Mila Santos Is (Not) Dead

xv: howl

MILA SHIVERED, THE BARE branches offering no protection from the numbing wind. The snowflakes caught on her eyelashes. Each blink sent chills down her spine. What a terrible day for a hike—but at least it was beautiful. Almost otherworldly, all the whiteness. The bare gray trees, the quiet. The overwhelming feeling that she was alone and would be for the rest of her life.

That was what snowy winter's hikes were good for. Thinking, feeling. Marinating in your late-teen angst like a well-seasoned steak.

The forest was dead, the animals sleeping off the cold. The silence sent nerves shooting up and down Mila's spine. There was nothing she hated more than silence. But she knew she needed it. She couldn't let this be easy for herself.

She paused in a clearing by an icy creek. As kids, this was her and Malachi's stomping ground, this clearing. They built fort after fort here, spending countless hours fishing crawdads and minnows out of the creek, staging enough mock battles to last a lifetime.

In the corner of the clearing stood an A-frame fort—a triangular structure made of a large central branch leaning against a sturdy willow tree. Smaller branches leaned against it, getting smaller as they made their way to the base. A layer of dried mud and leaves covered it.

It was the only one of Mila and Malachi's forts to have stood the test of time. She remembered making it—gathering the branches and carefully setting them against each other—and countless hours of play inside. One fall, as the weather cooled, they realized the flaw in their design: the gaps between the branches let the wind straight through. They'd lathered the outside of the fort with mud, sticking dried leaves all over it. The mud created a seal from the outside world, protecting their fort from anything that wanted to hurt them.

Mila crawled inside and sat cross-legged looking out at the icy creek. Something tugged in her throat. Tears blurred her vision. She knew she had to do this now, or the memories would overcome her. She feared she'd never be able to do it at all.

She pulled her bags off her back.

One was the bag she used all the time—a purple drawstring with her gymnastics team's logo on it. The others were a black backpack and a duffel bag.

She pulled open the drawstring bag, dumping its contents out on the forest floor. She scattered them around the clearing, half-burying them in the snow and the frozen mud. All typical things she would have brought on a hike: her earbuds, a scrunchie, a pad. Notably missing were her phone and wallet, which she pulled from her pockets, and her computer, which she pulled from her backpack. She tossed them into the creek with a plunk. They sunk to the bottom, the water carrying them away, slamming them into rocks and confused fish.

Mila took a shuddering breath.

There.

Done.

No going back now.

She pulled out her supplies from the backpack, setting them on the ground. She got to work on her hair, bleaching it with a strong-scented, cheap bleach powder she'd bought at the drugstore. As she rinsed her hair out in the icy creek, she wished she'd waited until spring. She could feel the frostbite setting in. She needed to work fast.

Sitting in the creek, she grabbed a pair of scissors and cut a jagged line above her shoulders. The water washed the curly, brassy blonde hair that fell from her shoulders down the creek. She hardly recognized it as her own. She parted her hair down the middle, sectioning off just enough to cover her forehead. Holding her breath, she snipped it at her eyebrows.

She didn't care how it looked. She just needed to look unrecognizable. And not like a TERF.

Mila jumped out of the icy creek and plunged into the semi-shelter of the fort. She ripped her soaked clothes off and threw on the dry pair she'd brought to change into. She shook so badly the ground trembled beneath her. She only had a limited amount of time before frostbite set in. Why didn't she do her hair last? She shuddered as she remembered she'd have to pass through the creek again to get rid of her scent.

Be quick be quick be quick be quick Jesus it's cold out here.

She yanked back the sleeve of her sweatshirt, exposing the skin on the back of her wrist. She grabbed the scissors in her shaking hands. Gritting her teeth and squeezing her eyes shut, she drew the sharp edge of the blade jaggedly up and down the length of her arm.

She howled. Her vision blurred. The world swayed in front of her. Her eyes rolled back in her head. Why was she doing this to herself? What if she passed out and someone found her out here—stopping her before she began?

Mila swung her arm wildly around, flinging blood everywhere she could. The ground, the snow, her wet clothes, the fort, the tree, everywhere. She splattered it until her arm stopped pulsing blood.

She grabbed a roll of gauze and medical tape from her bag, wrapping it around her arm. She yelped when the gauze touched her wound. Maybe she'd gone a little too deep, or made the cut a little too long. More than likely, it would scar over. Hopefully, it wouldn't get infected. She needed stitches. But dead girls didn't have time for stitches.

Next, she wiped off her makeup. She crawled out of the fort and tore up her bloody, soaking wet old clothes with her scissors, ripping them to shreds.

Almost done.

Mila trampled the fort, ruining it, breaking it open like Godzilla destroying a city. She stomped on the branches, breaking them in half á la Will Byers. She pounded around the clearing, stampeding over the snow  to make it look like something happened there, something bad.

She was out of breath by the time she finished. Her sweat froze to her skin. She tossed her sopping wet, icy hair out of her eyes, looking at her masterpiece.

It looked like a crime scene.

***

MILA THREW HERSELF IN the driver's seat, slamming the door shut. She fumbled through her bag for the keys. She was trembling. She couldn't feel her fingers. But... a-ha! She found them and gave them a kiss. Brandishing them happily above her, she spun them into the ignition. The car roared to life. (Okay, okay! Maybe the car didn't roar to life. It was more of a wheeze. Please allow me some creative freedom or contact my lawyers.)

The car was a lime-green sedan that'd never seen better days. Mila was pretty sure it'd been recalled after a year on the market. She knew the previous owner had had a heart attack driving down the freeway and had somehow managed not to crash into anyone. The guy who had gone out of his way to tell her. Up until now, she'd kept it here, in this parking lot. Thank Christ it hadn't been towed.

Heat blasted through the vents, hissing over Mila's skin. She let it soak into her bones a moment, warming her from her core to the tips of her toes, which she wiggled in her boots. But she only gave herself a moment.

She was warm now, she was safe. But she had to move quickly. Even though she was unrecognizable and the snowy parking lot was empty, she couldn't risk anyone seeing her. And she needed to get far away from here as soon as possible.

Mila tossed her bags into the passenger seat and turned on the car's built-in GPS. She'd have to rely on it with her phone sunk in the bottom of a frozen river. Like she was in the 2000s. Like she was Malachi with his slide phone.

She already missed Malachi so much she felt like her heart would burst.

Mila programmed in the state of Arizona. No, she couldn't be less vague. She only kind of knew where she was going. A Waffle House somewhere in Arizona. In a town Route 66 ran through. Out the window of which she'd be able to see a stark red butte against the starry desert sky.

She could get there. She could find it. Eventually. She knew it.

She put the car in reverse.