Between Then & Now || Currently Editing for Wattys 2022

15.

"Fuck."

Thelma's head pops up from the passenger seat as I hit my steering wheel. The exit I was supposed to get off on passes by in the rearview mirror. My headlights paint the road ahead, the dashed yellow lines passing by in a blur. The sky began to dim a few hours ago and, now, it was pitch black outside.

"Fuck," I repeat. After a few moments of deliberation, I let the van begin to slow down and pull over to the side of the road. My phone sits in the holder attached to my dashboard, the map readjusting again. I groan, frustrated at the glitchiness at the digital map that can't seem to make up its mind. "A little too late, isn't it?"

Outside my window, another car passes by. The road is lined with trees as I scroll on the map. Apparently, I'm in the middle of some forest, and, for a moment, I debate just packing it up here for the night. But I also don't want to be murdered by some random traveling serial killer.

I sigh. "Oh, Thelma, what to do?" She lets out a dramatic breath, blinking with only her blue eye. I reach over to scratch her head as she lies her head down on her paws. The bright screen on my phone lights up the steering wheel, and I look back down at the map. Supposedly there's an exit up ahead to a part of the park with hiking trails and a small parking lot. Not necessarily a ton less likely to be murdered and have my body stashed in the middle of some national park I've never even heard of. But... better than the side of a highway?

"Alright, bud. Looks like we're glamping tonight." I set the phone back up on the dashboard and put my car into drive, checking over my shoulder before pulling back onto the road. As the car accelerates the trees start to blur together again. I double check the map to make sure I won't miss the exit again.

Finally, I pull off, slowing down to the new speed limit. My hands turn the wheel, one over the other, the vinyl of the steering wheel gripping to my fingers. After a mile or so of empty road, we pull into a clearing, the road slowly turning into gravel. When I put the van into park again, I sigh, setting my head back against the seat.

Thelma whimpers over in the passenger seat. One of my eyes open and I see her looking up at me expectantly, probably needing to use the bathroom. I rub my face and yawn, before opening my door and hopping out. "Alright, girly, let's go."

Gravel crunches under my shoes. The air smells of dirt and rain and rotting forest debris, an almost sweet smell. A wind breezes through the clearing and the leaves of the trees around us rustle underneath the moonlight. Above, the moon is completely full and, as I pull open Thelma's door, helping her out since she's still too small to hop out on her own, I look at the silhouette of the trees against the canvas of the sky.

What am I even doing?

Thelma sniffs around the ground where the grass and gravel meet, blending together. In the last three days, I've driven 32 hours. From Los Angeles to some random forest in Georgia, with absolutely no direction, no plan, no purpose.

What the hell am I doing?

Other than my few sporadic stops for gas and to grab drinks, I hadn't made a single stop in any of the cities I had marked on my map. I hadn't done any sightseeing, I hadn't done tourist things like take cringey photos outside arbitrary buildings or snapped my very average looking food at very average restaurants. For the last three days, my foot has been on the gas pedal non-stop and I have been running. Running from everything.

For a second, I think back to Michael. And Tessa. And I think about pulling my phone out, pulling up their Instagram, checking what they're doing, what I'm missing out on, trying to figure out why I wasn't enough, for my boyfriend of three years, for any job, for anything. I picture a text from Michael popping up on my phone, apologizing for everything. For a moment, I wonder what would happen if I forgave him. If things were able to just go back to how they were.

If things could just be normal again.

The wind rustles through again, bending the overgrown grass lining the forest's edge. Thelma hops around, chewing on some blades of grass, her white fur almost glowing under the light of the stars above.

Suddenly, I almost want to cry. For the first time since I left Sarah's house, since everything happened, I want to fall to my knees and curl into a ball, in the middle of this forest, a place in the middle of nowhere. I want to scream and punch a tree and run until my legs give out.

I want to ask why. Why I wasn't enough. Why I wasn't good enough. Why–

Suddenly, Thelma barks, and I jump. My heart stops as I scan the forest line and she runs over to me. Then, I see them. The eyes, reflective and bright white. They stand a few feet off the ground, in between two trees lining the forest's edge. I freeze. So do they.

They're round, innocent. Not nearly as menacing as Thelma's bark had made me think. Definitely not the eyes of an axe-murderer. Slowly, I make out the long snout and perked up ears. Its fur is a toffee brown, speckles of dark spots sprinkled across the nose in the dim light from my van's headlights barely makes its way over the deer's face. There's a bit of white fur outlining its half–pink, half–black nose as it stares back at me.

I blink.

It blinks back.

Thelma nudges her nose against my leg.

I'm not sure whether to step forward. A vision of my grandfather standing on the outskirts of the trees, kneeling with his hand stretched out flutters across my vision. I almost want to pet it. In my mind, Papa feeds the deer right out of his hand. But, just as I regain control over my body, the deer sniffs and slowly backs away, the white of its nose disappearing into the darkness of the woods. After a second, the sound of its hooves crunching dried leaves and sticks on the ground follows and my shoulders drop.

When I look down at Thelma, she's still staring into the trees, and I look back up at them, too. But the deer is gone and there is only darkness. And I wish I had gotten my phone out or had a camera on me or just had some way to document that tension. But the moment is gone, and it is too late.

I sigh and kneel down to pick Thelma up. "Come on, girly. It's time for bed." As I walk back to the van, sliding the door open and setting Thelma inside, one foot up on the hardwood floor, I look back. The woods stare back at me, the wind rippling through the leaves like a whisper. It's a blank stare. My shoulders drop and I hoist myself into the van, turning around the slide the door behind me as I wonder what the whisper might have meant. Or if it meant anything at all.