Page 35 of Factory Controller

“Oh God,” I hide my face in my hands. “I must look like such an idiot right now.”

“Not really. I feel bad about hyping you up about the night wasps anyway. If anything, it’s my fault.”

We resume our journey, though I’m more cautious than before. But since I need a distraction, something to keep me from freaking out, I try to analyze my attraction to Trent. Could we really work? Is he planning on staying in the rainforest forever? There’s only one way to find out, if I dare ask what his future plans might be.

“So, how long have you been in the Amazon?”

Trent grunts before answering. “Ten years, I guess.”

“Ten years?” I shake my head in awe. “You’ve never even thought about going back to civilization in that time?”

“Not really, no.” Trent shrugs his massive shoulders. “I’ve got most of what I need right there in the forest, and, whatever the forest doesn’t provide, the river takes care of. I can trade for whatever else I might need, like medicine, or do a cargo run.”

He laughs. “For the most part, the way I spend my days doesn’t change much. I wake up when I want to, eat when I’m hungry, and lounge around in my hammock as much as possible, drinking native beverages.”

Trent looks back at me and grins as he steps along the trail. “That cell phone you were so proud of, all it did was chop up your day into little pieces, make you have to be in certain places at specific times. I’m not wrong.”

I open my mouth for a rebuttal, but it dies on my lips. He’s not wrong. I think about my so-called civilized life: meetings with clients both current and prospective, deadlines on my accounting projects, never a free moment to spare for myself.

Worse, when I was with Rick-the-Prick, he absconded with every second I could spare, stealing from me my very will to exist. Yes, I could see how being down in the rainforest without any responsibilities or cares might feel good.

“Do you ever get lonely, Trent?”

Trent stiffens, pausing for a moment before returning to his march. “Yeah, sometimes. I mean, I’ve got friends with a lot of the local tribes, but I’m not really part of their community, and never can be. In a lot of ways, I’m alone.”

“Me, too.”

“Shut up,” Trent says, a grin stretching across his handsome face. “A gorgeous woman like you doesn’t have to be lonely—unless that’s what she wants, of course.”

“I guess maybe I just got tired of disappointment and gave up on relationships, romantic or otherwise. I know I’m too eager to please, afraid of being rejected. Just like my parents rejected me…”

“Hey, for all you know, your parents were making the best possible decision for your future,” Trent frowns back at me. “You don’t know, so why assume the worst?”

We return to marching silently through the forest. I have to face the facts. Can Trent and I ever really work? I doubt it. We’re just too different to ever be compatible. Aren’t we?

The Amazon gives no answer as we plunge through its dark, verdant breast.

TRENT

The sun heats up the dense foliage, creating a suffocating invisible fog of stench. Like the dumpster behind a vegan restaurant in mid-July. We’re in forest so thick no one, I fear not even the native tribes, has traversed it since the dawn of time.

Heather pads on silently behind me as I blaze the trail. Her questions still echo in my mind. Would I ever consider returning to the United States? Or even just civilization in general?

For ten years I’d have easily answered that question. Not. A. Chance. Why would I return to a world of alerts and messages and bills and taxes?

Truth be told, Heather has shown me my last decade of life has been a lie. I’m not down here in the Amazon hiding from a world I never made. I’m down here in the Amazon so I don’t have to get close to—and therefore risk losing—anyone else.

They say time heals all wounds. I won’t say that losing my parents still doesn’t hurt, from time to time, but it’s not the soul-crushing wave of existential misery it used to be. I guess I could say I’ve gotten over their deaths, but that always sounded disrespectful to me. How do you get over someone’s death? You can’t get over it.

You can make peace with it, though. Maybe that’s what I’ve done, reached a kind of peace. But peace can still be lonely, and I can’t deny I’ve been feeling that.

Sure, I don’t miss all of the gadgets, the fast cars and crummy superhero movies and latest smartphones, but maybe I miss having other people around. Especially people like Heather…

“You’re pretty quiet,” Heather says, her face red from the heat.

“Just thinking.” I sniff the air and frown. “I think I smell smoke. We could be getting close to a village, or at least a fisherman’s hut.”

“What good would a fisherman’s hut do us?”

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