Rise of Ember Quin

6

Eventually, Ember’s body decides for her: she can’t walk anymore. The adrenaline is gone and her feet are hamburger, the skin peeled away in red, wet patches. Her knees give out just past a county sign—green and reflective, proudly announcing population numbers that might as well be zero. She half-crawls, half-staggers to the grass that lines the road’s shoulder, and there she collapses, cheek pressed to the dampness and cold.

The pain is enormous, but so is the relief. For the first time since the party, she can’t see or hear anyone but herself. Her breathing is ugly and loud. She buries her head in her arms, knees tucked to her chest. Her body is a barricade. She tells herself no one will see her here, not even a passing coyote.

The ground is cold, but it’s real. The grass and mud soak through her dress, clinging to her back and hips. It’s almost like being held, except the earth is indifferent, and that’s better. She shudders with the first wave of sobbing, full-body tremors that turn her lungs inside-out. Snot floods her mouth and nose; she doesn’t wipe it away. Her tears flow so fast she doesn’t notice when she starts to hyperventilate.

Above her, branches of a roadside oak reach toward the moon, and the moon answers by filtering through the leaves in silver shards. Each breath she manages is a cloud of vapor. She thinks: I should get up, I should keep going. But she’s past the point of pretending she can do anything else.

The next wave of sobbing comes, harder. Her hands claw at the grass, nails filling with dirt. She screams, but it’s a muffled, pillow-throttled thing. Every muscle in her body cramps. Her thighs, her ribs, her jaw. The crying is almost wordless, but sometimes a phrase stumbles out:

“Stupid, stupid, so stupid—”

or

“Why did you even try?”

Each time, the words bounce off the empty road and vanish.

The moonlight shifts, dappling her body with moving, fractured shadows. Each time a car comes by—a rare thing now—it throws a strobe of headlights across the ditch, painting her in alternating brightness and dark. She hates it, hates being illuminated at random. She presses herself deeper into the ground, hoping the grass will swallow her up, wishing she could hide under it like a blanket.

After a while, the sobbing slows. She runs out of tears, and what’s left is a dry, shuddering pant that sounds more animal than human. The cold is numbing her, turning her legs and arms to rubber. She can’t tell if she’s shivering from the night or just the aftershock of everything else.

She smells the earth—loamy, heavy, full of rot and life. It smells like nothing at the party, like nothing in her parents’ house. She breathes it in and lets it fill the hollow spaces where her anger and embarrassment used to be. She feels empty, and that’s a small mercy.

The sounds of the night get louder as her thoughts slow down: the cricket chorus, the wind dragging itself through the weeds, the distant, metallic clang of something in a junkyard. It’s all background noise, but it’s less cruel than human voices. For the first time, she doesn’t mind being alone.

A car approaches. She doesn’t look up; she knows it won’t stop. The headlights hit her body, paint her in white for a second, then sweep away. She stays motionless, a broken thing on the roadside, nothing for anyone to see. She tries to imagine what she looks like—just a lump in a red dress, hair loose, arms wrapped tight around her knees. She tries to care, but she’s so tired.

The phone, still warm from her hand, buzzes once more. She drags it up, thumb unresponsive from the cold, and tries to read the newest message.

Just tell me you’re okay.

Rae.

Ember’s vision blurs. She wants to say something back, something comforting or at least true, but her fingers won’t move right. She lets the phone fall to the grass, face-down, screen lighting up one last time before the battery finally gives out.

She curls tighter, chin on knees. She lets her breathing slow, lets the cold settle in and numb every sharp thing inside her. The wind plays with the loose ends of her hair. Her body stops shaking, and she goes still.

The world is quiet, except for the steady sound of her own breath. In, out. In, out.

Eventually, she falls asleep, knees tucked, hands clasped, the remains of mascara and dirt drying on her face. Her last thought before the darkness takes her is that this, at least, isn’t so bad. She’s not running anymore.

Above her, the branches keep shifting, moonlight playing patterns on her skin.