It was surprisingly easy to get everyone to the truck with all of the supplies. Neo, Jerry, Bob, Roy, and Jay took turns carrying Joey in the cot, Rosie and Margaret walked next to each other. The girls carried supplies and Jan was in charge of the tent pack. Emery walked beside me with her medical supplies bag and Neo’s crossed over her shoulder. I had Jack and so odd things in a bag to carry. The group mostly followed Neo and me as we walked, it only took about twenty minutes to get there, so we had just enough time to get to the Charles Pinckney Plantation from Folly Road before sundown. The most difficult part was fitting everyone and everything into the truck. All of the supplies got piled into the tow bed while Jerry, Margaret, Rosie with Jack on her lap, and Jan sat in the middle row. Joey sat on top of Roy in the passenger’s seat. Roy’s cheeks were bright pink as Joey snoozed on Roy’s shoulders. He would never admit to it, but I swore that I saw Roy rub Joey’s back as he slept. Neo was in the driver’s seat, seeing that he was the one with the truck. Bob, Jay, Emery, and I sat amongst the stuff in the back. The trip was wild and rocky, I was just grateful that Joey was asleep. The bumps would have been insufferable without the numb of sleep to protect him from the jolts. I stared out at the moving landscape as my eyes started to burn. Bob and Jay were huddled against each other. All of the coats were on the other side of the bed, and no one was willing to venture out to get them. Emery was shivering from what I thought was just the cold. I scooted closer to her and started to take off my Hawaiian shirt, it would provide at least some protection against the wind, but once I got closer I could hear her hyperventilating. I balled my shirt in my hand and scooted closer to her. The last thing Emery would want is for me to cause a scene.

“Hey, Emery, you’re ok. I’m here. I’m going to put my big shirt around you so you don’t have to feel the wind as much. Take your time, but know that I’m right here.” I put the shirt around her shoulders and covered as much of her arms as I could. Emery had her legs pulled to her chest, rocking slightly back and forth with her eyes pressing into her knees. She stopped rocking as hard when I put the shirt on her. I used my right arm and wrapped it around her loosely. She said that it’s better when there’s compression, but I’m afraid that I’d hurt her. Emery eventually stopped rocking, and then she unfurled herself a bit. She leaned into my side and took my right hand to inspect it.

“Does this hurt?” Her voice was all warbly, like she didn’t have enough air to make noises intelligible to humans. I felt her small fingers gently poke at my palm through the bandages, I hissed. “Ollie,” Her voice was firmer now, more present and solid. “did you mess with it or put pressure on it?” I looked over at her. The wind was blowing her dark curls out of her face. The light twinkled off of her deep, warm, brown eyes and the dimming light shined upon the splattering of freckles splashed across her almond skin. Her mouth was in a slight frown and I could feel the warmth of her hands sinking in through the bandages. Despite the burn being warm, Emery’s warmth was different. She was like a hot cup of cocoa on a winter’s night, and the burn felt like I had touched the doorknob on the gate to Hell.

“I must have and not noticed. Are you ok? I’m a little worried about you, Emery.” The slight frown on her face turned into a scowl.

“Don’t flip the conversation. I saw you digging into your palms, don’t do that. It’s bad for the blisters,” I ripped my eyes away from hers. I suddenly wanted to jump off of the tow bed. The ground looked softer than the glare I was getting. “Ollie, look at me.” I turned my head and looked back at her. Her eyes were a cesspool of emotions. Angry, fear, sadness, uncertainty, and guilt were all in her eyes and staring right back at me. “You said that you were going to tell me if things were getting bad again. I’ve noticed that you’ve been out of your, erm, supplies, for a few months now. Is it getting bad?” This time I ripped my hand away and stood up. Neo yelled at me from inside of the truck, but I didn’t care. I sat down next to the coats and tried to hide from the world in them. How long did it take to get to the stupid plantation? The tow bed vibrated like someone was scooting towards me. I turned over onto my side and closed my eyes. If I played dead then maybe that would finally let me lie in silence. Small, warm hands placed themselves on my right arm and flipped me back onto my back. A jacket was taken off of my face and my glasses were stolen soon after. I kept my eyes closed. I didn’t want to talk about this, I would rather talk about anything but this. There’s too many people, there’s too much noise, there’s too much light. I didn’t want to do anything but disappear back into my pile of winter clothing. “Ollie, please talk to me?” I opened one of my eyes. Emery had her face right above mine. Her breath fluttered against my cheeks and I could see the different shades of brown in her eyes. Only concern was in them now. I shook my head.

“You also said that you would talk to me if you were having problems. I feel like you’re being a hypocrite.” Emery sighed and plopped down on top of me. Her head rested on my chest and she grabbed my right hand again.

“I’ll talk if you let me look at your hand again, deal?”

“Deal.” I picked my head up a little bit to watch her. She took the edge of the wrapping and started to take the layers away one by one. My chest ached in protest to the weight of her head, but I didn’t dare mention it. Emery would have my head if she found out what I was wearing beneath my shirt, but I didn’t want to take away one of the two things keeping me sane. The wrapping finally came off and in the light of the setting sun, I could see the damage. My hand was red and raw. Some blisters had formed on my palms. I felt Emery tense as she saw it. Her other hand reached to touch her neck, where her own burn scars were. I brought my left hand around and took her hand away from her neck. “You ok?” Emery nodded. She tossed the wrapping to the side and dug around in her pocket for the gaze.

“It’s better if you can change it out. I’m sure that getting it in the sand isn’t good for it.” I nodded but realized that she couldn’t see me.

“Yeah, you would be the one to know.” Emery started rewrapping the hand, and set my head back down and tried to think of what would be best to do. Emery didn’t need to talk for me to understand why she was freaking out. Why did it have to be a burn? Cuts, infections, broken bones, poxes, viruses, shredded skin, all of those were fine, why did I have to get the one thing that just destroys Emery to look at? At least we weren’t inside of a house. When Emery was younger, her house burned down in the middle of the night. She got stuck in her room and had to be saved by the firemen. The top bunk had come down on top of her, and her neck and back were covered in burns and blisters. She spent a month in the hospital getting treated for it, I think she even got a skin graft. Emery’s parents were devastated, they were always so cautious with her after that. The report can back saying that a candle had caused the fire, but when Emery told me about it she thought it was because her parents would forget to turn off the fireplace at night, and sometimes she would leave her toys too close to the flames. When Emery got out of hospital, she moved into my neighborhood and started going to my school. Emery said that she became friends with me because she knew how lonely I was, but I knew it was because I was the only one who didn’t care about the scars on her body. Emery hates looking at burns, it reminds her too much of being forced to look at the pictures of her progression. I feel awful that she has to dress my burns now. Maybe we should have just cut my hand off. It might have made me feel less bad about now.

The truck came to a stop and I heard the hum of the engine shut off. The front doors of the truck opened and slammed shut.