Breathe Me || Completed

21.0 - Fresno

The only David Novey in Fresno, California, according to the White Pages, is in his 40s, which sounds about right. He has a landline phone number and a home address registered. We write them both down.

This is in the heavily air-conditioned public library of Clovis, California, where Samantha sits on my lap while we scroll through results on a clunky desktop computer. There's hardly anyone here at three PM on a Tuesday. We were careful not to go in any earlier -- we've run into the whole "Why aren't you in school" thing too many times since the end of August to be fooled by it again. The librarian is ancient and hardly seems to have seen us. The only other people in the library are a frazzled-looking mother with two bouncing toddlers yelling to each other about all the books, and mousy teenage girl who glances nervously at us every few minutes. She buries her nose back in her novel whenever one of us looks back.

Samantha kisses my shoulder, her lips and my skin still warm from the incredible sun we've been walking in for the past seven hours. "We got him," she says. She smiles, but her voice is shaky.

I hug her warm, bony body and she hugs me back, letting me tuck my chin into her shoulder. I squeeze her silently for a minute before saying, "Are you sure you want to do this?"

She sighs into my hair, "Sal. This is the whole reason I left in the first place."

"I know, I know," I say. "But . . . it's been nice, y'know? Just you and me?"

It sounds selfish. It is selfish, I guess. But who can blame me for wanting her to myself? I close my eyes against her hot, sweaty skin, thinking, You're my everything. Don't go.

Samantha pulls away, holding the side of my face so she can stare me in the eyes. Hers are puffy with tired shadows, but deep and glistening with excitement. "Listen to me," she says very seriously. "No matter what happens, where we go, who we meet, you're always gonna be my girl. Okay? Don't worry about a thing."

And it's very nice to hear that, don't get me wrong, but I can't make myself trust her words completely. We kiss until we realize that the frazzled mother is glaring at us for subjecting her giggling children to our loose morals and heathenous ways, so we move to the back of the nonfiction section and make out there instead.

It has been eighty-six days since we left Stone Harbor. Eighty-six days of sponge baths in McDonald's bathrooms, lunches of a protein bar and a handful of mixed nuts, sun burns and heat strokes, shivering sicknesses and thorns pried out by rusty tweezers. Eighty-six days of walking hand in hand and eighty-six nights of sleeping side by side. And yet, I still can't get enough of this, her hands in my hair and her tongue rolling over my lips. I clasp my hands behind her neck and play with the ring on my finger while she lays me down on the carpeted floor, stradling over me with long, golden legs.

So we stay there for a little while, and even though Samantha says she's ready, I know she isn't. She's stalling for time, just another minute here, it's a three hour walk, let's enjoy the AC while we can. And I'm happy to stall with her. So we stay in the library until four thirty, cuddling on a beanbag in the back of the deserted children's section.

Finally, Samantha sighs and says, "If we're gonna get there before the sun sets, we should leave now."

She's right, of course. I let her take my hand and drag me to my feet, wincing at my swollen, blistered toes.

Samantha frowns. "Feet giving you trouble?" she asks.

"Nah, it's okay. Just the usual. Dry skin. Blisters."

She nods. She has them too, all in between her toes and on the bottoms of her feet and even the tops. She even has one on the inside of her thumb where she tends to hook her finger around the strap of her backpack while we walk.

We set off toward Fresno with lazy steps. The last leg of our journey. How is it possible? After nearly three months, it seems impossible that tomorrow morning, Samantha won't be shaking me awake at seven o'clock to start walking again. What will we be doing instead? I don't let myself entertain the possibilities. I don't have high hopes, honestly.

I wish I could tell Samantha that without upsetting her. I can see the anticipation twinkling in her eyes as we stroll down the streets of Clovis, the crowds thinning as we head toward the highway. What is she expecting to find?

Well, I know what she's expecting to find. The fact is, I just don't think it can happen.

We dip into the forest once the highway comes into view. Once we're obscured by the shadows of tall, grayish trees, Samantha hooks her arm around my waist and I put mine around her shoulder, interlocking us in a tight human zipper.

"Samantha?" I say, breaking our companionable silence.

She glances over at me. There's a slight smile on her face, a faraway look in her eyes -- daydreaming. She brings herself back to Earth and frowns at me. "You okay?" she says. "Want to take a break?"

"Only if you want to."

"Okay. Let's sit down."

"How long?"

Samantha glances down at her watch. It's grown so loose on her stick-thin wrist that the face flops down under her arm every time she lifts it to check the time. She lifts the face back up and says, "It's six twenty-seven. Why don't we stop until six fifty and have dinner?"

"Alright."

So we walk a little ways into the woods until we find a dry, sturdy log to sit against on the dead-leaf carpeted forest floor. Samantha reaches into her bag and pulls out a package of rice cakes.

"Mmm," she says, pulling one out of the package. She stuffs it into my mouth. "Delicious."

I gag for a second on the dusty, sticky texture of the old rice cake. She laughs at me while I nod, biting off the bit that's already between my teeth. "Mmm," I agree.

Samantha pulls out a rice cake for herself and offers me some water which I gratefully chug, realizing how dry my throat is. I hand it back to her and she does the same.

I watch her scarf down the rice cake like a squirrel devouring an acorn. "Samantha?" I say.

"Hmm?"

"When we . . . when we get there? And you knock on his door?"

"Yeah?"

"If he opens up, what are you going to say?"

The rest of the rice cake disappears down her throat and Samantha takes another long drink. She frowns at the forest floor, swallowing hard. She shrugs. "I dunno. I don't think I'll really have to say anything, you know? He'll see me and . . ."

That's not a sufficient answer, of course, but I nod like it is. I lean my head against her shoulder until six fifty, and then we go to Fresno.