Page 77 of For a Goode Time Call…
I had to get away, for her sake.
Something told me, too, that I had my own shit to wrestle with, and I couldn’t do that here, in the city. The only way I could get quiet enough in my own head was to be out there, in the silence of nature.
So, I packed some gear—real clothes, due to mosquitos and midges and black flies and no-see-ums and bracken and such, boots, binoculars, my self-defense handgun and bear spray, survival knife, hatchet, matches, canteens…all the various paraphernalia of wilderness survival, the packing of which was second nature to me. I packed a second bag with food items to see me through the first few days, knowing I would hunt and fish for fresh meat as I needed it.
Packed, I shouldered my bag and headed for the door.
Then I stopped, for some reason. Bugged by something—wasn’t sure what.
My phone—I’d been on it all morning and intended to leave it behind. I’d stuck it on the charger and left it there.
But, for some reason, I pulled it off the charger and shoved it into my pocket. Why, I wasn’t sure. It made no sense. I just…had to.
Mystified at my own actions, I shook my head and schlepped my bag across town to Brock’s slip. I was wearing a shirt and hiking boots for the first time in months. It felt odd and unnatural, but I knew from experience that I would feel at home again the moment I entered the forest outside Talkeetna.
I tossed my bag into the fuselage, climbed in after it, and used the available straps to tie it down. Then I sat in the open doorway kicking my feet in space, watching Brock bustle through his preflight checklist once, twice, and then a third time before settling into the pilot’s seat.
He glanced at me, jerked a thumb at the copilot’s place. “Hop in, big fella. Let’s get lost, huh?”
I grinned at him. “Sounds good to me,” I said, plopping my ass into the chair and buckling up.
With a cough, sputter, and belch of exhaust, the twin propellers spun into life, and within another minute we were streaking across the channel, bouncing on the waves, skidding, skipping, momentarily weightless, and then angling skyward, floating upward, buoyed on the magic of physics.
Cassie
My phone blared the most annoying, jarring, skull-splitting song I could think of—“Chop Suey!” by System of a Down. It was my alarm, and it was going off at the ungodly hour of five in the morning.
I groaned and rolled over toward the edge of the bed.
Why had I set my alarm for five a.m.?
Oh yeah. To work out. Mobility exercises. Regain my strength and endurance and flexibility. The road back to dance.
Because…
Why?
Why couldn’t I just go back to sleep? Accept my fate. Let myself go. Just be fat and lazy and stupid and useless the rest of my life. Never dance again. Screw the workouts. Screw the relentless internal drive to move, to follow the music and the rhythm and the movement across the floor as if pulled by invisible strings.
I groaned again.
Why have you forsaken me…
I had to get out of bed to shut off the alarm because I’m a diabolical person and put it across the room so I couldn’t talk myself out of getting out of bed. So, I got out of bed, trudged listlessly across the bedroom to the dresser and shut off the infernal noise. I stood there, glaring at the time readout on my phone: 5:02 a.m.
Idiot phone.
Idiot me.
Idiot leg.
Idiot car wreck.
Idiot Ink.
Idiot life.
I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember how I’d managed to do this every day of my life for more than ten years—up at five, bike the three blocks from home to the studio, dance until six forty-five, ride home, shower, change, and get on the bus to school by seven thirty.
