“It’s not weird to be smart,” Peter said, looking hurt. “Just because you have the attention span of a cricket—”
“I’d rather know a little bit about a lot of things than a lot about just one thing.”
“But you don’t,” he said. “You don’t care enough to bother with anything.”
This was true, of course. Emma knew that she’d always been on the wrong side of the invisible line that separated her from her parents, from Patrick and Annie and Nate, even from Peter. But how could she tell him that the reason she always acted so disinterested in everything was because of the worry that she herself wasn’t all that interesting?
“I got us all the way here, didn’t I?” she said. “I’ve stuck with this, anyway.”
“You wouldn’t have done it on your own, though,” he said quietly. “You wouldn’t have done it without me.”
“I’m not stupid, Peter,” she said. “I can read a map too.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“And I could’ve done without the running commentary, by the way. The only reason I even called you in the first place is because I thought you were quiet.”
“No, you didn’t,” he said, looking up at her sharply. “You called me because you had nobody else to call.”
And she knew he was right.
He scowled at the fire before stooping to reorganize the careful architecture of twigs and branches, leaning away when the winds shifted and the smoke became too thick. When he stood up again, pushing his glasses up on his nose, there was a streak of ash just below his left eye. Emma watched him pace back and forth, pulling her knees up close to her chin. And for the first time, here in the middle of the woods, she stopped thinking of this—whatever this was between them—as something she’d been nice enough to put up with, and instead began to wonder why someone like Peter Finnegan would ever want to bother with someone like her.
chapter twenty
Peter woke the next morning to find himself face to face with an enormous grasshopper, which directed a beady eye at him and rubbed its spindly legs together like some sort of cartoon villain. Pursing his lips Peter sucked in a breath and then exhaled, and the bug hopped away in a hurry.
It was still early, and the sun hadn’t yet made its way through the thick awning of pine trees above, so the woods still looked smudged with gray in the pale dawn. He pushed himself up on one elbow, taking stock of the situation: the small pile of ashes from last night’s fire, the pine needle stuck to his cheek, the sneakers he’d kicked off, which were now wet with dew. His whole left side was covered in dirt from the way he’d slept, sprawled on the hard-packed ground, and he slapped at his shirt to brush it away, without much success.
The air still smelled smoky and burnt; everything was damp and tinged with cold. Peter threw off the Roanoke sweatshirt, which he’d been using as a blanket, and got stiffly to his feet. Through the trees he could see the blue car, bright against the muted colors of the woods, its windows almost completely fogged over.
It was taking most of his energy to forget about how he’d tried to kiss Emma last night, and each time the memory rose again in his mind, it was all he could do not to go slinking off into the woods on his own, just so he’d never have to look her in the eye again. It had been mortifying and embarrassing and horrible, all the things he’d known it would be. So how, he wondered, could he have possibly thought it was a good idea?
The answer, he knew, was simple: He hadn’t thought at all. And that was the problem with this whole trip; he’d stopped thinking the moment Emma called, had let himself be carried along like an empty-headed and lovesick idiot.
Last night’s fight had ended much the same way it had started: both of them stubborn and silent and anxious to make a point of some kind. If there’d been somewhere to stomp off to, one of them undoubtedly would have, but since it was nighttime and they were in the middle of the woods—in the middle of Virginia, for that matter—there simply wasn’t anywhere to go.
Up to now Peter hadn’t minded when they bickered; it had usually felt more like banter than anything else, never fully serious, with a closeness about it that had been missing last night. This was different: There was no punch line, no great joke to the whole thing. They’d come too close to the truth about each other, and Peter could feel the loss of something in every single word they spoke, and even more in those they didn’t.
Once the fight had given way to a tension-filled silence, Peter had grabbed the bag of hot dogs from the car, then set about roasting them with his back to Emma. When they were ready, he handed her one that was blackened and burned, but no worse off than his own. She wrinkled her nose and muttered something under her breath.
“This isn’t a gourmet restaurant,” he said. “You’ll just have to live with it.”
But she only glared at him, took two bites, then chucked the rest on the ground, looking on in silence as the dog bounded over to finish it off. Peter took a seat again—careful to pick a different log, keeping his distance this time—but even so, Emma got up with a sigh. He watched her through the darkness, feeling a mounting sense of frustration with the way she just stood there, hands on her hips, as if this decision—as well as all those before it and all those still to come—was so obviously hers to make. Everything always seemed to hinge on her word, her next move, her changes of heart and ridiculous whims. She was spoiled and bullheaded and maddeningly temperamental, so why did he always go along with everything she said?
Peter had risen to his feet with a frown, unable to help feeling like they were squaring off, eyeing each other across the weakening fire. Emma glanced behind her toward where the car was parked, and Peter decided right then to take a stand. She could have it all to herself for all he cared. He refused to be stuck in such a small space with her anyway, not when the air between them was so crowded with all that had been said. His gaze drifted across the campground, searching out a spot to sleep, formulating a plan, but before he could voice it, before he could put his foot down and make a decision and finish this night on his own terms, Emma turned on her heel and stalked off toward the car on her own, slamming the door behind her so hard that it left no question about whether or not he was welcome there anyway.
Peter stood still and watched her go, thinking that he’d never even had a chance.
Now he surveyed the same hushed woods, shivering despite the rising sun. He imagined this was what a hangover felt like: a throbbing sense of regret and a certain reluctance about making it through the day ahead.
The dog was nowhere in sight, his white coat conspicuously absent from the surrounding campsite, and so Peter set off toward the car to look for him. When he’d gone to sleep last night, the dog had been at his side, the two of them curled up beside the snuffed-out remains of the fire. And though he knew it was silly, Peter felt like he’d won at least a small battle for the night, pleased that the dog had chosen his company over Emma’s.
But when he peered through the dew-covered window of the convertible, all he saw was Emma, curled in the backseat with her knees drawn close to her chest, her hair falling across her face in a way that made her look very young, and somehow very lost. Peter stood there for a long moment before turning back to the quiet forest.
For the first time he began to feel bad that they hadn’t even given the dog a name—this now-constant companion of theirs—and so he picked his way through the wooded trails, calling out, “Hey, dog!” and whistling every now and again. His feet were loud against the dry branches, and he kicked at the oversized pinecones that lined the paths, his head bent and his eyes searching the gaps between the trees.
It wasn’t until he began his second loop of the campground that he started to worry, his stomach tightening at the idea of moving on without their new friend. He paused and took off his glasses, running a thumb absently along the foggy lenses. The trees were interrupted by thin bands of sunlight, and he held his breath and waited for the dog to emerge, wet and muddy, his tongue lol
ling out to one side.
“C’mon, dog,” he called out again, his voice hollow and faraway. He put his glasses back on and kicked at the trunk of a pine tree, then said, “Let’s go,” in his best no-nonsense voice.
But there was still no sound, no echoing bark or crashing of branches. And despite everything—Emma and her ridiculous ideas, the muddy paw prints on the backseat of the stolen car, the policemen lining the highways with their flashing red lights, the threat of all that was behind and before them—this was the first time Peter really felt the whole thing being wrenched from his grip. It was as if he’d lost more than just a stray dog that had never really belonged to him in the first place; it was like losing the trip itself.
He walked back slowly, wishing he had a map of the park, the trees marked off as little green circles, the streams running like threads across the page. He was already organizing a search party in his head—breaking the mountainside into neat grids, directing imaginary rescuers to different quadrants—when he arrived back at the car. The side door was half open, and Peter could see Emma’s legs, long and tanned and mosquito-bitten, hanging out the side. She poked her head out as he approached.
“Where were you?”
Peter walked around to the driver’s-side door and sat down heavily in the seat beside her. “I can’t find the dog.”
“Did you look?”
“That’s pretty much what I meant by not being able to find him.”
She scowled at him. “Did you try yelling?”
“Yes.”
“Whistling?”
“Yes.”
“Shouting?”
“That’s the same as yelling,” he said. “He’s not anywhere.”
“Well, he’s got to be somewhere.”
“So you’d think.”
Emma sighed as she got out of the car, and they both slammed their doors hard at the same time, as if it were a contest, the car rocking between them. The sky had lightened a few shades, and the birds were now singing in earnest, but although there were dozens of campers scattered in the woods around them, it somehow felt like they were all alone.
Once they’d walked for a few minutes, Peter cupped his hands around his mouth and called out for the dog again, but Emma lightly touched his arm.
“Let’s listen,” she said. A few squirrels ran circles around a tree branch, and the birds continued their lively chorus, but the world was otherwise still. Peter was working himself up to a sarcastic comment about Emma’s usefulness in this second round of the search when they heard a low-pitched cry, followed by a familiar whine.
Emma set off at a run without even looking at him, careening straight off the path and weaving through the trees at a pace that Peter could hardly match. When he finally caught up to her, she was already bent over the dog, who was lying on his side and panting hard, his eyes wild with panic.
“What happened?” Peter said, skidding to his knees beside Emma, who was cradling the dog’s one front paw in her hand. She spoke to him in a low voice, pressing his head gently to the ground to keep him from thrashing about. Peter moved over and took her place so that she had both hands free to examine the paw, and the dog whined again before resting his head near Peter’s sneaker with a look of resignation.
“It doesn’t look too bad,” Emma said, still speaking in the same soft tone. “He cut the pad on something. See here?”
Peter craned his neck and saw that the bottom of the paw was sliced open almost entirely, a clean cut that had turned the white tufts of fur a pinkish red. Any other dog might have limped away, but without use of either of his front legs, he hadn’t been able to move. Peter watched as Emma yanked off her Roanoke sweatshirt and used it to dab at the blood, all the while using her free hand to stroke the trembling dog’s soft ears.
“He’ll be fine, I think,” she said, her mouth set in a straight line, her face as serious as he’d ever seen it. She pressed the sweatshirt against the bottom of his foot, then pulled the elastic band from her ponytail—her hair falling to her shoulders—to fasten the bulky makeshift bandage. “But we’ll need to get him to a vet.”
“Right,” Peter said, looking down at the dog, who must have weighed at least one hundred pounds. He rose to his feet and pushed up his sleeves. “No problem.”
Emma looked up from the dog and had the presence of mind to smile. “You can’t carry him, you idiot,” she said, jerking her head in the other direction. He hadn’t noticed before that just about fifty yards away the road curved in among the trees, the pavement nearly hidden by the thick brush. “Go get the car, Hercules. And then we’ll figure it out from there.”
She turned her attention back to the dog, her head bent with an expression of genuine worry, of fear and urgency and alarm, but also a hint of certainty, the rarest kind of assurance. It was a look he’d never seen from her before, confident as she was, and though he knew it was important to get moving, and though he knew there was no time for this kind of thing, he stood there for a moment anyway, just watching her.
He couldn’t help it.
chapter twenty-one
Emma sat with the dog in the backseat, holding his paw at an awkward angle to keep it elevated while he squirmed beside her, his eyes following hers as she spoke to him. It was hard to know what she was even saying, but the words kept coming all the same, bits of poetry she must have picked up from her dad, the words to a song her mom used to sing. She talked and she talked and she talked, and she was grateful to Peter for not interrupting her—even when he climbed back into the car after stopping at a gas station for directions to the nearest animal hospital—because there was a certain momentum to the whole thing, and she was afraid of what might happen if it broke.
The dog still made a series of pitiful cries now and then, but he had calmed down somewhat once he was lying down. Emma suspected the problem wasn’t so much the cut—though that certainly wasn’t good either—but the discovery that he didn’t have enough good feet left to walk on. And so she continued to rub his ears, stroke his face, run a hand along his fleecy white belly. And all the while, Peter continued to drive.
When it seemed that the dog was resting easily enough, she checked his bandage again, then looked at Peter in the rearview mirror. “Any idea if we’re close?”
“Should be, yeah.” He flicked his eyes up to meet hers. “You’re doing great with him.”
Emma nodded. “I think he’s more scared than hurt.”
“Still,” he said. “You’re keeping him calm.”
They were silent after that, and Emma watched the rise and fall of the dog’s rib cage, the tremble of a sigh going through him.
“I used to want to be a vet,” she said after a moment, so softly that she wasn’t sure Peter even heard her until he glanced up again.
“Not anymore?”
“I’m not any good at science.”
“It takes a lot more than science to be a good vet,” he said. “It takes passion and hard work and common sense …”
“It’s okay, Peter,” she said. “I know what I am, and I know what I’m not.”
“But you don’t,” he insisted. “How could you? We’re only sixteen.”
“Almost seventeen.”
He smiled. “All that stuff can be learned,” he said. “What you’re doing now, that’s instinct. And it counts for a lot.”
Emma looked down at the dog, whose eyelids were flickering, and who was making small twitchy movements with his hind legs. She ran a hand lightly over the blunt end of his missing leg, and he thumped his tail on the leather seat.
When they pulled in to the veterinary clinic, Peter ran ahead of them to get help bringing the dog inside; their efforts at carrying him earlier had been a precarious exercise in flailing and fumbling, the two of them doing everything they could not to drop him, setting him down as gently as possible every few yards. Now one of the technicians appeared with a dog-sized stretcher, and together they heaved him up and onto it.
Inside, the waiting
room was nearly full. There was a droopy-eyed Lab curled up beside his owner, a man glumly clutching a large cage that housed a parakeet, and a tiny beagle puppy who threw his head back and howled at them with gusto.
“You two can wait here,” said the technician, a guy who couldn’t have been much older than they were. “The vet’ll take a look at him and then be right out.”
Emma and Peter took seats beside the man with the bird, which made a couple of piercing squawks that seemed aimed in their general direction.
“I wish we could be back there with him,” Emma said, eyeing the door.
Peter leaned forward, and she could see he was reading the signs in the lobby, notices about vaccines and immunizations, puppy classes and special brands of dog food.
“How much do you think …,” he began, then stopped and looked at the tiled floor, his cheeks flushed. “I mean, I wasn’t really thinking … I didn’t really stop to consider …”
“How much this’ll cost?”
He nodded.
“It can’t be that bad,” Emma said. “I’m sure he’ll just need a few stitches. How much could it be?”
“You’d be surprised.”
She lifted her shoulders. “What else were we gonna do, leave him in the woods like that?”
“No, of course not, it’s just …”
“We’ll get to Nate’s house later today, so it’s not like we’ll need much more cash,” she said. “And I’ve still got a bunch of my savings left anyway.”
“Right.”
“Do you?”
“What?”
“Have any money left?”
Peter’s hand went to his pocket as if to examine his wallet, but he seemed to change his mind. “A little,” he said. “But not enough for any unforeseen expenditures.”
Emma realized she hadn’t ever really stopped to consider Peter’s finances. She knew he worked part-time at the barbershop, but she also knew he probably didn’t get birthday money or an allowance like she did, and thinking back on all the meals they’d had the last few days, all the stops at gas stations and restaurants, she felt suddenly terrible for not having thought about it.