Bia

I found Ivy sitting with her back against the rough bark of a mangled tree and her knees brought up to her chest. She was sobbing loudly, with each heave her chest rising dramatically. What I could see of her face looked streaked with makeup.

I sat down next to her and immediately put my hand on her shoulder.

“What’s wrong? Why are you crying?” I asked.
She hiccuped. “My brother’s missing… Mom’s going to be so pissed.. and Dad.”
“But we’ll find him.” I rubbed part of her back softly. “I promise.”

Ivy looked up at me, her baby blue eyes swollen and filled with tears. Her lips were pouting and parted slightly, as if she couldn’t breathe through her nose.

“You promise?” she said softly.
I nodded. “Yes. We’ll find him. It will be okay.”

She looked back down at herself and scoffed quietly. I stopped rubbing her as she was easing up on the crying.

“I’m a mess.” She laughed eerily.
“No, you’re gorgeous.” I glanced at her white skinny jeans that now had smears of dirt on the sides.

The sun wasn’t reaching this part of the forest as well as it had been where I was with Fable. Though there was a small stream a few feet away, it still smelled like dirt and pine needles. I couldn’t smell the water at all. I could barely hear it.

“How old are you, Bia?” Ivy asked me.
I watched the water in the stream. “Fifteen. I’ll be sixteen in the spring.”
“I’m fourteen,” she boasted.
I smiled. “I know.”

We both watched a rabbit hop down into its burrow.

“Why don’t you go to parties? Are you afraid you won’t fit in? Because everyone’s too drunk to notice, you know.” Ivy started wiping the mascara streaks off her cheeks.
I let out a sigh. “It’s not that. I used to go to parties, but I stopped. They’re all the same, honestly. Kids get drunk, have sex, make mistakes, and add new regrets to their lists. I don’t belong on that scene.”
“So where do you belong? At home with your cats?” She giggled.

I thought about the pets I’d left behind. Would Mom remember to feed them today? Probably not. She didn’t care about anything of mine. She only cared about her men and her birth control. God forbid she have another child, another mistake like me.

“I don’t have a place. I don’t belong anywhere, really. I drift.” My mind wandered to my childhood.

I was seven years old. My teacher was a strange bald man with half a finger missing on his left hand. I shared a desk with Calyx Baker and Amanda Rawlins. Calyx was getting mad at me because I could draw a perfect circle and she couldn’t. Amanda told her to shove it. Calyx started to whimper and our teacher yelled at me for making her cry. He made me sit in the corner for the rest of the day. I couldn’t even have a washroom break or go out for recess. The whole time he told me what a naughty little girl I was and how I deserved to be punished.

He kept me after school. He was the first guy to violate me. A week later, he was my mom’s boyfriend. I never told.

“Are you okay? You look… scared,” Ivy said quietly.
I tried to erase the memory from my mind. “I’m fine. I was just thinking.”
“About what?” she asked.
“Losing my innocence.” My voice cracked on the last word.

Ivy asked no more questions, she simply gave my hand a squeeze. It was as if she understood. But she couldn’t possibly. She wasn’t the little girl with her pants down. She wasn’t the older girl screaming for help. She hadn’t seen what my mom ignored.

Maybe she still had her innocence.

“There you are!” Calyx jogged over to us. “Bia ran off suddenly and we had to follow her. You didn’t have to go so fast, you know. We- oh. Um, are we interrupting something?”
Ivy let go of my hand quickly. “No. We were just talking. Bia made me feel a little better, but we still need to find Chase.”

Fable jumped up in the air and landed half in my lap. She grinned up at me and gave my head a small pat, as if I was an animal.

“You took her hurt away, right?” she asked.
Ivy laughed. “She did.”
“We should probably look for Chase,” I said while standing up. “Hopefully he’s in the forest somewhere and not out with whatever was chasing us.”
“Chasing Chase,” Calyx muttered.
Ivy stood up and tried to brush the dirt off her pants. “Darn, I really liked these jeans.”
“Oh here, I’ll help.” I wiped some of the forest floor off of one leg. Ivy looked at me weird.

Fable threw herself in my arms and demanded that I carry her. I stopped helping Ivy and hoisted Fable up. She wrapped her legs around my middle and clung onto my neck like a monkey.

“We’re going on an adventure,” she giggled. “We’re explorers. This is awesome.”