rule 5: ask nicely

I am staring at the skull of a deer. The deer has been dead for a very long time and other predators have passed around in the undergrowth so that their pawprints are as much part of the body as the last few bleaching bones. There is almost nothing there except for a fly which might just be there for a place to rest and not even for the last bits of flesh to suck and I wouldn't know because I've never been a fly. Flies and other bugs are so small and it feels like they're all up inside you so when I'm anything bigger than a fly I hate them so much that I don't want to be one ever.

There are a lot of dead things that we miss when we're walking down the paths. We only talk during the early morning and late and night because Angel is sometimes kept at the back of the party and we're not supposed to talk to her. No one says much of anything about Angel and it's almost like she is not there at all. She is more like the deer skull which exists but isn't whatever it used to be. The deer can no longer dash away or stare down at travellers or even talk to other deer and rub its head against theirs. All the deer can do is look out of its big dark empty eye sockets and grin at me with its teeth.

Trace is up too. We are some of the last people to get up which means we will leave soon but there's been more (dead) grass lately and Alex says we're almost done with the plains which is so good because other places are going to be less cold and they might have more life which is exciting even if it won't be life like us too.

I want to move but I also want to be with Trace here, alone, before anyone gets to us. I ask her "what do you want to do today" and smile big and bright.

Trace just shrugs and says "we don't really do much of anything Addie so I guess the usual" and she says it really fancy, splaying her hand like it means something. I think it's imitated but the gesture is a little awkward so she might have made it up.

I echo "the usual" and splay my hand like hers. Then I say real quiet "what's on your mind" and purse my lips real tight.

She replies "you" and then after pausing says "nothing important besides that really I just want to keep walking why do you ask?"

I lean onto her leg and say "I was thinking we could visit Angel or something we haven't really talked to her and it's not like they're going to stop us" and it's out of my mouth before I can cover it up with my hand.

Trae takes my hand off of my mouth as she bends down to my level and says "I don't want to go but if it's important to you then I guess we could visit her" and she looks so worried when she's down here next to me and I'm a little bit worried for her "is there some particular reason that you want to do it now?"

I say back with all the strength and pride I can muster "Why is there some super secret reason that you care?"

Trace just smiles as she runs her fingers down my hair and says with all of her Trace softness "oh Addie you know there's nothing in the whole world I wouldn't tell you" which is so cute and I lean into her a little.

At the same time a few flies are swarming in and out of the temple of what was once the body of this deer with a little zzzz that warms the air and I can't help but answer her "you didn't tell me the whole time you were sick because Angel kept making you do things you said you were fine" and I give her a pointed look.

Trace's expression wavers as she grabs my hand and whispers into my ear "promise I'll never ever do it again Addie" and when she shakes her hand real hard I can feel all of our convictions and know that what she's said to me is true in the most perfect true way that things can be.

Angel is being kept by Dylan around the finger and Dylan looks boredly up at the sky the whole time he's there watching her.

"Can we talk in private" I ask Dylan.

Dylan bites his lip and says "well if you try anything just know that I'll know Addie" but he's also moving out of the way right now so that's a yes?

It's good to be alone with Angel but I know that things will never be the same again.

Angel is sitting in an upright position which is better than most of the time we see her but she's still not talking and her glasses are still cracked where she got tackled to the ground. I know she can fix them and I want to readjust them so they sit right on her face again like I want to fix her face. She looks down at us and all the flowery warmth that once filled her like a fresh batch of cookies (we had warm cookies once, just once, and I still think of the way they melted when I tasted them) returns to her for a single flushed second. "Hey, darlin'," she says, and it's too soft, trying a little too hard, pushing into a persona that she knows she barely has a grasp on.

I open my mouth real wide and say to Trace "look she's talking" and Trace rolls her eyes back like yeah duh which makes me feel all shy again and I start rolling my fingers through my hair wistfully thinking what to say, what to say.

Angel clasps her hands and says "they really didn't want you two to speak to me now did they" and she tenses up the edges of her mouth and her face so painfully I think I might cry for her.

I fall down by her side and she runs her fingers through my hair before Trace slaps her hand away her eyes two coals and drags me back up hissing "you can't play innocent with us any longer."

Angel's face tenses up again, jerking feebly, and she says "you don't need to be so cruel to me Trace I was trying to do the good human mother things and it turns out--" she is cut off.

Trace exclaims "you're not our mom" and continues "we don't have a mom and we never had a mom so we definitely never needed you to be one" and she's crying again like we did when we got out of this place and back into it.

Angel shifts older under the constraints and her glasses lapse off her face for a second before she pushes them back on and says "someone had to keep you two in check" and when both of us look down at her like we might always have wanted to do she turns her head away and says "I didn't think you'd understand how much this means to me and why it means that much and I must say I'm disappointed, girls" trying to maintain that last golden thread of dignity.

"Knew she wouldn't tell us anything" Trace says even though she never even said that come on and Trace swings past me and yells louder "knew this was a bad idea but whatever no one even listens to me" and I scrunch my face up because sometimes she really does make me so angry but I think this is just part of being in love or something.

Angel looks up at me tired in a thousand small and broken ways and there's no way I can give her what she wants or needs and I'm not the mom I'm not even a good child I can't go up to being the mom but maybe we were never either of those things and I wish she'd just tell me why she had to be that way for us but she really did feel like she had to and there's so much in her and maybe it never had anything to do with us and so maybe I get to sew this divide together again but do I want to not really okay I need to stop talking and just say something so.

"Maybe we could just be" I pause for a bit "friends or something" and iit doesn't sound right when I say it either. I add "I kind of like reading sometimes" and hold out my hand.

She runs her fingers across my hand which is longer but so much thinner so all the digits look like they're struggling to keep hers up and the sense of lifting up the weight of her world is almost unbearable. She moves her hand down so that she's lifting mine up and I curl mine up into a fist and draw it away.

"Am I really bad" I ask her and follow again "will I be bad on my own" and I don't even know why I am being so demanding isn't that bad I should just go right now anyways.

Angel is doing the awful jerky smile as she says "it's not like anything bad has ever happened" but I guess she's right which begs the question of why she decided to take me in at all.

I find that I don't even really want to know.