The Wanted

Tree, tree, bush, tree split down the middle, Joseph, tree.

He sat restlessly, head down, leaning against the trunk of a stout tree plucked clean of leaves like a bird for the oven. It was dwarfed by the giants around us and by his own size. It reminded me of when I’d found him at the Classes, just before my assessment, talking to himself, huddled awkwardly under a Pau Brazil tree. It was a conversation he later explained as him choosing to tell me how he really felt.

It was too late then. It was not like that now.

He heard my foot suck out of the mud with a slurping sound. He looked up, and his face was a battering ram pushing me back. His eyes, the color of the bright green moss that crept up every trunk, were washed with a deep sadness. He was truly unhappy to see me. My heart tore like paper. Just a small edge at the bottom, which if he didn’t explain himself, would rip all the way up.

His head dropped down again and I stopped, midstride, several meters from where he sat, afraid to approach and equally afraid to walk away.

I brought my legs together and took one more timid step towards him. My eyes never left his hidden face, hair curtaining his eyes as he hung his head between his knees like it was just too heavy to hold up. A strand of blackberry dragged across my face as I said, “Joseph, why are you ru

Joseph stood up and sighed in exasperation. Was he sick of me?

“It doesn’t matter what I do. I’m always hurting you.” His voice plummeted like a stone dropped down an endless abyss. There was more regret than I could understand in there. He came closer and helped me pull the thorns from my hair.

As we stood chest to chest, I gazed up into his face. “That’s not true.” My own voice wavered like a feather tossed down the same abyss. Falling, but slower, hoping the wind might still pick me up and save me.

“Look,” he said, ru

“It’s nothing,” I whispered, knocking his hand away and forcing a smile.

He exhaled through his nose in frustration. “Yeah, it’s nothing. Nothing compared to what I have done, to what I’m going to do.” His sarcasm was pointed and tipped in bitterness.

My ribs clamored and braced my heart, tightening a protective cage around me. He went to put his hands on my waist but stopped himself, his hands hovering there, hopelessly.

I don’t want to ask. I have to ask.

“What are you talking about? If it’s about what you did after… after I died, I know it’s hard, especially for someone like you, but it wasn’t your fault. You would have died if you hadn’t defended yourself.” I hated the sound of my voice because it was pitched with fear, uncertainty, and panic.

He glanced up from the ground, the cool dawn of realization rising on his face. Words had slipped out. It was too late to collect them. “Wait, how do you know what I did after? How could you? You were, were…” He stumbled over his words like boulders in the road.

I placed a hand on his chest and felt his heart galloping. “I was dead.”

He shook once, all over, like the memory still shocked him. “So how?”

I swallowed, carefully picking out what I would tell him and what I would save for that nonexistent time—later.

“They made me watch the surveillance video.” Over and over, until it was scratched into my brain with their perfect, clean fingernails. “I saw it all happen. They attacked you, and you fought back. You need to know, I don’t blame you. I don’t think anyone could blame you for what happened. It hasn’t changed the way I feel about you.”

My heartbeat stalled in my chest as those pictures flipped through the backs of my eyes. But as violent as they were, I knew he hadn’t had a choice. Hesitantly, he placed his hand over mine. A gold flash slapped me across the face and he withdrew, stepping back and throwing his hands in the air. Whatever he’d been holding back was rumbling and growing now.

“Jesus, Rosa!” His voice angled towards the sky, and he clasped his hands behind his head. “I don’t understand how you’re okay.”

I’m not… and you know I’m not.

He turned away from me, stop turning away from me, and I could see his ribs expanding, his back muscles tensed like they could barely hold him in any longer.

“Joseph, what’s wrong? You can tell me,” I pleaded, my hands limp at my sides, my body not daring to come closer. Electrified words piled up between us, jutting out of the mud like thrown-down axes.

He just shook his head over and over like the sad elephant at the zoo.

What did you do?

He faced me, his eyes throwing warnings, and I felt the need to cover my ears, to run before his words caught me. “I wish it were just about that night. God, Rosa, if only it was just that. If only I had known before, maybe I wouldn’t have... wouldn’t have…”

The ground softened under my feet, turning to quicksand that tried to swallow me. Don’t ask him. I picked my way over the obstacles between us. He stood like a statue, a Joseph statue carved from bleeding rock. I put my hand to his jaw, forcing him to look at me. “Wouldn’t have what?”

His head fell. He didn’t want me to ask either.

There were tears in his eyes, ru

I laughed awkwardly, my lips curling and catching on my teeth. This was a joke, right? I swept my eyes around the forest like I was checking to see if anyone was listening. The trees seemed to lurch backwards, splaying like I was a bomb that had already gone off. But I didn’t really understand him.

I attempted to calm myself, planting my feet firmly, and the ground steadied for a small second as I replayed the word almost, almost, almost. But it was such a brief reprieve. That second word swung around on chains strung from the clouds and blared in front of my eyes, bigger than the sky. I wished I could un-hear it, shove a cloth down its throat and throw it away, but it was too late. The bottom of the world slid away like a pullout tray, leaving me suspended in the air, my feet hanging limp below. My scrabbling fingers dug deep into the word unfaithful.

My hand dropped from his face. He was stone, the color and the feel. I shook my head from side to side, as if I could dislodge this thing rattling around in my head. It had sharp angles, and it was wedged into the soft corners that were once his. Now, they bled raw. Almost unfaithful. I didn’t know what that meant. The sharp thing bashed at my thoughts. It was a box I didn’t want to open, even as I pried at it with desperate, chipped fingers, because I didn’t want to know what those words meant.

I stepped back and hit a tree with a thud. Little pieces of bark rained down my back and fell into my too-big shoes. My chest felt hollow; my heart and lungs had dissolved. I opened and shut my mouth, mechanically doing the things to keep me alive. Breathe in, breathe out. I didn’t know how to react because I never expected him to say that. I cycled through every emotion and came back to nothing. I felt nothing. Bloodless, aimless.

He stood in front of me, bewildered and waiting. The words pi

I thought nothing would come out of my mouth until everything poured from my lips like an avalanche. Suddenly, the questions were in my hands and I hurled them at him: When? Why? Who? With who?

He took each word like a spear to the chest, stumbling backwards until he was on the ground and I was standing over him, breathing hard. My legs trembled, and I swayed. I was going to be sick. Covering my stomach with my hand, I felt my insides twist like snake.