the distance

the first day

The laughter starts as a low murmur. Chona might not have even noticed it. if it wasn't coming from a few seats down. From where he's sitting. But she hears the laughs, hears them spreading, and she knows. She's not surprised. She expected this. Still, she feels anxiety blossom.
She just wants to be invisible. He can't even let her have that.
And so she folds in on herself. She stares at the fire pit. She watches the members glow and the sparks float up with the smoke through the opening in the gazebo ceiling. She inhales the burst air.
She waits.
And then something hits the side of her head. It bounces off her shoulder and lands on the wooden bench next to her. She glances down. A tiny twig.
A few seconds pass, and then another twig hits her. This time, on her cheek. She ignores the muffled laughter. Refuses to look over. Tries not to react. Because that's what Alex wants.
Directly across the fire pit, their youth group director, Paul, is oblivious. He's leading campfire songs, strumming an acoustic guitar, eyes closed.
The next twig bounces off the top of chona's head. The one after that gets stuck in her hair, right by her for head. She thinks about which is worse: brushing away or leaving. She pulls the twig loose and drops it on the ground. Her cheeks burn.
She knows she shouldn't let alex get to her. But flicking twigs at her is just the beginning. Alex's got the other kid's attention. Next: the rumors spread. The real marketing starts. It's a chain of events he's been repeating for almost 6 months, a change she doesn't know how to break.
So she does the only thing she knows how to do: she sets her face to stone and keeps her and I on the fire.
The group keeps singing. Campfire standards. A few hymns. They all blew together in her ears, just notes and notes and notes. Singing used to be her life. She would stand in the choir room at school, in the church auditorium during Sunday service, and her backyard, and her shower, and let her pure soprano sail up to the highest notes. Music used to burst from her. She couldn't contain it.
She doesn't sing anymore. She can barely stand to listen.
When she's pretty sure alex is done launching twigs at her, she lifts her eyes and lets her gaze travel around the circle, wooden bench to wooden bench. There are kids from her church, Kids from other churches who she knows from past youth group events, or from school. Kids she's never met before. They're all clapping. Singing. Smiling. She doesn't join in. She can't.
She doesn't want to be here, anyway. She doesn't belong here.
She closes her eyes and sees herself the way she used to be. She sees herself a year ago, on a retreat just like this one, except on a college campus instead of in the Smoky Mountains. She sees herself sitting with a group of friends. Singing every song. Cracking jokes. And then she opens her eyes, and she's back in this new version of her life, where she's alone and silent, and where she is the joke.
Paul and his guitar are replaced by the director of hiking with him, a clean-cut thirstysomething in cargo shorts and Tevas named Jesse. Jesse starts talking about the week ahead: daily hikes, nightly campfire circles, life lessons to be learned.
Chona tunes him out. She looks up at the wooden gazebo ceiling. Knotholes. Spiderwebs. Some kind of nest in one corner. She stares at it, at all of the individual bits and brush that make up the whole, an uneven, bristly mass wedged into the leave.
She feels on even and bristly. All the time.
She thinks about being somewhere else, anywhere else. Anywhere Luke isn't. Anyway she doesn't have to keep reliving what happens.
And then she hears Alex's voice. She can't tune him out, no matter how much she wants to. His voice is in her head.
"Chona! Hurry it up!" He whistles at her. Like she's a golden retriever.
She looks around. She's sitting alone. Everyone else has left. Left her sitting there. No one said her name, touched her shoulder to let her know. Or maybe someone did, and she didn't hear it, didn't feel it. Now it's only her and the dying fire.
Alex, brad, and Jonah are standing outside the wooden gazebo. The Three Musketeers. When she turns her head their way, Alex says, "It's like there's no one in there, under all that hair." He adds, speaking slowly, "Curfew. Remember? You don't want to be late." He is so smug it hurts to look at him. Chona can't believe she ever thought he was cute, with his stupid tan and his stupid shaggy brown hair and his stupid chocolate brown eyes.
"Sorry," she matters, getting to her feet. It's the only word she says. She follows the musketeers back to the lodge, if you steps behind. Always a few steps behind.