#i'm sorry i couldn't match length i'm very tired and running out of steam 😭

[tefibetancourt]

you aren’t from illinois,

and tefi thanked god every day for that fact! there was a lot to hate about her home state of pennsylvania, but at least it wasn’t illinois. chicago was a cool city, but other than that, what did the midwestern state have? acres upon acres of corn? all these stupid fucking trees? her revenge plot against foster was the only reason she had to be in blue harbor, but once that was completed, she had no idea where she was to go from there. she wasn’t welcome in her parents’ home, and not one of her three siblings would be willing to let her stay. maaaybe diego, if she begged, but he’d probably only last a week before he kicked her out. her house of cards was delicately built, and when it would finally crumble, she’d have no foundation to rebuild it. completing her revenge would satisfy her, but it seemed like it was going to kill her, too. metaphorically, of course.

tefi took a steading breath. “philadelphia.” no use mentioning the state it was inside of, since like chicago, nothing outside of philly mattered. at least pennsylvania had pittsburgh, though; she couldn’t name another city in illinois before moving to blue harbor. still, it was vast sea of nothingness between pittsburgh and philly—there was a reason why they called it pennsyltucky. her hometown was basically a city-state to her, much like vatican city.

tefi took a sidelong glance at her savior. “where’re you from?” she returned the question, almost sure that they weren’t a blue harbor local.  something about them read as… east coast. their previously curt tone, maybe. they were all gentleness now, as if tefi was some cornered animal. maybe that wasn’t too far off from the truth, with dirt and debris twisted in her perfect hair.

terry. her savior had a name. another sidelong glance, appraising but quick. “really? you look more like an amanda.” she thought randomly. “i’m estefania, but everyone calls me tefi.” and it’s spanish, she almost said. people usually asked her about the origin of her name, but not always. “why do you live all the way out in the woods, terry?” she inquired, slowly breathing in and out. after three days among the trees and fresh air, she failed to see the appeal of living out in the boonies.

Shivering, eyes wide with fear and hunger, the stranger must have faced quite an ordeal in this unfamiliar forest. Forest Lake’s woodlands were comparatively smaller to those they encountered over the decades, but the trees always had a way of imposing themselves. The trees stood tall and unyielding, and—Terry conceded—yes, might have carried the weight of the world’s indifference. However seasoned of a hiker Terry had been, however much they loved to fold into the earth, they recognized the treacherousness of the paths as the trails narrowed, or as the markers on the trees had been swept away by wind or erased by the slow weathering of time.

The forest here was dense, thick with brambles and undergrowth. The great white oaks—the state tree of Illinois—had stood with little regard for the people who led smaller, shorter lives. The trunk of the tree in which Terry had asked the stranger to rest was rather rough and knotted, with the bark peeled away in places. The light had begun to arrive now, though, filtering through the leaves like fractured shafts. 

They always found it a bit beautiful. But to those who did not speak its language, Terry could very easily see how it could turn cruel. They couldn’t help but recall their own childhood, in their father’s business partner’s farm, having hidden away in the tall grass—a hide and seek with their best friend drawn out too long—and in the bales of hay where the Callahans kept their livestock, the cows mooing through the night. They had loved the sense of disappearing into the landscape, becoming part of it, invisible but tethered. Of taking stock of the subtle rhythm of the earth beneath them, this hum of the natural world that was never quite far. 

Clearly, that had not been the case for the woman next to them. Her body trembled, the sobs quieted but still lingering. The grounding exercise had produced only mixed results, the more practical part of it—identifying sights, sounds, and textures—failing to root her in the way it had always worked for Terry. Still, the shake of her head and her renewed motivation to get out of the forest was palpable. Shaken out of her reverie, Terry nodded. “Okay. Good.” They resumed the familiar walk toward their log cabin, matching the other’s pace. 

It was her sudden outburst—I fucking hate Illinois!—that pulled Terry from their internal reverie, their focus narrowing back to her. “You aren’t from Illinois,” they said, less a question than a statement of facts. Though, they recognized, a person could hate the state in which they were born. That just had never been the case for them. It would explain several things about the stranger, though—her disorientation, her unfamiliarity with the woods. Terry had been a New Yorker, to be sure, but they were acquainted with the woodlands by virtue of their father, their brothers, their birding community, their Sev… It wasn’t for everyone, this quiet but intense life. 

“Where are you from?” Terry asked, they asked, their voice gentler now. It was a way to make conversation just as much as it was an attempt to distract the stranger from whatever thoughts she might have had in her head. And, after a beat, as if suddenly remembering their courtesy, they added, “My name is Terry, by the way.”