April 25
Tayja
"Tayja!"
I'm back in that room. My living room. Julie is screaming for me as the gun is pointed at her head. I'm frozen. Julie's and my eyes meet.
"Tayja!"
Her scream is desperate. She knows she's going to die. She knows they are going to kill her.
"Tay-" Her scream is cut short as the gun fires. Her body crumples to the floor.
"No!" I scream. I wake up, sitting bolt upright in Ryan's bed. "Julie!"
I know I'm awake and I know the dream wasn't real. Julie didn't know I was there when she died. She didn't know I could have done something, anything, to save her. She doesn't know that I watched her die and did nothing. I take in a deep breath and scream.
Ryan bursts into the room, but I ignore him as I keep screaming, alternating between my little sister's name and wordless cries of anguish.
I watched her die. I watched those men shoot her. I did nothing. I hid and waited as they killed the rest of my family. I did nothing. I let my baby sister die and I didn't do anything about it.
Ryan is trying to comfort me, but I know I don't deserve it. Seeing my sister's eyes filled with terror as she screams for me to save her, even though it was just a dream, makes me hate myself. I shove him off. The covers on the bed are smothering me. I throw them off and scramble out of the bed. I make it a few steps across the wooden floor before I crumple on the ground and dissolve into sobs.
When I can finally breathe in without my breath hitching, I hear Ryan's voice beside me.
"Who is Julie?"
I can't talk to him about this. I can't tell anyone about this. I don't know how I thought I could testify, how I could tell a whole room full of people about how I watched two men murder my entire family and I didn't do a thing.
Without a word, I stand and walk out of the bedroom, across the living room, and out the front door to the porch. It's cold outside, but the bracing temperature is a welcome respite from the heat of my anger and sorrow. I sit on the haphazard chair in the corner. I hug my knees close to my chest and cry silently. A faint green light dances among the stars. I look up to the sky to watch the mesmerizing lights as they shift from green to purple to pink. After several minutes out on the porch, I can feel the cold seeping into my bones. Reluctantly, I make my way back to bed.
April 26
"I'm sorry about my behavior last night."
Ryan looks up from his bowl of cereal, the first time he's looked at me today. I'm afraid he may have misinterpreted my actions. I take a fortifying breath.
"Julie is - was - my baby sister," I say, the tears already picking at my eyes.
Ryan's face immediately changes from a guarded look to one of comprehension.
"She was screaming my name," I breathe, my voice beginning to break.
"You don't have to explain," Ryan says quickly.
"I'm sorry," I repeat, feeling regretful for how I shoved him off and ignored him last night.
"It's OK, Ana," he says. "I forgive you."
I look up into his blue eyes. In a rare demonstration of a lack of self-consciousness, he has turned his entire face toward me.
Ana. Tayja. My two names echo in my head. At first, hearing the name Ana on his lips was foreign and weird. It didn't feel like my name. Mom used to call me Ana, but baby Julie's adorable Tayja quickly won everyone over. No one has called me Ana since I was six years old. Slowly I've become used to being Ana again. Now my former nickname only reminds me of the person who gave it to me. I think I'll continue to go by Ana, even if I do eventually leave this place. Tayja died the day she watched her family torn from her.
"Come on, I think I've figured out why you can't get your shots in a closer grouping," Ryan says, standing and carrying his bowl to the sink. I think he's trying to distract me. I'm grateful for how considerate he is. I hurriedly gather up my pistol, the ammo box, my boots, and a warm jacket.
Once outside and ready to start practice, I turn to Ryan.
"What am I doing wrong?" I ask.
"I think it's easiest to show you," he says. "Let me load your gun for you."
I raise an eyebrow. "I can do that myself," I say. It's also much easier for me to load my pistol since I've got full use of both hands.
Ryan sounds impatient. "Just let me do it," he says.
I shrug and hand it over. He turns around and loads it, blocking my view of what he's doing. I roll my eyes. This seems overly ridiculous.
Ryan turns back to me and hands me the gun. "I cocked it for you," he says. "Aim and fire, but watch what your hands do after you fire."
"Ok," I say, still not understanding what Ryan's getting at. I line up the little metal tree target in the sight and squeeze the trigger the way Ryan told me during our first target practice session.
Unexpectedly, the gun doesn't fire. Confused, I bring the gun toward me and examine it.
"Did it jam?" I ask, inspecting it closely. Soon I realize what the problem is. "It's not loaded," I say, even more confused.
"Did you see what your hands did?" Ryan asks, his voice holding more energy than usual.
I look up at his face to see his eyes alive with excitement, a faint smile on his lips.
"No?" I say, raising an eyebrow.
"Fire again," he says, all hints of his usual sternness during these little improvised gun-training sessions completely gone. His blue eyes are more animated than I've ever seen them. His entire demeanor is completely unlike anything I've ever seen from him.
"But there's nothing in it to fire. It's not loaded."
"Just do it," he says, sounding a little impatient. "And watch your hands."
Reluctantly, I raise the empty gun and pull back the trigger. Nothing happens, but my hands do seem to move a little bit.
"You didn't do it as much this time, probably because you knew it wasn't going to fire. It's much better to do this with a revolver. Maybe I should get one."
"Do what?"
Ryan's eyes finally leave the gun in my hands and focus on my eyes.
"When you shoot with the pistol, you're expecting the recoil." He reaches out and places his left hand over the rear of the gun, his fingers touching my thumb. He grips the forward end of the barrel with his right thumb and index finger. "The recoil sends the pistol up and back, like this."
He gently pulls the barrel up with his right hand, angling the gun pointing upward in my hands. "But you're expecting the recoil, so right as you pull back the trigger, you're pointing the gun down." He angles the barrel of the gun toward the ground. "That's throwing off your aim and causing your shots to spread out."
He removes his hands from my weapon and steps back. I look at my gun, then at him.
"How does having a revolver help?"
"You can leave some cylinders blank. When you fire the weapon, you don't know if a bullet is chambered or not. It helps you behave consistently when firing."
"So like Russian roulette?" I ask.
Ryan looks at me and narrows his eyes. "In a way, I suppose. But no one is getting shot in the head."
"Of course not. That would be breaking the rules of gun safety, and I would never dream of doing something like that," I say in a somewhat teasing voice.
Ryan tilts his head. "Are you mocking me?" he asks, the smile in his eyes the only hint that he's merely pretending to be offended.
I giggle at his teasing response. I've made joking remarks to him before, but he's never played along until now. He flashes me a brief smile before turning back to our little shooting range.
"Alternate between shooting the gun loaded and unloaded. Work on holding the gun still and don't resist the recoil. See if it improves your grouping."
After an hour of target practice, I conclude that Ryan's method does seem to help, but only marginally. He tells me to keep training like this for a few days. I ask him to teach me more about aiming with the rifle since he's still not fully explained how he's able to shoot so well with only one eye and what I suspect is his non-dominant hand. He gets a slightly mischievous look on his face and tells me that he'll help me improve my shot with the rifle if I catch a fish large enough to cook tomorrow.
We haven't been to the river since the first time he took me last week and I flipped out when reminded of Julie. I can tell Ryan likes to go fishing, but since he found the helicopter, he's avoided leaving me alone at the cabin for any length of time. I suppose my reluctance to leave the cabin has kept him cooped up here too.
I give in and agree to return to the river with him tomorrow. I am safe here. I shouldn't let my irrational fears keep me and, by extension, Ryan from going out and doing things.
So I agree to Ryan's deal and make a deal with myself: I won't be what holds Ryan back from doing what he wants to do. I'm already enough of a burden on his life. Anything he wants to do or any place he wants to go, I won't say no. That shouldn't be too difficult though, considering how intent Ryan is on keeping his existence a secret.