Isaiah raises one eyebrow as he takes in the world beyond us. It’s acres upon acres of land. Near the small cabin, there are trees, but mostly it’s miles of land. Along that land are rows and rows of cut grass. Never thought much of how hay is made. Never thought much about hay at all.
Logan was smart bringing me here. I have no idea where I am, how long it would take to find an interstate, and with his threat, no guy here will drive me back to civilization. I’m stuck, in more ways than one.
“I used to think like you,” Isaiah says. “Used to wonder if I’d be anything more than a street rat.”
“And?”
He shrugs. “What’s wrong with being different?”
I blink because I was expecting the just-say-no-to-selling-pot lecture. “Are you changing your mind on me being a seller?”
“Nope, but if you quit selling thinking you’re going to fit in, you’ll just end up selling again. I don’t like some aspects of where I came from, but having some distance from it, I realize there are things that I love.”
“Like Noah?”
“And Beth.”
I roll my eyes. Beth and I were never friends. I never cared how Isaiah used to be twisted up by her. Never cared that she kept him dangling for a period of time during their life. But Beth and I don’t have to be friends. Some people were never meant to be close.
“And you.”
I smack my knee hard into his. “Stop with the sentimental. I’m getting the vapors and will end up passing out.” I fake fanning myself.
Isaiah chuckles then it fades. “I’m serious. You’re the first person to see me as me. That—was powerful.”
I sigh because...well...Isaiah was the first person to see me too, beyond my dad and Grams, and I hate that he’s right on the powerful.
“I know you’re mad,” Isaiah says. “But I’m glad Logan told us about your grandmother.”
I blow out a frustrated breath. “He’s worse than a narc.”
“He’s helping you. If I had known that’s why you were selling...” Isaiah’s fists curl. “I should have tried harder to figure you out.”
The donut bag crackles as I shift and I make-believe what life would have been like if I had told Isaiah, but then my imagination fails. Three years ago, he was on the verge of meeting Noah, if he hadn’t already. He had a job at Mac’s auto shop thanks to me. If Mac couldn’t help me, there’s no way his employee could have.
Yeah, Isaiah would have helped me if I had asked, but he’d also be enslaved to Ricky to make that money. I’m okay with only one of us being damned.
“Why keep your grandmother a secret?” Isaiah asks. “Why did you tell everyone she died?”
“Daddy said he was scared she would be used against him. He knew she wouldn’t be able to protect herself.”
Dad told me once that Grams could barely look him in the eye before he brought me home. Somehow, my presence bridged the gap between them even though she disapproved that Daddy talked to me about his business. In the end, it was the only thing he knew to talk about. It was his job, his hobby, his life. But he never pushed me to sell, not until he knew prison was unavoidable.
“He always kept where we lived a secret and when he figured out he couldn’t escape prison, he thought it would be easier for me and him if people thought she had passed.”
“Like how you’re fighting tooth and nail to keep Logan’s name out of this so he can’t be used against you.”
“Give the boy a prize.” I only wish Logan could understand this.
“Was she as bad then as she is now?” Isaiah asks. “Your grandmother?”
All the honesty pouring out of me over the past few hours almost feels like hives on my skin. “No. She was starting to show a few signs. I saw then. Dad didn’t. He had other things to worry about so I kept it to myself. When he went away though, her mental health declined quickly.”
Isaiah soaks it all in, just like the two of us are soaking in the rays from the sun. Don’t really remember the two of us ever doing this—sitting in the sun. Sunbathing sounds like an indulgence and we always seemed to skulk in shadows.
“Your father set you up to carry a heavy burden,” Isaiah finally says.
“Life sucks.”
“Yeah, but why don’t you let us carry some of it for a while?”
I pop my mouth open to tell Isaiah to back off when we notice Logan walking from wherever he had disappeared. He wears his baseball hat, the bill tugged low, and his pack is on his back. His hands are shoved in his pockets and he just looks so...alone.
My heart twists. I understand alone. “None of his friends knew?”
“No, and they’re really fucking pissed.”
“Are you?” I glance over at Isaiah to read his expression.
His shoulders move up then down before he tears at a weed in the ground. “I get it, but don’t. I consider him a friend.”
Isaiah’s gray eyes aren’t storm clouds which means he’s not mad, just hurt. Probably like the rest of the guys in the cabin. Not one of us deal with hurt well. Anger is more of a friend we rely on. “What does type 1 diabetes mean?”
“Don’t know. West is the only one with a fancy enough of a cell plan for internet service and he’s trying to read up on it now. Sounds scary. Confusing, too.”
Sounds a lot like me. “Can he die from it?”
“I don’t know. I hope not.”
A tiny bit of the anger I had recedes, not because I’m happy he told, but for the first time I slightly understand why he betrayed me. Logan keeps saying he doesn’t want me to die and thinking that there’s something wrong inside of him that could go wrong, like a ticking time bomb, creates an edge of fear in my soul. I don’t want Logan to die, either.
Understanding someone’s point of view, it turns out, can be a real bitch, especially when I’m hell-bent on not feeling up to forgiving.
Logan
Sun’s high in the sky, baking every single one of us. Sweat pours off me and my muscles scream in protest with each new bale I pick up and toss onto the flatbed. No one’s talking. Not unusual for when the work goes on for so long and has been this intense, but no one’s said a word since I got back and we started.
The pace is steady and ruthless. Chris drives the tractor that pulls the flatbed we walk beside. It’s not a blistering pace, but when having to heave heavy blocks of hay from the ground to the flatbed while keeping up with the trailer in a 110 heat index...it’s grueling.
I slam the hooks into yet another block of hay and drop it off at Ryan’s feet. He’s on the flatbed stacking. Besides driving the tractor, no job back here is easy. It’s the type that causes blisters that pop open and bleed. It’s the type that causes you to pass out at night without the thought of eating. It’s the type that drives you into your own mind and causes you to question who you are as a person...as a man, and I keep hearing my father’s words over again... You don’t know who you are.
The tractor halts and so do we. In front of me, Isaiah wipes his arm across his forehead and a new rain of sweat plummets down.
I glance up and there’s no more room for hay. It’s stacked six by six up and down. Now we head to the barn and begin the next torture of tossing into the loft. Isaiah swears as he removes his gloves and my hands feel just as raw and red as his.
Ryan offers me a hand. I accept it and pull myself up and onto the side of the stacked bales of hay. When he lets me go, he gives the same offer to Isaiah. Isaiah eyes him, but then accepts. The two of them have a strange relationship. Ryan loves Beth, Isaiah once loved her too, now Isaiah and Beth are friends. That makes Isaiah and Ryan friends by default.
It’s fucked-up logic, but fucked-up describes this group well.
Once Noah is on, Chris takes off for the barn. I support myself against the hay, my fee
t feel hot in my boots, matching the rest of me that’s sunburned. The flatbed jostles over the lazy hills and dips abruptly with the camouflaged holes. It takes time to reach the barn, but not enough for my body to have rested.
Work like this is nonstop, demanding, and constant. Chris’s grandfather pays us good money for a week’s work, but when I’m in the middle of doing it, I’m not sure it’s worth the cash.
Chris shuts off the engine when we reach the barn and it’s understood we’re taking a short break. My blood sugar was low this morning, and by the slight shake of my hands and weird sensation in my head, it’s still running low.
Every year, I’d make an excuse to go use the bathroom or wait until everyone was absorbed in conversation, be silent, and then quietly move away to test, but somehow that feels wrong—especially since, thanks to me, everyone knows about Abby.
Speaking of, she exits the blackness of the barn and steps into the light. She’s had hours of doing nothing but being lost in her own thoughts. Isaiah told me he swiped her cell. “How many days are left of living in the dark ages?”
“Four,” answers Chris while Ryan mutters, “Too many.”
Abby waves her hand in an annoyed way at the flatbed. “We’re curing cancer, can send people to the moon, but there isn’t an easier way to do this?”
“Nope,” Chris says, and then drinks continuously from a gallon jug filled with water.
“Barbaric,” she retorts and I snort. Hay baling is barbaric. Her getting shot and kidnapped—routine.
Abby glances at me, but there isn’t much love hanging out there. I jump down from the flatbed and go for my stuff. Next to it is my couple gallons of water. I also drink like I’ve walked the desert, then root through my pack to find what I need.
Conversation starts as everyone gathers in the shade of an old oak that’s towering near the barn. Chris opens up a cooler and tosses out cold sandwiches and packs of ice. Noah tears a hunk out of his sandwich and Abby picks at hers. I remain standing as everyone else sits and the nausea builds. This is going to suck.
I crack my neck to the side and crouch next to my pack. I pull out my tester and the sound of the needle popping out causes everyone to go silent. There’s a beep and my glucose level isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It’s within normal range, but with the amount of physical activity I’ve done, I would have bet my right leg it would be lower.
I do some math in my head, calculating how many carbs I’m about to put in my body, dig out my insulin from the cooler, and measure out my dosage. I stand, yank my shirt that had been sticking to me over my head, toss it to the ground, then inject the insulin into my arm.
I toss the needle and garbage into a container I keep for this shit, sink to the ground and open the jar of peanut butter I brought with me. Protein. Protein is what will keep me from tanking.
Like I’m a science experiment, everyone gawks. I’m brewing as if I am some chemistry lab beaker over a flame and I stab the spoon in the jar harder than needed.
“I thought diabetics had to take their shots in the stomachs,” Chris says.
I mumble through a glob of peanut butter, “You can use the arm, too.”
They’re staring. Every single one of them.
“Do you need a break?” Ryan asks. “If so—”
“Not any more than any of you. I have diabetes, not cancer. My body doesn’t make insulin so I have to shoot it into my body through a needle. That’s it.”
Each of them look away, chewing slowly because I’m not who they know anymore. I’m diabetic—that’s what I am to them now, what I’ll always be.
“Bet you can’t reach that bird’s nest,” says Abby.
My head jerks up and I glance around, wondering who she was talking to. My heart stops when her hazel eyes remain on me. A breeze blows over the pasture and it lifts several pieces of her long chestnut hair. Abby’s testing me...she could be saving me, but I don’t understand why.
“What?”
Abby points one finger up. “There’s a bird’s nest. Up there. I want to know if there are baby birds in it or eggs or something like that because baby birds are cute and I like cute. I was going to ask you to do it and then I thought, nope, that’s way too high. Even too high for you. But then I thought, naw, Logan’s just crazy enough to do it.”
I take my time, eating the spoon of peanut butter, then assess the challenge set in front of me. The nest is high up. Almost to the roof of the barn, but there are a ton of low-hanging branches and most of them appear sturdy.
“Thanks, Abby,” says Chris. “Now Junior’s going to do it.”
Can’t help but like the familiarity of Chris’s nickname for me—liking the slight feel of normal it gives. Chris first used it in middle school as a harassment to remind me I’m a year younger than he and Ryan. After a few months though, it lost its sting and became a part of who I am for him.
“It’s high up.” Ryan crunches on an apple, and I spot the spark in his eye.
“It is.” I clean off my spoon then drop it back into the plastic bag. “Think you could climb it, boss man?”
Ryan takes another large bite then tosses the apple away from us. “Bet I can do it faster.”
I choke on the laugh. “Bet you can’t.”
We both stand, fully aware the dare is on. Ryan flips his baseball cap backwards and I toss mine to the ground. Ryan’s a pitcher. Can throw faster than anyone I know. He’s all shoulders and upper body. We’re built similar, but this kid is a machine.
Abby claps. “It’s like my own version of Gladiator. Now, go fetch me a baby bird.”
Ryan and I stand near the tree, me on one side, him on the other.
“First one to touch the limb with the nest?” I confirm.
Ryan nods. “Count it down, Chris. Not unless you want to join us.”
“I’m good,” Chris says.
I smile and Ryan does, too. Chris hates heights, but other than that, he’s always interested in joining us in a good dare.
“Chris is just sore because he’s on a losing streak,” I say. “Doesn’t want to get further behind as I continue to win.”
“Kiss my ass, Junior.”
I chuckle. “Waiting on that countdown.”
“Both of you are crazy,” he mumbles. “And when you fall to your deaths, I’m using the bulldozer to shove your bodies into a ditch. On your mark...”
I do a quick study of the tree and before I can completely formulate my path up, Chris yells, “Go.”
Damn. Ryan springs up and I do, too. I kick off the side of the tree and grab the first thick low branch. I swing up, get my footing and jump to grab the next. The tree shakes as me and Ryan navigate through the fragile limps, thick foliage, all while trying to beat the other.
Ryan doesn’t like to lose and I don’t like losing to Ryan. There’s a mean streak in me that likes to see the kid squirm. With each jump, every pull up, that adrenaline that I crave pumps through my body. Leaves fall into my hair, small sticks bounce off my face. Below us, people call out our names, clap, cheer us on, but it’s Abby’s voice that’s driving me to go faster, higher and then the nest is within sight.
Another push off with my legs, a reach of my arm and right as I smack my hand on the branch so does another hand and I immediately call the win. “Got here first.”
“No way, Logan. That win was mine.”
“Who won?” I call down.
Both of our names are shouted back up to us, and declaring it a draw is never an option for Ryan. He wants a win and he wants a win that’s decisive. “We do it again.”
The way his eyes bore into me, there’s no doubt what he sees—me, his friend, the guy he hates losing to. “Fine, we do it again and I’ll kick your ass again.”
“Keep talking big, Logan, but we both know I got this
.”
“I got action to back me up.”
Ryan crouches on his branch and puts his hand on the trunk to steady himself. He looks out on the land and I have to admit, it’s a sight. Miles and miles of green on the ground and an infinity of blue in the sky.
“Can I ask you something?” he hedges.
“Shoot.”
“Is it going to kill you? The diabetes?”
I straddle the branch, letting my legs dangle and contemplate going for the nest that’s nestled at the far end of the tree as a gift to Abby. “People die from it, but odds are—no. As long as I take care of myself I should be fine. Dad says I’ll die doing something crazy with you before any complication with the diabetes pops up.”
“Considering we’re dangling at least two stories up a tree, can’t say I disagree.”
I chuckle and so does he.
“I’m going to have a lot of questions. We all are.”
And I’ll need to answer them. “All right.”
“You should have told me.”
“Yeah.” Guess I should have trusted our friendship more. “Just didn’t want anyone to treat me different.”
“Good luck with that.”
A low-level ripple of anger in my bloodstream. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ryan releases a grin that’s only a fraction of the crazy found in me. “Everyone knows you’re insane and not a thing is normal about you.”
The anger washes away and I nod, okay with being different.
A downy head peaks out from the nest and we hear a tiny screech. Wow. There’s actually baby birds in there. “Want a baby bird?” I call to Abby.
She shakes her head as she stares up at me. “They should stay with their parents.”
Yeah, they should and as I go to say something deep, Abby shouts up to me, “But I still want a bunny! Stuffed ones don’t count!”
“She’s a bit demanding,” Ryan says.