"Wait for me!" Orion cried, making no move to go after her. He was too scared—what if somebody was watching them, waiting for them to venture into the forest to strike? It was the perfect murder scene: the place was dark, isolated, and best of all, nobody knew about their whereabouts.

Goosebumps broke out at the thought, and Orion swivelled around, searching for the imaginary predator. But what could he do if he had, in fact, been followed? He didn't even have a weapon to defend himself, not even a wretched stick! All he had were his fists, but that didn't account for anything. He was completely vulnerable, a sitting duck waiting to get shot down and taken home to get cooked.

Orion sighed when nothing suspicious caught his eye. There had been no one with him on the side of the road, only his anxiety and overly-active imagination. He turned back towards the railing, and scrambled over it, calling out his friend's name every couple of seconds. But his words fell on deaf ears. Barbara ploughed ahead; she had already reached the bottom of the descent and showed no signs of stopping. Orion carefully inched his way after her—the slope was steeper than it appeared—hoping that his foot wouldn't get caught in an obstacle and send him tumbling down.

He reached the bottom in one piece, but Barbara was nowhere in sight. She had faded away into the thick greenery, leaving him shivering—and it wasn't from the cold.

What am I going to do?

His breath progressively shortening, he soon began patting his pockets for his inhaler. Then he remembered that he had left it at home. In his backpack.

Orion collapsed to his knees and dug his fingers into the earth. What am I going to do? That question screamed at him from all sides, sending his head spinning in circles and the acids sloshing around in his stomach. Barbara—despite having the patience of a Buddhist monk—had grown sick of his attitude and abandoned him, something that had never happened before.

She would always persevere, no matter how many hurdles Orion would throw her way. Maybe she was trying to prove a point, and her earlier outburst was only a small part of it. Barbara had a way of doing things that perplexed even him; sometimes her actions were worth more than a thousand words.

That's it. Orion lifted his head. Barbara was trying to tell him something, how could he have been so blind? Frustrated at himself, he squeezed his eyes shut and forced down the bile that had bubbled up into his throat. She's only trying to help me. But first, he had to help himself.

He scooped up two handfuls of dirt and started to count, squeezing the clumps after each number. It didn't matter whether the grime had gotten under his fingernails—at number five, his breathing had begun to slow, as did his heart rate. At eight, he stood up and dropped the dirt, at ten he wiped his hands against each other and rolled his shoulders back. I have to be strong. I have to be strong.

"I have to be strong!" Orion shouted.

He immediately bit back his tongue in embarrassment; the phrase had just tumbled out of his mouth. Why should Orion care, though? He was alone, with nobody to look down at him with condescension. All of a sudden, he felt a thousand times more courageous.

He put one foot in front of the other, his hands held out in front of him. When he reached the edge of the woods, they made contact with a tree. Invisible ants crawled up his arms when he felt the coarseness of the bark; he was now one with nature.

"I'm coming after you, Barbara!" A confidence that hadn't been there before now raged through his veins; as he stumbled through the darkness, branches came for him like claws. They scratched at his clothes, wanting to strip the invader of all signs of civilisation, but nothing could stop his advancements. Or, at least, that's what he thought.

A root materialised before him and snagged his shoe; with a yawp, Orion fell forwards and face-planted the ground for the second time that night. Excruciating pain shot up from his ankle to the rest of his leg, and in spite of biting down his tongue to the point of tasting blood, he couldn't stop the tears from pooling in the corners of his eyes.

Decomposing leaves and dirt coated the front of his body and snuck into his sweater and jeans. "I'm not strong," he whimpered, "I'm stupid." Orion pushed himself up, trying to ignore the pain in his ankle and the insects that crawled along the forest floor. In pitch-black darkness, with only the warbling of the cicadas and the distant rumbling of car engines, Orion found himself completely alone, filthy, and helpless.

He leant forward and rolled up the bottom of his pants, then padded around his injured ankle with gentle fingers to check his condition. He exhaled through his nose; it wasn't broken, or fractured, just swollen. He lifted his foot in the air and tried to rotate it, but the pain locked it in place. Would he be able to put his weight on it? He stood up and tried it out, but was unsuccessful, so fell back into his original position. Unable to walk, Orion would never be able to find Barbara.

Fear had already begun to make his entrance, installing foreboding thoughts into his mind. If he didn't get back before his parents woke up... he shook his head, unable to fathom out a scenario in which he wasn't beaten to unconsciousness. Because that was certainly what his father would do to him.

A faint glimmer in the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he turned his head towards it. His name floated through one ear and out the other, leaving uncertainty behind in his heart. Was he hallucinating now? Orion could barely keep his eyes open, and his brain had already begun to shut down. But as the light grew brighter, and the voice stronger, he started to believe more in what he saw than in his paranoia.

"Barbara, is that you? I'm over here!" He flailed his arms around like a seaman striving to catch the attention of a passing ship from a desert-island.

"Orion?" Rustling, accompanied by hurried footsteps, began to draw near him. Without a warning, Barbara jumped out from behind a row of trees, her flashlight bathing him in a white glow that clouded his vision with black spots. "I found you," she said in what was barely a whisper. The flashlight fell out of her grasp and tumbled to the ground. Moments later, she was knelt by his side, her arms around him in a bone-crushing hug. "I really thought that you were following me, but when I found out that you weren't I was already in too deep, and when I went to look for you, you were gone, and then—" she buried her face in the crook of his neck.

Orion didn't think, just acted. His arms circled her waist, but instead of immediately shying away, embarrassed at the physical contact, they remained there. The embrace was strong, resolute. Orion was the rock someone needed, and even if that someone was Barbara, whose smile lit the darkest of days, whose chocolate eyes and skin sweetened the most bitter of hearts, and whose touch brought fire to his cheeks, it felt absolutely right. Which is why when Barbara drew away—using a sleeve to wipe the mist from her gaze—Orion felt an indescribable emptiness inside of him, a vacuum of nothingness.

"Are you okay? Did you get hurt?" she asked him, sweeping her vulnerability under a rug.

After a brief lag, Orion nodded. Barbara was back to her old self, but it had happened so quickly, he still had to recover from the whiplash. "Yeah, I twisted my ankle."

The words had barely left his mouth that Barbara had already gone to recover the flashlight. "Does this hurt?" She shined the light onto his injury and prodded it with her index finger. Orion hissed as renewed pain shot up his leg.

"Of course it hurts! Can't you see the bruises?" he snapped, throwing daggers at her with his eyes.

"Can you walk on it?"

Orion rolled his eyes in irritation. He couldn't believe her! One moment she was whimpering like a puppy, the next she was a mother-bear! Hadn't she felt the same way he had about that hug?

"No. At least not without help." His voice sounded hollow, devoid of all emotion.

Barbara pursed her lips, then lowered her head. "This is all my fault," she said, gesturing at his ankle.

"It isn't...I was the one that ventured out here without a flashlight, completely on my own, instead of waiting for you. It's all on me."

"I knew something like this would happen," she continued, ignoring him, "I shouldn't have brought you out here, you're not made for these kinds of things, you're meant to stay at home and be a good person and—"

"Barbara!" Orion shouted, "Stop it!" His voice was loud enough to wake up the next state over, but he didn't care. "You didn't put a gun to my head, you didn't throw me in a potato sack and drag me here! I came here because I wanted to, okay? Me! I made the decision of climbing out of that window, and follow you all the way here. I did, not you! So stop blaming yourself for every single thing, and give me a chance to take responsibility over my own actions!" His chest heaved, and lightheadedness made his arms tremble underneath him. Something within him was changing, and by the way Barbara looked at him, he could tell that she noticed it as well.

Silence fell upon them, heavy and uncomfortable.

"You're right," she whispered, "but it's not easy for me, you know that."

"I do." Guilt contorted his organs, giving him nausea. I'm just a brat, I shouldn't have taken it out on her. Barbara's protectiveness wasn't a mere personality trait. It stemmed from something worse, from a traumatic childhood experience she would never truly forget.

"We both have something to work on," Barbara muttered, giving him a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. Orion concurred, unable to hold her intense stare. "Promise me something."

He gulped. Promises were sacred to him, so before he agreed to anything he would think this over very carefully. "I'm listening," he said.

"I'll work on my...issue if you work on yours."

"I have a lot of issues, pick one."

Barbara's eyes widened and she giggled.

"What? It's true!" Orion reached into his shirt and pulled out a twig—it had been bothering him for a while now, and he couldn't ignore it any longer.

"No," she said, shaking her head, "it's the way you said it. It was funny."

Orion narrowed his eyes, and Barbara immediately sobered.

"Be more spontaneous...or maybe not spontaneous...more confident. In yourself and your actions. Could you do that?"

More spontaneous. More confident. He found those two words a little alien, especially because they belonged to Barbara, and not to him. Orion wasn't spontaneous, and most certainly not confident. "That's something easier said than done."

Barbara tilted her head to one side and raised an eyebrow.

Oh, right.

He mulled it over for a good minute. After all, how hard could being spontaneous and confident be? If Barbara could pull it off, then so could he. In theory.

"We have a deal." He stuck his hand out. With a smile, Barbara jumped up to her feet and grabbed it, effortlessly pulling him up to his feet. She almost pulled his arm out of its socket, but Orion refrained himself from complaining; Barbara would act as his crutch, so he couldn't provoke her into ditching him again. Instead, Orion wordlessly placed his arm around Barbara's shoulders.

The two forged through the vegetation until they stepped onto a dirt trail, beaten into evenness by the elements. Orion didn't know where it started or where it ended, but at least it showed that the area hadn't been completely overlooked by humanity. As the path gradually began to slope downwards, in a gentle curve, something in the air changed. It grew thicker, heavier with moisture, its musty smell contrasting greatly with the pungently fresh one of the pines. It was a strange transition, but when he caught a glimpse of its provenance, it all made sense.