Wolven

1b. reasons not to trip in the woods

"Davis was really kind of a safety school, I think, but it's UCSB I'm hoping to hear from soon. I can feel it in my bones, that's where I'm meant to be. All I need is that acceptance letter, and then I won't have anything else to worry about. It's exciting, don't you think?"

"Oh, absolutely," I agreed with Ivy half-heartedly, my eyes glued to the heap of mashed potatoes on my plate. Gray, mushy, and unappetizing. "I, too, am so very thrilled to... do whatever it is that seniors are supposed to be doing for their last semester of high school."

"Any plans for after graduation yet?" Ivy asked me, her fork pointed at me.

"Nope," I answered with a sigh, getting up from my seat at the dinner table. "I think Elsie and I are going to go on a road trip. She has family or something in Kentucky so we'll... go get lots of corn, I guess. I don't know. We'll see where it goes."

Ivy watched as I scraped clear my plate into the trashcan and set it in the sink. Her lips were pursed in skepticism, but I merely clicked my tongue at her as I began to retreat upstairs. Before I could make it half-way up, Ivy called my name from the foot of the stairs.

"Yes?"

"Please don't forget that essay we have in English," she began. I blinked heavily in exaggeration, knowing already where her words were headed. "And I still really think it would be a good idea to look into some colleges and–"

"Why?"

Ivy looked taken aback, as if we hadn't had this conversation a million times.

"I just think it would be what Aunt Annabelle would have wanted," she said, her hazel green eyes boring into mine. I curled my fingers around the railing of the stairs. "College could do you some good. It could give you some insight on where you want to go with your life, you know?"

"I'm not sure fifty thousand dollars necessarily means 'Go to college'," I sighed to Ivy, turning my back on her to continue up the stairs. "I think it just means, 'I'm rich and here's fifty thousand dollars because now that I'm dead you officially have no female figures in your life so do with it whatever makes you happy'."

If Ivy answered, I didn't hear her. I had already shut the door to my room and began to strip down from the day's earlier clothing in the semi-darkness of my room. Jeans were fun and made my ass look great but they weren't comfortable enough for a late night hike in the woods, so it was an insulated pair of leggings that I chose to keep me warm in the early-spring chill.

I still had plenty of time if I wanted to stay in and do nothing, but I was itching to get out of the house and away from Ivy's prickly energy. So I grabbed my pencil pouch, my reading light, and the closest sketchbook I could find and stuffed it all into my hiking pack. Cracking the door open to peek down the stairs assured me that I could sneak out the window without a problem; Ivy had come upstairs and was shut in her own room, and my dad wouldn't notice one way or the other.

Ivy's precious light-blue Prius was sitting in its usual position in the driveway. How easy it would have been to get up into the forest if she didn't keep her keys in her bedroom. Instead I had to rely on my old bike, hanging onto its last rusty hinges.

I wasn't really complaining. It got me where I needed to go in a reasonable amount of time, even if it left me feeling a little wheezy in the throat. The view from my familiar little nook in the mountainside would always be worth it. The spot overlooked my little town and her twinkling lights, but was far enough removed for the light of the moon to brush the forests in a silvery glow.

I pulled out my sketchbook and pencils and fixed my gaze onto the mountain range beyond the town. It was barely distinguishable in the evening light, but soon the curves and jags of the peaks became solid on my page, melting slowly into the figure of a woman laying carelessly on her side.