FICTION
Lost Again
Who will rescue me from this body of death?
She felt it again. The panic, at first just tip-toeing through her stomach, almost unnoticeable, if you were trying to ignore it. And Lucy most definitely was. Why hadn’t she paused to think at that first fork? She always chose the wrong path at that fork in the path and had to turn around later. But this time she hadn’t really been paying attention, and now she couldn’t remember which trail she had taken. Did she need to turn around? She had already gone so far. And if Lucy really had chosen the right path originally, she would have to walk this same part of the trail all over again later. Ugh. She didn’t have time for this; she had to get to her shift by four.
Lucy knew she shouldn’t have even gone on this stupid walk. It was an idiotic decision in the first place. As per usual, the voice inside whispered. Shut up. She was just so angry and upset and done and … and … Lucy took a big, gasping, scratching breath. Now was not the time. She had gone on this hike for some exercise and space to breathe.
That was what she was going to do: breathe. So she forged on, no need to pause or think, this way was probably fine, it felt familiar at least. As she walked, Lucy let her mind wander. Look at that pretty jay. Wasn’t the sound of the wind in the trees nice? Who did Kira think she was, saying all that crap last night? Didn’t Kira know how hard Lucy was trying? No, none of that now, Lucy was trying to breathe. And she could not breathe with the weight of that conversation on her chest. So instead of reflecting, Lucy just walked faster and faster and let the landscape blur.
All the while, the panic grew from a tip-toe, to a tap dancing troupe, to a boot-stomping hoedown in her gut. She knew, she KNEW she was getting lost. Lucy had been lost enough in her life to recognize the moment where she truly had no sense of where she was — and that moment had already happened about 15 minutes earlier. It was fine. Maybe if she walked just a bit farther, it would all click into place and she would figure it out. Lucy glanced at her watch. She did not have the time to be lost again. Davis was definitely going to yell at her if she came in late, even this one time.
Lucy was pretty certain that she could hear the stream in the distance. Maybe if she just stepped off of the path a little bit, she could see it. Then she would at least be able to tell if she was heading in the right direction. Yeah, that would work. The water sounded close enough that she should just have to take a few steps away. But a few steps away, she still couldn’t see the creek, so she took another few steps, and a few more, then a few more. The stampeding panic was rising up into her throat; she walked faster. It had to be close; she could hear it, she was pretty sure, she just needed to … and there it was. A happy, bubbling mountain stream. The cool air poured back into Lucy’s lungs. Oh, thank goodness. She bent down, ran her fingers through the bone-chilling water, and groaned. With no small level of frustration, Lucy realized she had been walking upstream, the wrong direction. Yet again. She would just have to back walk faster then, she supposed. Lucy turned around and started to make her way back towards the path.
She blew out a frustrated breath as she walked. If Lucy got lectured by Davis because of this, she was going to call Kira and give that girl a piece of her mind. Kira’s tirade was what had driven Lucy out on this dumb hike in the first place. Well, okay, maybe it wasn’t a tirade. Kira had probably meant well. And she cared about Lucy; Lucy knew that. But that still didn’t give Kira the right to make judgments about what Lucy chose to do with her own life. Especially when no one else was even supposed to see it. No one else was getting hurt or was really even affected. Lucy had the right to do what she wanted, even if … the thought froze in her mind, iced out by a sudden realization. She definitely should have stumbled back onto the trail by now. Where was it?
Frantically, Lucy began to pace the area around her. It had to be here somewhere. She would find the trail any second now, right? Lucy had already been well and truly lost; now, she didn’t even have a trail to follow. For 20 minutes, she scoured the ground around her, looking for any sign of a path. Then, finally exhausted, she collapsed into the dry, rusty dirt and dropped her head in her hands.
Frustration and petrifying fear swirled around inside. How had she done this again? Lucy had the worst sense of direction of anyone she knew. She could get lost both with a map and a GPS. On foot and driving. She had gotten lost in her hometown more times than she could count. Each time, it left Lucy feeling like an idiot. Everyone else seemed to get where they needed to be okay. Sometimes, when people heard how lost she’d gotten, again, they’d give her a look that said, “How could such a stupid person survive so long?” Lucy hated that look, but she’d always make some self-deprecating joke about it, shaking off all the stress that came with the whole situation.
They were right, though; she really was stupid. Lucy had done it to herself, again. She should have stopped to think at the fork, should’ve turned back when she knew she was probably heading in the wrong direction. She most definitely should never have wandered off the path. Lucy knew what she was doing wrong every step of the way. She hissed out an exasperated sigh and slapped an ant away from her arm. This wasn’t the first time that she had made each and every one of these mistakes. She knew better, she really did. Then how did she keep ending up here? She was just so tired, so angry. The conversation with Kira had just pushed at every button that she had. She wasn’t able to think straight with all of Kira’s digging. None of it was even Kira’s business.
Kira really was always poking at places that she didn’t belong, places where she didn’t have any right to be, Lucy decided. Maybe Kira truly cared, but maybe she just liked to prod people until they bled. Lucy pushed herself to her feet, letting the new sparks of rage spur her forward at almost a jog. She knew the general direction that she was supposed to be headed. Eventually, she would get back to the road this way, but how long was that going to take? Hours? A whole day? She was screwed. There was no way she was going to make it back in time for work.
Still, Lucy pushed forward as fast as she could, replaying the previous night’s conversation in her head.
“Lucy, we need to talk,” Kira had said, with that overly concerned, self-righteous look on her face.
“About what?” Lucy had replied, heart pounding, feeling like a deer in front of a semi-truck, watching the headlights in frozen helplessness.
Kira scratched her head and shifted in her seat, a slight frown tugging at her lips. She cleared her throat. “I’ve just noticed that it seems like you’ve been feeling pretty down lately. You’re never coming around to hang out anymore and …”
“I’m fine,” Lucy interrupted, trying to cover her fear with annoyance. “I’ve just been swamped with homework, you know that. I don’t have a ton of time to waste messing around right now.”
Kira nodded, visibly swallowing hard. “Yeah, I know, I get it, and that’s fine. It’s just … Well, I feel like I have to talk about the elephant in the room. I think all of us have kind of noticed that you …”
“Kira, I said I’m fine. I don’t know what you think the problem is …” This was a lie. “… but you’re wrong. I’ve got a lot going on, and I don’t really need this right now.”
“Luce, come on. You can’t expect me to pretend that …”
“I don’t expect you to pretend anything. Everything is okay.”
“Lucy, I think it’s pretty clear that you —”
Lucy stood up. “Kira, I understand that you’re trying to be a good friend. But I. Am. Fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Lucy left, shutting the door just a little too hard behind her.
Lucy grimaced at the memory, wishing she could erase the whole conversation from existence. Didn’t Kira know that it was embarrassing to have your crap pointed out like that? Couldn’t she get that this sort of stuff was just meant to be kept inside? This thing was Lucy’s, meant for her to hold in the shadowy crags and crevices of her heart. It was hers to treasure, to cling to, to fan the flames of its grip on her soul. She needed something solid to hold onto, and she knew who it should be, but, well, she was only human, right? Couldn’t she have this one thing? A part of her loved it, even though she didn’t like to admit it. Somedays, the thought of how much she loved it filled her with a pulse of dread so strong she wanted to claw her way out of her own skin. Other days, she just didn’t care.
And that was the real reason she was so upset with Kira, Lucy knew that. Kira saying it out loud, seeing it, seeing her, made it real. And if someone saw, how was Lucy supposed to pretend that it was all fine? That it didn’t matter that Lucy didn’t care. None of it was Kira’s fault; she was worried and trying to be a good friend. Lucy rubbed at her face. All this was Lucy’s fault, and she couldn’t hide from that.
At that moment, Lucy lost her traction on the slippery rock and her foot slipped. She went tumbling into the creek, gashing her leg on the gravel in a dozen different places. Swearing, Lucy clutched her leg to her chest. She lay there for a minute, breathing hard, and trying not to tear up. That was the last thing she needed on top of all this, to cry in the middle of the woods like a lunatic. It was all so stupid. Get up, Lucy willed herself. Get up. Carefully, she hauled herself to her feet. Blood was streaming down her legs. Great. Lucy didn’t bother to wipe it off. Whatever. She’d clean up her whole mess when she got home. Again.
Why did she keep doing this? She’d walk the line, looking down at her past mistakes, thinking that she would never do those things again. She was beyond it, and hadn’t she been so silly before? Wasn’t she so much wiser now? She could fight the temptation this time; she had a grip on it now. All the while, she’d be following in her own footsteps down the same old failures.
Then, when she fell back into it, it wasn’t because she had lost control. No, actually, she wanted it. Lucy had control of it, she was sure. It just wouldn’t hurt to let it take over her day, just a bit, just a little this one time. Or two or three times. You know, she’d think to herself, it wasn’t really that bad. No, it was harmless. Just a little habit that helped her keep control of her life. No reason for concern.
Ignoring the stinging pain and stabbing cold that was now racking her with shivers, Lucy tried to pull herself back up on the little ledge next to the creek that she had been walking on before. Each time she tried to scale the little rock face, though, she found her wet hands slipping, and she went crashing back to the ground. It was useless. All of the strength had gone out of her arms, and she was shaking. Couldn’t one thing in this whole stupid day go right? Whatever. No use in trying anymore. She would just have to walk down in the creek bed. Fine.
Like a newborn deer, she stumbled along, moving at half the pace she had been going at before. She was dripping wet, bloody, utterly exhausted, and, once again, unable to avoid the truth. She couldn’t keep going in this way. This thing was ruling her life, stealing her focus, strength, and heart. Lucy had fallen into the same stuff, again, and it was, actually, a big deal.
Lucy wanted to scream. It took a good deal of self-control to avoid kicking a rock in pure, distilled rage. She had gotten herself lost again, despite knowing better, despite all the people around her, despite the resolutions she had made a million times before. What was wrong with her? Why could she not be free of this? There was not one else to blame, no quick and easy fix. She was so completely and utterly lost, and she didn’t know the way out. It was paralyzing. Lucy tried to push it away, to ignore it, but she couldn’t, not anymore. So she let the racing, swirling, punching thoughts take control, in a wind of rage, frustration, fear, and desperation. It consumed all that was left of her energy, and she stumbled forward mindlessly, hopelessly, half expecting to never find her way home.
Lucy couldn’t have told you how long she went along this way, stumbling, sliding, just trying to keep moving. She had no idea when exactly she finally managed to make it back up onto the ridge, or when, seemingly of their own accord, her feet wandered away from the creek, back into the woods. Her thoughts were too consuming to register any of that. She barely even registered it when her shoes started to crunch on the gravel. There was only an itch in her brain, something that said it was unusual. Then it hit her all at once.
Somehow, she was back on the trail, not more than 30 feet from the parking lot. There was no explanation; Lucy had no idea how she had gotten there. It hadn’t been her one skill, that much Lucy was sure of. She knew that, without a doubt, there was no part of her, subconscious or not, that had known where she was. Someone else had drawn Lucy there, despite herself.
The dam that had been holding back tears finally collapsed. Lucy’s legs turned to liquid, and she fell to her knees. After all this, all the mistakes, and the blame, how could there still be grace again? How could He still hold her in this, despite Lucy pretending that He had no say in the issue, that He couldn’t see it? She knew better, and she had done it all anyway. Lucy had nothing to offer, only a record of vows and failures, and a cry for help. Would that be enough? My grace is sufficient for you. He had said that. It seemed too good to be true.
But she couldn’t disagree with the facts. Here she was, kneeling on the path that she had lost, with no idea of how she had gotten there. That couldn’t be ignored. Neither could the promises, no matter how improbable they seemed. My grace is sufficient for you. Who was Lucy to argue with that? It was too good to grasp, too powerful to ignore. So Lucy stood up and brushed off the dirt. She headed back toward her car, her head a whirlpool of thoughts, her heart reaching for, brushing freedom with its fingertips. She collapsed back into the driver-side cracking leather seat of her little SUV. Lucy paused a moment, staring up at the deep blue sky, and shaking her head in awe. Despite it all, the sweet, mysterious, overwhelming taste of grace was on her tongue again.
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Hannah Doorenbos has the privilege of helping students discover the joys of a good story as a high school teacher in the great state of Iowa. She loves exploring, writing, reading, and getting to marvel at the glory of God.
Next (Candace Berhmann) >
< Previous (John Farquhar Young)
Photo by Denitsa Kireva on Pexels.com.
Heart of Flesh Literary Journal 