Page 61 of Wild Child
The edge came back into her gaze when she nodded. "Yeah. Him, too. It'll take most of the day," she murmured with a sigh, "but we'll get there."
After I'd rubbed my face down and drank until my stomach hurt, I motioned downstream, where it narrowed through a little gully, then opened back up. "Let's cross over there and stay on that side. If they come upon us later and have to cross, it could slow them down."
"Sure."
"Then, let's get this over with. I'm starving."
* * *
My body warmed up fast once we started moving, even though my stomach protested every now and then. At least we'd been able to fill up with water. If we stuck close to the stream, we'd be fine. If not, dehydration sets in fast at these altitudes in the summer. We would only decline from there.
We moved back out of the immediate view of the stream, then picked our way through the forest. Boulders appeared here and there to narrow our path options, but we stayed out of sight and mostly quiet.
"So," I said after a long stretch without speaking, my voice pitched low, "tell me what college was like. You covered the vague stuff when you said you didn’t like it, but I’m curious about the details.”
The question had lingered on the tip of my tongue for months after Mom told me that Ellie went to the state university, then returned a few months later. Ellie tightened a little as she considered my question, but didn't clam up.
"Isn't much to say," she murmured as she stepped over a log. Her gaze darted to the right, where the creek cut through the trees out of sight. Seeing nothing of concern, she relaxed a little. "I hated it."
"Why?"
Her brow furrowed. "Are you going to get high-school-Devin-level protective if I tell you?"
"No."
"Oh."
"I'm going to get Marine-corps-deployed-soldier-Devin-level protective. Some asshole put his hands on you?"
Her lips twitched and some of the humor returned to her gaze. "I took care of it."
My feet stopped of their own accord. Wait, what? She took care ofwhat? Warily, she slowed and glanced back. My brow rose and I had a sick feeling I wasn't going to like whatever story came next.
"Ellie?"
"Let me explain."
She spoke quietly, but with the same tone she would have used even if we weren't hiding from rogue drug dealers that wanted to kill us. I nodded back to the forest to indicate we should keep moving, and she followed suit.
"I didn't get along with my roommates," she continued. We walked side-by-side through a more open expanse of trees. "They were too loud and in my space. I think I got assigned some particularly rowdy people, I guess. I don't know. They had boyfriends over all the time and they didn't really respect boundaries. I didn't expect them tonotdrink alcohol, I just didn't want them and their drunk friends in the apartment. That seemed fair."
My entire body tightened. "Tell me how this ends first," I said, "then tell me the details. I don’t want to wait through all of this until I know how whatever you're going to say happened."
She snorted. “Dev, I'm obviously alive."
“Say it, E.”
"I kneed him in the groin, then almost broke his nose, and he never came back."
The conclusion of the story only made it worse. I didn't relax. Instead, I felt more troubled than ever.
"Tell it."
She sighed, but let the story roll off her lips more quickly. "One night, my roommates and their boyfriends were drunk. One of the boyfriends stumbled into my room and wouldn't leave. He . . . he got belligerent, so I kneed him in the groin. That made him angry, so he tried to come at me again. Naturally, I shoved an elbow into his face. Noses bleed like crazy," she finished on a mutter, and my anger at the image of some hulking, drunk man in her bedroom made my rage at Afghanistan look like party glitter.
"I don't like that," I said, shaking my head. "I don't like that. I don't like that."
I should have been there,I thought.
