We say goodbye to Mr. Azim without much dramatics.

As we watch the back of the bus get smaller and smaller, July says, "That was so fun. Never imagined I would experience something like this."

After that confusing conversation, the two of us kept silent while the bus moved. I kept feeling hopelessly confused at the way he was behaving. I'm not as idiotic as he thinks I am; it's not like I don't understand what he was indicating. I'm just not sure what to think of it. And I also have doubts about my own interpretations. It's way too exhausting to think about all these. Thankfully, he returned back to normal after the bus stopped in front of the trail.

"Me too," I smile, then turn back and look at the forest. There is a green sign board right beside the trail saying "NIRAZ MOUNTAIN HIKING TRAIL — 44 MILES" with an arrow pointing inwards to the forest. Luckily, my relatives of the cedar family are not 44 miles, but only 20 minutes away, according to Mr. Azim. I hope this family will not disappoint me the way the other one did.

I take out my phone and check the time. Three minutes past 2. Still more than three hours left till sunset, so we can stay for two hours if we want. Though I doubt there would be much reason to stay. I turn to July and say, "Let's go, shall we?"

"Yep. Let's go meet your family!"

I frown. "Did you completely forget rule number 2? You're not supposed to read my mind whenever you want."

"Eh?" He looks at me like I just accused him of the worst crime ever. "But I didn't! I haven't read your mind even once in the last few days."

"Oh . . ." Then that just means that the two of us share the same braincells. Laughing at my own thought, I say, "Sorry. Let's go."

Just as we are about to head into the forest, a red car slowly passes us by. I don't pay any attention to it before it drives backwards and stops in front of us.

I look at it as the window of the driver's seat slowly comes down, revealing a girl wearing sunglasses. The car is rather old, with loads of scratches and pulled off paint here and there. I recognize the model from my cars-obsessed days as a Mitsubishi Raider, probably a 2006 model. I'm kinda proud that I could recognize it.

The girl takes off her sunglasses and lets her hand dangle over the window. I can see another person sitting shotgun beside her—a boy, seemingly uninterested on what's going on in this side.

"Yo, Nova here," the girl says, shooting me a salute. I only raise my eyebrows to acknowledge her. "You know where the, um– say what again, man?" She turns to the boy beside her, nods, turns back to me and says, "Yeah, do you know where the Lenny's Donut Shop is?"

"I'm not a local," I reply.

"Eh, dammit. There's no one else around." She brings her head out more and checks both front and back to hunt for life. Then she again turns to me and asks, "Oy, you have 4G network on your phone?"

Do I? I check the top of the screen, and find a 3G symbol beside the network triangle. I raise my head and say, "Unfortunately no. You need GPS?"

"Ayeh!" She sighs exhaustedly. "There's no network in this shithole. Only trees. And death. Dammit."

Only trees and death, huh? Interesting outlook. "Hmm . . .wait, let me check still." I take out my enter Chrome and type in a random word on the search bar and wait. I was almost about to give up when the search results pop up. "Oh! I think my net is working a little."

"Really?" Her eyes pop out in excitement and she turns to the boy and seemingly slaps his shoulder several times, chanting, "He has internet! He has internet!" The boy smacks her hand away and she laughs before turning back to me, "Come 'ere, kid."

I can't believe she just called me kid, when she doesn't look much older than me.

July tells me, "Keep the phone in your hand." I nod and walk over to the girl, Nova.

"It's very slow, though," I say and click the Google Maps.

"That's okay. Something's better than nothing." She laughs, her teeth glowing. Her brunette hair is tied in two high ponytails.

While the loading symbol rotates annoyingly, I steal a glance behind her to the boy. The first thing I notice is his ridiculous hot pink hair, looking a shade of rose pink under the yellow indoor light of the car. He is looking out through the other window, arms crossed across his chest. As if sensing me looking, he turns his head, and for a moment, a fog of recognition clouds my mind. He furrows his brows. Does he recognize me too? But how? Have we met before? But where?

I look at him a second longer before dismissing it and looking back at my phone, which is still spinning the wheel of slow internet. I conclude that he was probably a little surprised seeing a young guy standing here all by himself. Besides, it's not the first time I've looked at someone and found them familiar. It happens quite often, in fact. Dawn used to think that they must have been people we had a connection to in our past lives.

As I'm thinking about all these, the Google Maps finally comes up in my screen.

"What was the name?" I ask.

"Lenny's Donut Shop. It's kinda urgent we get there, yanno?"

"I see." I go to the search bar and type the name. No options come, so I click the magnifying glass symbol. Once again, the pinwheel of loading resumes. Just looking at it gets on my nerves, so I turn back and glance at July, who is staring at the girl, or maybe the boy, with creased eyebrows. I subconsciously move a little to the left to block his view of the window.

I hate myself.

The search result finally appears. I frown at the screen. "There is no place named—"

"Hey, is that your bag?!" the girl screams, eyes widened. Heart skipping a beat, I whirl around, to find July looking at me like a deer in headlights.

"Cedar—!"

Before I realize, the phone is snatched out of my grasp with a hard pull and the car immediately drives away, the inertia pulling me forward until I lose my balance and fall on the ground. A pain shoots up my knee, and my throbbing heart further intensifies it.

"DUMBASS!!" the girl screams, holding up a middle finger at me through the window, her laughter filling the whole deserted road.

I lie there frozen on the ground, staring at the back of the car getting smaller and smaller, eyesockets aching.

"Cedar! Oh my God." July runs over to me, but I don't take my eyes of the car until it disappears. "Cedar, are you okay? Hey, hey." He grabs my shoulder and helps me sit straight. I put a hand over my chest, feeling the drum against my palm. My ears are caught on fire. I feel like I'm still not perceiving what happened just now properly, and my vision is very unfocused.

"Oh no, you have a scratch," July says, and when I look at him, I find him trying to blow air on my scraped knee, only to fail and mutter swears under his breath. "Hey, come on, let's get up. Sit at the side. Come on, buddy." He wraps an arm around my neck and hoists me up, and together we move to the corner of the road. He leans me against a tree trunk and sits in front of me.

"We're the most unluckiest people in the goddamn world, huh?" he mutters, trying to sound humorous. "Like, thanks a fucking lot, God. We love you. Amen." Letting out a small laugh, he reaches for my bag and rummages through it to find something. I stare at the road in a daze, as if the the duo inside the car will come back and give me back the photos.

The photos.

The realization hits my mind and my heart at the same time. The photos. Oh God, my photos with Dawn.

Tears fill my eyes. Through my blurry vision, I see July take some water into his palm from the bottle, but the liquid passes through right his hand and falls on the ground.

"Oh fuck!" he yells, and I flinch. "I'm— I'm sorry, Cedar. It's okay." He gently caresses my neck with one hand and pours some water carefully over the scratch with the other. I don't percieve the sting properly.

Why? That's the only question I have. I was trying to help them. Why did they have to do this to me? How can do this to me? And how can they not feel the slightest bit of guilt, and just drive away calling me a dumbass?

I realize that my phone getting stolen doesn't hurt nearly as much as the humiliation of being called a 'dumbass' just for trying to help someone. Dumbass, and a middle finger. Oh God. My ears are burning so much that it's starting to feel wet, as though it's melting. I touch one to make sure it isn't.

"It's okay, Cedar," repeats his soft voice once more, as he takes a pen and pierces the nip into the sleeve of his sweatshirt. "Was there something very important in the phone?"

I slowly nod. "M-my photos with Dawn."

"It's okay. There are many photos of you with Dawn, right? Really, it's okay." It's not, but the words and the tone they're spoken in makes the turmoil within me calm down to an extent.

"But why me, July?" I ask, my voice a little shaky. He raises his head and meets my eyes. The laughter of that girl echoes against the walls of my mind. "Why me? I was only trying to help. That– I had no bad intentions. I just wanted to . . . why? Why did they take advantage of my trust?"

He bites his lips. "Listen, Cedar." He drives the nib of the pen horizontally through the fabric with seemingly a lot of force and tears a portion off the sweatshirt. "That's how the world is. Some people are just always looking for a chance to take advantage of someone. It doesn't matter if your intentions were innocent, others won't always approach you with the same. That's . . . just how things work in this world, Cedar."

I knew that. I have always known. But like death, you never truly understand things like these unless you face it yourself. Betrayal, backstabbing, lies, benefits — these are truths that we won't truly realize until we fall under it's net.

"July, is it wrong to be good?"

He scoots closer and lightly grabs my knee. Our foreheads are almost touching. I watch him, waiting for an answer, as he carefully wraps my knee with the torn fabric.

"I'm afraid I don't own the wisdom to answer that, Cedar." He raises his head to me, and presses his cold palm against my cheek. "All I know, is that even if you get hurt from doing good, don't ever stop doing it."

"But I will become miserable like that."

He starts to tie a knot with the two ends of the fabric. "That's why I think, that in order to survive this world, you have to turn into a tortoise. Protect yourself within a shell. Shield yourself from all the hurt. Do good, help others, love them. But don't come out of the shell for them. Only come out for those you truly trust."

I snort. "Those I truly trust? July, I don't think I will ever truly trust someone again."

Not after Dawn—the one I trusted blindly—who lied to me for months.

He doesn't say anything to that, just focuses on the bandaging. I ask him, "Isn't that why you were always alone, July? Because you never let anyone inside the shell."

He bites his lips. After a long silence, he replies, "You're right. I don't know, Cedar. No matter how miserable my coping mechanisms made me, without them," he looks at me, "I couldn't have survived 19 years in this world."

I hold his gaze. There is pain in his eyes. I can see, he has been inside the shell for too long; his back aches from carrying the heavy weight of it. He looks down again, pats my knee, then puts his forehead on my other knee. His soft, scentless hair brushes against my nose and cheek. Every place where my skin makes contact with his is being smothered by ice, while every other place is being brushed by a burning matchstick.

As the leaves rustle in unison throughout the forest stretching beside us, he whispers, in a faint voice audible to only me, "I'm sorry, Cedar."

What he is sorry about, I have no idea. Perhaps I would have preferred another 'it's okay' instead. But the question in my mind stays, lingering among thousands of others, for God has given me the ability to question things, but not the wisdom to answer them. Is it wrong to do good? Or if I rephrase it, is it right to do good, even if it means you might get hurt? If trust floats inside the dark walls of tortoise shells, will someone accompany the tortoise in there? But the tortoises of this world are always alone, aren't they? Hiding in the black warmth, forever, till the end. The loneliest creatures.

Is it right to do good, as long as you're inside the shell?

Maybe, maybe not.

I will probably never find the answer to that.

--------------------------

"How's your knee?" he asks.

Though July insisted that we should crash in a motel for today instead of going to the forest because of my injured knee, we end up going inside anyway. The more hours we stay in, the more we have to pay, so it's better to just wander around and go in at night instead.

Honestly, I didn't realize it properly before, but we really don't have any particular aim after visiting the cedar forest. What the hell are we going to do for the remaining 17 days? We can afford a motel for only 6 days, so 11 days we will just have to wander the streets? Once again, I feel grateful to have July with me. I'm pretty sure I would get completely clueless if I was alone.

"It's fine," I reply, though it's not. The scratch is worse than I initially thought. I'm pretty sure it's gonna start hurting more later. Right now, I'm limping as I walk.

"You sure?"

"Mhm."

We carefully follow the trail as we go deeper into the forest. It's my first time being surrounded by nothing but trees and bushes, so it feels somewhat overwhelming. The only sounds here are the rustling of leaves in the gentle wind, the chirping of nameless birds, and the unified call of the crickets. The sun overhead is scorching, but all the trees together form a beautiful canopy to gift us shade. So the two of us comfortably walk through the arms of nature, mostly in silence.

I decide to ask July what I was about to ask back in the bus. "Why didn't you tell me before?"

He turns his head sideways at me. "Tell you what?"

"That you're bi."

"Oh." He purses up his lips. Then he says, "It's just– I thought of telling you a lot of times. I didn't get the right timing, I guess? Also I didn't want you to feel uncomfortable around me since we would spend so much time together, even sleep on the same bed."

I was about to say that there's no reason for me to be uncomfortable just because he's sexually attracted to people of the same gender as me, but when I think about it a little, I start to see where he's coming from.

"Hmm, fair enough," I only reply.

"And also, I'm not used to saying it to people either. You're the first person I have ever said this to other than my cat. It's something I have denied for a long time before getting tired and just accepting it. But a part of me was always like, I just need to keep my attraction to boys a secret and only focus on girls – something like that. Then I was going back and forth between I'm gay and no, I'm straight and that was another headache."

I nod. "Well, sexuality is kinda complicated. It's also very . . . fluid? It's not like bisexuality is 50% straight and 50% gay, it's a spectrum." I make a random gesture with my hands as I try to explain, "It can like, fluctuate? Go to and fro? Mix up? Which is probably why you felt confused."

"Yeah, you're right. But I didn't know that back then. How would I? It's not like anyone taught me. It just goes to show that Quora has been a better teacher to me than the ones I had in school."

I laugh. "True. I bet Dale found out he was gay from Quora as well."

He chuckles. But my own one fades as I'm reminded of Dale. Now that I think about it, Edgar is the only one who has called me so far, though it's been almost a day since I've left. Mom, dad, Dale—none of them care to even call once? I mean, of course I'm not gonna pick up the call, but still . . .

Then I'm reminded of how I don't have my phone anymore. So even if they do call, I won't know. Oh my God, I was supposed to call Edgar in the evening. I do have his number memorized, but what if I can't find a phone anywhere nearby? This is so fucked up. Everything is just-

"Hey." July's arm come around my shoulder, his voice dragging me out of my negative thoughts. "What about you?"

I raise my brows. "What about me?"

He look ahead as he asks, "Your . . . sexuality? I'm- I'm asking since we're on the topic."

"Oh, me? I'm–"

My words get replaced by a shriek as I suddenly lose the footing of my left leg, heart skipping a beat as I do. I lose my balance but July's arm quickly tightens around me, preventing me from falling sideways and hitting my head with the tree trunk right beside. My foot lands hard on a lower level ground, making a pain shoot up from my ankle right up to my thigh. I look down, and find that I've stepped into a hole.

"Fuck," I breathe out.

"You did not just use a bad word, Cider Locktree." Then he bursts into a fit of laughter because I am, in fact, standing among hundreds of trees. Ha-ha, very funny.

"Shut up, ugh." July helps me stand striaght, and I pull my foot out of the hole. Why the hell is there a random hole on the ground? As I raise my leg and brush off the soil from my shoes, I complain, "This day just keeps getting worse and worse."

He starts laughing again, which also lightens my own mood. But the sound of his laughter abruptly stops. I look at him, and find him staring somewhere behind me, eyes widened to their limits.

Before I can ask him what's wrong, I hear a sound that can only come from one thing.

A snake.

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01.03.2021

hello lovely *snake voice* readersssssssss 🐍

Poor Cedar can't catch a break 😭✋

First of all, I still can't believe 2 months of 2021 are already gone like wtf. Second of all, why is it so hot these days. Third of all, I'm even more excited to write this book now cuz we're finally starting a new arc from the next chapter. It feels like the story is just starting, the last 8 chapters were just world-building lol. But this arc is very important, and also very *cough* romantic *cough*

And also very *snake voice* ssssssaaad 🐍

anyways, i hope you all are doing well!! did you get the vaccine yet?? people under 18 here won't be given the vaccine, so i won't get it anytime soon :D but that's good cuz i hate vaccines; i always get a fever after taking one.

also, the word Niraz is the name of my best friend backwards!

also², idk how or why but i checked my weight today and i lost over 3kg in the last month. that's not healthy so i'll have to look after myself more. losing weight isn't good guys, so pls take care of yourselves! try to do some physical exercise everyday even if you're lazy ASF (which i know you are). don't skip your meals. and stay happy! :DDD

— love, Pomasssss 🐍💕