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It was a little after they got back to Wiskayok when everything came out. As if returning back to the real world wasn’t a system shock enough, then they found out about Lottie’s diagnosis and Van’s entire world came crashing down.
Those first few weeks, maybe even months, Van couldn’t be sure, after they got rescued were brutal. So long spent in the hospital in Canada, being treated like some sick experiment. Everyone wanted to know how they had survived, how any of them had survived at all and how the seven of them had come out of it.
After god knows how long of the doctors and psychologists trying to get them to talk and telling Van what she already knew, the damage to her face was done and couldn’t be fixed, they sent them back to Wiskayok.
Van had to be sedated to even get on another plane, she didn’t even remember being rescued really, she had been freaking out so bad about getting on the plane and then the world went black and she woke up in a hospital. Getting her back to Wiskayok was essentially the same but she was more aware that they were drugging her.
It was not long after that return to Wiskayok, when everyone was reunited with their families, that she found out. As if a reunion, well actually a lack there of because Vicki never showed up, wasn’t enough for Van to deal with she also learned about Lottie being schizophrenic. She heard her parents talking about how she only had enough medication with her for the trip meaning after the first few days Lottie had run out.
They were just talking about it stressed but rather casually, unaware that in that very moment the last nearly two years of Van’s life came crashing down. She had put all of her faith in Lottie and the wilderness, it was the only thing aside from her relationship with Tai that she allowed herself to hold onto and believe in while they were out there. So now to learn it was all a figment of Lottie’s mind, of an illness there long before they crashed, how was she supposed to move forward knowing all she had done in the name of something that was never real.
Lottie was taken to Switzerland the next day and Van never had a chance to even try and ask her about any of it. A part of her wondered if it was truly real, it had felt real. The things she had seen after the wolf attack and watching Lottie kill the bear. Lottie had been right about so many things and Van truly couldn’t reconcile that those were all simply coincidences.
But now Lottie was gone and Van was released with her permanent scars, permanent vision loss, and her entire world crashing around her with no one to talk to about it. She wished she could talk to Tai, but she knew Tai didn’t want to hear it. Hell Tai acted like nothing had ever happened to them once they got back to Wiskayok. She had made quick work of getting out of the hospital and reaching out to Howard to see if she could start in the Fall.
She was moving on and Van wasn’t sure how to even move. She was stuck somewhere between the wilderness and Wiskayok and she didn’t know if she’d ever leave.
*
After nineteen months in the wilderness and then another three in hospitals Van went home, home being a studio apartment in Wiskayok that she had rented. She hadn’t even seen her mother yet. Really she hadn’t seen much of anyone because in the two months since she moved in Van had not left the house.
It was a oint of contention between her and Tai, most days Tai had to come over and force her to even get out of bed. Much like today when she came over at three in the afternoon to Van sitting in the dark.
Van looked over as the door opened and watched as Tai turned on the lights, the same look on her face that she always had when she had to do this. A face that said I love you but I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
Van didn’t either, how was she supposed to go on with her life knowing all the terrible things she did, none of it meant anything. There was no justification for letting a thirteen year old boy die. Her own worlds, the wilderness chose, were ringing in her head. How was someone supposed to live with that, how was Tai living with that?
Tai made her way to the bed, much like she always did and sat down, Van sitting up next to her.
“You can’t live like this Van,” She said with a sigh, reaching out and brushing Van’s hair behind her ear.
“How else am I supposed to live, Tai.”
“You have to move on Van, there was no way you could have known about Lottie, we were kids in an awful situation.”
This was a nearly everyday conversation between the two of them. Tai just wanted Van to move on like she had and Van unable to fathom the concept.
Sometimes she envied Tai and the way she had moved on seemingly so quickly. A part of her wondered if it was because her other half had shielded her in the wilderness from some of the awful things they had done, some of the things Van remembered in perfect detail.
At the same time she felt like remembering everything was the least of what she deserved. They had let so many people die in the name of the wilderness the least Van could do is remember every second of their deaths and the choices they had made.
She wondered if Tai was better off because she had been so skeptical at first, taking a while before she started to believe. Van had believed, she needed something to hold onto after the wolf attack. Some reason to explain why she kept surviving. Tai had told her that her body was just in shock and god how Van wished even now that she believed that.
There was a part of her that also wondered if Tai was just pretending, no she knew Tai was. It was convincing and no one else seemed to have caught on, everyone just marvelled at how well she was doing. Van would be inclined to agree if she didn’t see the way Tai’s face dropped when she wasn’t trying to put the show on anymore.
Still she insisted Van move on like she had.
Van took a deep breath, she didn’t want to have this argument today, or any day really. So she deflected because that felt a hell of a lot easier.
“So I was thinking we could watch Thelma and Louise today,” Van said, choosing to ignore Tai’s plea for her to move on and instead doing the only thing that made her feel somewhat human. She knew eventually Tai would stop letting her do this, force her to talk or worse leave the house.
*
“Van it’s been years of this, I really think maybe you should see a therapist.”
Van was silent on the other end of the phone, she wasn’t going to dignify that statement with an actual response. She knew Tai knew it wasn’t an option either, she was just desperate.
Van imagined it for a second, showing up to a therapist and telling them about how her whole world view got dismantled three years ago sitting in a hospital bed as she learned the leader of her cannibalistic cult was actually schizophrenic.
Explain to them how they let people die and trapped their friends like wild animals. How they thanked bears and listened to the wind. How she sat there and pleaded with Travis to eat his own brother after she had declared the wilderness chose Javi to die.
That would go over so well.
Tai was right though in saying it had been years of this. Years of Van rarely leaving the house and Tai living her life pretending like it never happened. They weren’t together exactly, they weren’t really broken up either.
They were traumatized and they’d always be connected by it, whether one of them wanted to pretend it never happened or not.
Still they weren’t exactly together. Tai saw Van when she was home and they called each other. Part of Van wondered if her calls were more proof of life calls than anything. When Tai came to see Van they fell into bed and tried not to talk about it. It being the looming fact of Van’s ability to move forward.
Today though, Tai decided to bring it up again, suggesting therapy like there was any therapist alive who could handle everything she was working through.
“I’ll see you for Shauna’s wedding next week, alright Tai, Bye.”
She hung up the phone before Tai could really respond.
She did see Tai for Shauna’s wedding, an event that while small for a wedding felt huge to Van who had barely left her house in three years. Of course they gave Mrs.Taylor a few heart attacks, partially just by existing as lesbians.
It was a beautiful night, even though Shauna looked like a lamb being taken to slaughter everything she left her guard down. The way the Taylor’s descended on her and had clearly planned the wedding made Van think that her look wasn’t too far off from reality.
They weren’t exactly together but they weren’t exactly broken up when they went to Shauna’s wedding. Van couldn’t say the same the next day and the day after that after years of barely leaving the house, Van left Wiskayok and never looked back.
*
They were sitting in silence, Van knew it probably wasn’t long before another round of invasive questions. She couldn't believe she was really doing this right now. She was still in mild disbelief that when she looked up expecting to see a regular she saw Tai standing in her doorway.
Now here they were on the way to Lottie’s wellness center, Van knew well enough that it was a cult. She’d seen enough movies and lived her own life, she knew what it was. She figured Lottie realized her career early in life, cult leader.
Still Tai asked if she wasn’t curious, if she didn’t want to come in and just see.
A part of her did, a part of her wanted to ask Lottie a million questions about the wilderness and her illness and if she felt like it was all in her head. A part of her wanted to be angry that Lottie never told them about her diagnosis but she figured what eighteen year old would ever willingly do that.
Another part of her, one she had spent the better part of twenty years trying to bury was afraid. She was still that nineteen year old girl who had her entire belief system rocked. Hoping against all rational odds that her means of justification had been real all along.
No, she knew nothing good would come of her coming in. she knew well enough she would fold and call back into it no matter how much she didn’t want to.
Because really it had never left her, despite all of her attempts. Even creating physical distance between herself and everyone she ever knew.
She knew that after all of the time and space that it was still engrained in her.
She knew because a month ago when she was sitting in an oncologist's office and was told she had terminal cancer the first thought she had was one that was painfully familiar.
The wilderness chose.