Walk Through Thorns

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

We made it back out of that cursed place. Greta's character was alive. Barely. Despite spending the last few hours a hair's width from the grave, she was walking around with a big grin. Maybe she was just glad to have made it out of there at all.

Out front of the apartment building, we all hugged goodbye. Greta went up the road on her bike to get home before her curfew. The rest of us sat on a concrete planter where Brandon and Avery were sharing a smoke.

"What are you going to do after graduation?" Avery asked me.

The fact that graduation was only a few months out hit me like a train. I just hadn't really been thinking about how close that was.

I said, "I think I'll just run into the woods and become a hermit."

Avery laughed.

Brandon said, "Do you need a diploma to be a hermit? If not, I'll join."

Avery asked, "Why don't you apply at the mines? You don't need school to use a shovel."

"You know they're not digging by hand right?" Brandon swept his hair back out of his face. "Celeste, why don't you become a nurse like your Aunt? You like helping people."

I hadn't really considered it. "I don't think I could handle the stress. What about you Avery?"

"I got accepted to a college. After I move away for that, I'm not sure there will ever be a point in coming back here."

That was a sad thought, but I felt the same way. Lively just seemed like a place we were living. Not home. I hadn't even grown up here. Was there something waiting for us somewhere else?

Sometime between her smoke and midnight, Avery went to bed. Brandon and I remained sitting in twilit silence. Neither of us had anything to say. We weren't willing to call it a night either. That moment of content nothingness could never last. All the same, we were grasping at it like trying to catch smoke in a net.

An owl hooted, making us both startle. When I put my hand down, it landed on his. He looked to me as I pulled away.

I tried to think of something to say to break the silence, but my mind couldn't conjure a single word.

Brandon broke it for me. "What I said during the game, about protecting you, I meant that in real life too."

"You think I need to be protected?" I asked.

"No, you don't," he said, "What I mean is you should never feel alone."

"That's nice," I said, "But really, I am okay."

Brandon said, "You tell everyone you're alright even when you're not. You don't want to be someone else's burden, right?"

I blinked, feeling very called out. "How-"

"That's how I feel," he said, "I thought you might too."

I put my hand back on top of his, then squeezed it gently. "Yeah, you caught me."

We both hushed ourselves as a car drove by, headed south for the highway. Odd, that we felt this conversation was a secret. Something that shouldn't be open to eavesdroppers. I put my head on his shoulder.

Brandon asked, "Did you really dream about the Briarheart before?"

I asked, "The what?"

"The root creature. I named it the Briarheart," He said, "You saw it in your dreams. Avery saw it too."

I said, "I had a dream that Greta was being attacked by the roots. Just like it happened in the game."

Brandon said, "I steal a lot from my dreams. That's the first time anyone else has had the same nightmare though."