Delirium - Lauren Oliver [101]
“Fine.” I close my eyes and he takes my hands in both of his. Then he pulls me forward another twenty feet, murmuring things like, “Step up. There’s a rock,” or “A little to the left.” The whole time a fluttery, nervous feeling builds inside of me. We stop, finally, and Alex drops my hands.
“We’re here,” he says. I can hear the excitement in his voice. “Open up.”
I do, and for a moment can’t speak. I open my mouth several times and have to shut it again after all that emerges is a high-pitched squeak.
“Well?” Alex fidgets next to me. “What do you think?”
Finally I stutter out, “It’s—it’s real.”
Alex snorts. “Of course it’s real.”
“I mean, it’s amazing.” I take a few steps forward. Now that I’m here I’m not sure what, exactly, I was imagining the Wilds would be like—but whatever it was, it wasn’t this. A long, broad clearing cuts through the woods, although in places the trees have begun to crowd in again, pushing slender stalks toward the sky, which stretches above us, a vast and glittering canopy, the moon sitting bright and huge and swollen at its center. Wild roses encircle a dented sign, faded nearly to illegibility. I can just make out the words CREST VILLAGE MOBILE PARK. The clearing is full of dozens of trailers, as well as more creative residences: tarps stretched between trees, with blankets and shower curtains to serve as front doors; rusting trucks with tents pitched in the back of their cabs; old vans with fabric stretched over their windows for privacy. The clearing is pitted with holes where campfires have been lit over the course of the day—now, well past midnight, they are smoldering still, letting up ribbons of smoke and the smell of charred wood.
“See?” Alex grins and spreads his arms. “The blitz didn’t get everything.”
“You didn’t tell me.” I start walking forward down the center of the clearing, stepping around a series of logs that have been arranged in a circle, like an outdoor living room. “You didn’t tell me it was like this.”
He shrugs, trotting next to me like a happy dog. “It’s the kind of thing you need to see for yourself.” He toes a bit of dirt over a dying campfire. “Looks like we came too late for the party tonight.”
As we progress through the clearing, Alex points out every “house” and tells me a little bit about the people who live there, speaking all the time in a whisper, so we won’t wake anybody. Some stories I’ve heard before; others are totally new. I’m not even fully concentrating, but I’m grateful for the sound of his voice, low and steady and familiar and reassuring. Even though the settlement isn’t that big—maybe an eighth of a mile long—I feel as though the world has suddenly split open, revealing layers and depths I could never have imagined.
No walls. No walls anywhere. Portland, by comparison, seems tiny, a blip.
Alex stops in front of a dingy gray trailer. Its windows are missing and have been replaced by squares of multicolored fabric, pulled taut.
“And, um, this is me.” Alex gestures awkwardly. It’s the first time he has seemed nervous all night, which makes me nervous. I swallow back the sudden and totally inappropriate urge to laugh hysterically.
“Wow. It’s—it’s—”
“It’s not much, from the outside,” Alex jumps in. He looks away, chewing on a corner of his lip. “Do you want to, um, come in?”
I nod, pretty sure that if I tried to speak right now I would only squeak again. I’ve been alone with him countless times, but this feels different. Here there are no eyes waiting to catch us, no voices waiting to shout at us, no hands ready to tear us apart—just miles and miles of space. It’s exciting and terrifying at the same time. Anything could happen here, and when he bends down to kiss me it’s as though the weight of the velvety darkness around us, the soft flutters of the trees, the pitter-patter of the unseen animals, come beating into my chest, making me feel as though I’m dissolving and expanding into the night. When he pulls away it takes me a few seconds to catch my breath.
“Come on,” he says. He leans a shoulder against the door of the trailer until it