CHAPTER FOUR: THE WANDERER’S SOUL

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I didn’t go home after leaving the hospital. I didn’t know what to do with myself but somehow going home didn’t feel like it would satisfy the ache in my gut. I wanted to apologize, to make things right, but I couldn’t do that as long as Clara was still hurt. Going home and watching comedies as I surely would, somehow felt wrong. Why should I be allowed to forget while she lay dying?

Clara. A girl who could survive in the sunlight. Did that mean regular fire didn’t hurt her? What about Mom’s damn laser pointer? Did she still get dehydrated?

What about me?

I’d almost disregarded the woman’s words before but they rang like a gong in my ears now.

“…and in the doing, made you more.”

I shivered. That hadn’t been ominous at all.

Unfortunately, home was where I spent most of my time, so I didn’t really know how to spend it here. I almost wished I’d had track practice today but I had been benched due to the burns, which I no longer even felt. Whenever I ran, I could forget about whatever was bothering me.

Forgetting felt wrong now, though. So instead I just ended up wandering around the Hub.

I wasn’t alone in that. The Hub, despite all the effort of the city, had a night life twice as lively as the day. Public businesses were run during the day, same as ever, but private ones knew when people were actually out and about. The time was in that sweet spot where the high schoolers like myself had to start worrying about curfew while the older college students and even some parents were just waking up for work. In other words, busy.

The changes made for an interesting juxtaposition of businesses. A Dunkin’ Donuts declared proudly that it was breakfast time while the pizza place right next door advertised dinner in neon red lights.

I walked up the western hall and listened to a band far enough away to warble the sound into a mindless blur. People shuffled past me in an endless mass. West Steppe was the second largest city in Missouri behind St. Louis, and while its close proximity to the Scorched Lands might dissuade tourists, the Tellroan Industrial Power Plant employed nearly a tenth of every resident here. Since they worked at all times, day or night, the Hub was always busy.

“Brandon! Hey, what are you doing here?” Came a pleasant exclamation.

I blinked and a grin spread across my face.

“April!” I greeted. “You look great! What’s the occasion?”

The girl flushed and threw her thumb over her shoulder at the band. “Seein’ them. Kinda disappointed, actually. They’re not great live.”

I turned and looked, realizing that I recognized neither the band nor the song. It was pleasant, a peppy sort of techno mix, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it enjoyable either.

“They’re always better on a player.” I told her. “That’s why I like older stuff. Nobody sings anymore, just uses voice enhancement. Heck I could turn your awful voice into a song better than this with a little work.”

She seemed indignant and scowled at me, which only prompted me to playfully rub it in further. “You’re right. A lot of work.”

“I hate you,” her scowl deepened but there was no malice. Whether she was disappointed in the music or not, she was clearly in a good mood for some reason.

I grinned at her, feeling better already as I abruptly changed the subject. “Who ya with?”

“Kevin and Leece. Monroe obviously didn’t want to come, but it’s great that you did anyway! How did you hear about it?”

I blushed, a little embarrassed. “I… uh. I didn’t. I was just wandering around, trying to take my mind off things.”

I’d actually made two laps of the entire Hub already since leaving the Hospital, but April didn’t need to know that.

She wore a knee length brown dress with a wavy skirt. Her black hair, still up, was actually braided instead of just in a ponytail. She never let her hair fall loosely. Pale skin accentuated her freckled face and while she had to look up to meet my eyes, she was only a few inches shorter than me.

She sighed then, but brightened immediately and grabbed my arm, ignoring my bubble of personal space entirely. “Well then come have fun and take your mind off things with me!”

“Uhh… okay,” I agreed, brightening when she dragged me not towards but away from the band.

I was never much for music in general. Only liked specific songs and this band certainly didn’t play any of those few favorites I had.

“You… want to get some ice cream or something?”

“Sure!” Ice cream sounded spectacular. I paused then and turned back to her, “Uhh. Hey Leece and Kev won’t mind you coming with me will they?”

“Hang on, I’ll send them a message. You’ll give me a ride home tonight.” She replied, more of a certainty than a question as she dug her phone out of a surprisingly girly purse for her.

“Uhh yeah sure, no problem April. I’ll drop all my plans to give you a lift out to Havery any time. You don’t even need to ask, obviously,” I said sarcastically.

She rolled her eyes and muttered “Your plans…?” before she turned back to me and adopted a voice so sweetly saccharine it made my own sarcasm seem like a love letter. “Fine. Brandon. Would you please take time out of your precious wanderings to drive a poor damsel to her home?”

I gave a considering pose and rubbed the nonexistent beard on my chin, deep in thought. “Mademoiselle, must pay for gasoline.”

“Dick. You’re the least romantic person in the world, you know that?”

“Aww, you love me anyway,” I joked back with her, stepping ahead to open the door for her to Phil’s Ice Cream Parlor.

April and I lived nearby, her house only a few miles closer to town, in a gated community that had a residential Hub of its own called Havery. She was on my route back home, and we’d known each other since we were children. I could still remember running in the grass and climbing green trees with her as a little kid before the days grew too hot for that sort of thing and the scorched lands crept up to our doorstep. We must’ve been eight or nine years old I supposed.

When I glanced back at her, she’d paused in the doorway looking at me. I blinked as she stared, long enough for me to feel like I’d said something wrong.

“Uh… April?” I prodded.

“O-Oh,” She blushed a little cutely, then realized I was holding the door for her. “Yeah, sorry. Thanks, Brandon.”

I shook my head in confusion. April had started spacing out like that every now and then during the course of the past year or so and I still didn’t understand what it was about.

What had I said? You love me anyw…?

No. That’s ridiculous.

Half a moment to enter the building and April had immediately become her old self again, rapidly approaching the counter and happily ordering some sort of strawberry and Butterfinger concoction with cherry dressing that sounded so sweet that I was almost certain I’d get diabetes from looking at it.

“Oh, uh, hey I just realized I’m fresh out of cash. Uhm, do you mind, Brandon?” She asked.

I sighed long-sufferingly and gave her a grin. Inwardly I wondered why she didn’t just pay with a card. She wasn’t as well off as I was with my truck stop job, but I knew she had money. Whatever.

“Sure, sure fine.” I said dramatically.

“You’re the best!”

I paid for hers and got myself a waffle bowl with cookie dough ice cream and we sat at one of those small booths in the corner.

“So you’ve still been having a hard time?” She asked a little worriedly. “I know the Clara thing has been bothering you. Even finding the Array didn’t pull you out of your funk.”

I grimaced. April always was good at reading me. “I guess so. I’m having some fucked up dreams, all of them centered around her. I can’t get that image out of my head. Seeing someone cooked alive like that…? It’s not pretty.”

April gave me a sort of pained look. “Have you talked to anyone about it?’

“I want to. I actually asked Dad to find me a…” No. I wouldn’t admit that, not even to April. “Yeah. I’m trying to get some help, but I just feel so damn guilty. First it was because I was dating the girl who caused it, and now…”

Now I’m guilty because I’m pretty sure it’s my fault entirely. But how could I have known?

I trailed off. How to explain? Did I even want to?

“You can talk to me, if you want,” She said in a weirdly shy tone.

I cocked an eyebrow at her, then shrugged and took a bite of my ice cream, making sure to break off a piece of the waffle bowl to go with it. It was delicious. Blessed sugary goodness. The first good thing I’d tasted in a week.

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“Not much more to say about it, really. I’m just feeling guilty is all,” I lied. “It’ll pass once Clara gets better and I can apologize to her.”

If she gets better.

“Alright. Well uhm. Let’s talk about something else then. Like your plans for after school. Are you still going to the local college here?” She asked, plainly curious.

“No change in plans from me!” I grinned back at her. “I’m going to teach, maybe right here at our highschool, though I might have to transfer to one of the other Hubs further north if the staff is already locked in. That’s a long way off though. At least four years.”

“Heh. I still wish you’d come with me to St. Louis.” She said happily, but her expression faded to a dejected frown quickly. “If I even get to go anyway. You already know my dream.”

I rolled my eyes, trying to hide my grimace at the thought of her leaving. That thought still made me burn inside in an unusual way. “Your crazy dream.”

“It’s not crazy! Ugh, how could you not be interested!? There’s so much that we’ve lost down there! I want to find treasures! Secrets! Telilro, Bran! Telilro!”

“I am going to be holding your casket when I’m thirty, aren’t I?”

“You kidding? You’re way too short. I would slide all around and be lopsided if you were one of my casket bearers. All of them must be six foot two and handsome! You’re neither.”

I stuck my tongue out at her and she cackled. Cheeky.

“You seriously want to do it, though? Become an archaeologist? A researcher on the scorched lands?”

She gave me a half lidded stare. “You thought I was lying all those times I said I did? Of course I do! I love hearing about the desert and all the changes. You know animals still live even as far as the equator? No one knows how they’re doing it! Oh and the people who live down there!”

“Animals. You mean monsters right? And people? There are no people in the Scorched Lands. That’s a myth. It’s so damn dangerous. We joke, yeah, but if I’m seriously anywhere near your coffin I will be so pissed at you.”

I wasn’t joking this time. It legitimately worried me, what she wanted to do. I was afraid to even traverse the field of dying grass between our house and the Daniel’s, and April wanted to wade down into the South Waste?

Ludicrous. And a little embarrassing to know so firmly which of the two of us was braver.

She probably wouldn’t be moping about if this thing with Clara had happened to her.

“I’m still not sure I believe those rumors. I mean… seriously? A Sand Kraken? Come on that’s got to be made up.”

“They’ll put that on your grave,” I replied, holding up my hands and gesturing like some sort of announcer. “Famous Archaeologist, April Lloyd. Eaten by Sarlacc. May she Digest in Peace.”

She laughed, barely managing to turn it into a scoff. It was a game we played almost without even thinking of it anymore. Each used sarcasm at its best and whoever laughed was the loser. I just won.

“You’re such a nerd,” She said with a bit of endearment in her tone. But only a little. She was a sore loser.

“I won. You know it.”

“Fine. So… I’ll buy ice cream this Friday night. To make up for tonight and for losing?”

“Trying to make me fat?” I joked.

“Eh, you can handle it. You run all the time right?”

True enough. I wasn’t exactly thick, but it was only a matter of time before losing weight would be something I would have to devote time to, if I couldn’t get a track scholarship anyway.

“Well… I guess ice cream Friday will do. Why Friday though–?”

“Great! Will you pick me up?” She interrupted sharply.

“Pick you–? April we can just go right after schoo–! Af… ter…” I trailed off, my eyes widening. Without warning, everything that was happening right now clicked with all the impact of a meteorite.

April was wearing a dress. Her hair was braided. She had on lipstick. She never wore lipstick. Maybe some of that eye stuff, but never lipstick. Abruptly I realized that she smelled wonderful. We were in an ice cream parlor and I had just paid for it like… like it was a…

She winced looking at me, and I could already tell she knew exactly what was going through my mind at that moment.

Maybe I ‘am’ thick. Just in a different way.

“April?” I asked, suddenly a little nervous. “Are…? Did you just trick me into a date?”

She flushed too. Embarrassed. “Uhm. Kind of?”

I blinked. Then I blinked again, staring at her in a sort of expressionless shock, until she wilted and couldn’t meet my eyes anymore.

“W-well! Well say something already!” She hissed, a little of her usual fire coming to the front. She was blushing a storm but I think she was trying to cover it with anger.

“You… like me?”

I’d always thought she had a thing for Monroe.

“I keep forgetting how much of an idiot you are. Yes, alright?”

“You like me.” I repeated, this time teasing her.

To my regret, the girl adopted a sort of ‘kicked puppy’ look at that. “Cut it out… please? If you’re just going to tease me then forget it. But I thought… since you and Haley aren’t… well…”

“Hell no!” I said giddily. “I’m going to make you suffer in embarrassment all the way till our date.”

She blinked, confused and unsure whether to be pleased or disgruntled. “So…?”

“April, would you like to go out with me Friday night?”

She beamed, bright enough to outshine the sun. “I’d love to.”

“Great!” I breathed. “Condition though.”

I’d never seen a smile evaporate so quickly.

“What?” I said defensively, cocking an eyebrow at her. “We know each other so well that it’ll be hard to differentiate a date from just hanging out. You and I both know we’re going to end up at the movies. So to make it a date, we have to do something significant.”

She blinked curiously. “Like what?”

It was amazing to watch her expression warp so quickly between hopeful, disgruntled, and curious. I ran my fingers over my chin as if stroking a beard once again, and let out a long hmmm. She laughed this time, and leaned back into the booth.

She was pretty. Definitely pretty. Why hadn’t I ever asked her out before? Mom teased us about it often enough but somehow I’d never thought April was interested. Then again, I’d been sort of in a relationship with Haley for almost a year so the thought hadn’t crossed my mind then.

“Well. How ’bout this? I want you to go on the date with your hair down. I don’t care how you wear it otherwise, just no pony tail. No braid.”

She gasped as if I’d kicked her dog. She caressed the back of her head as if to subconsciously make certain her precious pony tail was still in place.

“B-but. But I can’t! My hair is ridiculous when it’s loose! No. The date is off.” She declared firmly.

“Hey, you get to ask me to change something about myself too, so it’s even!” I insisted.

“You’re a guy! Looks don’t matter to you!”

I cocked an eyebrow again and she relented a little. “Well. Not as much as for girls anyway.”

I could agree with that. But I wasn’t going to let up on this one. I felt pretty sure the last time I’d seen her without her hair up in some fashion was before middle school. Six years ago.

“Why do you care about that pony tail so much anyway?” I asked. “I’m sure you’d look beautiful either way, but you’re oddly attached to it.”

She flushed and tried to shrug, noncommittally, but her voice caught at the compliment. “I-I don’t even know. It’s just my look. It’s curly and silly without it. I’ll have to straighten it for hours.”

I frowned. “Maybe it was a bad idea then.”

“No!” She barked, switching sides. “No, it is a good idea. I just have to think of something equally embarrassing for you.” She grinned a snide little thing. “Maybe I’ll make you wear overalls.”

“Oh god,” I laughed. “You would.”

She chuckled along but then said, “Nah, I’m not that mean. Plus at a certain point, embarrassing you would turn it into less of a date than…” She flushed. “…than I want. You have to look good.”

“I always look good!” I insisted, fishing for a compliment.

Her mood went somber. “Not these past few days, you haven’t.”

Dammit. Clara.

April had managed to pull me completely out of my depressive state from before. I realized that I had been laughing, having a hilariously good time, while Clara was still lying on a hospital bed, dying of burns that were probably my fault.

It felt wrong to be happy, and my mood plummeted.

“Fuck…” I murmured and took a bite of ice cream. I almost wanted to gobble it down and force a brain freeze. Anything to distract me from the gnawing guilt in my gut.

“I guess I haven’t,” I admitted. “Sorry. It’s Clara. She’s not doing well. The ardnocures just aren’t working and…”

I realized I was repeating myself from earlier and dropped the conversation. “You don’t have to listen to me whine. Sorry.”

“Brandon… you’re kind to a fault sometimes, you know?” April sighed in exasperation. “You’ve got to know what she did isn’t your fault. It isn’t even Haley’s fault, no matter how much of a bitch she turned out to be. Only Clara chose to walk out on the roof like that.”

Yeah. I guess that’s true. If Clara had actually been in danger that would be true, but I know what I saw…

“I guess so. Just really hope she comes out of it okay. She might never look normal again, even if she does survive. They don’t know why the machines aren’t working for her.”

She groaned.

“Why did I say that?” She murmured, more to herself, than to me, running an exasperated hand through her hair as she did. “You were almost back to normal and then I just had to go and ruin it.”

I tried to grin and get back into the fun we’d been having. “I know right? How could you, April?”

To my regret, the words came out almost accusatory, but April rolled with it. She stuck her tongue out at me after a long spoonful of ice cream and I laughed. She had the red cherry dressing on her nose. I couldn’t tell if she’d done it on purpose or not but it god, was it funny. Her blush was certainly unfeigned, her freckles brightened, uncountable as the stars.

What would I do when she was gone after next summer? Maybe I should look into going to St. Louis…

While driving April home that night, I felt better than I had in days, and talking to her lifted my mood like nothing else could. Guilt still gnawed at me for Clara but my spirits were still high. Friday. My heart skipped a little beat. Friday, I would go on a date with my best friend. Those sort of stories normally had unhappy endings but I was an optimistic sort. Clara would be fine, April would give up her crazy idea to become an archeologist and get herself killed, and I would get over my damn dreams.

Everything would be okay. It would.

‘She saved you, and in the doing, made you more.’

I shuddered.