Page 13 of Ablaze

The face that stares back at me is hard and filled with anguish. I know I’ve lost any trust that she may have given me for going back and getting her bag. To my surprise, she walks back toward me. We stare at each other and never lose eye contact. I dare not to break the connection with her. She stops beside me and drops the bag she was holding at my feet. It’s my bag. She reaches up and takes the strap of the bag on my shoulder, her bag, and pulls it off of me. She does all of this without speaking. I can feel the anger rolling off of her like waves from the ocean. I start to think about what the ocean may really look like but snap back to my miserable reality.

Once she has her bag, she turns around and starts to walk toward the island and away from me again. I quickly pick up my own bag and follow her. I leave a little bit of distance between us. I try to give her space, but I won’t leave her alone out here. I won’t do it, not after it took me so long to find her. In the end, it was luck that I found her when I did. A part of me even thinks it was meant to be. This was the mission my parents sent me out on. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was my destiny to find her. It’s my job to keep her safe and watch over her. I may have screwed up the part where I was supposed to do it in secret, but I won’t blow the whole thing.

I let her walk in front of me in silence for about an hour. We are in total darkness now and I’m exhausted. I don’t know how much I’ve got left in me to keep walking. If I stay awake the whole night, I’ll have been up and moving for two days straight. The only thing propelling me forward is her. I break our silence.

“Sadie, please” I beg her. “Please, stop walking.”

I get no response from her. I try again. “Sadie. Please. I’m really asking you to stop walking. I’m not going to leave you. I’m tired. You’re tired. Let’s just take a break.”

She stops in her tracks. I silently thank the heavens above us. She hasn’t turned around to face me, and I take the few steps that separate us. I walk in front of her and sit down a few feet from her to keep her in my sights.

Sadie just sits down on the ground in the place she was standing. After what feels like forever, she finally opens her mouth to speak. “I just have one question,” she says.

Sadie

“Why me? Why am I so special? I read it in the letter. My mom told me that I was special in mine. What makes me so special that they’d send you across the country to find me?” I ask. I’m so mad. I don’t think I’ve ever been this angry. A part of me wants to punch Jesse in the face. The other part of me wants to punch him in the face but let him keep following me around. I feel like I’ve been left in the dark about my own life.

Jesse runs his hand over his head and exhales. He shakes his head and says, “I don’t know. What you read in my letter is what I knew about you after the disaster. I didn’t even know your name until I got to Salt Lake.” He shrugs his shoulders as if he’s exasperated.

My mind fills with questions for him. He holds so many answers to my unknowns. “Did you leave before the disaster or after?” I ask him. I volunteer my information about leaving San Francisco after the disaster occurred in hopes of getting him to answer.

“Before,” he responds.

“Did you know it was going to happen?” I ask him.

He pauses again, waiting to answer. He drops his eyes back down from the sky and looks me in the eyes and answers, “Yes.” It’s as if he has his own internal debate going on to decide if he’s going to answer. We sit there in silence together and let some time pass. He stands to his feet, and I do the same.

“I’m feeling better. I can continue walking if you’re ready,” he tells me. I nod my head and turn around. I wait for him to be by my side before I take a step. I put my hand on his arm and wasted no time in asking him one more question. “Do you know what it was that happened?”

He doesn’t waste a second before telling me, “No. I knew that something was going to happen, but my parents never shared that information with me. Honestly, I don’t know if they knew exactly what was going to happen themselves. We just knew that something was going to happen, it wasn’t going to be good and that I had to get far away from the Dome. They helped me learn certain skills and gave me things that would help me in my journey, and that’s all. I really didn’t even know about you until I opened the letter after the disaster happened. I swear.”

I absorb what he says to me, and we keep walking. We walk and walk and walk till I’m so tired that I can’t go on any longer. I stop, and we look at each other. We are both exhausted and emotionally drained. We’ve kept the silence between us since he answered my last question. I take a deep breath, and he speaks before I can.

“I don’t think we’re going to make it to the island tonight. I think we should stop and rest. We can rest here, find some water and shelter for the day then tomorrow, when darkness starts to fall, we can go the rest of the way to the island. What do you think?” he says.

I don’t know why I say it, but it comes out of my mouth before I can stop it. “Are they going to kill me?” In the darkness, I can still see his eyes shining at me.

“If you’re referring to the Dome then the answer is no. They haven’t succeeded, and they won’t. Not with me in the way,” he tells me. He’s so matter-of-fact as he says it. He puts down his bag, and I do the same. He starts giving me directions for what to go find. We can’t light a fire because we don’t want to draw any attention to us. I shiver in the coldness of the night air, and a few seconds later he’s handing me a lightweight jacket out of his pack. I thank him and zip it up to my neck. I start looking for tree branches that have fallen. This far out into the woods we won’t find anywhere to hide from the sun. We are going to have to improvise.

We spend the rest of the darkness working on our shelter for the hot daylight that’s quickly approaching. There’s very little chit chat as we go about our work. We’ve got our makeshift shelter of tree branches for the daylight complete. And while it might not be the greatest thing, we’ll at least be somewhat protected from the direct sunlight. I get under the branches and lay down with my head resting on my backpack. Jesse takes his water bottle out and asks for mine. Our bottles are completely empty, and I’m thirsty now that I think about it.

“I’m going to go look and see if there’s any water around here. I want you to stay here and rest. I won’t be gone long. If you have any trouble, I want you to yell as loud as you can, and I’ll come back,” he tells me.

“Are you sure it’s safe to split up?” I ask him. I feel uneasy knowing he’ll be out there alone.

“We’ve made a lot of noise dragging these branches around and getting everything together. If the Dome guards are out there near us, they would have found us by now. I think we’re safe for the moment.” He smiles at me as he talks. I wonder what he really thinks our odds are of making it to the island tomorrow, but I don’t ask. He walks away in search of water, and I watch him until I can’t see him any longer.

Daylight starts to creep up, and I can feel the heat intensifying. Sweat beads form along my hairline and I fight them away with the back of my hand. I’m starting to get nervous that Jesse hasn’t returned. I try to lay my head back down on my pack, but it’s too sticky hot to lie against the fabric. I sit there thinking about the last 24 hours and how so much has changed. I absentmindedly chew my fingernails and look through the trees for any movement.

I realize I’ve been holding my breath when I see Jesse come into my view. His shirt is drenched in sweat, and I notice how it clings to his body. Thankfully, he’s still too far away from me to notice that I’m admiring his muscles. When he gets close enough for me to see his face, I can see his wide grin. Maybe he wasn’t too far away after all. He holds up two full water bottles to show me that he’s found water. No, he’s smiling because he’s proud of himself not because I’m ogling over his toned body.

When he gets to the tent, I’m more than grateful to take one of the bottles off his hands. I open it up and begin to drink thirstily from it.

“Hey! Slow down, you’ll want to save some for later. The water supply I found seems to be the only one around here, and it’s too far to walk to again during the daylight. It’s out of the way, and we won’t be hitting it before we head out again at nightfall,” he chastises.

I nod my understanding and stop drinking the water. I close my bottle and put it safely into my bag. I yawn and feel overwhelmed with how sleepy I suddenly feel. Jesse catches me yawn and says, “It’s okay. You can go to sleep. I’m going to watch for a little bit longer and then try to get some rest myself.”

I don’t really want to fall asleep because a part of me feels like I should stay awake for as long as I can. The other part of me is screaming and begging for rest. This has been the longest day of my life, and I’m spent. After a few minutes, my struggle becomes useless, and I fall asleep under our makeshift shelter. The oppressive heat doesn’t even bother me. I’m completely out to the world.

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