The Never List

going to hurt you. I’m not sure what you’re thinking, but whatever it is, you are wrong.”
    I was crying as hard as I ever had before. Snot was running out of my nose and down my face. I sobbed so hard I couldn’t catch my breath.
    Tracy still didn’t step toward me; she just said reassuringly, “I am not going to hurt you. I would never do that, Sarah. Just calm down.”
    I could see the fear on Tracy’s face. I wasn’t sure why she was the one who was afraid now. She had probably never seen me this way, not since the cellar anyway. Maybe it was bringing it all back to her.
    She didn’t take her eyes off mine. Then she closed hers to prepare for what she was going to say. She inhaled deeply.
    “Listen, I know years ago I said a lot of crazy things. Let’s face it, we were all crazy back then.” She paused. She seemed to want to say this exactly right. “And I know that, even now, my feelings about you are not one hundred percent rational. That might not ever change, but I want you to know I am not the same person Iwas down there. I do understand, on some level at least, why you did what you did. For the most part. I’m not saying we can be best friends or anything, but …”
    I didn’t know what to say. She paused again, shading her eyes from the sun to see me better, waiting for a response I could not give.
    I was starting to breathe normally, and I wiped my nose on my sleeve. I dropped to the ground on the side of the road, rubbing my eyes, thinking about what she said. Tracy hung back, still watching me, keeping her distance.
    I wanted to say something to her, but I couldn’t find the words. I wanted to say I was sorry, that I was a different person now, too. But I wasn’t sure if that was really the case. Instead, I just nodded slowly. All I could really feel sure of was that she wasn’t going to kill me. That I had gotten carried away with my own fears and was once again misreading the signs around me. Would I ever be normal?
    Without another word, we started walking down the road back to the car, which was still running. Once inside it, Tracy put the car in gear and stepped on the gas. She looked sadder than I’d ever seen her, lost in her own thoughts. I just looked straight ahead, still sniffling.
    Tracy drove carefully as she turned down another dirt road, no more than a path really, barely wide enough for a car. Tree limbs brushed the top and sides of the car as we passed through. Finally, the road ended in a patch of grass, and she pulled off to the side.
    “We walk from here.” She turned off the engine and got out. I followed, holding on to my purse, the strap still wrapped tightly around my wrist. I stumbled as I stepped out onto the grass, then walked forward about fifty yards.
    I could see water sparkling in the distance, and I realized we were at an abandoned campsite of some sort. The grass had grown up around the old fire pit, and the open areas were strewn withgarbage. I checked my cell, noticing that it was getting late. The sun would be going down soon.
    I looked around. It was beautiful, if you could look past the scattered debris. The trees were luscious and green as they are only in the Deep South or the tropics. The air was not as oppressive as it had been in the city. The breezes over the lake had broken the humidity.
    We were quiet for a few moments, looking across the lake at the setting sun, and finally I had to ask.
    “Tracy?”
    “Yeah?”
    “What are we doing here?”
    There was a long pause before she answered.
    “This is where my life changed.”
    I waited patiently for her to continue. I knew Tracy had to tell stories in her own good time. Finally, she motioned for me to follow her, and we walked down to the edge of the water. The sky was streaked with orange and pink, colors that were reflected from the lake, hitting the water and glistening up at us.
    “Right out there.” She pointed.
    Again, I waited.
    “That’s where he did it. Where the Disaster happened. Where Ben died.”
    Of course. I put my hand to my mouth. I wanted to comfort her, but that was not a skill I had developed in all my solitude. I realized I had let my own incapacity to recover from my past shrink my world so that it was big enough for only me. It was hitting me now, really for the first time, how being fucked up can turn into a form of narcissism. So that I barely even acknowledged that others might need something from me.
    With what I knew was a wholly insufficient gesture,