What I Couldn't Tell Him

10 - Are We Nearly There Yet?

ALDEN POV

I set off into the trees. I tried to keep my footsteps equal and steady. I think she is close behind me. She has very light footsteps like she is always walking on a carpet of something very soft.

I haven't brought anyone here before, it is a childhood memory and still somewhere I am relaxed. I tell myself that this is going to get her to kiss me - so I can win - but I know when I saw her crying that is not what I was thinking about.

All this time, I have been hating her for humiliating me. I never used to let girls get into my head. Nobody has ever managed to embarrass me, or make me question myself. The creeping doubt (what if she's right?) is new too.

I don't know if she is still following me until I hear the crunch of a twig interrupt the heavy thump of my footsteps.

"Are we nearly there yet?" She wines, but I know she is joking.

"Yeah, just another... Mile and a half, maybe two?" I reply. She sighs, and I turn just in time to see the last half of an eye roll. There's a smile there too, though.

"Seriously though, where are you taking me?" She says, tone softer but more insistent. Her eyes are curious and wary. I feel a sudden urge to turn around; a sudden self-consciousness. To say this whole thing is stupid, fuck it, go home.

"Calm down! I'm not going to do anything to you." I say but am met with a raised eyebrow, not a smile.

"That's not what I mean." She pauses and I tilt my head, "I don't entirely trust you, or your navigating skills, and I am not getting stuck in a dark forest in the middle of the night with you. Or anyone."

"Excuse me! My navigation skills are incredible!" I laugh. She laughs too, a refreshing, melodic laugh. I expected something whispery and typically feminine but I am relieved by it.

"Look at that," she says, tilting her head towards the moon so her eyes reflect the slices of light visible through the trees.

"What?" I mutter, following her gaze. I strain my eyes and scan the leaves and twisting branches. I trail a little bird darting through the treetops with brightly coloured feathers.

"That?"

"No. The moon." She says, as though it is an animal she could scare away. Again I look, past the trees, this time to see the moon: brighter and fuller than I have ever seen.

It is a perfect circle, only ragged with deep, gaping craters. The light seems to pour off it like water. I watch, awestruck before a nearby tweet of a bird brings me back to my senses.

I notice then how the sky past the tree line is a warming gold, and the rest is almost blue. Some clouds are chasing each other across the sky and I panic amidst the beauty.

The sun is starting to rise. In the daylight, my sentimentality is chased away too, like the whisps of cloud. I barely know her. I can't breach this sacred place for a girl I have to fuck and abandon. I cannot let myself let her in.

"We have to go back. Its nearly dawn." I say sternly.

She seems like she doesn't here me, eyes glowing, still entranced by the sky.

"Come on, Jaimie," I say gruffly. She is frozen. I sigh and reach for her arm. She stumbles, going tense and jolting her arm away from me.

"Don't do that." She hisses. I look at her. Her eyes are screwed tight and her lips curled inward, caught between her teeth. She looks hurt.

"Shit! Sorry, I didn't mean to. Are you hurt?"

Watching me, her eyebrows are furrowed and her hand is wrapped around her elbow protectively. She nods (twice) and turns her whole body away from me. She sets off into the trees back the way we came.

"Come on, then." She mutters, evading the question with a crude change of subject.

"Oh, erm, okay," I don't press the question because I don't want her to snap. I don't need any more of that. She is often blunt, changing her mood as fast as we changed direction. She looked a little disappointed. I suppose I would be too after following someone deep into a forest to turn around again.

We follow the trail, kicking stones and jumping over nettles. She manages to look graceful even though it is something like four in the morning and she has just been hiking through a forest. She is singing a song to herself and I just about catch the lyrics: something about trees and sleep.

We walk into the dusty lay-by, blinking in the sudden light. I realise that we are much later than I thought. The forest muffles the light and it is easy to forget the time. Time seems so insignificant in a place so peaceful.

She turns to me again, the haze of a memory relived in her eyes, but she doesn't tell me anything. I don't ask, either because I don't have the courage or because I don't want to know.

"Are we going?" She is impatient. I notice her absentmindedly rub her arm. She drops it as she sees me looking. Her troubled expression turns into a wince at the coming question. I can't pretend I don't see it.

"What happened to your arm?"

JAIMIE POV

How do I explain? I don't. I have a lot of practised lies that slip off my tongue to answer this question, but none of them come now. I hesitate and suck in a breath.

"I had volleyball in PE and someone hit me going for a ball. It's starting to bruise." I say, rushing. He looks at me and nods slowly.

"Okay."

I walk towards his bike. He gets on first then waits for me as I swing my leg over and settle onto the seat.

The wheels start to spin, sending a little cloud of grey dust up behind us, obscuring my view of the path into the woods. I feel a jolt and smell burning fuel.

Before I can register it, we are on the smooth road in the direction we came. Over the crest of a hill, I see the rough, rounded shape of the moon. It catches my eye again. In the dark, it stood out, a stark contrast to the sky. My mother told me that you only ever see one side of the moon when I was younger. It fascinated me, the way things do for a seven-year-old girl. As I got older, I started to associate it with other things; people.

I think of myself like that. You only see one side of me; normal highschooler whose only secret is the crap score they got on their biology test. I am not like that, I am cracking, fragile, a victim of fate. But only a couple of people see that. I am as cryptic as the moon. Nobody can ever see the dark side of me.

"Jaimie!" His rough voice startles me.

"Sorry- what?" I ask, shaking my head. We turn another corner that whips my hair across my face and I hold it back out of the way.

"Hold on, will you? I'm not explaining to your parents that we snuck out in the middle of the night and had a motorcycle crash." He groans.

I sigh and slip my hands around him. I still don't know why I am here and have given up trying to work it out. I shouldn't have come.

It is only when we are one block away from my house do I start to panic. My mum wakes up at half six. If I wake her she will interrogate me endlessly. I can't afford that.

We stop at the end of the street, motorcycle purring. He silences it then breathes out.

"Are you ready?" He says, not really waiting for an answer. He seems frustrated with me.

"Nowhere near." I sigh and follow him down the neat tarmac in the teasing morning sun.