Page 34 of Heart of the Sun

We shared the last pack of almonds and then Charlie and I fell in line behind Tuck.The sky was again cast in tangerine the way it had been the day before and gave off that same hazy glow that was both beautiful and bizarre.Haunting.

I hefted my suitcase higher, attempting to rest some of the weight on the front of my hip without disturbing my bandaged wound. “Here, babe, I’ll carry that,” Charlie said. I resisted, but not overly much because, God, it really was heavy and cumbersome and when Charlie took it, I sighed with relief. But when he transferred it to his other hand, I caught the fleeting expression of annoyance.

We continued walking, my guilt increasing with every step. Because what was the point of holding on to something that was supposed to represent independence, if it was causing my boyfriend to have to suffer under the weight? How wasthatindependent? How did that signify girl power?You’re a sellout.And how long were Tuck’s angry words about me lacking talent going to repeat in my mind?

I stopped and so did Charlie, allowing me to grab the suitcase from his hand. “You know what? Fuck it,” I said, as I tossed it to the side of the road. “I can replace my stuff too. And I’m sick to death of lugging that stupid thing along.”

I brushed my hands together and began marching forward, Charlie caught up and slung his arm around me. “Being rich is freeing, right? Like I said, when we get back to LA, we’ll go on a shopping spree.”

“Sounds dreamy.”

Tuck had stopped and turned toward us when I’d chucked the luggage. Before he turned back, he pressed his lips together, and I swore I saw a tiny flicker of amusement move over his expression.Laugh if you will, Tuck. I’ll show you. I’ll show everyone.I had beat all the odds so far and I’d continue to do so.

We traveled, and walked, and walked some more. The sun rose higher, a yellow swath across the orange sky. At some point we ran out of water and so we stopped and gathered snow in our water bottles and then pressed the plastic against our bodies as we walked to melt it.

As I trailed Tuck,my mind roamed freely. And it was the weirdest thing because I realized that my mind hadn’t done that in…well, probablyyears. It was a sort of panicky sensation not to have anything to reel me back in. I kept reaching for my phone to distract myself, and each time I looked at its blank screen, a trill of fear would vibrate inside me. I saw Charlie doing the same thing, patting his pocket intermittently and then flinching.

The lack of search engines, and online maps, and the ability to call for help made it clear that, at the moment, the only things I could count on were the strong lines of Tuck’s body moving smoothly in front of me, leading the way.

Tuck looked back at me, and I realized suddenly that I was humming, snippets of song lyrics weaving through my brain, arranging and rearranging and then forming tunes. I went quiet.

“I’ve gotta take a leak,” Charlie said. I halted too and he stepped off the road and walked toward the woods. Tuck, just a few feet ahead, looked back and then came to a stop as well, opening his backpack and removing a bottle of water and taking a long swallow. I walked the short distance to him, honestly surprised he’d stopped. Over the past few days, he’d kept walking each time we’d needed a bathroom break and we’d had to hurry to catch up. We’d been walking for whathadto be close to three hours now, and perhaps even Tuck needed a break once in a while. “You used to hum like that during those harvest mornings,” Tuck said, his gaze focused on his hand screwing the cap back on.

For a second, I was confused, but then his words brought forth a memory, the picture blooming so suddenly and so vividly that I swore the scent of orange blossoms infused the winter air. The workers at our grove had risen at the crack of dawn to avoid the heat of the day, and so had we, running outside in shorts and bare feet, with bedhead and sleep grains still stuck in our eyelashes.The oranges were so fragrant. If I closed my eyes, I could feel one in my palm, heavy with ripeness, and hear the small snap as it broke from the branch. It’d felt like a gift, the way the tree had so easily let go of its fruit with only the smallest twist of my wrist. A blessing. “I did?” I asked. I’d hummed as I’d picked? I didn’t remember that.

Tuck nodded and then took another swig from his bottle.

I tilted my head. I remembered the picking. I remembered following along behind Tuck. But I didn’t remember humming. It was because my mind had been free to roam, I imagined, like it was now, my body moving from tree to tree, reaching and plucking, reaching and plucking. Daydreaming as I worked. I wondered if that was when I’d first started composing “Find You in the Dark”—the melody, if not the lyrics—which became the single that had catapulted my career into the stratosphere. Because the thing was, when I wrote that song, and the others on the album too, they’d all felt so effortless, like they’d lived inside me all my life, and had just been waiting to be set free.

They could have picked up any pretty girl off the street and createdNova.They didn’t need talent. They needed compliance.

I sucked in a breath, once again shoving aside the words Tuck had volleyed at me on the plane. He’d said them out of resentment at being exposed. The problem was…they hit hard because it was a vulnerability. He must have known that and that’s why he’d said it. To hurt me back.

I hadn’t written anything nearly as inspired since “Find You in the Dark.” Mydeepestfear, the one I didn’t like to think about, was that that was all I had. The well had run dry. I was a one-hit wonder and nothing more.

Maybe it was why I pushed myself so hard to milk every drop I could from all the recent opportunities I’d been given. Because there wouldn’t be more after this. The Louis Vuitton I’d tossed aside really was the last luxury item I’d ever own, the final sign of my once shooting star that had fizzled to the ground.A part of me wanted to run back and snatch that suitcase from whatever animal was now burrowed inside of it.

A void opened inside me as words attached to the fear that had been skating at the edge of my brain for years, the one I’d refused toreallythink about. The one Tuck had clearly seen and thrown at me.

I massaged my temples and looked at Tuck. He was watching me, a look of curiosity on his face as though he was mesmerized by the shifting nature of my thoughts. He’d noticed I was humming too, andIhadn’t even realized until Tuck had mentioned it. A cascade of emotions tumbled through me: bitterness, fear, happiness, uncertainty, hope. I couldn’t grasp any of them, because they were all fleeting, and I didn’t know what to attach them to.

I cleared my throat and looked away briefly. There was no need to think about any of this now, during this harrowing, yet temporary circumstance. “What do you think it’s going to be like when we get to civilization?” I asked.

He paused for a moment. “No idea. It’ll depend on how far the outage stretched and whether their infrastructure is back up. But they’ll at least have some information about what’s going on and how long before things are expected to be working again.”

Before I could respond, Charlie came stomping noisily out of the woods and breaking me from my worried thoughts. “Goddammit,” he said. “I think I fell in some poison oak.” He was wiping his hands off, his jacket covered in dirt and pieces of brush.

“I’m sure it wasn’t poison oak.” Charlie had never communed with nature—he probably had no idea what poison oak even looked like. He’d grown up in Bel Air. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. Let’s go.” I plucked a piece of leaf out of his hair before we both turned back to the road.

Tuck was already walking. We fell in line behind him just as we had before, continuing down the dirt road.

Eventually the dirt road turned into a stretch of gravel, which seemed like a good sign even if the only thing surrounding us were derelict fields. But as day turned to evening, Tuck slowed, and then came to a stop. I shielded my eyes from the bright horizon, squinting as something up ahead caught my eye and I saw why he’d halted. “Holy shit, it’s a gas station,” I said. My heart lurched toward that beautiful beacon of hope. And of people. And even one of those gas station sandwiches that I would have never touched with a ten-foot pole a week ago. But now…now, I was going to devour every bite of it and lick the wrapper. I’d kiss it before I put it in my mouth. I’d say a prayer of gratitude. Then I’d buy a bottle of cold water and drink every drop. They might have shoes there. Those canvas ones that hang on a rack near the ball caps and playing cards. Neosporin!

“Oh my God, Tylenol,” I almost sobbed.

We all started walking again more quickly than before. We turned onto the paved road that led to the gas station a quarter mile or so up ahead, and I never thought I’d be so excited about asphalt, but I was. Oh, I was. I grabbed Charlie’s arm. “We did it,” I said. “We made it, Charlie. The nightmare is over.”

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