Page 44 of The Outsider
“Thank you,” I said, breaking the silence. “For the food. I needed that.”
To my surprise, she smiled. “I know. I had to look at your bony ass for most of the day.”
“It’s not bony!” I said with a giggle. “Besides, you look like you could use it more than I do.”
She shrugged. “Honestly, going from what we had at home to mostly gamey-ass meat and gruel, I don’t have much an appetite these days.”
I nodded sympathetically. “Did you…I mean, did they feed you much in the gang?”
To my dismay, she visibly retreated into herself at the mention of the past, her arms tucking into her sides.
“I can’t talk about it.”
I blew out a breath. “I knew that. I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have asked.”
She shook her head but didn’t reply, and the awkward silence that followed was painful. I decided to distract myself with my nightly grooming routine, also known as my feeble attempts to maintain a basic standard of hygiene in the middle of nowhere after long days of travel.
I wet my washcloth with a small dab of water from my bottle and gave myself a quick wipe down under my clothes. It wasn’t enough, but it was better than nothing. I fetched my hairbrush from my pack and began to unwind my long braid. While I’d frequently worn my hair down when we lived at the camp, I’d been braiding it more often than not on the road.
“How do you do that?” Asha asked, and when I gave her a questioning look, she nodded at my braid. “I’ve never been able to do the more elaborate braids. I never saw you wear them before.”
“Kimmy taught me,” I replied as I brushed out the bends it’d left in my hair. “She’s good with hair. This one’s called a fishtailbraid.”
“It’s pretty,” Asha said in an almost wistful tone. “Like something someone would wear at home. Back when pretty things mattered.”
The yearning in her voice for something familiar hit me hard. I knew that longing for a place where art and music andculturecould thrive. They were a fundamental piece of our humanity that’d been lost.
“Pretty things still matter,” I said gently. “If only to us.”
I fished in my pack for my sketchbook, then held it out to her.
“I still draw,” I said. “Often things I see, but sometimes from my own imagination, too.”
She took the sketchbook with a trembling hand and flipped through it. She looked at my drawings of the forest around our old camp, and stopped at a drawing of a unicorn, tracing her finger over its horn. I smiled at the memory of John asking me if they had ever existed in the Old World. I’d giggled at his adorably confused expression and pulled him into a kiss.
Asha had stopped on a sketch of John’s face, an eyebrow raised, then flipped to the next, which was a full-body portrait looking over his shoulder, and then to the next, which was a profile of his silhouette. She made a noise of amusement, and I blushed as she skipped through the next five or so pages, which were all of John—his smile, his gaze, his hands.
“We don’t have photographs anymore,” I said sheepishly. “I don’t want to forget.”
Asha bit her lip to contain her laughter, which made me happy, even if it was at my expense. She flipped through the rest of the drawings until she reached the last one, my current work-in-progress. It was a half-finished portrait of Asha herself, as I remembered her: her sleek black hair, radiant brown skin, and big, pretty eyes. She was a joy to draw—she’d always been beautiful, and far more put-together than I was.
She traced her finger over her drawing’s features for a long time in silence, making me nervous.
“It’s fine if you don’t like it,” I said. “I just…I missed you, and—”
“You’re too good for this world, Claire,” she cut across me, her voice tight. “It’s why I was shocked that you were still alive after all this time. The Wasteland doesn’t deserve you. You were meant for better than this.”
I couldn’t help but bristle a little. “I found more freedom out here than I ever had back home. And I’m no angel—I’ve done ugly things, too. I think we all have.”
She shook her head. “No, you haven’t. Nothing anyone would condemn you for. If you had, you would’ve changed more. Like me. Like your Wastelander, even.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
She sighed, but didn’t answer. We sat in silence for a long time, and I was afraid that she’d shut me out again. I tried to find something to latch onto, to keep her here with me. She’d only just started acting more like her old self.
“Want me to braid your hair?” I asked quietly.
To my surprise, she nodded and moved over to me, her back facing me. I hesitated, then ran my fingers through her hair, which had grown down her back. It was dry and a bit unruly from a lack of care, but still beautiful. She flinched at my touch but nodded at me to continue.
