Worse Things

by Mary Li

Neither of us was expecting the wind to be so piercingly cold on the ferry over. We’re wearing t-shirts and light windbreakers. We huddle together, making a tent with our bodies as Cameron fails to light a cigarette.

“Shit,” he mumbles between flicks of his lighter. A small flame ignites, then gets whipped into oblivion by the furious wind god of Lake Superior.

“You could just quit?” I suggest, knowing it’s a near impossibility. I smile as he raises an eyebrow and scowls at the idea. His amber eyes are framed by a pair of black thick-rimmed glasses, cracked in the middle and stuck together with duct tape. I accidentally broke them with an overenthusiastic tackle on the couch once, and he refused my offers to buy him new ones.

“I don’t quit things, especially things that are addictive and horrible for my health.”

“That’s a great philosophy to live your life by, Cam. Healthy. Your therapist approves, right?”

“There’s worse things to be addicted to.”

“You’re right.”

“You, for example,” he says with a smirk.

I giggle. “I’m addictive and horrible for your health?”

“For my mental health, yeah,” he says. He pulls his jacket around him tighter, hugging himself. “Is there a Hindu god of wind?”

“Vayu,” I say.

“Well, fuck Vayu,” Cam says with a grin. He pulls me in at the waist, wrapping me up in his soapy vanilla deodorant smell.

We forget for a moment about the cold.

#

The cabins are located in the “town” of Wendigo on Isle Royale. Town is a generous word, as there’s no permanent population besides the few rangers driving around in their golf carts to oversee the campground and cabins.

“Talk about secluded,” Cam says, taking in the sheer expanse of water stretching out all the way to the horizon. Isle Royale is a national park in the middle of the deepest of the Great Lakes. Accessible only by boat or seaplane.

“Yeah,” I whisper. Vayu is watching and I don’t want to provoke him.

We took the first ferry this morning, capitalizing on our long weekend. There was only us and one other couple, older, wearing matching lime green jackets.

“What now?” says Cameron, pulling out his pack of cigarettes again. He never did manage to get one lit on the boat.

“We hike a little ways,” I say, pointing at the sign that says “Cabins, 1.2 mi.”

“Great,” he says, though his expression is grim. Cameron’s always a little ornery in the morning, and he hasn’t gotten his coffee fix. Plus, he hates the outdoors; this was all my idea.

“Hang in there, kid,” I say, patting him on the back. I grip my backpack straps and click in the harness around my waist.

The walk is short and silent. The evergreen and pine trees tower around us, leaning in to create a canopy overhead, drowning out most of the sun and noise. There is a part of northern Michigan called the Upper Peninsula, which we had to drive through to take the ferry here. When you cross the bridge by car into the U.P., the whole world slows down. You don’t see another soul for hours at a time, and the distinct noises of civilization slip past, leaving just the rubber of your tires against asphalt. The wind that whips by with the window down. Your own thoughts. But this, walking on Isle Royale, leaving the ferry behind: this is silence on another level. If I didn’t know better, I could imagine us being the only two souls around.

“This is what hiking is like, huh?” Cam says. He’s been staring at the trail in front of him.

“Yeah, basically.” It’s really just walking on a very flat dirt trail, but he hasn’t hiked in as many places as I have, so I try to be diplomatic. “It can be a lot harder than this, though. More mountainous, steep.” I picture the peak of Half Dome, and it’s hard to express how different that hike was. My calves ache just thinking about it.

“I’m okay with this,” he says. He cracks his first smile since we got on land. It’s amazing how it transforms his spirit. Dimples form in his cheeks, and his eyes brighten. It’s like the Cameron I met five years ago, the boy who offered to share his umbrella in the rain with me, a total stranger at the train station. That’s the story of us: departures and destinations.

“You’re doing great. Thanks for coming with me.”

“Who else would you have gone with?” he asks, elbowing me playfully.

“Just me,” I say.

“I never understood how you enjoy traveling alone so much, Aparna.”

“You were alone on the way to Chicago when we met.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t enjoy it until I met you. There’s a difference.”

I guess most people don’t really like being by themselves. But I’ve been content in my own company for all my life. Maybe being a single child has something to do with it.

The trail opens up and splits into two. We spot another sign post that indicates one way goes towards the campground, the other tine in the fork toward our cabin. The wind picks up as we get to the fork, raining a cascade of oak and maple leaves all around us. They make a shhh sound as they’re dragged along the ground.

Cameron puts out his cigarette against a tree stump and tucks it between his sock and shoe to throw out later. I catch a last whiff of the warm tobacco scent of American Spirit as he exhales. I stopped smoking a long time ago, and each time I catch that smell it’s a small temptation. Not one that I would act on, but always there nonetheless.

By the time we get to the cabin, I realize we’ve been silent for the last ten minutes. Just the sound of leaves in the wind, our boots against packed dirt as the sun meanders in and out of clouds.

“We’re here,” I announce, and I taste something bitter in my mouth, as if I were the one smoking.

#

We pour glasses of cheap wine. The bottle took up a third of my backpack, but it felt important. We knew there wouldn’t be any stores this remote. The cabin is bare bones, just a bunk bed, a countertop, and a table with some folding chairs. We unpack our sleeping bags and place them together on the floor, opting out of bunk bed sleeping.

“Let’s look at the stars,” I suggest, leading him outside.

I’ve been in a lot of secluded places, seen a lot of magnificent night skies, but when I look up tonight, something about the hazy twinkle of the Milky Way takes my breath away all the same.

“Wow,” Cameron says, cigarette paused halfway to his mouth.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” he says, taking a sip of his wine as he sits down on a deck chair, never taking his eyes off the sky.

“Yeah.” I drink my wine and enjoy the view. There’s not a human-made light in sight, just the show above. I close my eyes and inhale the oaky, pine needle, mushroom fragrance of fall. “It’s beautiful here. More beautiful than I imagined.”

“Yeah. I can’t believe you’ve never been here before. I mean, you’ve been everywhere. And you’re a Michigan girl. This is so close to home.”

“You don’t really know what’s special about home until you go away and come back, I think.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Cameron replies with a hint of resentment. He hasn’t had the opportunities that I have.

I stretch out my hand and feel for his in the dark. He gives me only knuckles.

“Hey,” I say. “We made a deal. We forget everything this weekend, right? Leave all the worries back on the other side.”

He sighs. I turn and try to make out the silhouette of his face by starlight. I don’t know if it is my imagination or whether I can actually make out his expression, but there seems to be a furrow in his brow, a deep despondency that I can’t ease with my touch.

“You promised, Cam,” I say. “I know it sucks. Just please try.”

“I am trying, Aparna,” he whispers. His voice dips in the middle, like there is a heavy weight in it.

I interlace my fingers with his. I drink.

#

“Let’s go to the beach today,” I say, rolling up a beach towel.

“It’s not a very beach-y day,” Cam grumbles, already tucking his first cigarette into his mouth and heading outside. I follow him, braiding my hair. Not a beachy day at all. It’s overcast, the sun nowhere in sight. And far too cold for a swim.

“Yeah, and who made you beach god?” I smile, hoping to coax out his dimples.

I’m rewarded with a chuckle and a cough. I remember why I quit smoking.

“I guess there are no gods around here,” he says, and his amber eyes lose some light to become a mottled gray. “Just us. Just human beings.”

“Not all-powerful, but still strong, yeah?”

“I don’t feel strong today,” Cam says.

I pull him in for a hug. Hot tears land on my shoulder, soaking through my shirt. He shudders and I try my best to hold us both together.

#

“Would it matter if I was rich?” he says, the strong winds carrying his words far away as soon as they’re out of his mouth.

“Maybe,” I say. We’ve always promised to be honest with each other.

“I’ll get rich, then,” he says, his jaw set, determined.

“Isn’t that going to take a long time?”

“So what?”

“So I’ll have been married for a long time by then,” I say. It might be the first time I’ve mentioned it all weekend.

“Yeah, and? I’ll love you forever. People get divorced everyday.”

“Not in my family,” I mumble. I half-hope the wind blows my words away.

“What if you don’t like the person they choose?”

“Well, then I say no. It’s not the same as it was a hundred years ago. I have a choice. My family wouldn’t push me into something miserable.”

“So you’re allowed to say no?” Cameron says, eyes widening.

“I mean, yeah. I can say no and they’ll find someone else.”

“Why aren’t you allowed to say yes, then?” He looks down, pushes around sand with his bare toes. “To me?”

“It’s more about bringing two families together than it is about what I want. I just…I don’t know if you can understand. You didn’t grow up like me.”

On the horizon, storm clouds gather in a menacing wall. Thunder claps and I sit up straight. Maybe it wasn’t Vayu, but Indra, after all. God of storms.

Cam tucks his head into his knees, his hands clenched in his wild curls.

#

In the cabin, we drink. It’s pouring rain, so no stargazing tonight.

“We’re out,” I say, sipping the last bit of wine.

“Out of what?”

“Wine, duh,” I say, gesturing with my empty cup.

He gets up from our pile of sleeping bags and stands at the window. There is nothing to see there, it’s so dark out. But he stands and gazes out.

“In your religion, do you believe in the afterlife?” he finally says after a long silence.

“Not really an afterlife, but reincarnation. We believe that everyone moves on, becomes something else. Not always human.”

“What will you be in your next life?”

“No clue.”

“Humor me.”

“I hope…” I tuck my head into my sleeping bag, taking comfort in the soft darkness. “...that I am whatever you are.”

“We’ll be birds, then.”

#

On the ferry, we stand at the prow. I hold my elbows up on the railing and he’s wrapped around me, his chest to my back. We are both shivering; it’s even colder on the way back.

But we expose ourselves to the winds, drinking in the sight of the lake so massive it resembles a sea. I point out a gull, floating effortlessly in the boat’s slipstream.

Sometimes when you feel as if you are drowning, it can help to look at the water. Even though it feels as if everything is ending, you realize: maybe the water is not there to choke you, but to buoy you as you swim to the closest bank.

I hold onto this thought as I feel Cameron’s heartbeat, a comforting rhythm against my back. Steady, like waves breaking on shore.