Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
- Robert Frost
She had walked her bike out beneath the massive oaks behind her house, "her" being the girl that used to be her best friend, Massie Block. The worn dirt path they used to take together had since been overgrown by grass, but she loved it all the same. The wandering path went farther than they had ever gone. It went back into the trees and wound around grassy hills and meadows and falls and past the edges of her property and into somewhere, somewhere that wasn't where Claire was.
She was done with it all. Done with being put down by everybody at school, done with her family, done with the pathetic relationship she led with Cam, just done caring.
So Claire threw some clothes into the coral-colored backpack she'd had since forever. She brought her phone and food but left everything else behind. She slapped on the Converse that she'd decorated so long ago – with Massie – and left on her turquoise bike. She headed to the only lonely place she knew, the solitary place where she could free her mind, the path in the woods.
But now, in the cold wind, with fiery leaves dancing across the breeze and rattling on the branches above her and thunderclouds gathering along the horizon, she just wanted to leave it all behind.
She regretted leaving her old best friend behind in the cold rain two years ago, after screaming so many hurtful things she didn't mean, and having to face the sorrowful blue eyes every day after that at school, pretending she didn't notice the way she hid behind her thin white-blonde hair.
She regretted kissing somebody else just once and ruining everything amazing between her and Derrick.
She regretted the day she left the back door open in anger and let her precious dog escape and regretted looking for her later in the endless back woods and finding her small body dead, torn at by merciless claws and teeth.
Torn at like she'd torn at Claire's soul, and now dead like she'd saw something special die in her eyes that day, and how she turned away and never looked back as she ran into the woods, just ran and never looked back, feet tearing the sidewalk as she pelted home from under the striped awning of the old ice cream shop.
So Massie ran. She remembered all those days and wanted to leave it all behind. She left school after second period and ran home, then took to the massive back lawn until she reached the wooden fence keeping the woods out of their perfect life, then jumped over it and kept going along the weedy path and never looked back until she couldn't see the house anymore.
She got off her bike and looked around her. It was darker and colder and had begun to rain, and somewhere behind her she had lost her right shoe. All she could do was get off and curl up under the shade of yet another massive oak with leaves in a molten orange and wait for the rain to stop. She pulled on her gray hoodie and sat down to cry, because she had been running for two hours and was so lost.
The path went so much further than she remembered. She had passed the place where she and Massie had been forbidden to go past so long ago, and she was lost beneath the leafy cage containing her in these dark woods. So far the path had been a single path with no branches, but now she had come to a fork in the road. And she was lost, and she didn't know where to go.
She knew nobody would ever find her, because nobody would look. She only had one friend, and that one friend hadn't even looked at her for four years.
The sky split open and rain poured out of the clouds, drenching her in cosmic tears and leaving her more lost within herself than ever before. She used to spend all the rainy afternoons in the Block library with Massie, poring over seemingly ancient books together, memorizing their favorite, a book of Robert Frost's poems.
And suddenly she wasn't so lost, because she knew which way to go. Claire slowly stood up, shivering from the rain, wheeling her bike along a path.
She ran through the rain, not caring about the rain or the cold or really anything.
Because she had a reason to run.
She ran to save her friendship and ran to make empty lives whole again. She had found a tennis shoe she recognized as belonging to Claire. The rain had long ago washed away footprints or tire tracks, but the path was one path so far and hadn't branched.
She had to run. She had to run to find Claire. She knew the girl she still cared about was out there somewhere in the rain and could only pray that she wouldn't be killed like Bean. Massie ran. She ran until she couldn't see from the rain, and she kept going until she came to a fork. There were two paths. One was like the other she had followed before; slightly overgrown but not so much that she couldn't go on. The other was narrow and all uphill and covered completely with grass slicked down by the downpour.
She had to run to find Claire. She had no choice.
Because she really did care about Claire still, after all the nights they'd shared together of being best friends, of sleeping next to each other in Massie's bed and whispering their secrets to the dark ceiling above them and hoping the other heard. They had a bond closer than friendship could ever be, and Massie broke it. So now she had to fix it.
She began sobbing again. She couldn't find her, she never could, not in this labyrinth. It was a lost cause, so entirely hopeless, because Claire could've gone any way.
But after remembering the poems they'd read together, memorized together, and loved together, and she took the smaller, overgrown, narrow path. Because if taking the road less traveled by made all the difference, she hoped and prayed with all her heart that the difference would be her lost friend.
She collapsed because she couldn't go on. She had run and run and run and just wanted to die, because she was so alone in this world and so lost and her legs hurt. Hopefully this time, Claire could lay down and not have to get up again.
Massie ran as hard as she could, faster and faster until she thought she would explode, and just wanting to find Claire and not have to start over again and turn around. She saw the bike first, leaning haphazardly against a tree. Then she saw the limp girl, blonde hair covering her face, skinny arms flung on the ground beside her. She hoped it wasn't too late.
She had lost hope and was going to let go. Then she felt herself being picked up. Her eyes opened, and there was Massie, helping her up, crying with happiness. They both were sobbing with pure joy that they had found each other and were together again at last after the silence they'd lived in for four years. The amber eyes she'd always thought were so beautiful were meeting hers again at last. Claire embraced her friend again like they'd never been apart.
She pulled away from the hug first, feeling how skinny Claire was between her arms. She was beautiful still, like an elf, with her white-blonde hair and blue eyes like clear water.
Then, before she knew it, they were together and kissing in the rain like in the movies, only this was better, because it was them and not somebody else and they were together at last.
They were together, even though all those years they'd ignored each other and told themselves to give up and it was over and they didn't care even though their hearts still loved the other with all they had to give.
They could've turned back.
They could've gone home together.
But Massie pulled Claire's arm and they walked together, hand in hand, because sometimes the unknown is special and sometimes being together is all you really need. They both had regret and broken hearts and a lonely life that they were ready to leave behind. But they both remembered the map they'd seen together in an old book about the area, and this path was going to go into the mountains and not look back.
They never looked back, because they were together again in the autumn thunderstorm and they were in love, and they had their life ahead of them, and what better way to spend it than together in the woods, together in love, together under the blanket of the storm clouds, just together again?They would sleep together again, just like the old days, whispering their secrets to the sky above them and hoping the other would hear what they had to say, because there was so much to say that they hadn't said yet, and the first thing to say was I love you. But sometimes you don't need words; you can just be with the person you love in the woods in autumn, in the middle of a raging thunderstorm, and everything that needs said will say itself.