Théodora Armstrong - Clear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility

“Telling people what?” Kate’s smile is twisting like a snake’s tail.

“I think I’m having a bad trip.”

“No you’re not, you’re definitely fine,” she says, grabbing me by the shoulders. She shakes me. “You’re fine.”

“Yeah, keep shaking me. That feels good.”

Kate walks me outside to the backyard where kids stand around in large groups or hang out in the tents, hot-boxing or making out. Max is walking around the yard making fireballs with hairspray and a lighter and pissing everyone off. Every time he gets close to us I grab Kate’s arm. “Get lost,” Kate says, shooing him as he passes us. He takes a step closer to me and without meaning to I scream. The noise frightens all of us. “I said fuck off,” Kate says, stepping between us. “Can’t you see how afraid she is of you?” He looks high out of his tree. “Let’s go somewhere else,” Kate whispers, wrapping her arm around me protectively and leading me along the side of the house. The front yard is empty, with only a few small groups of people chatting on the street. With the wide vacant yard and the stars flowing like streamers over my head, everything feels much better. Elgin’s sitting on the porch alone, looking sad, so Kate hands him a joint and we all smoke a bit together and then everyone cheers up. “See, it all works out,” I say, before spinning off across the lawn. Kate joins me, grabbing my hands so we can twirl together, but we fall so often that eventually we just lie in the grass.

“I can taste the moon,” I say.

“What’s it like?” Kate asks. She opens her mouth.

“Kind of acidic.” I rub the back of my hand over my tongue. “It’s horrible.”

Max comes stumbling out the front door and trips down the porch steps, ignoring all of us. He wanders down the street away from the party and I feel happier than I ever thought possible. “I’m so much better now,” I say to Kate.

We climb onto the stone planters beside the front steps and throw ourselves onto the grass, saying over and over, It doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t hurt. Elgin stretches out on the steps and closes his eyes. Without him watching us, things don’t seem as much fun, so Kate and I sit in the grass side by side and stare at the house. It looks so boring from the outside, with the curtains drawn and the porch light flickering. A group of kids stream out the front door, down the steps, and into the street. A couple people say hi to Kate as they go by and Adrienne is with them, trailing at the back. She smiles at me and mouths the word whore . “You’re the whore,” I yell at her as she walks by, but she doesn’t turn around. There’s something about the way Kate sits in the grass — really still, focused on the tan stucco — that makes me feel so sad. “Why don’t we hang out anymore?” I say, after all the kids have disappeared up the street.

“We can,” Kate says. “It’s not impossible.”

“I wish things were different.”

The porch light goes off and we’re surrounded by the dark night. After a few seconds the stars get brighter.

“Different how?” Kate asks.

“Just easier,” I say. “The way things were before.”

Elgin sits up on the stairs and rubs his face. “Hello?” When he calls out, for some reason we don’t move or say anything. He stands and goes back into the house, a sliver of light shooting across the lawn toward us before disappearing again.

“I’d never want things to be different.” Kate lies back in the grass and stretches her arms overhead, smiling up at the sky. “I think the moon tastes nice. Like almonds.”

I don’t know how to explain to Kate how wrong she is about everything. This time I learn to control my tears and they only trickle out of my eyes silently. Kate leans over my face, her hair tickling my cheeks. She says, “Okay, let’s be different then. We can just BE different.” Right away the tears evaporate, and for most of the night I believe her, until I hear her later, when we’re back inside the party, telling Rana she should BE different too.

I WAKE UP IN the morning on the grass in front of Kate’s tent, shivering so hard my teeth clack together. The lawn is covered in dew and the sky’s an uncertain silver, like the day hasn’t yet decided what kind of day it wants to be. I unzip the tent to find Kate and Elgin buried under blankets. Inside the house, I step carefully around sleeping kids. I have to wake up some guy in the bathtub so I can pee, and then I dig through my pockets, lining up coins on the bathroom counter and praying for enough to get home on the bus.

I’m walking across the front yard when I find Max. He’s in the bushes, halfway into the neighbour’s property, like he’s fallen asleep while trying to escape something. I shake his leg and then give it a tug. He sits up, staring at me like he doesn’t recognize who I am. His arms are cut up, short, bloody slashes running diagonally from his wrists to his elbows. There’s a piece of broken beer bottle in the grass. We both look at his arms like they aren’t his own. I pull him up, taking him next door to find help, and it’s like guiding a small child by the shoulders. I don’t say anything. I don’t say, Max, what happened , or Max, are you okay, or Max, what the fuck, you can’t do stuff like that . There are so many things I could say, but I say nothing.

I guide him with the tips of my fingers, barely touching him, to a stranger’s front yard. We stand on the porch together and Max stares out at the street while I ring the doorbell. When an older woman in her housecoat answers the door, I realize I have no words to explain. I turn Max gently to face her so she can see what he has done.

ON OUR LAST DAY at Outdoor School they gathered everyone in the large field beside the parking lot for a game of Predator-Prey. They assigned all the kids an animal — bear, owl, skunk, coyote, squirrel. The point was to eat. The predators ate the prey by tapping them on the shoulder. The prey found cardboard food tickets in ice cream buckets scattered around the forest. The counselors were disease and they could eat anything. They set the boundaries for us: to the right, the river and mountains; to the left, the highway; straight ahead we could go as far as the power lines. Kate and I were deer. We stuck together from the start. I made sure to stand next to her before we were given the signal to hide — three long whistle blows. We had three minutes alone in the forest before the predators were let loose. You could hear them howling and barking. Max was a wolf. You could pick out his yowl, short and yippy like he really wanted to get out there, like he couldn’t wait. While we ran, Kate laid out a plan. We’d find a spot to hide, and later, once the predators had tired themselves out, we would go find the food buckets. We ran past some kids hiding in a hollowed out tree, one of them laughing hysterically. “They’ll find you there,” Kate said, as we went by. “Idiots,” she shouted back to me.

The whistle blew again: one long shriek, signalling the release of the predators. We found a path along the river that led deep into the forest and Kate pulled me down the side of a slope, both of us sliding through the mud, landing next to the river. The water was shallow and the riverbed bare in spots. We crept along the narrow bank until we found a small cave in the roots of a tree where water had eroded the dirt. Crouched in the tangle of roots, our shoes sunk in the mud, Kate pulled me close, hooking her arm around my waist. We plugged our noses against the stench of rotting salmon, the greasy humps of their decaying bodies all down the drained riverbed. Kate’s eyes were sharp, her muscles tensed for a quick escape. I could feel my blood speeding through my veins. Above us we listened to the stamp of feet through the forest, the shouts as kids were caught. Counsellors yelled at the ones who were tackling. We shook with silent laughter and the exhilaration of hiding. Kate pressed a hand over my mouth. “Quiet,” she whispered, but her eyes shone. We had found a good spot.