THE WILD SEASON

Chapter 10

The entire right side of my body is ablaze. I want Colt out of my car. I want to be driving to my house to get the wood, tools, and flatbed stored below my mother's workshop, and then I want to be on the road. Because I'm doing this. I'm really and truly doing this.

It's what my mother would have done in my same position.

I think.

But instead of hitting the highway, I'm chauffeuring around this termite that forced himself into my vehicle for reasons I don't pretend to understand.

The tension in my shoulders loosen when I realize we're a quarter mile away from his place. Only a few yards from unloading this baggage. We arrive at the entrance of a trailer park, and my navigation system announces we've arrived.

"Which one is yours?" I ask, not even turning in his direction.

Colt makes an amused face that I catch even without looking at him. He brings a finger to his lips. "Oh, you mean your car doesn't tell you how to navigate trailers? That's prejudice, if you ask me."

"You're not using that word correctly," I say. "Which way?"

"Straight ahead," he responds gruffly.

When we reach a fork in the road, Colt directs me right, and then left at the next divide. My breathing grows shallow as I pass trailer after trailer, each worse than the one before. Animals that must be strays dart between homes, and broken down vehicles, and faded children's toys, and tin trash cans. There's a shirtless man smoking a cigarette, and a girl my age walking barefoot from one house to another. There's a kid much too young to be playing outside alone, and a woman peering suspiciously at us from between curtains.

We pull up to the second-to-last trailer on the right side of what can hardly be called a street, and Colt goes to open the car door. His lips form a tight line, and the long, thick muscles in his forearms pull taut. He's waiting for me to make a rude comment about his place, but even though I hate this boy, I can't summon the nastiness to strike at this.

"I'll be out in a second," he snaps, as if I did make a cutting remark.

He closes the door and jogs up two steps to a torn screen door, causing a fat grey tabby to scurry away when the thing slams shut behind him. My eyes flick from the cat, to the trailer. The place must be eight hundred square feet, if that. The size of our basement, where we store Christmas decorations, and a second freezer full of food we may never eat, and fitness equipment that rarely gets used.

Weeds stretch between broken asphalt toward dim, cracked windows that are open just enough to accommodate box unit air conditioners. There's a deflated basketball near the front steps, a clay flowerpot overflowing with cigarette butts, and the entire side of the once-white trailer is streaked with rust.

The roof sags as if it's seconds from collapsing on them all, and though the wicked part of me wishes it would happen, the part that my mother instilled in me—compassion—can't feel anything besides empathy. What would it be like to grow up inside a place like this? Would I have the opportunities I do today if I had? My hands twitch in my lap, itching to clean every last part of the trailer. To de-weed the square of grass. To organize and de-clutter. To make things right.

I'm watching the gray cat sulk toward the door, sniffing the ground in search of food, when a shadow moves behind the window. My heart stops. Is he inside? The man that killed my mother? A cold shiver races across my skin as I'm reminded of what I intended to do—drop Colt and run. Get as far away from him, and Bethel Park, as I can.