Bend and Slip

Slip and his fine hair that shed anywhere, and his low boy voice. His voice was like the back of a spoon. The way Bend wanted his voice inside of her mouth.

They were in her bed. It was some hour past midnight. Bend was twisting around and flipping her pillow over and then over again. She brought one leg out from underneath the covers. She changed her mind. She took her arm out instead. She hoped she wasn’t keeping Slip up. She was. Slip was on his back with his eyes closed, but he was awake.

Finally, Bend just asked it.  

“Do you think you could sing me to sleep?”  

He answered right away. “I don't have a really good voice,” he said. His eyes were still closed. 

Bend wouldn’t force it. She scratched her shoulder, behind her ear, her forehead. She unstuck her hair from her neck, gathered it to the top of her head, and she tried again to be still. 

Then Slip took a deep breath in through his nose. And on that out breath, he produced a hum. The hum vibrated the plane beneath his jaw, and Bend lowered her forehead into that space, and then folded her wrists under her own chin.
The vibration from Slip’s throat tickled the bridge of her nose, and the tone of Slip’s voice resonated so whole and pure inside of her ears. This together gave Bend a blurry sense that she might be humming also. 

In her mind, Bend started stringing words along to the wandering notes:

A baby bird falling out of a nest: baby bird, baby baby, land-ing on-the li-ly pad, anger-ing the frog.. fly, fly, fly, up, up, up…
A floating paper boat attached to a large metal anchor: ne-ver sink-ing, stay-ing put, rock ing onthe rocky waves, little boat, little boat, can do a-ny-thing…

A lady bug crawling in tall grasses: which way which, which way to go, ho-ping tofind a friend...

She arranged words syllabically like this, until she was entirely inside the cave of Slip’s voice, dreaming.

*

The next day, the two of them drove to the desert. There was no plan or reason for it, other than Slip realizing that they could. Two weeks ago, Slip came into the fortune of a big car. 

It was his father’s friend’s son’s car. He was going away for a few years. To maybe hike or maybe teach or maybe neither. He was turning twenty nine and felt he had to do something new and far away and fast. And he was leaving behind his car, which was too big to keep around, but ran too well to give up on.

Slip had never owned a car. Slip was not yet twenty five. But he had a rubbery quality to him, optimistic and competent. When he was asked to hold onto the car and keep it in good shape, Slip said he’d certainly try his best. This satisfied the men (his father, his father’s friend, his father’s friend’s son) as an honest and trustworthy response. So there was a deal. 

It never really crossed Slip’s mind to want a car. The world already felt plenty open to Slip. He figured that he could go anywhere he wanted to, and so he often was. But now that he had one, Slip was uncovering new facts and possibilities. Mainly that when he went somewhere, he could stay or leave whenever. No matter when the buses stopped running, or where in the sky the sun was. With a car, Slip could be anywhere for as long or as short as he wanted to be. A car suited Slip. Was perfect for him, actually. He felt grateful and awake. Then, Slip met Bend.  

*

That morning with her, as Bend laid looking at Slip, and Slip sat up, looking out her window, it occurred to Slip that he could drive his new old car all the way to the desert.

 “I can drive us to the desert,” he said. 

Slip named possibilities this way, pointing them out as they appeared to him, like he would a cloud or a squirrel. Brightly, quickly, unattached. It was a tendency. Bend didn’t know him well enough to know this. Bend was the one who asked, “today?”  

Slip sped home and packed two pairs of underwear and four pairs of socks. He threw two blankets into his trunk. Bend paced her room and packed four pairs of underwear and three pairs of socks. Two different chapsticks.  

Then Slip was back outside with the car running, and Bend was bouncing down the stairs, shoes still untied. 

In a big fluorescent store, she rolled a shopping cart and he darted ahead of her down the aisles, returning with things that made half-sense: a flashlight, binoculars, toothpicks. Bend bought baby wipes and hand sanitizer. They decided on some things to eat. They could not decide on how much water to buy. They shrugged and bought two gallons and two small bottles. They decided they’d stay for as long as the water lasted. 

The sun was at its highest point in the sky as Slip drove them in his small boat of a car, into the desert. 

*

The cacti greeted them like soldiers. One by one, then many all together, standing tall under the brutal heat with their weapons. Surviving surviving surviving. 

Bend felt obligated to salute them and she did, discretely, with her right hand, so that Slip wouldn’t see and ask what she was doing. She didn’t want to make a show of it. 

Bend and Slip arrived once they decided they did. It was a spot off the main highway, some yards away from a fire pit they saw. They parked and sat in the open trunk of Slip’s car, looking out and eating apple sauce cups, using the foil covers as spoons. 

The sky was dusty pink. The mountains were big, angular slabs. They had a strong stare. They did not stop staring. Bend wondered if it’s ever the case that a mountain backs down. It’s obvious that a mountain changes: a mountain can crumble or split, and a mountain can also get taller or shorter, depending on what shifts beneath it. But does a mountain ever go all the way away. 

She could ask Slip. She’d find an answer in anything he said and she wouldn’t care if it was a right answer or a wrong one. If Slip talked about science, she’d try to follow along. If Slip talked about aliens, she’d like that. If Slip just said “I don’t know,” she’d come up with an answer to herself. Something having to do with loyalty, or obedience. She’d imagine to what, or to who. She’d remember about sixth grade: Greek gods, volcanos, hieroglyphics... And maybe in this new silence, as she focused, Slip would turn to her, and kiss her. 

Bend had all the words in her mouth to start the conversation. But the stakes felt high. When two people are saying nothing together, the stakes can get so high. She drew squiggles on the back of her hand with her index finger. She could hear flaps of birds’ wings. 

Bend let a new thought develop inside of her. The origin of the musical sound. Birds, did music start first with the birds. It would make sense if it did. They fly…

Slip broke the silence. Slip said “this is so nice.”

Slip was full of great, true things to say like that. Bend nodded. Bend did not ask any questions.

*

Once the sun set, it got very cold. They had the shivers under their hoodies. Bend had seen the two blankets in the trunk, and worried now that they weren’t going to be enough. Maybe they would lose a lot of heat through the windows of the car. They could get sick from being so cold.  

“Should we have brought more blankets, do you think?” asked Bend. 

“Probably,” said Slip. “One hundred blankets. Maybe two hundred even.” It was not a super funny joke. Still, it made Bend laugh. 

They put the seats down and lined the trunk of the car with one of their two blankets. That was when they realized they forgot pillows. Slip took off his hoodie and rolled it up into something that could be one. It was not big enough for both of their heads. 

“You use it, because I have too big a head,” Slip said. 

Bend took his head under her arm when he said this. She fit it above her hip like a soccer ball. There was a perfect size to his head. Bend said it. She said, “your head is a perfect size.” 

Slip was still for a moment. For that moment, Bend wondered if maybe this was a sensitive subject to him. Soon as she could think this, Slip was swooping fast under her hoodie and up her shirt and twisting his body around, trying to lick her underarm. Bend pushed him off. He fought it. They wrestled. Slip was more ticklish than he let on, he fell weak and limp at the spots Bend found. She took him down. The effort from their bodies heated the car. And their one remaining blanket was plenty, and they were warm. 

* 

Then Slip, deep into the night, singing. Singing Can’t Buy Me Love, howling the vowels with his eyes on the sky. Because Bend had the thought that Slip wouldn’t like her anymore if he saw or heard her pee. 

She was in a tricky circumstance: she was afraid to go into the dark brush alone. She also knew she would not be able to fall asleep, with her stomach all pushed out.

So Bend counted to three, then counted four, and then nudged Slip awake, and asked him to follow her outside. He did.

Slip was facing away from Bend, and waiting. Bend hadn’t even pulled her pants down. Slip was doing small jumps up and down to keep warm as he tried to encourage Bend behind him. He shouted “it’s just pee! it’s just pee!” His body bumped his syllables down and up. Still nothing.

The only solution was for Slip to stand several feet away and look up and only up at the sky, and spin around five times so he became disoriented to the direction Bend was in, and then sing, loudly, to cover any sound of Bend peeing. And he did it, of course he did it. 

*

The morning came easily in the desert. The sun zippering a heavy jacket off the sky. It was like that. The two of them took off most of their clothes and laid on top of them in the dirt to feel the new light on their skin. 

“Will you get bored today?” Slip asked. His eyes could barely open to look at her under the strong sun.

“No,” Bend answered. She had her arm draped over her face. 

“What if you do?” He asked. 

Slip knew about boredom. It was a sudden agitation that came down in front of a person like a cheap plastic screen. A bored person would tap and fidget, then look right past him and say “what should we do now?” when Slip had been fine doing what they were already doing. Sitting together, listening together, walking and looking around together. A bored person made Slip itch and tender and frustrated. He would not feel better until he got to go off by himself for a long walk.  

Bend was thinking in quiet. “If I get bored, I won’t mind it,” she decided. 

She lifted her arm from over her eyes and turned to him. He was smiling.  

Slip poured water over his head. Then Bend’s. Then he doused their shirts. He poured the water as if it could not run out. 

Bend and Slip sat with their wet shirts over their wet heads and drew in the wet dirt around them. Faces and symbols and three games of tic-tac-toe. They watched a little beetle as it crawled and they asked each other questions about colors and shapes. The difference between turquoise and aquamarine. The color of rust, when it was beautiful and when it was ugly. Bend preferred the sound of the word octagon, but the shape of a hexagon. Slip agreed. 

When they were hungry, they looked through what they packed. Cheerios and no bowls or spoons or milk. They ate them dry out the bag. 

“Catch,” said Bend. She took one Cheerio, and scooted some feet apart from Slip. Slip opened his mouth, and caught. Bend moved further away. She tossed, he caught, and this happened again, and again, until Bend was standing, giving each Cheerio a baseball pitcher throw as hard as she could, and Slip was zipping around with his mouth wide open and his eyes squinted. To no success. The little rings of dust flew way high, and the hungry sun swallowed them up.

Their hair and shirts dried, then became wet again with sweat, then dried again, and finally Bend and Slip got too hot and went back in the car for shade and coolness. The car was hotter than the outside. So they started driving, in search of some other place to be.

*

Bend had her hand out the window. The air seemed to love her hand. The car seemed to love her body. Her hair seemed to love her face. How did Slip seem. Slip in the driver’s seat. Next to the open window. Golden wind on golden eyebrows. Upright and bouncy. Slip seemed so familiar. 

The familiarity was some burst open thing that jumped onto her every sense. An old feeling of smelling Slip. An old smell of seeing Slip. Bright dust in a nose, a little ditch dug. Tiny pieces of texture and information, just pouncing on her, unleashed and all alone. Not attached to memory or imagination or dream. An old frayed knot, a shaded corner of sidewalk.  

She found Slip within this information the same way a person remembers what lime zest and gasoline smell like, without anything in front of their nose, or replays the loud sound of a pop or thud in their mind, without being able to replicate the loud volume. In this unmistakable and implacable way, Bend sensed Slip. Slip, in the dirt. Slip, a tug at the other end of a rope. Slip, around a little bend. 

This presence who was Slip being around someone who was her: it was fragmented yet very strong. It was the smallest diamond of itself. It could not be dissected or hammered out further. There it was, it just was, shining: a Slip in some run they had together. 

Bend looked down at her lap to notice that the seeing in her eyes now appeared as the opening of a deep well that she was at the very bottom of. Two far away holes of light. At this same time, she felt her consciousness wider than the perimeter of her body. It hovered and buzzed above her. So that if Bend were able to see through the eyes of her consciousness and not from the eyes of her body, she’d be able count the hairs on her own head.  

Bend was way far now. She could no longer locate her self. It was a feeling of a child in a dark house without the parents there. Of looking at a homesick stranger. Of everything that she knew of being okay and something that she did not know of being devastating. 

This all was launching a quiet panic in her. So it was some sort of instinct kicking in, Bend reaching her clammy hand out and placing it on Slip’s thigh and opening her palm up to him.  

Slip took her wrist. He brought it up to his face and put it up against his cheek. He panted out with a lazy tongue and looked over at her. A smile started in his hanging open mouth. 

“Your hand is so niceeee and coooool,” he said. 

And with that Bend existed entirely once again. She was there in the skin of her hand. She was brushing up against small patches of something soft, then sandpaper, then soft again. 

Slip brought her hand to his forehead, then to the back of his neck. Each time he sighed out a dramatic, grateful breath. 

Slip was happy to be with her. He expressed his happiness freely and all for free. No begging or slobbering or expecting. 

Bend liked him back. She liked him back easily. She knew she did too: she had let him come home with her the first time she met him. She hadn’t even thought twice about doing it.

And she noticed now, that in the car together, they were in love. As in, within love. 

This was not romantic like a rose. There was no blossoming, closing, wilting, and no defense system or decoration around the center of it. It was more so like lemon juice mixed with white sugar, and a rotating wheel, and  bubbly soap: super comprehensible. What had been so hard to understand about the moments before now, where else there was for her to possibly be and to have been other than right here, Bend could not even remember. 

And likely this was another useful instinct kicking in. Whatever a person understands, they do have to endure. 

*

Slip stopped at the first structure he saw along the road. There was a sign propped up in the front, “Geodes Shown Here.” There were chimes attached to the door and they rang as Slip opened it. 

Inside was empty of people. The walls were all wood paneling. The wood was thin and fake but it did not matter, the room was beautiful. A glow seeped in from the top and bottom because of the salt lamps that sat on the floor and on the shelves and on small stools, and the overhead lights that were covered by squares of green and light purple linen pinned to the ceiling.  

The geodes were in glass cases lining the perimeter. It was unclear if they were for sale or not. There were no labels or prices. And the low lighting refused to advertise them.

Bend and Slip went around pointing at their favorites through the glass. Bend was interested in the outsides of all of them, their plainness. Slip wanted to touch them. 

There was a back room off to the side, past the main counter and display shelf. They couldn’t see into it, but they heard a fan whirring. 

Then there was a sound of wood sliding across linoleum and a not yet old woman emerged from the room. She had broad shoulders. On them, her blouse hung like an armor chest plate. Other parts of her also seemed impenetrable. Her eyes were set deep into her face and her brow pushed forward, so that her natural expression was one of a squint in bright heat.

“We like your geodes,” Slip said. “Could we hold them?”  

The woman considered. “Which?”  

Slip pointed to a deep purple geode with a milky blue outline. From the way she handed it to him, he understood to be careful. He brought his face so close to it, as though it might have an important smell. Then he held it up for Bend, and so close to her nose that her eyes crossed and the geode turned fuzzy. Surprisingly, the geode did have a smell. Of cold, of clean dirt. A metal flower.   

Slip placed the geode softly on the counter and met the woman’s gaze. 

“Can I see that one also?” he asked, and again the woman removed the geode from the display case and handed it to him. Slip closed one eye and pressed the other practically into the rock. 

“Each one is a cave I am in...” His voice was soft, and from it the woman’s face softened too, and revealed more of her eyes. 

“Which is your favorite?” He asked. 

The woman blinked. Then she turned to the shelf behind her and back around holding a small, unassuming geode. Burnt orange lines circled into it like tree rings, surrounded by a deep black. Slip held it in his palms and shifted it around to see if it could catch the dim light, but the geode did not reflect, only absorbed. 

Very quietly, he said “Woaaaaahhhh” and the woman tilted her head a little to look at it the same way he was. 

“Like this color rust,” he whispered to Bend. A lucky penny rich apple cider rust. A geode with a little hearth inside of itself rust.

“Yes, that kind,” she answered. 

*

Slip was leaning over the wooden part of the counter very comfortably. His legs were crossed under him and he was propped up on his elbows. 

He had started asking the woman questions about finding and identifying and buying and selling geodes. The woman was answering with authority and warmth. Bend listened to them and occasionally spoke. She stood with great awareness of whenever Slip shifted his weight and pressed his hip against the side of her waist. Slip’s hips shifted often. A long time passed quickly.  

How time seemed to Slip: like water from a fountain. It drained out through a bottom and erupted again at a top. He could not hold it, or track it, or stop it. He could only be situated under it, getting washed in something that was all one and never ran out. Time was not in segments, but one great rush.

Bend experienced time also with no exact end or beginning. But it was not like a fountain, it was like a rope growing at both ends. It looped around her and lassoed her in. Certain points of time made up distinct knots on the rope: permanent, unrepeatable spots. But her proximity to these points was always changing. Sometimes, she could feel very far from anything she had experienced or known. Other times, a certain collection of moments gathered so close to her waist or her forehead, and it was all she could feel and think about. But always, she was aware of the growing wideness of time, going and going around her in its oblong, changing shape.  

So Bend saw time moving but couldn’t join it. And Slip was within time moving but couldn’t see it. So this was a difference between them. 

*

The woman had gone into the room again and come back with three cold soda bottles and an anonymous bag of pistachios and dried cherries. Slip took a handful from the bag and ate from it as they talked. Bend watched. 

Slip putting the whole pistachio into his mouth, shell and all. Sucking the salt off of it. Then cracking the shell with his back teeth, hard and confident as if he didn’t know his teeth could break. Then moving the two pieces between his front teeth, cleanly taking them out of his mouth, and discarding them into a tin can the woman put on the counter. The woman was doing exactly the same. They may as well have been dancing together, doing this. Dancing without dancing, to some silent rhythm. 

Slip said something that made the woman laugh with her stomach and she looked like a new person, laughing. She looked younger.  

Bend now had a thought: probably many people felt that they knew Slip before. And so possibly many people did. Possibly to Slip, the entire world was his old town. Everyone in it was someone he might know. Everything he wanted was something he could retrieve. If it was running, he’d be able chase it. If it was buried, he’d know where to dig. 

It would explain a lot. How he pulled out the smiling from underneath a person. How he fit into the sounds of a place. It was easy to Slip. Like he was always picking up where he left off.  

Bend all of a sudden could not stand so well. Sorrow went from her throat down to her legs and she had to lean her hips towards the counter to balance out her wilting knees. She was having a new idea:

There is no way to reunite without leaving. 
Slip was reuniting all the time. 
Slip was not going to stay. 

The idea was too big for her to summit and too big for her to ignore, so it just faced her, and she stood before it, with a certain knot at her stomach.

Slip already leaving her, somehow. Slip going, very soon. Slip out through a doggy door. Not shutting anything behind him, but going all the same. 

*

A voice went like a cracked egg onto Bend’s head. It was his voice and it was saying “Thank you so much!” It ran down cooly over her ears. Bend found the shallow breath happening in her chest and hoisted herself onto it. 

Slip was excited about some thing. His excitement tugged on Bend. Made her stand up straight again and look over at what he had seen.

The woman was giving them some remains of a broken geode in a small velvet bag. “For a souvenir.” 

The woman shook the bag and the little pieces tumbled out and scattered onto the counter in tiny pat sounds. Sparkly purples and grey browns. 

Bend took the smallest of the pieces in her hand. She wanted to swallow it. She imagined the geode going down her throat and into her stomach and pushing her belly button out from the inside, so that she became a flat board. 

Slip had a similar impulse. “What happens if you eat it?” he asked. The woman laughed again. Because his question was so sincere.

*

The time of saying goodbye happened the way it does. Plopping down, all clumsy and obvious and innocent. Both of them saying, “well… thank you for everything…” until there was nothing else left to say. The woman looked at Slip as she said, “Come again.” 

On their way out, she suggested an attraction some miles away for them to “go and kill time.” As Bend and Slip walked back to the car, Slip confessed that he had already forgotten the name of the place and the woman’s directions to it. 

“Me too,” said Bend. 

A sort of allergic reaction to the phrase “killing time,” they decided. 

“We can go searching for your cactus,” said Slip. 

The night before, Bend had shared a vague wish to find the tallest cactus in all of Arizona. Bend saw in his eyes that Slip was true in intending to do this now.  

*

It was good to drive in the car and play loud music. Music with strong drums, and other music with only guitar, and some songs that ended on a loop with a choir fading out, like how it used to be. The wind was making the warm air feel cool. And the cooled warm air lifted the hair from their heads and felt nice on their scalps. 

There were many tall cacti but they hadn’t seen the tallest. They’d know it when they saw it. They were going fast and singing and laughing. Bend would be singing to a song and Slip would turn down the music really fast to catch her voice alone. Only a few times he got her. She tried to do the same to him, but he was too quick. 

Occasionally Bend would point to a cactus in the distance ahead off the road. When this happened, Slip was alert and immediate with his instincts. He stepped off the gas right when he saw Bend’s hand go to point out the window. They would crane their necks to see the cactus going by, and neither of them would say it was the one, and Slip would accelerate. 

They drove and drove. Slip was really great at not stopping. Bend was really great at going along.

Bend made sandwiches on her lap with honey and almond butter and a swiss army knife. Slip aimed for potholes and made small swerves on the road as she did this. Laughing more and sticky honey going everywhere. On Bend’s left elbow and on her cheek. 

Slip said “here,” and took her arm, and licked the honey off her elbow. He forgot about the baby wipes Bend had bought and put in the glove compartment, or maybe he didn’t. 

The sandwiches turned out anyway. Bend said she should have thought to buy cinnamon for them and that made Slip laugh, and then Bend laughed too, and both of them laughed more. Something funny in wanting to make what was already good perfect. Something funny in not explaining what’s so funny about that. 

Slip’s teeth made round bites in the soft bread. One of his front teeth was a little shorter than the other. Bend thought about kissing the shorter tooth. Just that she would like to do that. 

* 

Then the sun was peaking low through the mountains and the music over the car speakers was playing softly, having been turned down bit by bit over time. 

Bend asked “Are you tired?” 

“A little,” Slip said.

Bend said, “We don’t have to drive anymore.” 

Slip wouldn’t have stopped driving if Bend hadn’t said anything. But he did feel relieved. 

They pulled off the main road onto a dirt path that led them to another clearing of dusty dirt, surrounded by brush and big formations of rock in the distance. 

They did high-kicks and made up stretches. Slip made circles with his hips. Bend made circles with her arms, so big that her torso and head went with. They cracked their backs.

Slip wanted to sit on the roof of the car and so they did. 

It felt good to be there in the still room of the desert, as good as it did the day before, and then even better, because it was all occurring again in front of them. The gentle air, the low light. 

Slip took a toothpick and put it in his mouth. Slip took his arm and put it around Bend. He went up and down her elbow with his hand, as if only her elbow was very cold. 

There was a heavy buzz below both of their waists, an anchoring warmth so red it was purple. Both of them felt it, as they heard the crickets growing louder and the birds growing quieter. 

And possibly the music of the world got generated from a hot core like the ones inside of them, rather than plucked from the high air of the sky, like Bend had first thought about. And it was really a bug like a cricket that made the first musical sound. Then the bird ate the cricket and swallowed the sound, and the sound leapt out from the bird, escaping as a chirp. But it was really the bug who did it first. The little bug who was born close to that low hum of earth, and listened, and listened, until the entirety of its small body could produce a response…

Bend pointed to a cactus near the horizon. It jutted above the others and into the sky but maybe it was on raised ground. It was too far away to tell. 

Slip said nothing but leapt off the car and dove through the open window into the front seat. He was rummaging around and straining his body in a cartoonish way where half his body was in, and half was out, and his feet dangled off the ground. Bend wondered why he didn’t just open the car door. Soon enough Slip was climbing back up, binoculars in hand.  

Through the useful binoculars, Bend saw the single cactus. There were little mounds of dirt scattered around it, but the cactus itself was on level ground with everything else. It was super tall. Bend handed the binoculars over to Slip. He still had his little stick of wood in his mouth and was shifting it in his teeth as he peered through. Then he let it fall out: 

“For sure that one! For sure that one.” 

Bend felt as though she should not believe it, but she did believe it. She believed it completely. Bend was very happy. Bend stayed happy for minutes, looking out at the tallest cactus in the entire state, her heart thumping and thumping. Slip stared out with her. His proud chest lifted towards the setting sun.

The geodes in Bend’s pocket were poking into her waist and finally she stopped ignoring the discomfort of this and wiggled them out. Slip took them from her hands and examined them again.

“Do you want to keep them?” Bend asked.

Slip said “Oh, no, you have them.” 

“Let’s split them,” she said.

But Slip would not keep a souvenir. Slip only kept objects that could function with him in present time. A car. A water bottle. A hat. If Slip took the geodes home with him, they wouldn’t be what they were now. He would put them on a surface and look at them so often they’d turn see-through, and then they’d really be gone and lost. 

A person had to be careful not to keep something just because they wanted it. A person had to own only what they could be sure they wouldn’t neglect or take for granted. Slip figured this was the root of a lot of problems that happened in the world: keeping something just because you want to have it, not because you can keep a good watch over it. A plot of land, a plant. A promise… A puppy…

He didn’t explain any of this because he didn’t like how it made him seem, so serious, like a philosopher or a parent. So Slip just pulled on a strand of Bend’s hair and repeated himself. “You have them!” He held it gently and firmly. He would not drop it. 

But now Bend didn’t want the geodes at all, not if Slip was so insistent about him leaving them behind. She did not say anything more. Bend was not stubborn like Slip. She nodded her head then leaned forward a little so Slip would know to let go of her hair. Then she leaned back, to lay across the top of the car. 

Slip followed her down. So Bend closed her eyes to seem like she was resting. Because she couldn’t speak right then, because all of her words went hiding, because there was too much that she didn’t understand. 

Why get so excited about a thing if he wouldn’t keep it. And if he wouldn’t keep it how would he remember anything about this. If he wasn’t going to remember, how would he care. Why take her to the desert. Did he even try to. Or did he just keep saying sure. 

Slip was watching her with big eyes. Bend felt him watching, curious and patient. He knew something had gone lop-sided between them. He would not look away. And Bend understood that Slip was so willing, and very kind, and that that was why for everything.

Slip had kindness like a red apple or a big stick. Something lucky and special that he both gave away often and never ran out of. But this whole time Bend had been taking his kindness so personally. When really Slip would hold the door open for a line of marching ants and it would be no big deal. Bend felt nauseous. 

Her feeling that when he had sleep in his eyes and drool on his face it was not gross, and that when she smelled his sweat she liked it a little, and that when she watched him drink water it was hypnotizing. It wasn’t a wrong feeling but she was so embarrassed of it. It was so stupid from its truth. It was just as true and just as stupid as pointing out that the blue sky is blue.

Bend opened her eyes but did not meet Slip’s gaze and instead turned away from him and toward the mountains. The mountains where the ocean used to be, until the ocean left. The staying mountains that apparently just stay up. Seashells in the rocks. Holding the memory. Tombstone mountains. Bend turned her head away from them. 

She flipped onto her stomach and let her forehead lean against the cool glass of the sunroof. She was tired from all of her swinging back and forth between so much thinking and so much blankness. She was tired of all of their beige foods. Bend wanted to go home and eat a peach over the sink. And shower, and rest, and be on her own for a little. Then come right back to Slip in this moment, when she could be collected and unembarrassed and sure of things. 

Through the sunroof, Bend could see into the car. She saw they had less than one gallon of water left. And with that, Bend rolled onto her back. 

The dark was starting to collect stars, flipping them on one by one. And Slip was still waiting for her to speak. 

“We have less than a gallon left,” Bend said finally. 

“That went fast!” Slip was not upset about it. He was not happy either. He was only so surprised. 

Slip flipped onto his stomach and rested his cheek on her forehead. 

The two agreed on tomorrow, after the morning.

*

It didn’t happen that they stayed up late, there was no talking or anything else this night. Slip was tired and Bend did not want to be awake. By the time the last sip of light poured out of the sky, they were laying down in the car again. 

Slip’s forehead was tense and pushing down his eyebrows. He was concerned, and trying to concentrate about it. At the same time, his eyes were so heavy, and he was slower and slower to lift them each time they closed. Bend finally leaned over him and kissed each eyelid very lightly. His forehead relaxed then, and his eyes remained shut, and Slip smiled, and then his smile slipped, and he was sleeping right away.  

Slip had his hand resting on the space above Bend’s stomach and below her heart. Her ribs. Bend laid her hand over his to keep it in that place. She created a scene of them sitting across from each other deep underwater, humming the same song, and she dreamt. 

*

In the morning they awoke in the car sweaty. Their sleep was heavy and deep. They were disoriented and thirsty and reluctant. 

Bend wanted to wash her face and her underarms. Slip poured their gallon slowly and carefully out of the driver’s side window, with as much height above Bend as he could leverage. Bend did not get naked. She let her shirt and underwear get wet and she brought the water onto and into her body with cupped hands. Then they switched. 

Slip took longer with his shower. Catching the falling water in his mouth. Swishing it around before swallowing it. Leaning away from the stream to shake off the water from his hair, only to step back under and get it all wet again. 

They changed their clothes shyly and strategically in front of each other. Bend tucked her arms into her wet t-shirt and wiggled on a dry one. Slip turned his back to Bend when he changed his pants. 

Between the two of them, they stretched the morning out into a little after noon. Slip flossed his teeth in the rear view mirror. Bend tied her shoes the long way. Two bunny loops… 

With the last of the water, they filled their bottles.  

* 

Bend and Slip stopped at a gas station off the main road before driving out of the desert completely.

Bend cleaned the windshield. Slip filled the tank. There were very few sounds. The crisp noise of their shoes on the concrete, the handling of the objects in their hands, and the occasional car whooshing by in the distance. 

“It’s so peaceful here.” Slip said. The nozzle clicked out of the car. He took it in his hands. Slip, looking at Bend, wagged the remaining drips of gasoline here and there on the concrete as he spoke.  

“We’ll have to come back,” he said.

Slip wasn’t lying, but what he said wasn’t true. Bend shut her mind to the great expanse of time around her, so she could nod and agree and also not be lying.

Then the tank was full and the windshield was clear of bugs. Both of their hands were grimy. They stood by their opposite car doors. Neither of them touched the handles to open them. 

It just broke out. Their bodies went before they could think. They went running down the road, and fast. They didn’t know who started it first. 

Bend and Slip ran side by side. Each foot landed onto the pavement like a hard kiss. Bend was so happy running next to Slip, which then made her so sad. The sadder she felt, the faster she ran. The faster she ran, the faster Slip ran, and the happier she became. 

Bend got a stitch beneath her ribs. Her heart and her lungs and her throat all jostled together. Still she ran. Slip glided. Slip leapt. 

Slip was running so fast. He seemed to have set a finish line. It was some blocks down the road, at the other end of a chain fence that outlined a vacant dirt lot. His eyes were set on it. 

Bend didn’t want to be racing but if they were, she was determined to not lose and not win. She wanted a tie. Very badly, she wanted a tie with him.

She leveraged the air in front of her, pulling her arms front to back, front to back, pelting her legs into forward space. She was so close to him that she heard the small voice of his up and down breathing. 

He was going and going. He was going to jump the fence. 

Bend couldn’t jump a fence. At least not quickly, like she imagined Slip could. 

Slip pulled ahead by several inches, then a foot, then three feet. Bend was behind him now. Now it was more of a chase than a run. Her eyes were fixed on Slip like a leash. His bouncing shoulders and long stride dragged her forward and she followed and followed and followed. Then her ankle hit the ground at a tilt. Bend skidded on the sliding gravel. And next was on her knees.

Her palms were scratched. Her shin was skinned. Her chest was heaving and in every part of her face, in her eyes and nose, there was dust. In her mouth, there was warm salt. Then wet stinging. Bend’s lip cracked and opened. It blared, announcing itself over and over. Bend’s lip. Over and over.

The wind came in like a hand under her chin. Wiping her face, drying her blood. It lifted the hem of her shirt. It revealed the underneath of her: she was no good at keeping his pace and no good at chasing and no good at being pulled: and, she was good at finding herself sitting on the ground. 

Bend put her legs up by her chest and held them close with a rounded spine.

There was a little pain, a sparkle of pain. She was not not crying. Flashes of sun went through her eyelashes and created a beautiful vision in her watering eyes. Bend saw nothing. The nothing was iridescent.

When she blinked, the iridescence gathered itself into a tear down her hot cheek. Her seeing was clear now, and of Slip, so close to the fence and not slowing down. 

Slip: he didn’t even jump it. There was a torn open part in the chain link. He went right through.