Page 41 of Heartland
”That boy has a short, little attention span,” Debbie mutters.
“True story. But he stayed interested in you for a while. Are you going to hit tonight? One last fun time?”
“Who says it would be the last time?” Debbie smirks. “That boy will be single forever. Nobody is surprised that the girlfriend lasted a hot second.”
The other girls snicker.
“There won’t be any fun with Dylan for me tonight, though,” she says. “I have to get the car back before my brother gets home and sees that it’s gone. But you guys gave me an evil idea.”
“Really? How evil?”
She slowly removes a perfectly toasted marshmallow from her stick and then smiles. “I'm out of here. But just watch, because Dylan's gonna disappear for a while and then come back looking…less satisfied than he expected.”
The girls let out a hoot. “Bitch!”
“Burn!”
“It’s just payback,” she insists. “The boy turned me down last month because of what’s-her-name—the cheater. Now he’ll realize that was a mistake.”
Leaving her friends to giggle and gossip, she carries the perfect marshmallow over to where Dylan and Keith are seated on a log. She leans over Dylan and says something I can’t hear.
As I watch, he opens his mouth, and she tucks that marshmallow inside. He chews, and I’m not imagining the sloppy smile on his face. Debbie leans over and whispers something in his ear. She cups his chin, giving it a stroke, and then abruptly stands up and walks away, her walk all hips and a hair toss, too.
“Oh, this could begood,” her friend says beside me.
Debbie leaves the fire pit, stopping to chat a moment with another acquaintance. But then? She moseys past the cider house. I lose her in the shadows for a moment, but catch the sheen of her hair again as she heads for the bunkhouse, which is quiet and dark tonight.
She doesn’t go inside. She walks around to the back, instead. A few moments later, she emerges on the far side. She walks quickly toward the long row of cars in the Shipley driveway, ducking onto the far side of them. Then she hoofs it down the drive, maybe toward her own car somewhere out on the road.
And that's it. She doesn't return.
I keep my eye on Dylan after that. He has glassy eyes and a wobbly smile, thanks to the flask he and Keith have been passing back and forth.
A moment later he checks his watch, subtly. But it’s enough to make the girls cackle.
I pluck my marshmallow off the stick and eat it. I clean off the stick and prop it up against the empty food table. But all the time I’m watching Dylan.
After a few more minutes, he stands up, placing a hand on Keith’s head, saying… I have no idea what he might be saying.Goodnight. Or,I have to check on something. Or,I’ll be back in twenty after Debbie blows me. I don’t know how casual sex works.
Either way, he stands up. Casually, he plucks a few empty cups off the ground and carries them over to a recycling bin his mother thoughtfully left nearby. Then he walks—his hands in his pockets—slowly toward the bunkhouse.
I can tell even from this distance that he’s been drinking. He doesn’t stagger. Just the opposite—he’s taking too much care with his gait.
Retracing Debbie’s steps, he steers around the bunkhouse, heading for the dark place behind it, where there’s just a strip of grass before the tree line closes in.
Dylan does not emerge a minute later on the other side. He’s disappeared.
And now the girls on the log are doubled over in laughter. “How long do you think he'll wait?”
My face heats up in sympathetic embarrassment. I don’tbelievethis. These girls count themselves as Dylan’s friends? Is that how friends behave? They enjoy your hospitality and then laugh behind your back? My pulse pounds in my throat.
Somebody's got to tell him, and I guess that somebody is me. So I stand up slowly, slipping away from the fire. I’m used to being invisible, and nobody is watching me as I become the third person to walk toward the forest’s edge. I take a different route through the shadows of the cider house, out of sight from those girls.
I cut across the pitch-black lawn toward the back of the bunkhouse. It'sreallydark back here, and I feel a little skittish sneaking around near the tree line. Some horror movies begin like this.
At first I can't guess where Dylan might be waiting, but then I notice that the door to the outdoor shower is ajar. And as my eyes grow more accustomed to the dim light, I spot Dylan's Chuck Taylors under the saloon-style wall. He’s whistling softly, a stray melody from one of the fiddle tunes he played earlier.
The sound is so veryDylan. It’s patient, maybe a little lazy, but still cheerful and fun. Suddenly, there's nothing creepy about this moment. I pace toward the open door where the grass gives way to a bed of pebbles.
