” Tristan says, standing up, sliding the knife into a pocket of his pants. He gazes up at me with a look I can only describe as tiredness. Tired is the last thing I am feeling. My heart is beating so fast and so loud it’s like a drum. This would never happen in Israel, I think, yet again. When you fall, there are too many people there to catch you. Here, when you fall, there are only people to pull you farther down; if there’s anyone at all. The nuclear family ideal has consequences.

I kneel down on the grass beside Liam, and take my bag off my shoulders. “Here,” I say, reaching into my bag. “You said he owes you 800 dollars? I’ll pay you back, okay? I have some money from my dad, and I can get more. It’s not a problem.”

Tristan looks at me, then at Liam, then at me again.

My heart is racing now. What if he decides to wrestle me to the ground too? But Tristan merely stands, flicking the dirt from his jeans onto the ground and wiping his brow of sweat.

“Tell Anna, if you find her…” he licks his lips, and stares at the ground. For a moment, I see the real version of him. The one underneath all the layers of bravado and indifference. “Tell her I’m sorry. And… tell her the money went where it was supposed to go, and she shouldn’t worry.”

“What money?” I ask. Did he mean the money they made stealing? The money I thought was used to get the hell out of dodge, possibly to Ukraine? I stand up, and extend a hand for Liam.