I know where Amber is taking me as soon as she instructs me to take the Highway 2 exit off of I-5 south in Everett. The highway runs through the smaller towns of Monroe, Sultan, and Gold Bar, past the famous Zeke’s Drive-in, where back when we were in high school, our families would sometimes stop for burgers and thick, homemade ice-cream shakes on the way to the Bryants’ cabin. Before her stay in the hospital, when she was still restricting what she ate, Amber refused to touch the meal her parents would order for her, but after her release, she would at least pick apart the burger she’d ordered, removing the bun, eating the lettuce and tomato, along with most of the cheese-covered, charbroiled meat itself. The first time she reached over, grabbed my chocolate and peanut butter shake from me, and took a long pull on the straw, I remember thinking that therapy was finally working for her. That she might actually end up staying well.
Looking at her gaunt body now, in the cab of my truck as we drive along the highway in the dark, I know whatever progress she had made with her health over the last nine years had been erased by what happened on the Fourth of July. I had made her sick again. There was no one else to blame.
“So . . . we’re going to the cabin,” I say, as I reduce my speed to thirty, per the sign on the side of the road, even though I’m tempted to slam my foot down on the gas pedal and maybe draw the attention of a cop and get pulled over. But I don’t, because I’m afraid of what Amber might do. Her small hands still cradle the gun, its muzzle aimed at me.
“You guessed it,” she says, still staring straight ahead, out the windshield. “Congratulations. Your prize is to keep driving and shut the fuck up.”
“Amber . . .” I say, desperately searching for the right words to get through to her. To make her stop whatever crazy plan she might have concocted.
“Do me a favor,” she says. “Stop saying my name. Every time you do, I want to vomit. I want to shove this gun down your throat and pull the trigger.” Her chest heaves. “Which might just give you some tiny idea of how it felt. What you did to me.”
“I thought you wanted it, too,” I said, quietly, and she laughed.
“I wanted it, huh?” she says, scornfully. “Did you think that when I told you to wait? To fucking stop? When I said I didn’t want to do it?”
I’m quiet for a moment, soaking in her questions, trying to remember everything she said to me that night and when she said it. But what I remember most is the way her lips brushed against my cheek when I came up next to her on the patio. The way we were dancing, the way she kissed me and then took my hand and led me into the house, up into a bedroom, saying she wanted to be alone with me. I remember her pushing me onto the bed. I remember feeling the heat between her legs, the sweet taste of her mouth. I remember the wanting, the way her body moved against mine, everything between us feeling so good and powerful and right. I remember thinking about my father’s words earlier that afternoon in my apartment, thinking that once Amber and I were together, he would finally know how wrong he was about me.
But that was before I woke up early the next morning, head pounding and alone in that same room, remembering how I’d pushed up Amber’s skirt and yanked down her panties—I remembered being inside her—then struggled to recall exactly what had happened next. My stomach roiled and panic fluttered in my chest, as I realized that how much I’d had to drink had caused me to pass out. I had no idea where Amber had gone or when she had left. My jeans were down around my ankles, my boxers were twisted at my knees. My mouth felt as though it had been lined in thick, wet fur.
“I was so drunk,” I say now, knowing it’s the worst kind of excuse, but it’s the only one I can offer.
“We both were,” she says. “But I still told you to stop. And you raped me anyway.”
I recoil at her use of the term, unable to comprehend that what had happened between us could be construed that way. For almost five months, I’d told myself that it happens all the time—these drunk hookups between men and women, both of them remembering different versions of the truth, the woman later regretting the decision and crying rape to make herself feel better. But I couldn’t imagine Amber being vindictive like that. Even if my memories of that night were foggy, I couldn’t imagine she’d make something like that up. I couldn’t believe she’d lie. Still, I can’t help trying to explain away what led us to that moment, to justify it, somehow, to prove that the sex had been something we both wanted. I keep going back to how we danced, how we kissed, and how, no matter what she says now, I never heard her use the word “no.”
We drive along in the pitch black for another half an hour, until we reach the logging road that will lead us where Amber wants to go. Much of the paved road between the town of Index and the Bryants’ property had been washed away by flooding on the Skykomish more than a decade ago, and since it wasn’t exactly a priority for the state to repair, the only way to access the cabin is to go up and over the mountain, adding an extra hour or more to the route. “You sure this is safe to do at night?” I ask, knowing the terrain is uneven and the road often cuts close to the edge of a steep, treacherous drop.
“I don’t care,” she says. “Put on your high beams and drive.”
I do as she asks, keeping my speed low, staying jutted against the left side of the road as best I can.
“Does Daniel know where you are?” I say as we bump along. I’m trying to get her to talk to me, to make her realize that what she’s doing is crazy.
“Daniel and I broke up in July.”
“Oh, wow. Sorry,” I say, shocked to hear this, but then realize that if they were still together, Daniel would have more than likely shown up at my front door to kick my ass.
“No, you’re not,” she snaps. “Just shut up. I don’t want you talking about him.”
I comply, and a silent hour later, we reach the main gate of the property. Amber jumps out of the truck to unlock the gate, and as she pushes it out of our way, I am briefly tempted to throw the truck into reverse and leave her there, alone, in the woods and the dark. But even now, I don’t want to put her in danger. Part of me feels responsible for her pain. At the very least, I am responsible for the annihilation of an important and meaningful friendship.
Amber climbs back into the cab, and I drive us over the narrow bridge that leads to the cabin. The ground is covered in a few inches of early November, slushy snow, but my truck’s four-wheel drive easily gets us through it, and a few minutes later, I pull up into the one parking spot at the top of a small incline, at the bottom of which is the cabin. I turn off the engine, and almost immediately, the chill from outside begins to seep through the windows and eats up the remaining heat in the cab.
“What now?” I ask Amber, who hasn’t said a word since she told me to shut up about Daniel.
She shifts her head and looks at me, her hazel eyes dark, the bruised spots beneath them making it appear as though she has been beaten. “You’re going to admit what really happened,” she says. Her voice sounds detached, far away from her body, and I worry that she might be having some kind of serious mental break. Even though I could overpower her if I wanted to, I can’t help imagining the kind of white-hot agony she must be in to have taken things this far. However much has broken between us, I still love her. I probably always will.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I say, feeling helpless.
She finally looks at me, the dim light from the moon catching the shine of tears in her eyes, turning them into impossibly deep, swirling pools of green and gold. “What you meant doesn’t matter,” she says. “You still need to pay for what you did.”
