Everneath

by Brodi Ashton

Page 16

  I knew the river well. The rapids were bunched up at the end of the run, so for the first half, I tilted my head back and let the sun warm my face. The weather was at that point where if the wind wasn’t blowing and the sun was shining, it was almost too warm. The first half went by fast.

  An intense winter and a late spring runoff had left the river deeper than usual, and most of the tourist rafts bugged out at the West Table cutoff, as the brochures suggested. Before the rapids got too bad.

  Experienced locals were known to gamble on the level-five rapids just after West Table, but never with the spring runoff we’d had.

  Which is why I kind of freaked out when—a half hour later—Cole and Maxwell steered our little raft away from the West Table shore, the final exit point.

  “Uh, guys, we should probably…” I pointed to the disappearing shoreline and had a sudden panic attack. “If we all paddle backward—”

  “Live a little,” Maxwell said from his steering post at the back of the raft.

  “There are serious rapids ahead. ” I waved my hand toward the approaching bend in the river. “And the canyon walls mean there are no banks. ”

  “No way out, dude,” the drummer—Gavin—said from near the front. “Sounds like a song. ”

  Cole was behind me, and I clenched his arm. “Cole, listen to me. It’s not a good idea. ” But what was he supposed to do? We were past the point of no return.

  “Don’t be scared. ” I couldn’t explain the expression on his face. Like he was exhilarated by my fear. He looked away, a faint smile on his lips.

  “Hey, Nik!” Maxwell jerked his head toward the front of the boat. “Is that what you meant?”

  I turned to look. The Tube. The stretch of level-five rapids had gotten its name because of the smooth walls on either side of the river that made it impossible to stop. I’d been down the rapids once before. During a dry summer. There was a giant sharp rock in the middle that my uncle had deftly swerved around.

  Today the water was so high, I couldn’t see the rock.

  “Stay to the side!” I shouted. “I know there’s a rock in the middle. ”

  But two eddies on either side of the river were forcing our boat toward the center.

  “We’ll be fine,” Maxwell said.

  “No, we won’t!” I searched the rapids for an unnatural break in the water, hoping I could see the tip of the rock I knew was there somewhere.

  Finally, I saw a black tip dividing the rushing waves. With a sinking feeling, I knew I’d spotted it too late.

  “It’s there!” I pointed.

  We paddled backward as fast as we could, but it wasn’t going to work. We weren’t even slowing down. Boats never seem to be going very fast until you try to stop them. There was no way to avoid it. I squeezed my eyes shut.

  The boat snagged, and we lurched forward. And then I was in the air.

  Seconds seemed to pass as the mountains on either side of the canyon circled in my vision, the thin strip of blue sky swirling back and forth.

  Then the water slammed into me.

  FIFTEEN

  NOW

  My house, after the Shop-n-Go. Less than three months left.

  When I got home that night, I took Cole’s hair out of my pocket and put it in the drawer of my nightstand. Maybe someday I’d have the strength to use it.

  Before I could think too much about what I saw at the Shop-n-Go, I heard a soft knock at my front door. When I opened it, there was Jules, standing on my porch, twisting the ends of her hair with her right hand. She was tired. Or stressed. The air around her tasted bitter and heavy.

  “Hi, Becks. ” She hesitated. “Can we … talk for a little while?”

  “Of course. Come in. ” She looked nervous, which made me nervous.

  Jules followed me down the hall to my bedroom, and then sat on the corner of my bed. I turned my chair around so I was facing her.

  “We used to do this all the time,” she said. “I practically lived here. ”

  I smiled. “I remember. ”

  She looked past me to my desk, where a framed picture of the two of us stood propped against the wall. Her eyes met mine, and she said, “You’ve lost a lot of weight. And you were small to begin with. ”

  “I know. ”

  Jules folded her arms. “Look, Becks. I told myself I wasn’t going to bug you with accusations or questions or any of that stuff, but after today… I don’t know. I just can’t stay quiet anymore. What’s going on with you?”

  I grabbed a pencil off my desk and turned it over and over in my hand a few times, trying to figure out what I could say. “I don’t know what to tell you, Jules. I was away for a while, but now I’m back and I’m not trying to hurt anyone—”

  “Then what are you trying to do?”

  “I’m trying to get my life back,” I blurted out, before I even thought about it. It was the truth, even though I hadn’t let myself acknowledge it before. I took in a breath and leaned my head back against the chair. That niggling wish—the silent prayer that I could someday reclaim my life—was alive inside me even though I knew it was impossible. I shook my head, as if to chase away the rogue thought. “I can’t talk about it anymore. I’m sorry. ”

  She sighed and nodded. “Fine. I just think you should at least know about what happened here when you were gone. ”

  “You mean with Jack?”

  “Yeah. ”

  I looked at the floor. “What about him?”

  “It’s tough to talk about, because it was so hard to watch. At first he went crazy trying to track you down. He was convinced you didn’t run away, that somebody had taken you. He organized search parties. Dropped everything he cared about. Stopped eating. ” She paused and looked at me. “I’m sorry if this is hard to hear. ”

  I hadn’t realized I was clutching my stomach.

  “Eventually, when it looked like you were never coming back, something in him just sorta died. He stopped talking, even to his friends. ”

  I raised my gaze to see Jules shake her head. “This one time, in the cafeteria, Brent Paxton said something about you being a crackhead and Jack just flipped out. He threw Brent to the floor and started whaling on him. The principal had to pull him off. Jack got a two-week suspension. And Brent was his friend. ”

  “I’m sorry. ”

  “I know. You couldn’t have known what it would do to him. But you know now. ”

  Her words held an unspoken warning for me. Don’t hurt him again. Jules was here as Jack’s friend. Not mine.

  “You were there for him,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Well, he kinda didn’t give me a choice. I think he was clinging to anything that would bring him closer to you. He never gave up on you. And I was there to pick up the pieces. ” She leaned toward me. “He never got over you. ”

  I craved those words, and yet dreaded them at the same time. Could he still love me, despite what he did in the past?

  Jules walked over to my closet and started thumbing through my clothes. We always used to go through each other’s closets, looking for new stuff to borrow. She paused at a purple T-shirt. “I thought that with you being back, things might turn around for him. At first, they did. But after that fight yesterday, and then the car accident… I’m not sure. ”

  “I’ll try to leave him alone. I’ll stay away from him. ”

  She turned toward me. “I’m not asking you to do that. You’ve already been doing that, and it’s like he’s chasing a ghost. ” She looked down at her hands. “I don’t really know what I’m asking. ” She lifted her head. “If you could just talk to him and give him some sort of answer, maybe he’ll stop running. ”

  I looked at her helplessly. “Jules, I don’t know what to say. ”

  “Do you know what he wants?” Jules pleaded. “He’s not being straight with me. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was important. ” The edge of her mouth pulled up in a rueful smile. “His car was wrecke
d, and I’m not sure how many more concussions he can get before brain damage sets in. I believe you that you don’t want to hurt anyone, but you’re hurting him. Can you think of anything that would help?”

  I thought back to the fragments of conversations we’d had. What did Jack want?

  Tell me you remember, Becks, he’d said.

  “I’ll try to think of something,” I said. What I wanted to say was Does Jack know you love him?

  I couldn’t help thinking Jules was a hundred times better for Jack than I was. And I couldn’t help hoping Jack would never realize it.

  The next day, Jack didn’t speak to me again in Mrs. Stone’s class, probably because I’d ditched him one too many times. I thought about Jules’s request. I ruled out talking directly to Jack; I wasn’t exactly a model of composure when we were face-to-face.

  He wanted to know if I remembered. So at lunchtime I took a small piece of paper out of my notebook and wrote two words on it.

  I remember.

  I slipped the piece of paper into his locker before I could think about it for too long. But during history class, all I was doing was thinking about it. I pictured him reading the note, and my fingertips started to sweat. I tried to get a better look at his face in my imagination. Was he smiling?

  By calculus, I was second-guessing myself. Would he think this was just another confusing message? Would he be even more frustrated?

  By the end of school, I still hadn’t seen Jack. Why did I ever think two little words would make things better? So stupid. I walked past his locker on the off chance my note was sticking out of one of the slots and I could yank it away.

  But it wasn’t.

  The note was small. Only two words on it. Maybe he wouldn’t find it, and if he did, maybe he wouldn’t know who wrote it. There could be other girls out there who would write those words on a paper. And shove it in his locker.

  By the end of school, I’d had no word from Jack. No sign that he’d read anything. He kept a messy locker, and I started to believe the note was lost, and maybe that was a good thing. I breathed a sigh of relief as I put away the last of my books and took my backpack out. When I slammed the door, I gasped.

  Jack was behind it, waiting, with the corner of his lip pulled up in not quite a smile. “What?” he demanded.

  “What what?” I asked.

  He held my note up in front of my face. “What do you remember?”

  Everything. But I couldn’t tell him that. I shrugged and said, “Things. ” Then I made a move to leave, but Jack’s strong arm blocked my way, his hand pressing against the locker behind my back.

  “No you don’t. You can’t leave a note like this”—he waved the paper—“and then say ‘things. ’ I want to know what, exactly, you remember. ”

  People in the hallway stared and I could feel my face going red. Jack noticed, and put his other arm up against the lockers, blocking me in. My pulse went nuts. It had to be visible on my wrists.

  Jack’s face was inches from mine. His breath was minty, and I could smell the rustic scent of his aftershave, and whatever strong emotion he was feeling, it tasted sweet. I breathed it in, and the inhalation was embarrassingly loud.

  His eyes searched mine. “This is the first opening you’ve given me, and I’m not letting you get out of it. ” He paused. “What do you remember?”

  I looked behind him, at the curious spectators, and squinted my eyes shut, unable to bear the scrutiny anymore.

  “Say something, Becks. Say anything. ”

  “You,” I said. “I remember you. ” I kept my eyes shut, and felt his hands drop. He didn’t move back.

  “What do you remember about me?” There was strong emotion behind his voice. Something he fought to control.

  With my eyes closed, I could easily picture the other side of the century.

  “I remember the way your hand could cover my entire shoulder. The way your lower lip stuck out when you were working out a problem in your head. And how you flick your ring finger with your thumb when you get impatient. ”

  I opened my eyes, and the words no longer got stuck in my throat on their way out. They flowed. “And when something surprises you and you don’t know what to say, you get a tiny wrinkle in between your eyebrows. ” I reached up to touch the divot, then hesitated and lowered my hand. “It showed on the day the coach told you you’d made first-string quarterback. And it’s showing now. ”

  For a moment the space between us held no tension, no questions, no accusations.

  Finally he leaned back, a stunned expression on his face. “Where do we go from here?”

  “Nowhere, really,” I whispered. “It doesn’t change anything. ”

  Eyebrows still drawn together, he said, “We’ll see. ” Then he turned and left.

  I tucked this moment away.

  In the dark, dank world of the Tunnels, I would call upon this memory. And there would be a flicker of candlelight. If only for a moment.