Page 128 of The Glass Girl

“Then why are you crying?”

“I think I broke something in myself,” I say quietly. “I don’t know.”

She doesn’t look sad or mad or disappointed at that. She just says, “Bella, it’s okay to ask for help. You don’t have to killyourself proving something before you ask for help. That’s kind of the whole point of this. We teach you basic skills so you can have tools out there in the world and survive, but we also teach you that when those tools don’t work, you ask for help. You recognize that you need help before you…break something in yourself.”

“So I failed. I didn’t pass,” I say. “So I’m going to have to do this again. Because I refused help.”

She kind of laughs. “You didn’t fail anything. In fact, you showed a tremendous amount of tenacity, and I think that refusal to give up is going to serve you pretty well.”

“But I need to ask for help,” I say.

“Yeah,” she says.

So I say, “I’m goddamn starving. Could you help me cook some tofu and make hot chocolate? Because I don’t think I can use my arms anymore.”

—

The hot chocolate is good. I sit on a rock around the main campfire, next to Josh, while Phil plays guitar, and I’m so exhausted I can barely hold my cup; my arms are still rubbery. Josh’s parka’d arm is slightly touching mine, and that feels really good. I know he can’t exactly leave another warm mouth print on me out here like he did at the Star Pit, but this counts.

Not first-kiss-under-a-starry-sky kind of good, but good nonetheless.

I made fire.

And I only have ten days left.

Day Twenty-One

Tracy takes our picturesin the desert. Photos of our campsite, our fire sites, our sad-sack A-frame shelters (though Josh’s is perfect).

Josh grabs Tracy’s camera when she isn’t looking and holds it above us.

Click.

Before I can even look at it, he shoves the photo in the pocket of my parka and races to put Tracy’s camera back by her tent.

Phil cooks everyone sausages and toast over his campfire and makes coffee.

After that, we make sure all the fires are out, dousing them with water, kicking dirt on them, inspecting for any still-warm coals. We take apart our A-frames, careful to leave the branches for the next group. Roll up our tarps, stuff them in our backpacks.

It’s a long walk back, but I don’t mind. It’s slightly downhill, which is a relief. Josh stays with me. We don’t talk very much, but it doesn’t feel uncomfortable.

It feels comfortable.

When we stop for lunch, Tracy’s cell beeps. She looks at it, then frowns. She takes her phone off into the distance, where we can’t hear. When she comes back, she whispers in Phil’s ear and his face gets funny, but not in a good way. In a grim way.

“Let’s pack up, everyone,” he says, standing. “We need to head back a little quicker than we hoped.”

“What’s up?” Billy asks. “You look weird.”

“Nothing,” Tracy says. “Just some bad weather we should try to head off.”

“She’s lying,” Brandy whispers to me.

“Yeah,” I say. I wonder about what.

—

When we get closer to Sonoran Sunrise, Tracy and Phil stop and turn around, facing us.

---