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In the wake of Ben’s trial, Nat feels nothing but guilt.
A horrible, twisting, gnawing guilt. A guilt that says you should’ve tried harder. You should’ve stopped this.
This is your fucking fault.
It isn’t fucking fair.
None of it is.
She kicks her boots against the ground, watching as the campfire flickers. It’s just so stupid. She feels stupid. She feels stupid that she feels this way, over her fucking football coach, no less. Feels like she’s being fucking pathetic, just like her daddy said she was. Her eyes are burning from smoke or tears, she isn’t sure which, maybe it’s both; either way, they’re burning, and her tongue tastes salty, and everything is fucking wrong and horrible and she wants to scream her lungs raw.
He’d been so close. So fucking, painfully close to convincing them, to winning them back, to convincing them that he was being truthful. She almost could breathe. And then, and then- fucking Shauna, who always has to have the last word, had to ruin it all. Had to condemn him. She knows Shauna is traumatised- god, they all are, she’s only acting out- but something about it feels wrong and has her all riled up.
It shouldn’t be Ben. He didn’t fucking do anything.
His only crime was humanity. Not descending into depravity, into madness, into whatever fucked up spiral they’ve tumbled down since Jackie. He’s not like them. Not insane. Not rabid. He’s softer than he looks, she thinks; the sort of guy who slipped her Advils at football practice when she wore her hangovers, the sort of guy who left a sick bowl in her motel room the morning after a post-game party. The kind of guy who cared.
Not the kind of guy who would try and burn it all down.
In the distance, shoes scuff against the dry ground. Someone’s awake.
Probably taking a piss, she dismisses, and doesn’t move.
But the person keeps approaching, their gentle footfalls inching closer. The wind suddenly feels cold against her bare arms, and her breaths stilt.
“Go back to bed,” she mumbles without looking back, hoping whoever it is will heed her words. The footsteps still. “It’s cold. You shouldn’t be out here.”
“Then why are you?”
Nat sighs. Resists the urge to drop her head to her hands and completely freeze, or jump up and run in the other direction. She should’ve known that if anyone was to come looking for her, if anyone was to notice her absence from the huts, it’d be Travis. Of course it’s fucking Travis. It always is. It always has been.
“You tell me,” she drawls. Nat blinks her eyes closed, and feels the air shift. She doesn’t have to look to know that he’s now sitting next to her; her side is warmer, shielded from the night breeze, and she can smell him: that familiar, aching, comforting scent of woodland, of his long faded washing powder that she swears somehow lingers after all these months.
“Nat,” he whispers, the note of his voice carrying on the wind. It’s only her name. But it feels like a look at me.
She can’t look at him. Not right now. She’s fucking furious. He’s just as bad as the rest of them. He condemned Coach, he sentenced him, he fucking betrayed him. Hell, he betrayed her.
“Do you really believe,” she starts, voice wavering, “that he’d do something like that?”
Travis is silent for a moment. She lets the words hang.
“I don’t know what I believe,” he answers coolly.
Nat scoffs. “Wow,” she bites. “So you’re just going to let him fucking die? Because you don’t know?”
“I didn’t say-”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Travis.” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “So you what? You gave in to fucking Shauna? Since when was she in charge? He- he’s going to die,” she breaks off, her throat aching with restrained tears, “he’s going to rot. They’re going to let him fucking suffer, Travis. And I- you-”
“I’m sorry!” He rushes out, voice strained. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not gonna cut it,” she hisses. “I thought you had my back, Travis. I thought you’d fucking help me out.”
“Nat. I was scared.”
“Scared of fucking what?” She finally snaps her head to look at him. “Fucking Shauna?”
“No!” He exclaims. His eyes are darkened, teeming with guilt. “Scared for you, Natalie. Scared that- I don’t fucking know. I don’t think it was him. But what if-” She rolls her eyes, and he pauses. “But what if it was? What if it was really him, and he tried to do something again? We- you worked so fucking hard to build this, Nat. I mean, look!” He gestures his arms around at the quiet camp, the huts glowing in the firelight. “I couldn’t take the risk.”
“The risk of losing a house made out of fucking mud and twigs?” Her lips are flying faster than her brain can work. Her mouth feels raw, the words unrestrained, like her control is slipping. “We can rebuild a house, Travis! We can’t- we can’t- we can’t bring Ben back when he’s fucking dead!”
The last word pulls like a grenade pin, and before she can take a breath a hot wave of tears explode from her eyes, cascading in rivers down her cheeks. It’s ugly and she shouldn’t be crying like this, not over Ben, not over fucking anyone, not in front of Travis. With a huff she pushes off of the bench, because she has to get away, back to her hut, back to bed, out of sight, out of earshot, away-
She’s halfway across the campground when he catches up, his hand hooking around the crook of her elbow. It’s so sudden that she jolts, almost stumbling to the ground, the touch fire against her cold skin. She feels like she’s crumbling.
“Natalie-”
“I’m going to bed,” she dismisses, voice wobbling. She wriggles out of his grip and continues towards making a b-line for her hut. She doesn’t dare to turn around, to look back, to let him see her so weak. She’s cried before, out in the wilderness, they all have, how couldn’t she- but never like this. Never, ever, like this.
She’s at the doorway when he speaks again. “This isn’t about Coach Ben. Is it?” His voice cuts through the breeze like a knife, straight to the crux of her heart.
“I- Travis…” Fists balled tightly at her side, she turns back to face him. “What else- what else would this be about? I mean…”
“Natalie.” He tentatively steps towards her. Her orbit fills with him. She feels caged, all of a sudden, even without his hand around her wrist. Like he sees something she doesn’t. Sees something deeper.
“What?”
“I know how it feels.” He moves closer. “I- I feel guilty, too. Like it’s somehow my fault.”
“Travis-”
“No, Nat.” His voice is firm, but somehow gentle. She doesn’t know how he manages to do that. “You listen. I am fucking sorry for what I did today. I’m sorry I voted against you. I really, really am.”
“No, you’re not,” she mumbles, voice dripping.
“Yes, I fucking am. I am sorry. I wasn’t thinking then, but I see now.” He swallows. “I see you, Nat. And what I see, is someone blaming themselves for what happened today. I see you blaming yourself for what happened to your father.”
“Oh come on, Travis, what the fuck do you know about my fucking dad?”
“I know that you feel at fault,” he rushes out. “I know that you carry a lot of guilt around. I know that you’re hurting now because you feel like you’re living through it again. Like what’s happening to Ben is your fault. But it isn’t, Natalie. It’s not. And I know you- I know how you feel about your father. I feel guilty, too.”
Nat thinks of Coach Martinez dead in the tree. “Travis, there’s nothing you could’ve done-”
“I know. I fucking know, Nat. I couldn’t have stopped him from dying,” he chokes out, and even his voice is wobbling now. “But I still blame myself. I still feel guilty. And I still miss him, even if he was a shitty fucking father. Even if he didn’t like me. He didn’t even like Javi.” His lip trembles. “But Natalie. There’s nothing you could’ve done for your dad, either. And what’s happening to Ben now is not on you. None of this is.”
“But-”
“No, Nat. There is nothing,” he steps forward, rests a hand on her shoulder, and flicks his dark gaze down to meet her pooling eyes. “There is nothing you could’ve done.”
Somehow, those words on his tongue feel half-way to absolution. Nobody has ever told her that before. It’s all it takes to fully break her.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” she says with a strained sob, and pulls her hand over her mouth. “I- I just- I can’t- I can’t fucking lose him too, Travis! I can’t. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t-”
His hand claps around her back and he’s suddenly reeling her in, and there’s nothing she can do, there’s nothing she wants to do, apart from give in. Give in to the comfort, that she deprives herself of, that she so desperately needs, craves, but would never have the gut to ask for. Lets herself fall into him and meld against his chest, his neck, his skin; lets herself be held, properly, truly.
He holds her like she’s made of glass. She feels like she might shatter.
“S’not your fault,” he mumbles into her hair. “None of it.”
She only sobs harder.
She cries until she’s breathless and her eyes dry up from fatigue. Only then does he release her, untangling his limbs, pulling back by only inches to set her free.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” His voice is so tender, so earnest, that she thinks she’s going to die, and it’s impossible to deny. She doesn’t want to talk about it. She hates talking about her father. But Travis is here, and he cares, in a way that no one else ever does, ever has, and she doesn’t want to turn him away. She doesn’t want to be alone.
“Yeah,” she says shakily through hiccups. “Yeah.”
“Can I come in?” He gestures to the entrance of her hut.
Nat nods. She doesn’t let people inside often; only for important survival discussions. Not for recreation. Especially not for comfort. But this is different. He’s offering himself up.
She shuffles inside, shaking, and takes a seat on the edge of her makeshift bed. It’s just a mattress that they managed to salvage from the cabin fire, and it still stinks of ash and smoke. Travis folds his legs underneath him on the dirt opposite her, a mere foot away, his presence steady. As an afterthought he tugs the curtain back across the entrance, enclosing them in a little bubble away from the rest of the camp.
For a while, she doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t know what to say. How could she even begin?
She doesn’t want to, but she pictures her father. Pictures what the ground looked like from atop his shoulders, pictures the press of his lips against her forehead. Pictures being young.
“I think my dad loved me once,” she whispers. It’s barely louder than the rise and fall of her breath, ghosting into the air. Like it’s transient, slipping away. It carries on the wind, the admission new, and she swallows. Travis just listens, his deep gaze fixed upon her. “When I was little. Like, really little.” Her voice catches. “I think he did.”
Then she pictures getting older. Pictures pieces of broken beer bottles scattered across the kitchen floor. Pictures showering in the school gym because the bills at home weren’t paid. Pictures foundation caked onto her mother’s face. Pictures the way the black and blue would still seep through like mold.
“But then…then he lost his job. And he just…did what he knew, I guess.” She shrugs. “Turned to the drink and the drugs.” Like me, she doesn’t say. “I didn’t feel like I knew him anymore.”
Travis nods encouragingly. Nat continues. “I…I hated him, Travis. I really, really, fucking did.” She breaks away from his eyes and starts to pick at her nails instead. They’re already pulled raw and red from her attacks. “I used to go to bed at night, and I…I used to fucking hope, I’d fucking wish, that something would- I don’t know- happen to him, I guess. Sometimes…” Tears squeeze from her waterline. She digs into her skin until blood bubbles up like a spring. “Sometimes I wished that he’d die. And then he did.”
She holds her breath, expecting him to shout or reprimand her or spit at her. Expects him to be repulsed, to tell her that she’s horrible, psychotic. She waits and waits and waits. But nothing ever comes. When she dares to look back up, he’s still staring at her, motionless. Just watching.
“Goddamnit Travis, say something.”
He reaches his hand out. Curls his fingers around her palm. Rubs his thumb in tiny, soft, circles, back and forth over the narrow crooks of her knuckles. His eyes are almost golden, the campfire light seeping through the cracks in the hut, filled with such compassion, such care, such understanding, as if she’s something precious.
“My dad always loved me,” he whispers. “But he never liked me. I don’t- I don’t think he was proud of me.”
“Travis-” She blurts, because how could Coach Martinez not be proud of him? He’s so brave, so strong, so selfless.
“No, Nat, he wasn’t.” He squeezes her hand tighter, and wipes away the blood crusting around her savaged nails. “He wanted me to be more like him. He wanted me to join the boys team. But I wasn’t,” His voice chokes. “Like him. And I didn’t want to be. I don’t want to be.”
“You’re nothing like your father.” She moves closer to him, sliding off of the mattress to the hard ground. “You’re good, Travis. You care . You try to do what is right. You don’t-” She blinks, recalling how Coach Martinez used to yell at them for the simplest footwork mistakes during practice. “You’re kind. You’re kind to me, even though I don’t fucking deserve it.”
His jaw tenses. “How can you say,” he pauses, inching ever closer, until he’s inches away from her, “that you don’t deserve it?” He takes her hand fully into his lap, cupping it between his. “You’re nothing like your father either. You are good. You’re the best of us, Nat. You’re the most compassionate person out here. I think you’ve shown that today, tonight. You care about Coach, more than anyone else.”
Nat rocks forward and drops her head onto his shoulder. Then, muffled into the fabric of his tee, “I don’t…this is going to sound stupid. But I- I- I think Coach Ben cares about me, too. And not just because of soccer. He gets me. Did you…did you know that he gave me the key to the locker room so I could sneak in the mornings and use the showers?”
Travis says nothing. Of course he didn’t know that.
“Yeah,” she says dryly. “My parents couldn’t pay the fucking water bill. So I started breaking into school to use the showers. And one day he caught me leaving.” She moves further into his neck, feeling the hot flush of his skin. “I thought he was gonna call the Principal, or- or tell your dad-” She says, and his breath stills, “But he didn’t. He just- he just let me go. And then the next morning, after practice, he slipped me a spare key that he had cut. We never talked about it. But I think he understood.”
“I didn’t know that,” he mumbles into her hair.
“And today, when he said about how he was ashamed of himself- that he was just like his father- I just fucking couldn’t, Travis. He’s the same as me. And you. I- you can’t tell anyone this.” She pulls away to stare into his eyes. They’re searching hers carefully. “But when I saw him the night before the cabin burnt down. He- he said that he knew a place where we’d be safe. Where we could survive, together. He trusted me, Travis. He fucking trusted me. And I almost said yes. Almost. But it was- it was right after Javi. And I couldn’t just fucking leave. I couldn’t leave you alone.”
He pulls his arm around her back. Then, smaller than a whisper, “Thank you.” And she knows he means it. In the months after Javi, they probably would’ve died without each other. It isn’t healthy to depend on each other so deeply, she knows that- but it’s safe. It’s comfort. It’s home.
“And now I’m going to lose him. And he did so much for me. So much fucking shit that my dad should’ve done, but never fucking did,” she sniffles, and draws back from him. His hand comes to her cheek, caressing the skin carefully, and she leans into the touch. A tear rolls down her face, and he swipes it away with his thumb. She shivers, feeling yet another layer of her resolve peel back; he’s breaking her walls down, brick by brick. Then, quiet, strained, like it hurts: “I don’t want to have no one left.”
He blots another tear from her cheek. Ghosts the pad of his thumb across her jaw, her lips, her nose. By now she’s trembling, on the verge of shattering.
“You’re never going to have no one,” he soothes, his voice steady and sure. “I’m not going anywhere. I promise you.”
Her heart flutters a little. It’s a nice promise. A nice idea. But she knows the world too well to take his word as gospel, as much as she may- and she does, she realises- love him. People always leave. People always have . It’s only human nature. But she’s used to it, by now. Used to glass doors sliding across, used to being left in the dust watching her loved ones walk away.
But he’s trying. Travis, poor, sweet, Travis, who has been through just as fucking much as she has, trying so hard to make her feel better when he probably feels like he has no one himself. She wants to tell him the same; that she’s never going to leave him, never going to walk away. But the promise feels forbidden on her tongue, like a curse- if she speaks into existence, then she’s tempting fate, a fate that she doesn’t even fucking believe in.
She wants to tell him, desperately. But she can’t. So she leans forward and up, presses a light kiss to his temple, and hopes he gets her message. Hopes that it’s enough.
He pulls his arms around her again and lingers, just holding her steady. Nat reciprocates, looping her hands around his neck, pressing a thumb over his pulse point, feeling his life. It’s grounding, stabilising, and slowly, ever so slowly, she feels herself come back down to the earth, the panic and pain lifting a little from her solar plexus.
She can feel the rise and fall of his chest, feel the beating of his heart. However long they stay that way, she isn’t sure, but when he finally extracts himself to leave, she isn’t ready.
“Travis-” She blurts as he’s pulling back the curtain of her hut to step out. “I- would you- could you-” She’s stumbling, her tongue catching over her teeth as his dark eyes befall her, “I don’t want you to go.”
She doesn’t have to ask him. He knows, and doesn’t even say a word. He doesn’t even nod. Just flashes his eyes with an of course, always, and starts to shuck his boots off.
A flood of relief cascades through her chest. She doesn’t have to be alone. Not for tonight.
She pulls her own shoes off, sets them aside, and settles down on the mattress. Then shuffles to the furthest side possible, which is next to impossible because it’s only a twin, but she just about manages to create a space- a perfect, Travis sized space. Wordlessly he squeezes in beside her, nestling right up against her back, the warmth of his body permeating through her shirt. The curve of his chest is familiar, like cigarettes, like whiskey. Like something she knows that’s probably bad for her, but doesn’t care.
They’re probably bad for each other. But fuck it. She loves him too much to give up the rush, the comfort, the safety.
He drapes an arm across the dip of her lithe waist, his hand flopping onto the edge of the mattress beside her. Eyes squeezed shut, the world black, she easily finds his fingers and interweaves them with hers. He hums quietly in contentment, and a pleased smile tugs at her still-trembling lips.
The last thing Nat registers is his breath against the crown of her head, and the weight of his heavier hand on top of hers. She falls asleep quickly, exhausted from the emotional turmoil, and sleeps dreamlessly for the first time in months. She doesn’t see Javi, or Jackie, or her father with a hole blown through his head.
Just peaceful, plain, nothingness.