The Three of Us

generalized personal

As I walked… wheeled my way down to the cafeteria, I saw Alex, the person whom I’d been tossing attentive glances at in band class strutting towards me.

“Do you need anything from your locker?” they blurted. Before I could say anything, they were pushing my wheelchair down the hall for me. “Where’s your locker?”

“It’s right here,” I mumbled, pointing to the middle section of lockers to the left. An awkward silence fell between us for what felt like ten minutes.

“Well? What do you need?” they inquired after the moments of use exchanging curious stares.

“I don’t really need anything. We sort of got going before I could tell you.” My voice was sort of shaky, and Alex laughed. We went back to the cafeteria without saying anything.

A week later, I’d transferred from a wheelchair to crutches. I sat in the first chair of the second row of the band room for easy access, and once practice was finished, I put my clarinet away hobbled towards the exit. Alex appeared out of nowhere and tapped my shoulder.

“Want to eat lunch with me?” they blurted, but there was a sense of coy calmness in their voice. I agreed to eat with them, and we ate mostly in silence. After a while, we invited a mutual friend of ours to sit with us which, I must say, was not a bad choice at all. The three of us chatted about social media and exchanged tumblr URLs.

That winter, Alex and I made it official, and from then on, we were inseparable… Until that following summer when Alex went on vacation and met Ally.

“How much will all of this cost?” I asked staring at Alex across from across the splintered wood dinner table. They looked at me as if I’d slapped them in the face.

“I know it’s a lot, but we can work together and get jobs and�"”

“Hey, I’m not saying I’m not going to help you. I just want you to realize how much work this is going to be. I’m on your side, and I am pretty excited for this to happen.” I tried to make my voice sound steady and calming.

“I just…” They paused to sigh. ¨I know you’ve always wanted to travel, and I’ve always wanted to travel... I just want all of this to work out, and I think it will because I’ve drawn so many diagrams and I’ve done so many calculations. I know we both have to work really hard, but it will be worth it. Can you imagine what it will be like when we finally get this all put together and are ready to hit the road?” Their eyes were sparkling, and I felt my body get warm.

“I love you so much.” I breathed those words as if they were my last. Alex’s smile was what was making all of this work worth it. All of the hours of hard work, all of the hours stressing out about whether or not we’ll get the money in time. Everything was worth that smile.

“I love you too, Alice!” Alex was beaming. They looked from me to the window where one could see the rain bouncing off of the window. “You know, it’s like this all of the time in Seattle,” they said it  smile tugging at the corner of their mouth.

“Excuse me, great and mighty know it all who actually doesn’t know much about Washington, but it rains there as much as it does in New York!” I stated as a matter of factually. They raised their arms in playful surrender, and I laughed. “Do you hear that?” Over the rain, I heard a sort of annoying beeping coming from the bedroom. I sauntered into the room and saw a video chat request ringing on my phone. “Oh, it’s Ally wanting to FaceTime. Do you want to talk to her with me?” I was holding the phone out to them, and they nodded. I answered the call and set the phone down so it was propped up in a way to see both me and Alex.

“Hi!” Ally was wearing a purple crewneck t-shirt, and her eyes looked particularly pastel. I was the first to respond with a simple wave and a ¨hey,” and Alex greeted her with pure excitement.

“We’re going to the west coast! It’s going to happen!” Alex was practically jumping up and down despite the gloomy weather draped over the town. Ally responded with a big smile that lacked the ability to hide her admiration. I watched the way they peered through the camera lenses at each other, not even glancing at me. It was always like that. There wasn’t much I could do about it, so I tried to ignore it. During that FaceTime chat, we discussed the trip; the costs, the stops, etc, but nothing I said received a positive response from either of them; occasionally  no response at all. It was always like that. I slowly eased out of the conversation and made my way to our bedroom, grabbing my arrowhead backpack from the closet and filling it with clothes. I found my camelbak water bottle, a map, wallet and a tent and shoved them all into the bag, not thinking about the resulting weight of this lump of impulse. The heft of the bag led to an involuntary groan when I picked it up, but I strapped it around both of my shoulders anyway. I felt my eyes get wet as I relocated to the garage where my turquoise Schwinn was hanging from the ceiling, collecting dust right beside Alex’s orange Trek. I transferred the bag from my shoulders to the ground and removed my bike from the utility hook.

“Yeah! Alice is fine, she’s just been tired lately.” I heard Alex say as I walked into the living room to kiss them goodbye. “Hey, what’s wrong?” they asked when they looked at my eyes.

“Just woke up from a nap. My eyes aren’t awake yet,” I said, pushing a laugh from my lungs. I sat down, hugging them really tight, snuggling my head into their neck and mumbled, “I love you,” in their ear. They smiled, said it back, and I felt a pain that I’d felt only one other  time, two summers ago. I let go once I felt tears sprinting down my face as if they were in a race to rat me out. Once my arms were no longer around them, I stood up and quickly and exited the room.

I’d done the math for this trip, and from Belleville, Wisconsin to Seattle, Washington is 1,948 miles. Driving that route meant driving for 27 hours if traffic was scarce. Walking that route would take 627 hours which is about 26 days. I couldn’t find the biking time, so I took the average of the two which is about 327 hours, or about 14 days.

How much time it took me to get from point A to point B wasn’t too important to me because along the way, I wanted to stop at many points between the two. I was so excited and nervous that I could’ve thrown up… Which I did after I got to Minnesota due to so much biking. I wasn’t eating much because I really wanted to save my money in case I got hurt or really needed it, but I was drinking plenty of water, which made for more delays than intended. I slept often because my body was saying, “what the hell, Alice?” So I’d ride up to a quiet campsite to stay the night, and this didn’t cause any trouble until I got to Kansas when I’d arrived later in the evening. About 8? When an officer came up to me and not the nicest gentleman I’d ever met.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Have you paid to be in this site?” he yelled at me as I was setting up my tent. I was tired and not in the mood to be screamed at.

“How much do you want?” I asked, sort of hoping it was less that twenty dollars.

“Oh… Uh… It’s about ten per night here.” Perhaps he thought I was a homeless bum with no money. I shoved my hand in my bag searching for cash. I pulled out a ten and thrusted my hand towards him. “Goodnight,” he said as he walked away.

I stopped at the San Isabel National Forest in Colorado. My legs were as tired as my eyes, and I set up my tent in a slightly vacant area. It was a cold night, so I attempted to make a small fire. There was miniscule success, but hey, success is success. I could smell myself with ease by then, for I hadn’t showered in over a week. I saw a beautiful, clear pond that I would maybe bathe in once there weren’t so many other bodies around.

The sun set early that night, and the amount of tourists dropped with the temperature. I was eying up the pond to see which parts may have the depth for bathing. I slipped out of my clothes faster than I slipped into the water, for the pond was unforgivingly frigid. Despite the chill, it did feel nice to be surrounded by water. After I felt as clean as I could from washing in a pond, I walked over to my things and realized how much I hadn’t thought this through. I had no towel. I stood there, shivering, while I tried to think of a plan. All of my clothes were dirty by now, and I was standing naked in a national site. Leaves cracked and crunched as if someone or something was near. My vision snapped from my bag to where I heard the noise from. It was too dark to make out the exact species of the figure but light enough to see that it was shaped similarly to some sort of canine. Blood was pumping in my ears, and I could hear the crunching continue, getting closer. Heavy but at the same time quiet panting was added to the sound of the leaves, and I was too afraid to think of anything to do in this situation. I could run to my tent that was two or three yards to my right, or I could drop and curl up in a ball with hope minimize the chance of attack. I heard a loud crack, and before I knew it, I was on the ground huddled into a ball. The leaf crunching sped up and came right next to me. Whatever it was began to sniff me, and my breaths quickened. A slobbery lick slid across my ear, and I immediately wiped it of, scoffing. More licks lead to more licks, and I was less afraid of this animal. I peeked out of the corner of my eye, and I never would have expected to see what I’d seen.

“Puppy!” I exclaimed out of pure relief,  joy and excitement. It was a seemingly young, mixed, lighter colored  Labrador Retriever. The pup jumped into play position, and I felt my cheeks hurt from smiling so hard. I sat criss-cross, and the puppy jumped into my lap and rolled on its back. I didn’t see any tags, nor did I even see a collar on this beautiful animal, so I scratched its tummy and named it Isabel. I threw on some clothes and  we snuggled in the tent.

I awoke before sunrise and felt around for Isabel. I sat up immediately. I looked around the tent to see if she was cuddled up somewhere I couldn’t see, but she wasn’t. I exited the tent and looked around the site for the pup. I called her name as well as “puppy” in case she didn’t remember what I’d been calling her. She came running from a small area of forest, looking quite happy. She was muddy and smelled of death. I gagged.

“What did you get into?” I asked, not really expecting an answer other than what I got: a happy little bark. Her tongue was hanging out of her mouth as we walked to the pond. I pointed at it, and she looked at me as if I were the imbecile. I threw a stick in towards the middle of the pond, and watched her speed after it pathetically. When she came back, she smelt less of death. She shook, and most of the water on her flew on to me. I sighed. “Do you want to come with me, Isabel? Do you?” I put my hands on my knees and asked her this in a playful tone. She bent into play position and then launched at me. She came up to my leg and rubbed her head against it until I petted her. After I gathered my things, I got on my bike, and off we went.

We went through Utah and Nevada slowly but with little to no trouble. I bought Isabel the food that looked the least disgusting. We ate together and slept together. She was quickly becoming my best friend. When we reached Washington State, it was just what I expected. Dreary. My heart was racing when we hit the state border. I got off my bike, kicked out the kickstand and sat down. I started sobbing, and Isabel came and curled up in my lap.