Pretty Follies

The humidity had started to get to me. My forehead was glistening with sweat and my mouth was begging for water. I couldn’t even tell if I was being overdramatic anymore. Reality was mixing with my moody teenage attitude, heat became not only a factor on this whole journey, but literally the melting pot. It mixed my thoughts and actions, focus and perception and the branches with the ground.

I wasn’t really sure how long we had been walking, and at this point I thought checking my phone, for the one millionth time would just be an even more depressing thought. I walked quickly, thinking for some reason that would help us find our way if I did and Lorraine was a couple steps behind me, not having a problem with the fast past I had set.

“Alex?” I heard her quietly get my attention. I stopped and looked back at her. Her bare legs had dirt and scratches sporadically and her face looked grimy. We had been out walking a while, but not more that nine hours and we both already like that. There were no paths or open brushes anymore either. It told me we were getting deeper and deeper into the forest, there were more abundances of trees there was and less walking space. It got hillier and twisty the longer we walked, but Lorraine and I didn’t know what we were supposed to do, so we kept walking.

I constantly found myself tripping over an ingrown root or hidden stump and sometimes my own feet even. That earned a good laugh from Lorraine. Both my knees were scraped and dirty and so were my hands, but I ignored it and pressed on. Lorraine didn’t seem to have a problem with us hiking on, ignoring the cuts and bruises, so I was surprised that she asked me to stop.

“What,” I said annoyed.

“Umm…I need to pee.”

I looked around at all the trees and bushes. “Alright, go ahead.” She hesitated. “What?” I asked impatiently.

“Just…don’t look, okay?”

“Jesus Christ, Johnson. Why would I look at you while you’re taking a shit? That’s just gross. Come on, have a little more respect for me than that.”

“Sorry, sorry…” she muttered as she walked behind a tree. I crossed my arms and tapped my foot as I waited for her to finish her business.

“Uh-Oh, Laney. Watch out, I’m getting out my binoculars so I can stare at you while you pee,” I sang, pretending to walk closer to the tree.

“I swear to God, Gaskarth,” I heard her warn from behind a tree. I couldn’t tell which tree she was behind, but I rolled my eyes and chuckled at her tone. A few seconds later I heard footsteps behind me and a smack upside the head followed shortly after. “Idiot,” she mumbled as she walked past me.

I ignored her comment and followed after her. “Hey, watch it, bitch!” I tried to dodge the tree branches that she let fling back at me, instead of holding so I wouldn’t get smacked. The branches continued to fling back at me, smacking me in the face, leg, arm, wherever. “Johnson. Watch your back,” I threatened.

“Oops,” was all she could say, imitating me earlier this morning in the tent. This morning. That seemed so long ago. I felt my stomach grumble at the thought of how much time had passed.

“I’m fucking hungry.” I complained.

“Well we have food in the car so we could always walk—oh wait…you don’t know where the car is.” Lorraine said monotonously.

I rolled my eyes. “Even if we did know where it was, you wouldn’t let me get any good food at the store anyways,” I grumbled.

“Alright. So we solved that one. There’s no food.” I sneered at her smartass remark. “Stop complaining.”

“I had to listen to you complain the whole ride to the store, and now I say one fucking thing and you freak out on me. Hypocrite.”

“Don’t even start, Alex. Look at us. We’re stuck in the middle of fucking no where! You can’t say anything.”

“Hey! It’s as much your fault as it is my fault! You can’t put all the blame on me. It doesn’t work like that.” She shook her head at me and stocked off. I wasn’t done. “And who was it that was saying, “Oh, I don’t neeed your help. I did this okay without your help, Alex,” I imitated, trying to copy her voice. “Well, lucky you have me here now or else you would be flipping your scrawny ass out right about now.”

“If I didn’t have you here, I probably wouldn’t be lost!!!”

“It was you who suggested going into these fucking woods!!

“I didn’t get us lost in here!”

“You could have easily remembered the way we walked!! Why did you expect me to pay attention to where we were going when you have two eyes that work just a well as mine?! You can’t even start to put the blame on me! You were just as much worthless and wrong as I was!”

She didn’t say anything, but continued to stomp on over logs and hills.

“Oh, so now you don’t have anything to say. Oh, little Laney is finally wrong for once! What a sensation!”

“Shut up, Alex! Shut up!!” she marched over to me and yelled in my face. “Just shut up already!!!”

I stopped walking, stunned at how powerful her voice became from all her anger. She noticed it too and flushed slightly. She looked down at the ground and rubbed her temples as she calmed herself so she didn’t flip on me anymore. She composed herself and began walking again.

We were lucky we were alone in the giant forest, miles and miles away from anyone, because our voices had risen very loud. If not for all the trees hovering above, getting in our faces, our yells would have echoed loudly all around us.

I watched Lorraine walk a couple steps before deciding to start walk again. As I trailed behind her, I saw hers shoulders still tense from the fight we had just had. I had hit her pretty hard, not with name-calling, but rude comments. That was something Lorraine always had something to talk back at, so I sped my steps up momentarily to catch her.

“You’re not even going to defend yourself? Come on, Laney.”

“Lorraine. My name is Lorraine, Alex. Stop calling me that,” she said, finally not able to contain her frustration of my mocking.

I shrugged and smiled. “I know.”