Life is Strange, page 12
“Hey,” she whispers, nuzzling her face against my shoulder. “You ready to meet Mr. Big-shot politician man?”
No.
I absolutely am not.
But I have to be.
I nod.
“You can still back out any time, you know,” she yawns, resting her chin against my back. “Don’t think you’re in too far to change your mind. You always have a choice.”
“Thanks, Steph,” I say, peeling the covers off and pulling myself away from her and out into the cold room. For a Colorado desert town running out of water, Barbazal can get hella freezing when the sun goes down.
“So, what do you think he’ll be like?” asks Steph, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and reaching for her hat. “Especially since he’s expecting Miss Magazine-ready farmer bombshell Clover and he’s getting us two lugnuts?”
“Lugnuts?” I chuckle. “Speak for yourself! I’m feeling pretty magazine-ready myself after that shower last night.”
“Yeah, it was about time for both of us,” she smiles.
“Can’t believe the convincing it took for Owen to say yes to a shower. Even in a drought, humans gotta bathe!”
I hear a tap tap tap from outside the window and my eyes follow the sound. Just outside, I see Owen, still in a robe and slippers, tapping his finger on a meter outside by the house.
My smile falls as I realize what I have to tell her.
“Hey, Steph? I was thinking… maybe I should go see Jonah. Like, alone.”
Steph looks over her shoulder at me, eyebrows raised skeptically. “Are you crazy?”
“Yes, we’ve been over this,” I grin. But Steph isn’t smiling back. She pushes herself up from the bed and leans over it, leveling her eyes at me.
“You’re asking me to let you go by yourself into the woods to meet a strange man? What if he kills you? What if he drowns you in that lake?!”
“There is no lake anymore, Steph, remember?”
“Okay, so one murder method taken care of, I guess we’re good to—hell no!”
“Steph, I’m—” I stop myself, soften my voice, but stay firm. “I’m… not asking.”
The silence that settles into the room makes me so uncomfortable, I’ll say anything to get out of it.
“Come on, think about it. Jonah’s already expecting Clover. This bench is probably their secret hideout or something. They both grew up here. Maybe they used to sneak off to that bench to make out when they were teens?”
“Uh, yeah, exactly,” she says. “And if he gets irate about having his personal space invaded, you’ll need someone with some city grit. Please let me go with you. I’ll just climb a tree nearby or something and watch.”
Laughter bursts forth from somewhere deep in my gut. “You want to stalk us like a panther or something?”
“No,” she laughs with me, “just… I don’t know. Easier than digging a hole and covering my head with leaves.”
“Okay, that’s probably the most city-grit thing you’ve ever said. People only do that in movies.”
“Okay, maybe don’t make a habit out of meeting men in the woods, and you won’t have to know shit like that?”
We stand smiling at each other for a long, looooong time. Then she throws her arms around me in defeat.
“Be careful, okay?” she insists. “I’m serious. The last time you left to meet a man in the woods, you fell down a mine shaft.”
Her voice breaks at that last word, and I shut my eyes and squeeze her tighter.
I remember when I hobbled back to the Black Lantern, all scraped up, concussed, with two broken ribs, and Steph leapt out of her chair to run to me. When I told her, when I told all of Haven Springs what had happened—that Jed Lucan had shot me and let me fall two hundred feet down a mine shaft—the first words out of her mouth were: I believe you.
And I know that whatever happens in the woods this morning, she’ll believe me again.
“I will,” I say. And I mean it. “Thanks, Steph.”
* * *
The trek back up to Clover Biggs’ house is harder than it was yesterday, and I can’t decide if it’s because I was with Steph yesterday, or because yesterday I didn’t have soreness creeping into every muscle below my waist.
If I’m going to be standing on stage for hours at a time rockin’ out on my guitar, I’ve gotta get better stamina than this.
Step after step, I feel the burn in my quads grow, and I wonder if I’m doing the right thing. Maybe Steph was right. Here I am, two days into my stay in a brand-new town, waltzing up to the Mayor’s house, following a trail in the woods to an abandoned bench where I’m supposed to meet a stranger who’s also a pretty famous candidate for the Colorado Senate seat.
Yeah, this is crazy.
I look up and see the house, larger now than when I first started my walk of course, but still far off. I take a deep breath and remember Gabe. I think of what he would say to me.
Something like, You can’t see injustice and do nothing about it.
No…
No, that’s what I’d say to me.
Go where the wind takes you.
No, that sounds like a version of Gabe from wish.com.
I stop and sigh.
When I lost him, I swore I’d keep his memory alive, that even if it had been years since I’d last seen him, I’d never, ever, ever forget him. But here I am, losing his voice, losing his turns of phrase, losing his face.
I remember him less and less vividly, Gabe Chen.
“I’m sorry,” I apologize into the wind.
I try to picture him standing ahead of me on the trail.
He would shrug and say something snarky, yet wise. Practical. Like, “You’re really going to meet some weirdo in the woods?”
I smirk.
That’s the Gabe I remember.
“He’s not some weirdo,” I say aloud, pressing on. “He’s the answer to Barbazal’s problems.”
“Anyway,” continues his voice in my head, “The answer to Barbazal’s problems, huh? That’s a lofty title. This guy sounds like God.”
I snicker.
“Not quite,” I say. “Just a guy with feelings.”
“Those can be dangerous,” he would say. “Did you at least bring mace?”
“Shouldn’t need it,” I say, feeling determination grow with each step. “He’s got a lot to protect, and something tells me committing an act of violence wouldn’t exactly help his political career. The worst that can happen is he swears at me and leaves.”
I lose my footing and slip on the leaves, catching myself.
“Jesus,” I exclaim.
“Not quite,” Gabe would say. “Speaking of deities, though, it sounds like you’re trying to be the answer to Barbazal’s problems.”
“Okay?” I say with a shrug and an implied and? “What if I am? What if all Jonah needs is someone to talk to? Someone to be real with?”
And if Gabe were right here, I already know what he’d say, clear as day.
“Sometimes, the fakest people are covering up a lot of hurt.”
I guess that’s true. But whatever Jonah Macon might be hiding, I’m ready to see it. It can’t be worse than watching someone cradle their sister as she bleeds out on the bathroom floor, can it?
“When you see that hurt,” he would say, “be ready to walk away.”
That sends a chill down my spine. But I set my brows in determination. I’ve made up my mind. If Jonah Macon won’t talk to me, then so be it. If he will talk to me, I’ll just… toss out what he said. Dump it into the bucket of trauma I’ve already been through and push it down, down, deep in my mind until I can barely remember it.
I march forward before I can let my imagined Gabe-voice talk me out of it. Or, I guess, scare me out of it.
“I’ll do what I have to do,” I say. And suddenly, I can’t imagine what he would say to that. Probably nothing. He’d just… let me go.
I’m fighting tears as I make my way up the hill.
I walk, and I walk, and soon, I arrive at the house.
The tree line across the lawn is calling me. Through the trees until you reach the old stump, Clover said.
The magnolia tree flickers with uncertain colors, and I get the overwhelming feeling that it’s… wishing me luck?
“Well, well, well,” comes a voice from way too close. I jump so hard I nearly fall over. But it’s only Opal, lounging in a lawn chair with a glass of… something. I hope to god it isn’t wine. Especially since it’s five in the morning.
I look down at her wrists, both of which have deep scars I never noticed before.
She follows my gaze to the one holding the glass.
“Stitches. Happened a while ago.” She shrugs nonchalantly.
I have to ask.
“Opal, was last night an accident?”
She looks genuinely confused.
“Which part? Us meeting? Probably.”
“No, you mixing alcohol and muscle relaxants.”
“Oh, that.”
How does she sound so aloof?
“I’ll let you decide,” she says flippantly, taking another sip.
“Is that wine?”
“You can also decide that.”
I can feel my blood boiling, and it must show on my face because she rolls her eyes, sets the glass down, and pushes herself to her feet. “It’s just water,” she says. “But around here, it’s even more valuable than wine. What are you doing back here anyway?”
Oh hell.
What do I say? I’m here to meet your sister’s secret boyfriend in the woods. But it’s okay because your sister told me to. But not for kinky reasons, it’s to worm my way into his deepest darkest secrets and memories and convince him to give a shit about his hometown drying up and wasting away.
I can’t say any of that.
“Wanted to make sure you were okay after yesterday.”
Great, Alex, how do I get into the woods after “just checking on” Opal? She’ll suspect something immediately!
“Oh,” she says. She looks… surprised? Bewildered? “Well, I’m fine.”
Her head erupts in blue, and I realize she’s very not fine.
“You sure about that?” I ask.
She looks affronted.
“Why are you asking anyway? You don’t have your own business to mind? Especially at such an ungodly hour?”
Oh, right.
But I don’t back down.
“I’m asking because I care.”
And it’s true. The same reason why I’m talking to Jonah Macon.
She narrows her eyes up at me, then pushes herself out of the chair. She nearly stumbles and I go to catch her, but she knocks my hand away.
Shouldn’t she be on watch after what happened yesterday?
“Opal, you have to take care of yourself,” I say.
“Why?” she hisses. “What for? So I can keep living in this hellhole? The ground ain’t the only thing drying up around here—look at the businesses closing up shop. When’s the last time ol’ Elias down at the shop had any cars come through there? Clover said he’s so deep in shit, he doesn’t even keep the store stocked. He knows he’s going under. He knows this whole damn town is going under. The only reason we haven’t already is because Denver has everything we need!”
I stare at Opal for a long, long time, and while I wait for that blue aura to turn red… it doesn’t. It stays bright blue.
She loves Barbazal. It’s clear in her voice. In her gestures. In her wide, terrified eyes.
“You… don’t want to leave, do you?” I ask.
“I can’t leave,” she says, looking out over the lawn to that magnolia tree. “Barbazal is all I know. Daddy won’t leave because Mama’s here. My sisters have all left with the loves of their lives because Daddy’s here. What am I supposed to do, go out on my own?”
Oh, man.
That’s… painfully relatable.
“I did,” I reply. Not flippantly, not carelessly. Determinedly. “I did,” I repeat, hearing my voice crack.
Sure, it wasn’t my choice. One minute, I had Mom, and Dad, and Gabe, and the next, I’d lost them all. One by one.
I was in foster care for half my childhood. I was thrown into being on my own, and then, when I got to Haven Springs and lost Gabe, Steph and I left together.
“Your sisters,” I begin. “Do you ever… call them?”
“They’ve got preoccupations,” she says, with a flippancy that’s clearly masking her pain. “Babies and careers and such. No time for a single auntie.”
“Do you have any friends?”
“Just you and Steph.”
Holy shit, she’s already calling us friends? I mean, cool! But also… has she ever had friends?
“Well, then you should know that friends get to demand you take care of yourself.”
“Or what?” she asks, folding her arms across her cleavage, bringing her breasts together distractingly. Don’t look, I tell myself. This is a serious conversation!
“Or else,” I say with an eye roll. “And since Steph and I will be on the road in a couple of days, know that people outside Barbazal aren’t that bad. People outside Colorado aren’t that bad. And, I mean, I haven’t been out of the U.S., but… I’m sure people all over the world aren’t that bad. And if you’re curious, I’m sure you can find someone to explore with you.”
She shakes her head.
“Why are you really up here?” she asks.
My heart sinks, and I try to think of another lie.
“Clover sent you, didn’t she?”
“What makes you think that?” I ask, hoping my face doesn’t betray the fact that I’m sweaty as fuck trying to lie my way out of this.
“That just sounded like something she’d say, is all.”
“Oh,” I say.
Opal wraps her white shawl more snugly around her shoulders and shivers a little, even though it’s decently hot out here.
“I’m going inside,” she says, turning suddenly and heading back toward the house. Then she glances over her shoulder. “If you’re going to meet Jonah in the woods, you should bring him proof that Clover sent you.”
What the hell?!
“Opal, I—”
“Don’t bother lyin’,” she interrupts, looking me in the eyes and smiling. “I know you came to see me too.”
Then she winks, slides the glass door open, and slips inside.
I stand there for a moment, watching the house.
So Opal knows about Clover and Jonah.
I get the feeling there are more secrets in this town than people are letting on.
I adjust my shoulder bag, turn my gaze to the trees, and set off toward the woods to find the stump.
11: Into the Woods
Run through the woods until you find the old stump, she said. You can’t miss it, she said.
I’ve walked almost a mile, I’m sure, and I don’t see a goddamn stump.
I walk on, knowing that if I try to turn around or something I’m going to end up even more lost out here. I pull out my phone to text Steph and let her know I’m alright, since I’ve been gone way longer than I expected.
5:15 am.
Shit.
It’s been an hour already. I hope it takes Jonah at least fifteen minutes to run to the lake.
Aaaaand I have no cell reception. Fantastic.
Stupid cell phone, stupid stump—
“Oof!” My foot catches on something and I go hurtling forward, slamming into the ground so hard my glasses fly off and land in the grass. My chest feels tight, and that fall made me dizzier than I thought it could. I erupt in coughs; I’ve knocked the wind out of myself.
I push myself up, and my hands come away from the ground—or floor, whatever hard thing I’m standing on—sticky.
“Oh yuck!” I whine, wiping my hands furiously against my pants. But the stickiness only dries and gets tacky. Ugh, I need soap and water. I take a few steps back and look down, kick away some leaves, and realize…
I’ve found the stump.
I grab my glasses and slide them on.
And yeah, Clover was right. If there weren’t so many leaves on the ground, I would have noticed. This stump is a good five feet by five feet! It’s huge.
“Holy shit.”
I wonder how old this thing is. I mean, I would count the rings if I had the time. Which I don’t. So I force myself to keep walking, tear my eyes from this magical, old thing—feels like the elder of the woods, honestly—and turn left to look for the clothes line.
It’s a much shorter walk.
There’s a colorful string of flags tied about fifty feet across through the trees, and I follow it until I spot a cluster of white trees with flaky dark brown bark and branches missing all the way up and down the trunk, almond-shaped. They look like… eyes.
These must be the birch trees.
Now I’m getting somewhere!
Follow the birches until you find the lake. Turn right and follow the footpath.
The sun is just starting to rise in the distance, orange filling up the sky where blue once was, making for a kaleidoscopic sunrise of reds, purples, and blues, and I wonder to myself, is this the Earth’s way of saying she’s got mixed feelings about us humans? For how we’ve treated her?
It sounds so corny in my head, but… what if with every sunrise, the Earth is telling us that she’s deeply, deeply hurt? By us?
Wish that logic would work on Jonah.
I take a deep breath and sigh as I reach the last of the birch trees and my feet find loose rocky gravel. I turn right and follow the footpath, keeping my eyes moving for the old bench where I’m supposed to meet him.
I wonder how long he’s been meeting Clover out here, and how often. Whenever he’s in town, I guess. And given his job, that’s probably not very often. Why keep it a secret anyway?
I hear footsteps behind me, and I whip around to see very little in the dark.
“Hello?” I ask into the early morning. “Jonah?”
More footsteps, and I gasp as a black shadow emerges from the trees, the size of a small dog, and I realize, with its feet going thump-thump-ksh-thump-thump-ksh, it’s only a nutria.
It thump-thump-kshes its way across the footpath and slips into the lake as quietly as a snake, and I smile. So there’s wildlife out here after all.
