Girl in a Bad Place Read online

  “We have a schedule,” Brigit says, just when I think she’s going to completely ignore me. “Free time isn’t till later this afternoon. But it was so nice out and we didn’t think Firehorse would mind. He wasn’t due back till tomorrow anyway.”

  “But he came back early and he caught you and he did mind.”

  Her mouth thins. “Looks that way.”

  I don’t ask her anything else, even though I have a billion more questions. Do they get in trouble if they don’t follow their schedule? Firehorse doesn’t really seem to be a father figure to them, but maybe he is and I haven’t seen it in my limited exposure to this place.

  As I’m trying to decide whether to pry more, Firehorse comes for me. “Mailee, I would like to speak with you, please,” he says.

  “Where?” I ask timidly.

  He gestures toward the fire pit. Plain sight. I brush off my hands, take a quick glance at Brigit—who is apparently very interested in the garlic bread at the moment—and follow him.

  “Cara will always be welcome here,” he says slowly, when we’ve sat down—too close to each other for my comfort—on one of the cut logs. I notice that he’s got the circled H tattooed on the underside of his forearm. That’s dedication. “But if you ever feel you’d like to return with her, I’m going to have to ask that you come with a different … aura.”

  Oh God.

  “Um, aura?”

  “Yes. You radiate a lot of skepticism. You may not be doing it verbally, but you are telling me you think I’m wrong with every movement you make. This is my home, and that’s very hurtful. Did you know that Cara has visited my website? That she’s working on becoming a vegan and working on having a more natural lifestyle to heal her body and mind?”

  Giving up ice cream? She can’t seriously be considering that. Is she? It gives me pause. If Cara is willing to give up ice cream, then does Firehorse have a legitimate point?

  “I didn’t know,” I say meekly. “And I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel like I’m skeptical of everything. I’m just naturally a questioner, I guess. I mean, my boyfriend’s family owns a ranch. I’ve been there, I’ve seen how they treat their animals. So I’m having a hard time with the idea that—”

  “Let me stop you there,” Firehorse interrupts. “Because I understand. It’s hard when we are connected to someone who thinks they know a lot about the subject. But just because someone appears to have a lot of knowledge doesn’t mean they do. Sometimes those in the farming industry are less aware than those who are outside of it.”

  That feels wrong, but at the same time, now I’m totally confused. What if Firehorse is right and I’m being stubborn and not giving any of it a chance?

  “Just think about things, Mailee. That’s all I’m asking.” Firehorse pats my hand. Which sounds creepy, but he doesn’t do it in a gross way. “I pride myself on my ability to relay information, you know. It’s what makes me such a good leader, such a good guide for my Colonists. But I know how hard it is to get people to listen. Everyone’s been so trained from such a young age to believe in certain things that they don’t want to hear anything different. I would hate to see you become part of the darkness that our world is headed toward because you were too stubborn to hear other viewpoints. People often think I’m crazy for caring so much about the environment. And you don’t need to pretend you haven’t thought so, too. But the earth bleeds because of us, Mailee. It weeps for what humanity has done. Be part of the solution, not the problem.”

  I feel like I’m about one inch tall now. I’ve always thought I was open-minded, never thought I was the kind of person who dismissed things, unless they were the sorts of things that weren’t worth listening to.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say. “I will definitely try to do better. I really do think that everyone here is great, and Alexa and Brigit said a lot of things to me earlier that made me realize how beneficial this place is to everyone who lives here, and how great it is that they get to have a chance to live someplace where they’re not judged for things outside their control. I guess I didn’t realize how close-minded I was being.”

  “I understand,” Firehorse says with a kind smile. “And you’re free to go. Thank you for speaking with me.”

  I get up and head awkwardly back toward the food prep area. Except more people are in there now, and I feel like maybe they don’t need me. Plus, the way that Brigit was so determinedly not looking at me; I don’t want to force my company on her if she’s not sure she wants it. My mind is a weird haze. I’m totally unsure whether I just got manipulated by Firehorse or not. He’s mad at everyone for slacking off today, but if it was that bad, would they even have dared to do it in the first place? Maybe it’s like how I know my parents will take away my laptop if I act like a brat, but sometimes I do it anyway because the punishment isn’t so bad that I’m terrified by it.

  I spot Cara, sitting near the woodpile. She’s talking to that guy Finn, the one who stared unsettlingly at me the first time we came here. There’s nothing wrong with him at all. He’s kind of cute, hasn’t actually said or done anything to me, and Brigit said he was nice, but I get a vibe from him that I don’t like. Some instinct screams back off. Cara doesn’t seem to get that vibe, though. She’s laughing at something he said, and her hand comes to rest on his forearm. He responds by squeezing her knee. Whoa.

  I guess one way to get over Jackson is to flirt with someone else, like, immediately, and I can’t deny her that. But I also don’t want her alone with him because, like I said, the vibe. So I head over and walk into their conversation like I have no idea they were flirting three seconds ago.

  “I don’t think we’ve met,” I say, holding out a hand to him. “I’m Mailee.”

  “I know that,” he says. “Firehorse introduced you to all of us, remember? Anyway, I’m Finn.”

  He doesn’t take my hand. Well. If he’s going to be like that, then he does not get the privilege of flirting with my best friend.

  “Cara, I think we probably ought to be heading home,” I say. “We don’t want to overstay our welcome.”

  “I don’t think it’s possible for Cara to overstay her welcome,” says Finn.

  It takes all of my skill as an actress not to roll my eyes.

  “Mailee’s right,” Cara says. “We should probably go. Maybe I’ll see you again, though?”

  “I hope so.” Finn smiles warmly at her. I’m torn. I want Cara to move on from jerkface-of-the-year Jackson as soon as possible, but is this … too soon? The positive here is that Finn doesn’t go to our school, so if things go sour, there’s no chance of an awkward run-in. But the negative is that he belongs to a commune in the middle of nowhere, and the only way to see him is to come disrupt everyone’s routines, which apparently is frowned upon. Also, how old is Finn? He looks pretty young, and I know most of them are, but if he’s in his twenties, then I’m uncomfortable with the idea of he and Cara getting involved.

  But I’m not her mom, so I guess it’s not my call. Cara always knows what she’s doing.

  Part of me is relieved to be driving out of here. But part of me is actually a little sad not to stay longer. I can tell by the excitement on Cara’s face that this is not going to be her last visit to the Haven. And as I look in the rearview mirror to the sight of Firehorse watching us go, I realize that I’ve got some serious shaping up to do if I don’t want her to come alone.

  When I get home, the card where Firehorse scrawled his web address starts to haunt me. It’s been on my desk since the day I got it; I didn’t have the heart to throw it away. I don’t want to be a close-minded person. I don’t want to ignore what Firehorse says just because he’s weird and lives in a commune where no one is afraid of dock spiders.

  Not only that, but if this is what Cara’s into right now, if this is all she’s into right now, I should try to be into it, too. At least a little.

  So I pull my laptop out from underneath a couple shirts and a book, and I type in the address. At first glance, I really want
to make fun of his website. Because it looks like he designed the site before I was born and hasn’t changed the layout since. The font is papyrus. Papyrus. And underneath the heading is one of those thin lines in rainbow gradient. The background is gray bricks (which make the black font more than a little tough to see), and all the links are off to the left side in giant font on those blue rectangles that are supposed to look like buttons. It’s so bad.

  But I’m not here for the eyeball-murdering design. I’m here for the information. And the information is … well, there’s a lot of it. There’s so much, I get overwhelmed by it all. I start with the animal stuff, because that’s what I dismissed the quickest before, knowing how Gavin felt about it already. But I don’t want to be trained by the government to believe everything they tell me. I don’t want to dismiss things just because my boyfriend has a tiny bit of experience in the area. Firehorse has all these facts laid out, and a million links to other websites. Reading it, taking it all in, I feel like I’ve been letting myself be misled my whole life.

  After I’m done with that, I move on to some of the other tabs. His main point seems to be that we’re lied to about a lot of things, and the true harm they’re causing us. There’s information about toxins in our foods and in the air, GMOs, electromagnetic fields, all kinds of stuff. According to Firehorse, the best way to rid your body of all these toxins and to stop harming the earth is to get away from society and live sustainably off the land—without harming animals and their habitats in the process. And that doing so doesn’t just rid your body of toxins, but helps keep you safe from being spied on by the government, which he says we are, constantly, and in ways we don’t even realize.

  I’m not going to lie—some of this seems pretty crazy. The EMF stuff in particular; I really don’t think my family’s Wi-Fi is putting toxins into my body or stopping me from sleeping properly or making me less intelligent. But some of it … I don’t know. I mean, he can’t be wrong about all of this, can he? Especially not if Cara’s into it. She’s so smart.

  During the car ride home today, she couldn’t stop gushing about how good it makes her feel to go out there. How it makes her mind clearer. How eating vegan has made her body feel brand new. And who am I to say she’s not on to something? Some people do feel better when they cut certain foods out of their diet. Some people don’t have a choice, because of allergies or GI problems.

  When my mom calls me down for dinner, I stare at the chunks of meat layered into the lasagna and feel a little ill. Both my parents dig into theirs without a second thought. I scrape the meat out of the center of my piece and take a bite instead that’s just noodle and cheese. Except, crap, cheese. Wow, this veganism thing is going to be rough.

  Mom notices my slow-motion chewing and furrows her brow at me. “Is something the matter? It tastes fine to me. I cooked it right, didn’t I? It just had to go in the oven—I’ve done it plenty of times before.”

  She turns to my father for reassurance.

  “Tastes great,” he says. “It’s hard to mess up the putting-it-in-the-oven part of the process, you know.”

  Mom turns back to me, smiling a little too proudly. “So, what’s up?”

  “Nothing, I just … ” I hesitate. “I was thinking that maybe I want to become vegan.”

  Both of my parents crack up so hard. Dad actually has tears streaming down his cheeks by the time he stops laughing.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t see what’s so funny,” I say coolly.

  “That wasn’t a joke?” Mom asks.

  “No. I’ve been reading some stuff, and I think it would be the right thing to do. For our environment and for the animals.”

  I can tell that Dad is still trying too hard not to laugh to even trust himself to speak, and I do not appreciate it.

  Mom, however, comes to my aid. “If you really want to go vegan, Mailee, I’m all for it.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” I smile at her.

  “I’m not cooking you any of those weird soy burgers or anything, though. You’re on your own there.”

  “I don’t have to eat soy burgers, you know.”

  “What are you going to eat?” Dad asks with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.

  “Food.”

  He laughs, but it’s not as mirthful as it was before. “What’s Gavin going to think about this?”

  “He won’t care.” Well. He might care. I had honestly not thought about it, I only thought about Cara. But I know what Dad’s doing. He wants me to talk myself out of this. Not happening, Dad.

  I start to scrape the cheese out of my lasagna, too. Which really defeats the purpose of the lasagna, but oh well.

  “Mailee, just eat it,” Dad says gently. “You can start being a vegan tomorrow.”

  I should stand my ground. Should ignore the delicious smell wafting straight into my brain. But I can’t. I’m starving and lasagna tastes amazing, so … I eat it. But I think about Firehorse the whole time, which pretty much ruins lasagna for me forever anyway.

  Back in my room, I text Cara and casually insert mention of becoming vegan. Almost immediately, my phone rings.

  “OH MY GOD,” she practically screams. “I am so so so so so so happy you are doing this. I’m doing it, too. Everything Firehorse said was so … I mean I had never thought about things before! He knows so much.”

  “I know. I feel like kind of a jerk for not taking him seriously. He’s done so much research.”

  “Do you think it’s gonna be hard to be vegan when you’re at theater camp?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it. Worst-case scenario, I guess I’ll be eating a lot of fruit.” Theater camp is only six days away. I’m still bummed that Cara’s not going, but I’m so excited about it anyway. This is going to be my last year, because next summer, I’m hoping to move to either California or New York, depending on where I get into school, and get myself acclimated and maybe/hopefully get a part in a play or something. Opportunities to do that aren’t especially great here, so camp week is the only week I get to do anything, really, over the summer. I’m probably lucky Montana even has a theater camp. “Are you going to be okay for a week without me?”

  “Of course. You don’t need to worry about me, Mailee.”

  I don’t want to bring up the breakup again, but I’ve definitely been worried and I want her to be okay.

  “Well, if you need someone to talk to at all while I’m away, you know Gavin will be around.”

  “Mailee.” She laughs. “I do have other friends, you know. Mostly the same friends you have. Gavin’s nice and all, but we would definitely not hang out together if we didn’t have you in common.”

  It’s so strange to think about, but she’s right. Gavin’s become such a big part of my life that I forget he’s not as big a part of my friends’ lives. I could text him or call him if I was upset, and he’d make me feel better immediately. He might not know what to say to Cara. Or she might not want to hear it from him.

  “Well, I’m just saying. Don’t coop yourself up for the week. Make sure you get out.”

  “I’ll be fine, I promise. I am sad about Jackson, obviously, but I know my life hasn’t ended. He wasn’t worth my time anyway.”

  I decide to test the waters. “Plus, I mean, there’s Finn.”

  She pauses for a long moment. “Yeah, he’s nice.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Nineteen.”

  I guess that’s okay.

  “I was just talking to him, Mailee. I’m not planning to start dating anyone right now.”

  I flop down on my bed. “Think you’ll go there while I’m away?”

  “I don’t know.” She pauses again. “Probably. Would you be mad?”

  “No, of course not. I’m just … I don’t know. I feel like it was nice to visit, but I’m wondering how we fit, you know? Like, maybe I’ll change some things and try to think about the environment more, but we don’t live there, and I feel like, ultimately, they don’t want it to be a place wher
e people come and, like, hang out. They all seem to have roles. And I worry that we’re kinda … interrupting?”

  “Yeah, I get that. I probably would call before going again, not just show up. To make sure. You’ve gotta hand it to them, though, for how organized they are. Do you think Firehorse made them all a Book of Life Goals?”

  I laugh. “If he did, it’s definitely not as glorious as ours.”

  “Of course not. There’s no way.”

  Cara has the Book of Life Goals at her house. She’s the one who created it so she’s the one who gets to keep it. Plus, let’s face it, there’s a good chance I’d accidentally lose it in my mess. That thing has been such a blessing for me. It helps me so much to see everything all laid out; my whole future.

  And it helps Cara, too. Not in the same way, because she’s so much less flighty than me, so much more serious. But she likes to see things laid out. She likes checking them off. Maybe this commune thing is a life experience she needs to check off before she can move on to the next thing.

  Samantha and I will share a room at theater camp, as usual. Today, my mom brought us both shopping to get some things for our trip. I know it’s super uncool, at age seventeen, to let your mom bring you shopping, but she promised to stay apart from us once we were in the mall. She just doesn’t completely trust me not to buy anything frivolous with her credit card.

  Theater camp is not roughing it, but I always bring a sleeping bag anyway because I don’t trust the beds. I’ve had my old sleeping bag for too long and now the zipper’s broken, so this year, I get a new one. Which means Samantha and I are in one of those outdoorsy stores with all the guns and camo outfits and plastic deer and fishing poles.

  “Look at this,” says Sam, holding up a gigantic pair of rubbery overalls with boots attached.

  “Wow. You’d look beautiful in that.”

  “I know, right?” She tosses her curls and pretends to be a model. Then checks out the price tag. “Mailee, can you believe that this thing costs three hundred fifty dollars? How are these possibly worth that much?”