Jason

Then clearer.

J. It sang softly.

My mother's nickname for me, the one no one on this trip knew.

Jay, come out and see.

Matt snored softly beside me.

I couldn't tell if anyone else was awake.

I couldn't tell if anyone else could hear it.

The urge to unzip the tent and look was almost unbearable.

Not because I wanted to see it exactly, but because not seeing it felt worse.

please it whispered my voice now not my mom's just a peek i came all this way don't you want to see what i look like in your skin something about that phrasing snapped me back i clenched my eyes shut and started counting backwards from 100 in my head focusing on the numbers on the shape of them the way i used to do when i had panic attacks in high school 99 98 97

It kept up the humming for a while.

It tried more voices.

Erin's pleading, Becca's crying, Dylan's angry, my dad's, which I hadn't heard in person in years.

It said my name in all of them.

It said it wrong once, stressing the wrong syllable, and for some reason that tiny imperfection gave me something to hold onto.

It wasn't perfect.

It didn't understand everything.

At some point I fell asleep again because the next thing I knew, sunlight was turning the tent wall pale gold.

Birds were singing.

The air smelled like dry sagebrush and dust and something else, faint and sour, like the last aftertaste of a bad dream.