The Wanted

He knelt over, his hands pressed into the dirt, looking like he was going to be sick too.

He whispered her name into the tiny palm fronds that jabbed out of the mud, and when the name floated up to my ears, I couldn’t stand it.

When he told me he kissed her, that he almost… I actually screamed. The details were a knife that kept on stabbing, through, through, through to the other side of me.

“Stop,” I gasped, the bile burning a path up my throat. “Please. I can’t hear anymore.” His mouth clapped shut. His face was a broken bruise I shouldn’t have to heal.

The smell of lemons, detergent, and chemicals brought me back. I was wearing her clothes. I shrugged off my own jacket, and my furious hands started unbuttoning her shirt because her clothes were burning my skin. It was a stupid thing to do. It was freezing and only getting colder, but I felt stupid wearing her too-long pants and her shirt that left so much air between where my chest ended and what it allowed for. I bit my lip and stared at the darkening sky. There should have been black, angry clouds pulsing with lightning, but it was clear. Empty.

My eyes snapped to Joseph as he rushed towards me.

“I’m so sorry, Rosa,” he said, his beautiful, lying eyes tortured. He took both sides of her shirt and held them together, over my chest, in his fist. I tried to struggle out, but his grip was too strong. “You can’t. You’ll freeze to death,” he whispered sadly.

I shoved him, screaming, “I can’t wear her fucking clothes!” He staggered back in surprise. I’d never spoken to him, or to anyone, like that. I stood there, feral and angry, my shirt open, revealing my scars and frozen skin.

I started unbuckling my pants, but stopped. I didn’t know what I was doing anymore.

He removed his jacket and started unbuttoning his shirt, calmer than he had a right to be. “Take mine,” he offered.

Scowling, I snapped, “Then you’ll freeze to death.” My teeth were already chattering.

He smiled sadly at my obstinacy. I couldn’t look at his mouth so I turned my eyes to his chest and the deep scars ru

“I guess we’re at an impasse then,” he said.

“What are those?” I asked, pointing at his scars. I needed to break the conversation in half, just for a moment.

“Polar bear attack,” he said, gazing down at the dark purple parts of his skin. He carefully removed his shirt and handed it to me. Snatching it, I ripped her shirt from my body, the sleeve snagging at my wrist. I tugged at it until the cuff tore and released me, letting it fall to the dirt. Stepping on it, I screwed my foot into the ground, just to make sure it soaked up plenty of mud. I put his shirt on quickly, my movements jerky from the cold, and then put my own jacket over the top. His clothes enveloped me in the warmth and smells I’d craved and wanted. It reminded me that I loved him. I love him.

He pulled his jacket over his bare skin, his scars, and zipped it up. “What do we do now?” he said in a croak of sadness, reaching for my hand.

I withdrew. I was angry. Torture. That was all I could see in his eyes, across his mouth, in his tense jaw. He was torturing himself.

Good.

He walked away from me, pulling his hands through his hair. Sadness punctuated every movement. After everything we’d been through…

No. Not good.

I did the same as him, pulling my hands through my messy hair, trying to tease out my anger. Soon, night would pull down like a blind. The grey shadows were fast turning black.

“Please just give me a second. I don’t know what to do.” I put my finger up in the air. Exasperation tinged my voice because it seemed unfair that I should be the one to decide what we did next.

I stepped further away and watched him pace like a man possessed, in front of a backdrop of red-brown bark slathered with woolly, green moss. He became smaller and smaller in my vision as I disco

I stared at him for an hour or so, my eyes tired, round discs that begged for tears that wouldn’t come. I stared at him until the sun disappeared and the coolness of the earth rose around us in sheets. Until one thought snapped its strings and whirled into the sky in broken-winged arcs—you love him.

He stopped pacing and sat opposite me. Only five meters away, but the distance between us seemed so far, perilous, flawed, and spiked.

I stood and his eyes followed me, the hope in them wounding me. “I’m going to light a fire,” I a

His eyes fell to his hands and I wondered—did he see blood on them like I did on mine?

I hurt for him, I hated him, and I loved him. I wanted him. Always.

Sighing, I began building the fire.

“Can I help?” His voice was meek, and I loathed the sound of it.

“Get some of the bigger wood, over there.” I pointed to a fallen log. It was damp but hopefully, it would burn.

He stumbled off, always breaking branches and crushing plants in his wake.

I coaxed the flames; the wet, smoky smell filled my head with other nights, nights before he ruined things. My eyes watered as the breeze blew smoke in my face. I rubbed them with the back of my hand.

Returning, he placed the wood by my side. He sat closer, edging towards me like I might bite him. I did feel rabid. Angry and confused. I wanted to hate him, but I couldn’t. I wanted to forgive him, but I couldn’t.

“Rosa, say something,” he begged.

“Like what?” I snarled into the fire that was more smoke than flames. Leaning down, I held my hair in one hand while I blew on it.

He didn’t know what to do with his hands—in his lap, behind his back, in his hair. Every now and then, they reached for me, and I inched away.

“Do you hate me?” he asked

“No…”

“Do you still love me?” He was an idiot. The doubt in his voice almost broke my heart.

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” I snapped.

“Right, sorry.”

I picked up a small branch. It crumbled in my hands, so I sprinkled it on the fire. Slowly, the flames were building. It was simple in there. I could have wished for my life to be simple, but it was like asking a meal to drop from the sky. It wasn’t going to happen.

Joseph dragged the pack towards him, bumping it over my feet, and retrieved some food. “Are you hungry?”

“No.”

“You can’t even look at me, can you?” His voice was sliced-up pieces of what it used to be.

If I looked at him, my anger would melt away.

My eyes snatched a glimpse, a profile of his tormented face, and I was reminded just how much we’d both suffered, the things we’d had to do.

When I was in Grant’s home, my only thoughts were getting back to him and to Orry. I just couldn’t understand how he could do it. How, after only a month apart, could he have put his lips on some stranger’s? But then I thought about how lost and alone I was and I wondered… If someone had offered me comfort in my weakest moment, would I have taken it? It had been so hard to hold out hope that I would see him again, when it seemed impossible. I tried to squeeze my feet into Joseph’s worn-out shoes. I tried to understand why. I didn’t want to understand, but I needed to.

“If I look at you, I’ll forgive you. I don’t want to do that yet,” I said through a grimace.

“Oh, okay. What can I do?” His voice was a peak of emotions, each one tumbling down a cliff and landing in my lap to sort through.

I shrugged hard, my whole body feeling exhausted by all the words, all the apologies, and all the promises broken.

“Explain it to me.”

The world slowed. The arms of the clock rewound as Joseph took me back to that first night when he’d left me because he had to. I listened to his anguish and I started to understand the pain, the hopelessness, he had felt. The burden of believing everything was his fault alone.