The Beginning of After

listening to what I’m saying. They treat me like I’m made of glass.”
    David’s face softened, and he shook his head. “We’re both screwed.”
    He was silent then, like the subject was closed. I wanted so badly to hear more, to talk more. For the first time in months, I felt like I had had a real conversation with someone. Like someone had cracked me open and everything that was plain and honest had spilled out onto the dry autumn earth.
    What else do you know, David? And how do you know it?
    I fought back the nervousness I still felt around him and was about to give voice to these things. But just then, Masher started barking again, and we looked up to see him about a hundred yards away, running circles in front of a rocky slope.
    “Good boy, Mash!” called David. “I would have walked right by it!”
    We walked toward the cave, which was much more overgrown now. No way would I have gone into it back then, if it looked like this. You could barely see the opening because there were so many weeds in front of it, and one tree had filled in so much that its branches hung down like bars.
    Masher was already digging his way inside. David called for him to wait up but he disappeared into the cave, so David went after him, swiping at anything that got in his way.
    I stood there, knowing I was supposed to follow, but not sure I wanted to. It pissed me off that David thought he knew so much about me. I would have turned around and headed home right then, but (a) I wasn’t sure how to get there and (b) I wanted to stay.
    “Laurel? You coming?” called David, and I headed toward his voice.
    It took me a few minutes and several scrapes from strange, itchy plants, but I made it to where David crouched in the darkness with his hand outstretched to grab mine. I took it, and it felt cool and hot at the same time. I could feel the creases of his palm, which made my heart race a bit, which then surprised me so much that I nearly fell over.
    “Here,” was all he said, and I took one last step into the cave. We both had to crouch while my eyes adjusted to the lack of light.
    “This is smaller than I remember,” I said.
    “Well, we’re bigger, Einstein.”
    “Oh, right. Duh.”
    “There’s a rock right in front of you that you can sit on.”
    I felt with my hands until I found the rock, and lowered myself onto it. I could now see David sitting across from me on a little shelf inside the cave, and Masher’s tail at the far wall, wagging. I couldn’t see his head but I could hear him clawing and sniffing at something.
    “Don’t you think this is peaceful?” asked David.
    “Sure, if your idea of a vacation is being locked in a closet somewhere.”
    “I was wondering if maybe this is what it’s like to be in a coma,” he said, and I could see him close his eyes. “Like, do you dream, or is everything just dark and empty inside your head?”
    I had no answer for him. He wasn’t asking me, anyway.
    We were quiet for what seemed like several minutes but was probably just a few seconds. Finally, Masher decided he was done digging and started making his way out of the cave.
    “After you,” said David, tilting his head toward the light. I got up and took a big step onto the wobbly rock, but he didn’t offer his hand.
    Once we were out, David suggested we walk a bit farther, and I just shrugged okay.
    “Do you really think we’re screwed?” I asked him after we’d gone a few dozen yards in silence.
    He laughed, a little humph . “I don’t know. I guess that depends on how much good luck comes our way in life.”
    “Don’t you think that we have something to do with it too? Like we can unscrew ourselves, if we do things a certain way?”
    He laughed a little. “Unscrew ourselves. You mean I actually have to do some of the work? It’s so much easier to be a victim!”
    David said that jokingly, but something about the way he said it struck me. I could almost hear it ping off my forehead. He was right. It was easier to be the victim, but it didn’t feel so great.
    And I wanted more than that. I’d wanted so much before the accident—all the things most people do when they’re sixteen, I guess. Why couldn’t I want them now? Why couldn’t I have them, still?
    “I have to come up with one more essay for my Yale application,” I said. “And I’m trying to decide whether or not I should write about the accident.”
    David raised his eyebrows. “It’s probably something they don’t see very