Chapter 11 - The Man of Wind and Moss

“Thank you, Jesus,” Marco said. They had passed the last blaze ten minutes ago and the trail had gotten skinnier. He had been nervous they had stumbled upon a game trail and were about to wind up in front of a bear den. But then he turned into a clearing and saw it. In the darkness of the night, the moon a dull crescent, Paula’s cabin stood welcoming, giant, and like all the pictures he’d seen.

“Okay, I see you,” Pansy said next, the others coming up behind him. Everyone’s energy had turned up. The place was a relief. By the varied sighs and exhalations, Marco could tell they were starting to worry, keeping their fears tight in their chests.

“Thank you, Jesus,” Marco said again, quieter this time.

He led the group up the steps to the big wooden doors. He set the guitar down and extended his palm and spread his fingers. They were stiff in their curl, and he shook his hand out.

“Let’s get in there, baby, I need to take these boots off and then I need a drink,” Keith said.

“I literally cannot believe we made it,” Doll said.

“Yeah, I could’ve sworn we were fucked.”

Marco pulled the keys out of his bag and addressed his followers. The security light had flipped on and now he could see each one, their faces yellow, squinting, their eyes adjusting to the new light. “Oh, ye of little faith. Why were you so afraid?”

His friends jeered and teased him, and he unlocked the heavy doors and the six of them spilled in. When Marco flipped the lights on, they had truly found an oasis.

The cabin was opulent. Two floors, a basement, a sprawling kitchen, a large fireplace, a steam room, a wraparound balcony that looked over the descending forest, a dining table that sat ten, couches, recliners, fake indigenous carpets, antlers, hanging Edison bulbs, a double-door fridge, two dishwashers, and four bedrooms, each with a private bathroom, and a communal one on the main floor. The place was wood and metal and shiny brass and the seats were real leather and—

“There’s no TV?” Keith asked.

“We’re all here to bond,” Sasha reminded him. She unclipped her bag and let it fall to the side.

“Bond?” Keith asked. “What the hell have we been doing all day then? What do you call that?”

“I call it a buzzer beater,” Dean said, joining them in the living area. “It was a little touch-and-go there, but you came through.”

“Come on, guys,” Marco said. “Did I really look that nervous?”

They all broke out laughing. Marco grinned and dropped his bag and sat on the couch. He wanted to melt in it. He kicked off his boots and looked up at the intricate rafters of the cabin. The windows, high along the wall, looked out to the stars. He didn’t realize how tired he was. How stressed he had been. He let his eyes close and listened to the others retreat into the cabin. He heard Pansy and Dean claim a room, the door shutting quickly. He heard Doll and Keith tour the place laughing and pointing things out. He felt something flutter to his lap. He opened his eyes, and Sasha was standing in front of him.

“You got a letter,” she said. She gestured with her eyebrows to the envelope. He turned it over in his hands. It was from Paula. He opened it and read it aloud.

“Marco, enjoy your stay. If there’s any problems call me from the landline. My house is your house. Remember what nature is for. With love, Paula.”

“‘Remember what nature is for.’ That’s a great line, isn’t it?” She reached out and took the letter from Marco. He closed his eyes again. He could smell the cabin. The wood. The leather. His sweaty socks. He could smell Sasha right in front of him, and he thought the scent was pleasant. There was something about her sweat and her clothes.

“Wait, there’s a winky face here.”

“What?” He opened his eyes again.

Sasha turned the letter to Marco. Remember what nature is for ;). It was clear as day, but he was so tired his eyes had glazed over it.

“Why did she put a winky face here? What is nature for?”

“Nothing, that’s just, I don’t know, a typo,” Marco said.

“This is literally a winky face,” Sasha said. She nudged his knee with her own knee. “Come on, tell me what nature is for.”

“Sash, I’m trying to get a second wind here,” he said, closing his eyes again. He felt like his father trying to rest his eyes in the middle of the day, SportsCenter turned down to a whisper.

“Just tell me,” Sasha said again.

She knew what the winky face was all about. Marco could hear it in her voice, and when he opened his eyes for good, he could see it in her face as well. She raised her eyebrows waiting for an answer.

“Paula said that the best place to confess your feelings is in nature,” Marco whispered. “That way we know what this is all about.” On the last sentence Marco gestured the same way Paula did when she first pitched him on it. Sasha exhaled a breath of resignation.

“Are we really doing this right now?” Marco asked.

“It’s just,” Sasha started. She fixed her glasses and tugged at her ponytail.

“It’s just what?”

“What do you expect to happen up here? Like give me the play-by-play.”

“Why are you being mean to me right now?”

“I’m not being mean. I’m just trying to understand your headspace.”

“Is this going to be an essay later?”

“Ha-ha. You should’ve seriously run this by me.”

“I’ve been trying to. But I’ve been a little wrapped up planning it, getting all the pieces together, and the last time we hung out was, you know, a bit overstimulating to put it kindly. I don’t know why you’re acting so surprised. You of all people should’ve sniffed it out.”

“I did sniff it out. Obviously. I know you better than you know yourself. But what is your plan?”

“I was going to tell her how I feel,” Marco said.

“And then what?” Sasha asked. She bounced her shoulders in emphasis. “She fucks you? She leaves Dean and then we’re all stuck here in the awkwardness of it?”

“To be honest, I didn’t think that far ahead on purpose.” He sat up, awake now, his second wind having come through spite and frustration but arriving, nonetheless. “I’m not stupid. I’m not socially inept. I was going to feel it out. If I had her alone, I was going to test the waters. I’m not going to propose or anything. I’m just going to make my case.”

“Okay and what happens if she says yes, and she gets with you? Are you going to raise Dean’s kid?”

“Well, I guess we’d talk about it and if she should keep it and, you know, go from there.”

“Excuse me?”

“What?”

People around the cabin started stirring. The couple in question was about to come down the stairs. Doll and Keith were going to return. There was a Jacuzzi promised in the group chat and through the sliding doors to the balcony you could see the corner of it still covered and lifeless.

“This conversation isn’t over,” she said, and she left the living room and disappeared up the stairs.

Marco looked at the letter in his lap. The fucking winky face. He folded it up and threw it in the fireplace, empty and dead but ready to burn.

“Let me help you get this thing going,” Dean’s voice said. It came from behind Marco, and he jumped a bit. He was referring to the Jacuzzi. He had come down the stairs in his swim trunks and stood strong with his broad shoulders straight across. His body was fit and threatening.

“It’s just taking off the cover and turning it on,” Marco said.

“Then let’s do it,” he said. He moved across the living area to the balcony doors and slid one open. It was clear he wanted to talk. Marco suddenly felt paranoid that he had overheard him and Sasha. He was already exhausted with how all of this was unfolding.

Outside, they both grabbed the heavy leather cover and pulled it off of the Jacuzzi. Once off, Dean folded it to the side. The water sat there dead, the surface of it black and without reflection. Dean put his hand in and felt the coolness of it.

“I think it’s this right here,” Marco said. He pressed some buttons on a plastic panel and digital numbers lit up. A light inside turned on, and a small jet stream started. “It might take a little bit to heat up.”

“That’s fine, we can talk.”

Shit.

Marco looked up from the bubbling water. He and Dean stood on opposite ends of the Jacuzzi.

“I don’t want to make this a whole thing, so I’ll be quick,” Dean started. He kept his hands in the pockets of his bathing suit—a small, white get-up that showed his thighs and hugged his cock. The tattoos on his forearms were of generic bullshit. A skull being struck by lightning. An FSU arrowhead. A black band near the curve of his elbow. They were the types of tattoos that, subconsciously, you took in as a whole and never individually, because otherwise you’d see how stupid they were. “I know about Pansy running to you when we fight. I know about most of them at least.”

Marco felt a rush of embarrassment spread from his waistband. To be honest, he had suspected as much, but he never expected a confrontation, at least not this early.

“It’s fine,” Dean continued, “I’ve done things too. We’re not perfect. But just so you know, by and large, I think of you as a friend. I know we can get a little aggressive with each other sometimes and I know you think I can be a shithead—”

“I don’t—”

“Let me finish,” Dean cut him off. And thankfully too because Marco wasn’t sure what he was going to say. “From my side, it’s never been ‘Fuck Marco.’ I mean, fine, sometimes it has been. But I know you’re a good guy, and for the most part it’s never been ‘Fuck Marco.’”

“It’s never been ‘Fuck Dean’ either,” Marco said, and then he had a quick twinge of guilt. Was he lying? Probably? But in truth was it ever Fuck Dean as much as I’m deeply and forever jealous of Dean? Those two feelings weren’t exactly interchangeable. Everything had nuance.

Dean put his hand in the water and then wiped it on his stomach. “You know, a part of me is actually comforted that you’re obsessed with her. I really feel like you’d take care of her. Be there for her when I’m gone. And I want that. When I’m away I want you to be there for her if she needs help. But know your place. You have to respect our boundaries. Don’t try to fuck her. Don’t try to steal her from me. I know her just like you know her. When she wants attention, she goes to the nearest guy that’ll give it to her. It is what it is. Just be there. And only there. Nothing more. You understand what I’m saying?”

“I understand what you’re saying.”

“Anything to add?”

The green, digital temperature slowly counted up. A chill breeze passed over the balcony and rustled the tops of the trees just below the ledge. They were elevated, practically on a cliff, looking over the black stretch of the forest. Marco shrugged. “I have nothing to add,” he said. Dean extended his large hand over the hot tub. Marco received it and shook it, and Dean’s grip was strong.

* * *

The best groups of friends always need a degree of incest. It can’t be over the top where everyone has sucked and fucked each other, but there needs to be that subtle interest. That quiet arousal when someone comes down in a bikini or when the guys take off their shirts regardless of what’s underneath. This particular six, over a decade of being friends, only now began to approach the line. The Pansy-Dean-Marco triangle was its own sitcom, but a few more touches and glances hung in the air, at least the ones Marco was aware of. For instance, there was the undeniable Keith-and-Doll. They had the errant make-out session here and there but never went the distance. It was because of this that Keith was so protective of Doll, arguing about her choices and her future. He was obsessed with seeing her succeed, he was sarcastic whenever she brought a man around, and he was only ever bashful when she would whisper in his ear. There was also Marco and Sasha—never explored but always suggested—now at the forefront of his mind after her remarks in the car.

There was even a time when Dean and Marco kissed during a night of spin the bottle. They were nineteen and it was an orchestrated event for Dean to finally take Pansy to bed, but, while playing, all six of them were thrilled and antsy and that exact sluggish type of horny that a ton of Rolling Rocks got you. When Dean landed on Pansy, they made out frenetically and even though Marco felt a pang of jealousy, the eroticism was undeniable. Even Sasha’s mouth parted in semi-mock horror. When Dean landed on Keith, Keith tried to jam his tongue down Dean’s throat just for laughs. When Dean landed on Marco, Marco was ready for whatever life was going to reveal: his own rock-hard erection perhaps, a whisked away feeling of romance, or, exactly what he got, a stubbly cheek and cheesy mouth to the backtrack of the girls whooping and cheering.

This is all to say that after ten years of friendship and different lovers and romances and scars, that nineteen-year-old sexual energy has now come back to fill the cabin. Like in Stephen King’s IT, when all the adults suddenly remembered Pennywise the Clown, the six of them, now thirty, suddenly remembered they were still horny teens and also that Doll had the nicest rack you’ve ever seen in a bathing suit.

“Christ on a crutch,” Keith said under his breath. He made busy work and started putting things in the fridge and cabinets.

“Are we ready? I’m trying to get in there,” Doll said, referring to the Jacuzzi.

“It’s still getting hot,” Marco said. “Shouldn’t be long.”

“Keith, this is sad,” Doll said. “When was the last time you saw the sun? C’mon, man.”

Keith looked down at his pasty belly. Fine, reddish chest hair splayed around birthmarks and freckles. “You don’t want to see me in the sun, dude, this is the best shade of me, I promise.”

“You know I’ve still never been to the Rockaways,” Marco said.

“Don’t bother,” Keith said. “Didn’t someone run in and get glass in their foot?”

“Yeah, that was Pansy,” Doll said. “Five stitches later and it’s her big New York story.” She hopped up on the bar stool by the kitchen counter. Keith cracked a beer and handed it to her. Comically, she leaned over the edge to examine his swim shorts. “Oh, and what are those? Billabong 2008? Brutal.”

“Alright, gimme that back,” Keith said pulling her beer away. “You can get your own.”

“Don’t be too hard on him,” Marco chimed in. “He only just stopped wearing shirts in the pool.”

“I know I’m not getting roasted by you,” he turned to Marco. “Your whole closet is minimum-wage uniforms.”

Doll laughed loudly. “That was a real laugh, did you hear that? Can I get my beer back, please?”

“Yes, but behave or I’ll take it back,” Keith said.

“Wait, are we making fun of Marco’s clothes?” Pansy’s voice called out. She came down the stairs in a pink bikini and purple Tevas. “Remember when you tried to be a band tee guy in college, and you wore one Sublime shirt and got laughed out of a party?”

“I actually repressed that pretty firmly,” Marco said. “And also, what the fuck? Sublime is good. I stand by that.”

“Honestly, for the best,” Keith explained. “You would’ve been eaten alive in Brooklyn.”

“Oh my God, for real,” Pansy said. “Marco walking around with a Strokes shirt. I’m like cringing.”

“This is a made-up scenario. That never happened. And you were wearing a Violent Femmes shirt like a week ago.”

“No, see, because when I wear a band shirt, I’m like styling it. When you wear one it’s like you love That ’70s Show.” Pansy winked and sat next to Doll.

“Whaddaya wanna drink?” Keith asked. “I don’t know what to get you. A warm milk? Some room-temp water?”

“I packed some seltzers in there,” Pansy said.

“Seltzers?” Doll asked, appalled.

“Like a La Croix, gimme a break. Are you going to be like this the whole time?”

“I think so, yeah,” Doll said. Pansy stuck out her tongue. Doll dodged it and rubbed her sister’s back.

“Okay, I’m ready for this damn thing,” Dean said next. He pounded down the stairs and Keith tossed him a beer. After his chat with Marco, he had gone back upstairs, maybe to debrief Pansy. The confrontation, if you could call it that, still hung over Marco’s head. But Dean was a professional at this type of thing. You couldn’t see anything past the mask he presented.

“Okay, now that we’re safe and sound inside,” Dean started, opening his beer with punctuation, “are we going to talk about that dead guy in the lot?”

“Oh my God,” Doll said. She put her hands to her eyes. “And Marco totally in denial: ‘It’s a hike-in, it’s a hike-in.’”

“I didn’t want to freak everyone out!” Marco said.

“You were making it more freaky,” Doll said.

“Raise your hand if that was your first dead guy,” Dean said. Everyone raised their hands. “Look at that, we’re already making memories.”

“Sasha! Come down!” Pansy shouted. “We’re making memories!”

“She’s probably up there taking notes for her next essay,” Keith said.

“She does want to write about this trip,” Marco said. “We got drinks for her birthday, and she mentioned it.”

“You’re still taking her out for her birthday?” Pansy asked. “Aw, my heart.”

Pansy saying that didn’t quite land right with Marco. He couldn’t tell if it was sarcastic or sincere, and if it was sarcastic, why?

Summoned, Sasha came down the stairs next. She was in a floral pattern one-piece. Her blonde hair was in a messy bun, and her boxy glasses were low on her nose like she was just writing. “Hi, I hear everyone talking crap, how may I help you?”

“No one’s talking crap,” Pansy said. “We just love you so much.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

“Okay, c’mon,” Dean said. “It’s gotta be hot enough now.”

Dean led the charge and crossed the living room to the balcony. He slid open the door and disappeared around the bend. After him went Doll, then Keith with booze, then Pansy with her La Croix, and then Sasha, who, to Marco, still seemed upset about the winky face.

* * *

In the Jacuzzi they had finally started drinking proper. It was well after midnight. Keith opened a bottle of Four Roses and poured it into cups filled with ice. Pansy sat on the edge of the tub and kept her feet in the water. Dean sat between her legs. Marco looked at his wet chest and abs. His strong shoulders and neck. How scary he must look when he raises his voice—a sight seldom seen by others. Closing the loop with his other girls, Marco thought. C’mon.

To his right was Doll, and then Keith, and then squeezing in, her skinny body lost in the bubbles and between the arms and legs of the others was Sasha. She kept avoiding Marco’s eyes, looking off to Pansy and Doll or down at her legs warped and refracted in the water.

“This is it, huh, guys?” Dean said. He proffered his cup for a toast.

“Nobody is dying,” Doll remarked. She dunked her head under the water and whipped it back. She adjusted her top and rubbed her eyes. “We’re all just old now.”

“I’m glad we all made it here though,” Marco cut in. “We’ve been really close since college but now things are going to be different.”

“Not everyone looking at me at once,” Pansy joked.

“No, no, not just that,” Marco continued. He looked at everyone. Memories of them all first meeting came to the surface and, surprising himself, he felt a pang of sorrow. “We’re all at that point where it’s do or die, I think.”

“We’re not even out of our twenties,” Doll said.

“No, he’s right,” Keith corrected. “If we don’t get it going now, we’ll never get it going.”

“Just look at the crossroads we’re at,” Marco insisted. “Pansy’s pregnant, Dean is going into the Army, you’re going corporate, Sasha is going to grad school, Keith is—

“Still fucking around,” Keith finished.

“But not for long. You’re gonna be doing big things too.”

“And where does that leave you?” Sasha asked, glaring at him.

“I need to make some changes too,” Marco said. It was a concession. A subtle one but heavy enough for Sasha to hear it and digest it. “I need to make some bold moves in my life. I’m tired of being in the background. I’m tired of being complacent. Remember that book we read freshman year? I’m tired of being Fifth Business.”

“I don’t think you understood that book,” Sasha remarked.

“Whatever,” Marco said. “You all know what I mean. I’m the least ambitious one here, I can admit that. I’m probably the dumbest too. But I’ve been looking at my life and I’ve been asking myself lately if I’m happy. Am I really happy?”

A quick note about this bit here, Marco never really asked himself Am I happy? It was more like, Why aren’t I happy? And while the thought blossomed in its entirety on that beach in Puerto Rico, that wasn’t when it first budded. The first sliver of this idea showed when he was thirteen, and it was nothing major. It was the dissatisfaction of puberty in the suburbs. This was also right around when his father, as an apology for drinking and talking to ghosts, got him an Xbox 360 for his troubles. The question bounced around in between rounds of Halo 3 but he never lingered on it long enough to worry.

The second time he thought it was when he lost his virginity at sixteen to Rachel Sook, one of those perfect blends of horny-enough and nerdy-enough to jump his bones while doing work for a group project. He lay underneath her, mortified, staring up at her giant, pale breasts and he wondered what in him was sideways enough to be depressed at a time like this. He and Rachel carried on discreetly like that for the rest of the sophomore spring semester, mostly by Rachel’s doing. Then she dropped him for a pockmarked senior and Marco moved on, his friends exploding in laughter every time she walked by.

Then he dodged the question a bunch in college and drowned it in cheap beer and cheaper weed. He remembered thinking it at a kegger. He remembered thinking it in Helen, Georgia. And even though, at the time, nothing could’ve made him happier, he remembered thinking it when Pansy would come over.

But the biggest time, when the question was in full bloom, was on that beach in Puerto Rico. Why aren’t I happy?

“Nobody our age is happy,” Dean said. Marco was back in the hot tub. “How could they be?”

“Right. I agree. But I’m asking myself that. And I don’t have an answer. But I know there are things that can make me happy, and I owe it to myself to at least try for them. At least fucking try.”

“I can toast to that,” Doll said.

“Me too,” from Keith.

Marco smiled. He felt heard. He stood up in the hot tub and the night breeze blew at his chest and pressed the water close, giving him a chill up his spine. “From here on out, we’re facing our crossroads and our separate paths, but we’re all going to try. And we’re gonna give it our best and we’re gonna find each other on the other side.”

“To trying,” Sasha said and raised her glass.

“To trying,” they all repeated. They toasted and drank, and Marco let the iced bourbon fill his mouth and warm his stomach. Dean took a big pull and Pansy dipped two fingers in the glass and sucked on them. Keith poured more for everyone, and they kept on drinking with each other.

They spent the rest of the night sharing stories. Everyone’s first impressions of each other. The first time they all went out drinking together. Marco tried to imagine that they were back there, back in that time. Maybe they had just returned from a game and were in their garnet and gold and were sweating in the Florida heat. Maybe they were still early friends, still exploring and finding new and beautiful things about each other. Every new adventure and experience was a tiny Christmas. Every factoid about their background, about their upbringing, about their favorite TV show, was wrapped in tinsel and given out of pure altruism. I want you to know me, they had all said to each other. I want to know you, they all said in return. Back then, they had all made it so easy to love each other.

In college experimenting was all you really did. Trying things during sex, with booze, with drugs, with your courses. But they had also experimented with love. They all set out wanting to love and be loved and find the support they needed to love themselves. Secretly and individually, they worked at it like long-distance runners. Like the Rarámuri. This morning, I got this far knowing and loving and understanding. Tomorrow I’ll try again. Soon I’ll meet you halfway. Shortly, in time, I’ll find you and get all of you and I will be panting, red-faced, heart rate rocketing, but I will be there and so will you. It was a beautiful, beautiful thing. What had happened to them?

“Wait,” Dean said, climbing out of the tub. “Let me grab something.”

He climbed out and pattered into the cabin. Pansy looked at Marco. “Good speech,” she said.

“Are you having a good night?”

“Of course,” she nodded. “I’m with my friends. We haven’t had this in forever.”

“Were you a little nervous on the hike over?” Marco said, grinning.

“It was a little,” she raised her hand like so-so.

“Yeah, I was terrified,” he admitted and they both laughed.

She turned towards the cabin and shouted, “Dean! Can you get me some water?”

“Okay!” was heard faintly.

“What the hell is he getting?” she asked.

“You don’t want to know,” Keith said. He looked at Marco, and Marco bunched his eyebrows, unsure himself.

“Water up!” Dean said when he returned. He tossed a bottle of Poland Spring to Pansy. Then he walked past her to the railing. The tops of the trees swayed at the balcony’s edge, like hooded figures peeking in. The sprawl of the Adirondacks was barely visible in the night. The moon didn’t bother to help.

Everything went quiet when he pulled out the gun.

“What the fuck, Dean?” Doll said. She was scared. Marco’s eyes darted to her. He had just conquered this evening; he didn’t need Dean to fuck it all up.

“I brought it for protection,” he said. He held the gun by the grip, careful not to touch the trigger. It glinted in the light from inside the cabin. Doll shrank away into Keith’s shoulder while he laughed at her.

“Is it loaded?” was Doll’s next question.

“Babe,” Pansy started. “Don’t—”

BANG!

It was almost deafening. You forget how loud it is until it happens. How suddenly it makes your teeth clatter.

“Dean!” Pansy yelled. He had shot the gun into the night sky, aimed just over the tree line. The flash of gunfire illuminated him in yellow and orange.

“Dude, what the fuck is wrong with you?” Doll asked. She was standing now.

“Doll, relax,” Pansy said, like nobody could get mad at her boyfriend but her.

“Control your man, he’s got a fucking gun.”

“You know you want to try it,” Dean said.

BANG!

This time he hit the tip of a tree. Wood snapped and flew off and they heard the sound of a branch falling down towards its brothers, down towards the floor.

“I brought tons of bullets,” Dean said. “There’s nothing out there, who wants to try?”

“Fuck this, I’m going inside,” Doll said. She climbed out of the tub. Keith tried to pull at her hand, but she brushed him off.

“You’re being dramatic,” Pansy called after her.

“Go fuck yourself,” Doll said, disappearing into the cabin.

And just like that, like nothing, Dean ruined the night. “Didn’t know she was going to act like that,” he said, as flippant as ever.

“I also don’t feel comfortable about this,” Marco said. When the words left his mouth, he cursed himself. He knew that he sounded weak. Weaselly. Look at how strong Doll was, marching out, cussing, suffering no fools. “It’s a lot right now,” he said again.

“You were stoked when I showed you at the diner,” he said.

“What? No, I wa—”

BANG! BANG!

The night fell silent around the gunshots. Any animal nearby skittered off. Flowers in bloom closed themselves up. Frogs and crickets and cicadas went mute, staring from below at the muzzle flashes over the banister.

“Fuck it, I wanna try,” Keith said climbing out of the tub.

“I’m gonna check on Doll,” Sasha said grabbing a towel and skirting into the cabin.

As Dean showed Keith the gun, Marco sat in the tub alone and looked at Pansy who only had her feet in. He was fuming. He dunked his head underwater. He wanted to boil alive. Wanted to faint from heat exhaustion and drown right there between Pansy’s ankles. He heard muffled sounds over his head and felt movement in the water. When he came up and looked around Pansy had left him too. Now she stood with Keith at the banister and Dean helped her hold the handgun straight. Marco climbed out of the tub and went inside.

BANG!

The sound behind him made him flinch.

“Wait, this is kinda fun,” Pansy giggled.

* * *

When he got back to his room, Marco saw that he had missed a call from Monchito. Goddammit. It was a voicemail, and he pressed play and tossed the phone on the nightstand. As always, he was hoping it was insight. But what he got was something else. It was a voicemail alright, but it sounded almost like a butt dial. Wind whipped across the speaker and his brother’s voice was barely audible. He was talking to Marco, but he sounded distant and garbled.

“Hey, man, how’s that white girl going? Did you already pop the question? Yo, I’m sorry I ghosted you when you came here. You kinda caught me off guard about it. That’s on me. But it goes like that. Listen, I’ve been thinking about you and Dad a lot.”

Marco grew uneasy. Every time Monchito got to reminiscing it was always something dour.

“Remember when Dad would pull us outside and be all hammered and try to parent us? How are your grades? Do you have friends? Are you happy? What do you want? Man, that shit was off-base, wasn’t it? He’d always sit in the darkness and make us stand in the security light where he could see us, but we couldn’t see him. That was nutty, bro. And I know when you ask me for advice, you’re looking for your big bro to help out but to be honest, man, it feels like that sometimes. Feels like I’m back in the spotlight and I gotta answer you quick and smart. Off-base, hermano. I know you don’t mean it that way, but I’m just being honest. Anyway, let me think about some real advice. Sorry, I’m a little on the rum. Lemme think. Yeah, okay. My big bro advice is that white girl pussy is never worth it. Peace!”

And that was it.

When the voicemail ended, it became clear to Marco that he kept trying to draw from a well that had run dry. What a sharp pain. He clutched his chest. What a sharp, familiar pain.

* * *

Hours later, Marco couldn’t sleep. The gunfire had gone on for only thirty or so minutes, but it had blown up the energy of the night. Doll was pissed and Sasha had to talk her down. The words irresponsible, dangerous, and obnoxious were being thrown around, hardly whispered, heard audibly from the rest of the cabin. Pansy retired to her room with Dean but not before she pounded on Doll’s door shouting, “Sleep tight, princess!”

Now, it sounded like the cabin was settling. Keith was getting more ice for bourbon. Doll and Sasha were in their respective rooms. And the rhythmic squeaking of a bed came from Dean’s. Awesome vibes all around.

Marco thought more about what Sasha had said, about the futility of his plan, only now, it was compounded by Monchito’s “advice.” Self-doubt planted roots. Then he thought of shaking hands with Dean. Know your place. Jesus. Different questions trickled into his mind. Why was he doing this? Why her? Why still? They had all toasted to trying, but what was he really trying to do? He looked over at the guitar case on the floor. He massaged the palm of his left hand, still sore from lugging it along the hike. “Fucking embarrassing,” he whispered.

Restless, and convinced that Keith had finally drunk himself to sleep, Marco climbed down the stairs. The cabin was dark. Keith was a grayish lump on the leather couch. The fireplace was unlit, and the white square of Paula’s letter was still there barely discernible. Marco stepped out to the balcony and put the leather cover back over the Jacuzzi. He stayed still and listened to hear if the sounds of the forest had returned, but it all lay mute. He closed his eyes and let the summer air hold him. He smelled the trees and the leaves and the tiny breeze that moved over the mountains. The faint smell of gunpowder lingered.

Then he heard the scream again.

Marco opened his eyes and forced them to adjust to the night, but it wasn’t happening. He turned back to see if anybody had stirred, but the cabin was dead. Marco leaned on the banister and listened. There it was again. Not screaming though. Crying. Just barely.

“Shit.”

He slipped on his sandals and hurried out the front door.

He used his phone as a flashlight, but he didn’t have enough battery to make it last. The low percentage made him anxious. He decided he wasn’t going to stray far. He couldn’t risk getting lost out there—not if he couldn’t place the voice.

“Hello?” he called out. He had only moved a few yards from the cabin when his foot fell out from beneath him. The slope was steeper than he had anticipated. The booze in his system didn’t help either. He slid down, catching his momentum on a thin tree wrapped with vines. His ankles were under leaves and ferns and a tangle of skinny roots. The skin on his feet opened up and thin lines of blood pooled at his heel. A vine must’ve cut him. He cussed at his sandals.

“Hello?” he shouted again, wincing as he unwrapped the vines from his feet.

He was sure of what he heard, but he wasn’t sure of the source. In the clear of day, he would’ve said a woman out there needed his help. But there, alone, between the trees, and unable to see the sky from the branches above, he couldn’t make that claim. His hand tightened around a branch.

He shouted one more time, once and for all, “Hello?? Are you okay??”

In response: an old man’s cackle. Hehehe, hohoho.

Confused, upset, he forced himself to laugh with it. Forced himself to feel a sense of relief he didn’t one hundred percent believe. “You’re fucking with me,” he said to himself. He let out a loud, fake laugh, so they heard it wherever they were. “Fuck you, man!” he said to the trees and the night between them. “Ha-ha-ha!”

Then he scrambled back inside.

The cabin had a steam room that Paula had mentioned a handful of times. “No better way to center yourself,” she once said. “Just sweat it all out.” Still spooked, even if he didn’t want to admit it, he snuck past Keith once more and closed the door to the bathroom behind him.

The stall was a sliding glass door that opened to a shower with plastic seats and two shower heads and a steam spout in the lower left. He was too worked up to go right to bed. He decided he’d force it upon himself. Get dehydrated enough so he could just pass out and when he woke up in the morning, the plan was to act like it had all been a dream. But it wasn’t a dream. But that’s okay, because it wasn’t quite a nightmare, was it?

His sandals lay in a pile by the door, and he looked at his feet and thin lines of dark red came down in pinstripes. He wiped the red and it smeared. He turned the steam on and made it hot, jabbing at the thermostat, bringing it to 100. The buttons smeared red too and he wiped that off as well.

When the glass doors filled with steam, and he could no longer see into the green bathroom, he let himself exhale. He hadn’t realized how much he needed to be alone, how fast he’d feel claustrophobic and resentful. The sound of the door opening scared him. He wiped the moisture from his eyes and looked up. There was a blob on the other side of the steamed-out glass. He thought it was Keith.

“Dude, can I just have a little bit of time—”

“It’s me,” she said.

He should’ve known it was Sasha by her width, or lack thereof really. Her small, sloped shoulders. Her thin hips and waist into skinny legs. She looked like a flower.

“I heard you outside,” she said. “I wasn’t asleep yet. You sounded freaked out.”

“I’m fine,” Marco said. It was hard to talk through the steam. Hard to keep his eyes open without them straining from the heat. He was wringing himself of everything he had left, but he didn’t want to stop. “It was nothing.”

He saw the Sasha-Smear turn around and he heard the bathroom door lock. When she turned back towards him, something in him tightened. He was unsure how much of him was revealed through the glass door. He put his hand over his cock, now sweating and droopy, but something told him to uncover it. He sat back on the plastic seat and waited for the smudge to come closer. To open the door. To reveal itself in full.

The smear started undressing. A sleep shirt came off. Her flesh blended in with the steam and the smudge of the glass door so now she seemed without a torso. Just a pair of sweatpants and the idea of blonde hair. Then the pants came off too and the person vanished. Until she came closer, and her thin fingers curled around the sliding door and pulled it aside.

The steam rolled out like ghostly hands reaching for the ceiling.

It was Sasha all right. And she was naked.

“You made a whole spiel about trying,” she said. She was nervous, shifting from heel to heel. She kept her hands at her center, not quite covering herself up but ready to.

“Yeah,” Marco said. He blinked away the moisture in his eyes. He was trying to regain sobriety, trying to see her as she was.

“I’ve been trying for you for a long time, did you know that?”

“No,” Marco said. But maybe that wasn’t true. Maybe the idea always passed over him like the shade of a tree while he ran elsewhere. For some reason he always decided that for Sasha, it wasn’t worth fucking up the friend group. “I don’t think we should do this.”

“Why? You were already planning to blow everything up with your confession of love. You’ve inspired me to do it too.”

“Sasha.”

“Listen to me,” she said. She stepped forward into the steam, and he saw wetness collect on her hair and arms and chest. He stayed seated and she looked down at him. Timidly, she put a hand on his shoulder and then, all at once, she put the other on his member, massaging it, getting him hard. “She’s gonna reject you and break your heart, and I’m not going to be the backup plan. I’m getting in before it’s embarrassing.”

“I don’t know what to say to that,” Marco said. Her statement hurt. Her certainty of it. He shuddered as she stroked him, and when he was erect, she climbed onto the seat, her knees on either side of him, and she rubbed the tip of him between her. He felt her open and she reached behind her and closed the sliding door, filling the room with steam again.

He didn’t have much of a body to write home about. He was shaped like a runner that drank too much. A gentle beer belly over thighs and tight calves. Nothing in his arms. Nothing in his chest. He had the body of someone that could hide. Someone that could get out of the way. Someone that could make themselves as invisible or as seen as you wanted, and right now, in the steam room, he was seen, evidently had been seen for a long time, and he was surprised at how well they fit together. She was bony, her ribs visible, he could trace them with his thumbs. Her chest was flat and she brought herself as close as possible. The steam made them slick.

After a few seconds of her riding him, softly, slowly, she brought her lips to his ears and asked, “Is this okay?”

He didn’t answer with words.