Friendship is Optimal: Heart's Desire

Chapter One: Center of the Universe

Show me sign of paradise

A place we all would like to go to

Tell me what to sacrifice

So there's a chance for me to want you

        Today was the day. Caleb had planned for everything. He had his bottle of Gatorade, he had his backpack, he had his favorite Calvin and Hobbes collection, and he had his favorite blanket. Daylight was wasting, and he was ready to go.

        But apparently, his friend Kyle was not.

        “I can’t find my walkman, help me find my walkman.” Kyle furiously dug through the garbage of his room.

        “We don’t need your walkman, we’re going on an adventure, remember?” Caleb shrugged and started searching. “I don’t think they’ll have batteries where we’re going.”

        Kyle stopped his search immediately, and looked up with fearful eyes. “They won’t?”

        “I dunno, probably not?” Caleb shook his head and kicked a small novel by RL Stine out of the way. The black battered and bruised plastic of a well-loved walkman had been buried underneath. “Found it.”

        Kyle received the tape player with reverent hands. “Uh... Caleb, where are we going, anyway?”

        Caleb shrugged again. “I dunno, somewhere else?”

        “How come?” Kyle stuffed the walkman into his own bag which was stained and riddled with holes.

        “... I don’t know? I just want to be somewhere else. Nothing makes any sense here, nothing feels real.” Caleb shook his head and started to strap on his pack. “I thought you hated it here, isn’t that why you begged me to come with?”

        Kyle shuddered and slung his own hastily prepared pack over his shoulder. Unlike Caleb, who had packed sensible things like food, water, things to shield oneself from the elements, and mind expanding literature, he had filled his own pack with toys and sweets.

        “Yeah... Yeah I don’t want to be here anymore.”

        A slam echoed from the kitchen and into his friend’s bedroom. The hair on Caleb’s neck stood on end. Kyle’s Mom screamed out at him, demanding an audience. Caleb didn’t need to think too hard on why his friend was so desperate to come with him. Something didn’t feel right, though. Something nagged at the back of his mind. Is this really what his friend wanted? Was this really what was best for him? Caleb understood what he was leaving behind well enough, or at least he thought he did. He treasured the last night he’d spend in a warm bed. He coerced his mother into buying him a stuffed crust pizza, mushrooms and onions. It was his last meal. Caleb treated his quest with all the sincerity of a knight marching out to face a dragon, all while knowing he may never return at all.

        Kyle... Well, Kyle packed his bag with sweets and toys.

        “Can we crawl out through the window? I don’t really want to have to explain things on the way out...” Kyle’s face was pale, and he was starting to tremble. Caleb couldn’t help himself, he reached out and hugged the other boy tightly. Kyle was always reluctant to let go of him, and it made him sad to pry the freckled kid off of him.

         The pair tumbled down through the broken screen—and into the dirt beyond the window—just as Kyle’s mom let loose another harpyesque cry. There was a pounding on the door back in the room, and Kyle grabbed Caleb’s sleeve, practically dragging him from the yard.

        “Come on, let’s go!” He hissed. Caleb needed no instruction.

        They ran for what felt like blocks before collapsing against an old transformer box outside some rundown apartments. The two boys desperately struggled to catch their breath.

        Caleb caught his first, and slowly slid down the side of the green metal box. “You know, there are other ways to run away, right? You don’t need to come with me,” he paused. “I’m not running away, I’m running to something else.”

        “No,” Kyle shook his head emphatically. “I’m going with you. I want to go with you.” There really was just no arguing with him, and Caleb didn’t have the heart to do so anyway.

        In all likelihood, Kyle was going to do nothing but slow Caleb down, but that was okay. He would defend his friend if need be. That’s what friends did.

        “Alright then, let’s get going.” Caleb stood up and began dusting himself off.

        “Shouldn’t we eat first?!” Kyle almost seemed like he was entering a state of panic.

        “... Didn’t you eat before we started packing?”

        Kyle hung his head dejectedly. Caleb had to keep himself from hugging his friend again. Kyle hated being hugged in public. “No, there wasn’t really anything in the fridge. Mom was grocery shopping.”

        Caleb began opening his pack. He’d only had room and containers for the two sandwiches and a bag of apples. He handed one of the sandwiches to Kyle, along with an apple. He was worried. If they were going to reach wherever it was they were trying to go, they’d need to make their food last.

        “Here, eat this quickly, I want to get into the woods before it starts getting dark.”

        Kyle graciously accepted, and wolfed down the sandwich and apple like a boy starved. Which, Caleb mused, he probably was. He was clicking the tupperware back together and jamming it into his pack when Kyle voiced his displeasure.

        “What is this? It’s like... a BLT without bacon. Is this cucumber?” Kyle made a face. “Where’s the bacon Caleb?”

        “I don’t like bacon.” He swung the pack back over his shoulder. “Are you ready to go yet?”

        Kyle swallowed the last of his meal with an exaggerated gulp, then tossed the apple core into the weeds behind them. “Sure.” His expression was still the bitter mask of one denied crisp bacon.

        The two boys were living in a small town on the west coast. surrounded by mountains and shrublands that were begging to go up in flames. The town had some history, a short stint of glory that made it what it was, and then it dissolved into nothing. Now it was just poor horse ranches and expanding apartment complexes. White Flight was in full effect, and old families were leaving in droves. It was summer, and the sun was oppressive. Climbing the winding road that led up into the mountains and into the forests was going to be a trial, and of course Kyle didn’t have a canteen, or a water bottle, or anything really.

        “I’m thirsty, can we stop and get some soda or something?”

        “No,” Caleb frowned. “Soda has caffeine in it.”

        “Yeah, so? That just means it’ll give me energy, we can get to where we’re going faster!”

        “No, it means you can get dehydrated, then you can die faster.” Caleb handed Kyle his bottle of Gatorade. “I’ll stop and get another one. There’s a Seven-Eleven on the way to the road.” He looked down and away from his friend. “Try to make that last, but if you need to drink all of it, do it before we get there. You can refill it with water in the bathroom or something.”

        Kyle didn’t seem to pay much attention, and took a huge gulp of the purple drink. “Jesus christ, Caleb. You’re really smarter than people give you credit for.”

        If it was at all possible for Caleb to become more grim than he usually was, he found a way. “I’m not smart. I just care about this, that’s all.”

        Kyle screwed the lid back on the drink and stuffed it into his shorts. “Nah, you’re smart, smarter than me anyway.”

        “Let’s just get moving.”

        Together the two friends roamed through the park that in the summer would become a swamp. They climbed fences of stone and wood, trespassing through private property in an effort to cut their journey short. There was one close call with a dog, but thanks to Kyle’s ruthless affinity for animals, the two made it through just fine.

        The Seven-Eleven was just up ahead. Caleb didn’t like stopping there, he knew that the greyhound buses would stop here, and that the place was often haunted by weirdos. There were few things more unpleasant than an adult with some screws loose. Some of them could get pretty scary.

        “I’ll wait outside.” Kyle yawned, taking another gulp from the gatorade. It was only half-full at this point. Not empty enough to fill with water, but also more depleted than it ought to be. Caleb felt a wave of rage wash over him.

Who gives a fuck if some tweaker starts messing with him? The little idiot deserves it.

        He shook his head and wiped some of the sweat from his brow. He very nearly apologized to his friend, but then realized that it would probably sound weird. Instead he frowned at Kyle, and spoke softly. “Suit yourself.”

        It was refreshing and cool inside the store. The food was overpriced, and so was the drink. He wouldn’t be needing money much longer. He had his doubts that whatever other world he found himself in would put too much value on the dollar. But maybe they would? Maybe they valued offerings exactly as much as the person offering them did. Faeries could be weird like that.

        Then again, Caleb realized that money didn’t really hold any value to him at all. Right now he valued a hot dog. So he spent the last of his money on a couple of hotdogs and a replacement gatorade. He marched back outside with a smile on his face, certain that if anyone could appreciate a second meal it would be Kyle.

        Except Kyle was busy talking to a stringy woman missing half of her teeth. She was smiling at him like some kind of storybook witch trying to lure him into a gingerbread house. She handed Kyle a cigarette and helped him light it.

        “What the hell are you doing?” The question was aimed at Kyle, but the woman answered.

        “Just keepin’ it real with the little man. You got a problem with that pinkie?”

        Caleb looked down past the pair of onion smothered hot dogs and stared at his pink shirt. He’d been called a number of things for his taste in colours, pinkie was a bit of a first.

        “Kyle, give the nice woman her cigarette back, we need to get going.” He tried to keep his voice steady, but he could feel his heart pumping faster. He didn’t like that feeling. His older brother lived for this sensation, the rush of adrenaline.

        Caleb didn’t like acting on impulse, and he didn’t like how blurry the memories were after. He wanted this to be over now. He marched over, yanked the cigarette out of his friend’s hands, and replaced it with a hotdog. Then handed it to the woman.

        “Thanks for keeping an eye on him for me, but we need to go.”

        The woman stared down at the burning cigarette with a dumb expression. “I think the little man can make his own decisions.” She looked past Caleb. “What do you think kid? You gonna let your girlfriend make all the decisions for you?”

        Caleb’s face went red, his heart pounded a bit harder. The woman didn’t take the cigarette from him.

        “It’s not a big deal Caleb, really. She’s nice. We were jus—”

        Caleb dropped the cigarette to the ground and grabbed his friend by the back of the neck. With the adrenaline pumping through his veins, dragging his friend away was easy, and it didn’t seem like his friend was reacting in quite the same way he was.

        The woman behind them laughed and crowed like the ravens feasting in the parking lot, and for all Caleb knew she was one of them. He’d read stories. Animals liked to test humans all the time. Then she noticed the cigarette laying on the asphalt.

        “You little shit, you know how much these things cost?! You owe me!”

Caleb spun around and locked eyes with her, his hands trembling. “Fuck off.”

        He felt violated, and he didn’t know if it was the language. Or if it was that he had broken a sacred law, and directed it at an adult. It felt good though, it felt really good.

        “You hear me you toothless hag!? Fuck off!”

        Kyle started to pull at Caleb’s sleeve, and in Caleb’s stupor he found some purchase. The woman just stared at the two of them, her mouth slowly opening and closing.

        Caleb was still shaking and taking deep breaths when they lost sight of the store. He took two large bites of his hot dog, and then washed it down. He felt out of control.

        “What the hell was that about?!” Kyle hissed. “It was just a cigarette! What if she had done something to you?”

        Caleb shook his head and grinned, and finished his hot dog with two more massive bites. “You don’t understand, Kyle. She probably wasn’t even human! Didn’t you see all those ravens? I bet those were just her egg teeth!”  He looked up at Kyle with a haunted expression. “Nothing is free. Faeries don’t just give things away. You have to pay for everything. Everything.”

        Kyle just stared at his friend in disbelief. “Caleb, she’s not a faerie. Those don’t exist.”

        “Of course they do.” Caleb shook his head. “Of course they exist.” He pointed at the hot dog in Kyle’s hand. “Are you going to eat that?”

        Kyle held it out to him and looked away. “You take it. I’m not hungry.”

        “Eh? Well, that’s a first.” Caleb took the food and devoured it just like he did with the first one. “Come on, we can see the road from here.”

        Kyle lowered his gaze and meekly followed. It was half an hour before he spoke up again. By then Caleb had stopped trembling, and his breathing was heavy because they were hiking up a hill in the summer, and dodging cars.

        “I don’t like you when you get like that you know.”

        “When I get like what?” Caleb looked honestly bewildered.

        “You get bossy sometimes, it’s not cool.” Kyle shook his head. “That’s all.”

        Caleb stopped in his tracks, and honestly seemed taken aback. “I’ll try to remember.” He turned to keep walking. “I’m sorry...”

        Kyle tossed his empty bottle of gatorade into a ditch by the side of the road. “And I’m out.”

        Caleb pursed his lips, but didn’t say anything.

        Jamacha road was winding and perilous. People crashed on it at night all the time, and it wasn’t much safer during the day. The upside of daylight was that people coming back down it were marginally less drunk than they would be later on. Even so, Kyle and Caleb spent much of their time dashing from one end to the other, and then diving off the road itself. With the summer sun beating overhead, it was exhausting.

        Finally they reached Lockley Park. It was quiet, with a little slot in front for visitors to pay for parking. They didn’t arrive in a car, so there was no need. Caleb had decided for the both of them that their journey would begin here.

        “Yeah, but why here though?”

        “Because...” Caleb shrugged. “It’s convenient. It’s a forest, and it’ll have trails for the most part.” Caleb recoiled at the notion of wading through thickets. They’d be riddled with snakes, and burs, and all sorts of terrible things. There might even be spiders with their webs laid out between trees. He’d run into a few that way before.

        “You shouldn’t have tossed your bottle away like that, there is a water fountain up here.” Caleb finished his own drink and shoved the bottle into Kyle’s arms. “We can both use this, but you get to carry it.”

        “Hey Caleb?”

        “Yes?”

        “You’re being gay again.” Kyle frowned, but filled the bottle at the nearby fountain regardless. He opened his pack and shoved the bottle inside.

        “Quit whining, the hard part is over.” Caleb was brimming with confidence. “It’s all downhill from here.”

        “Cale... That’s not really a positive...” Kyle stopped to look for the term. “Things going downhill is not a good thing.”

        Caleb and Kyle began walking the nearest trail. It was pleasantly shaded by massive oak trees, and a small wooden bridge crossed a bubbling brook.

        “What are you talking about? Going downhill is easy, why would that be a bad thing? Climbing up the hill, that was the pain in the ass.”

        Kyle shrugged. “It just is. Going downhill is bad. Maybe it’s because it’s harder to control the momentum?”

        Caleb pondered that in silence as they walked through loops and up trails, until they’d seen hilltops and little canyons. The trails weren’t getting them anywhere. It seemed about time for the dreaded off-roading trip.

        “Kyle, I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere unless we get lost first.”

        “What are you talking about? It’s like you’ve lost your mind lately. Why the hell do you want to get lost?”

        Caleb shrugged and jumped down from the trail onto a large rock. “It’s just the rules. If you want to find another world, you need to get lost.”

        Kyle looked up at the setting sun and started to frown, but he listened.

        “I told you, you know? There are other ways for you to run away,” Caleb mused. “But I’m not. I’m not running away from home.”

        “Then what are you doing?”

        Caleb thought that over carefully before responding. “I don’t know, I’m going home, I guess?”

        Kyle didn’t have a response for that.

        Kyle had been wearing shorts, so the offroading was not very pleasant for him at all. He knew enough to avoid poison oak, but after awhile just regular plants were making him itch like mad. It was summer, there were insects everywhere.

        He was about to say something, about to ask for them to turn back, when they entered a clearing that wasn’t touched by a single weed. It was a perfect circle of cool packed dirt, as though someone or something had swept everything loose away. Aboved them was a dome of flora. The branches and ivy and vines were woven together to create a massive ceiling. Everything looks so... symmetrical. He’d heard his older brother use that term before from art class. The clearing was symmetrical.

        “Yes...” Caleb whispered out in awe. “I told you. I told you Kyle!” Caleb reached out and grabbed his friend, pulling him in close. “Didn’t I say so?!”

        “Erm... No. You didn’t tell me we were going to find a cool leaf hut. We should probably get going though, before whoever made it comes back.” Kyle had a feeling they’d be even worse than the woman from the store.

        Caleb’s mouth open and closed a few times. He could feel his enthusiasm deflating like a slippery balloon. He knew the implications of what Kyle was getting at.

        “Yeah, you’re right. If something comes back we’d probably be helpless. We should keep walking, we’re nearly there!”

        Caleb’s pace quickened, and he started muttering to himself. Kyle managed to make out a ‘nearly there’, before it became incomprehensible due to distance. He looked back up to find the sun, and felt his skin crawl. He realized he couldn’t see it through the trees, and he had no idea what time it was now. It would probably be dark soon.

        “Caleb!? Caleb slow down!” Caleb could hear his friend chasing after him through the trees. He stopped and waited.

        “It’s getting late...” Kyle panted out, he looked around anxiously.

        Caleb looked up through the trees, they’d left some of the thicker growth behind them, and he could see the sun start to set in the distance. “Yes, it is.”

        He kept walking.

        The minutes ticked by, and Caleb was looking more and more agitated. He hadn’t found anything new, nothing communicated some kind of bizarre otherness to him. He looked more on edge than with the woman before.

        “Caleb?”

        No response.

        “... Caleb?”

        “What?” The other boy stopped suddenly, but didn’t turn his head.

        “It’s getting late.”

        Caleb slowly shook his head and turned around. His face was a perfect copy of one of those tragedy masks. “I can see that, Kyle. You keep bringing it up too. It makes it hard to forget.”

        Kyle bit his lip and folded his arms. “I think we should head back.”

        Caleb’s face went pale, and Kyle’s complexion followed in kind. “What?”

        “I... think we should head home?”

        Caleb marched forward before he even finished his sentence, now his face was starting to look red. “What home?”

        “You know, the ones with a roof, and beds?” He shivered. “And Moms?”

        Caleb chewed on that quietly. A million thoughts burned through his mind, mostly of hatred, insults and criticisms he’d never dared voice. “So go home then, I’m sure your Mom will be pleased as punch.”

        Kyle hesitated. “Could you take me home? Please?”

        Caleb shook his head. “I’m trying to go home, but you won’t let me.” He smiled the fake smile of the borderline hysterical. “I told you, didn’t I? I fucking told you that you didn’t have to follow me, that there were other ways for you to deal with your mom.” Caleb reached out and shoved Kyle. His friend tumbled backwards. “Didn’t I fucking tell you that?!”

        Kyle curled up into a ball on the ground, and started to cry. He didn’t answer. Caleb could see a faint trickle of blood oozing down his arm from where he’d landed against a rock.

“I should just leave you out here.” Caleb shook his head. “I’m going home, you should do the same.”

It hurt to do it. It required more willpower than confronting an adult, or standing up to bullies in school, but he turned around and ran into the woods. He ran until his lungs burned, and his eyes began to water. He thought maybe if he ran hard enough he’d find what he was looking for. Instead he collapsed against the side of a tree, balled his hands into fists, and started to cry.

So what’s it gonna be? Continue an impossible quest, or help your friend?

        Caleb could hear Kyle screaming out his name in the distance. His head was burning up and he couldn’t think straight. He let out a few rattling sobs before standing up, wiping at his eyes, and heading back toward his friend.

        Kyle was leaning against a tree of his own, and cradling his arm. He brushed his nose against the sleeve of his shirt.

        “You came back...”

        Caleb nodded slowly. “Yeah... I’m sorry.”

        “It’s fine.” Kyle smiled up at him.

        Caleb wanted more than anything to scream. No. It most certainly is not fine. Nothing is fine. That’s why I’m here. But he kept quiet.

        “I want to see it again.” He finally responded.

        “See what again? Home?” Kyle wasn’t sure what Caleb meant by that, but it certainly seemed important to his friend.

        Caleb shifted in place, and then started walking. “The hut.”

        Kyle limped along behind him, and Caleb made sure to moderate his pace so that his friend could keep up. They spent the next hour searching, but they never did run into that hut again. Caleb was on the verge of tears by the time they finally left the park, and neither of them said a word the entire walk back.

        Caleb had been right, it was much easier going down the hill than coming up.