Happy Messy Scary Love

by Leah Konen

  We walk, about fifty yards ahead, toward a guy who’s standing, his back to us, the same walkie-talkie connected to his hip. A crowd of people has already gathered around him—must be the others on the tour. I can do this. Just don’t think too much, like Steinway said.

  “Jake’s also new-ish,” she says as we get closer. “I’m going to take the lift back down, but he can get you all set up for the tour. You’ll be going with the two-thirty group.”

  “Jake!” she calls as we reach him. “This is Olivia! She’s going to do the two thirty with you.”

  From the back I can see that he’s tall, shoulders wide, hair curly and unkempt.

  He turns, and I stop, frozen to the spot, my heart beating wildly.

  The curly hair, the eyes, wide and kind and familiar, taking me in.

  Me, who he doesn’t recognize, who he wouldn’t recognize, couldn’t recognize.

  I very much recognize him.

  “Hi, Olivia,” he says. “Welcome.” He sticks out his hand.

  I stick out mine, too. “Hi,” I manage, though my head is spinning, my brain struggling to compute—to comprehend.

  Jake, the guy I’m looking at, the guy who’s going to lead me on a tour through the trees . . .

  Jake is Elm.

  ONYX

  You’re asking me to go out, on my own, jump headfirst into the great unknown with a psychopathic serial killer on the loose?

  Isn’t that a bad decision?

  JIMMY

  Exactly.

  –The Bad Decision Handbook by O. Knight

  First Flight

  “Ready to zip-line?” Elm, I mean, Jake, asks.

  “Uhh,” I say, suddenly unable to form a proper sentence.

  It can’t be Elm. Elm is interning at an indie film thing. With his cool aunt.

  Elm has never mentioned upstate New York, not even once. Elm doesn’t exist in this world, mine. Then I remember, in a flash. He said he was going up north.

  Still, it can’t be. North is huge. Like ten states, at least—maybe Canada. Even upstate New York is massive, filled with so many places that aren’t here. And he never talked about zip-lining, only his internship.

  I rack my brain, trying to remember exactly what the photo looked like, desperate to pull up Reddit on my phone and check. But I can’t—even if that weren’t rude AF, my phone’s not on me. It’s back at the check-in office in my backpack in the cabinet.

  “Don’t worry about her,” Steinway says. “She hasn’t zip-lined before. She’s just a little nervous.”

  “Never zip-lined and working at a zip-lining company? I love it,” Elm-Jake says.

  “Right?” Steinway says. “Bold, this one.”

  Steinway turns to me. “I’m going to go help Tennyson with the next round of check-ins. You should be finished by four thirty. Come back down and find me when you’re done.”

  “Yeah, she can show you the rest of the ropes,” Jake says.

  A pause and then Steinway laughs, elbowing him lightly in the ribs. “Dude, any more dad jokes and I’m going to start calling you Freddy again.”

  Jake shakes his head, but laughs along with her, and Steinway turns to me. “Anyway, you good?”

  I nod, even though I’m not good, not at all. I’d thought I’d do one or two zip lines, but two hours’ worth? The prospect is terrifying.

  Not to mention, if Elm-Jake is really both Elm and Jake . . .

  No, I tell myself. He can’t be. It’s not possible. Elm is toiling away at some film collective somewhere. Vermont, maybe. Elm is placing elaborate Starbucks orders for indie directors, carrying cardboard trays of paper cups.

  Elm is not the guy standing in front of me, waiting for me to answer Steinway’s question.

  “Of course! I’m great!” I say, laying it on a little thick.

  Steinway narrows her eyes. Maybe too thick.

  “Er, I’ll come find you when I’m done,” I tell her, my face going hot.

  “Perf,” she says, then turns on her heel and saunters away.

  “All right, let’s get you a harness,” Elm-Jake says. Or is it Jake-Elm? Which is the real him? Damn it. Which is the real me? Am I Olivia-Carrie or Carrie-Olivia?

  Stop it, I tell myself. You’re making this more complicated than a Christopher Nolan screenplay. (Side note: Memento was a great horror movie.)

  I glance around. The crowd of people are waiting for me, of course they are. Steinway said so herself on the walkie. “Yeah,” I say. “Let’s harness up!”

  Jake, who I will refer to as just Jake, at least until I’ve had a chance to double-check—grabs a harness from the pile that sits at his feet. He kneels down and holds it out. “Go ahead. Step in.”

  I’m reminded of Katie’s dog, Cooper, the way Katie holds out the harness for the little brown thing.

  I do, and he shimmies it up my legs, around my thighs, being extra careful not to let his hand brush my skin even the tiniest bit. Once it’s up, he begins clipping buckles. One of his hands has the slightest shake to it. He’s nervous—why? Then I remind myself. He’s new, too.

  He looks up, smiling briefly, then fastens the last buckle and begins to pull at the straps, making everything super tight. I look down. My semi-cute jean shorts have taken on the look of a denim diaper, bunched up and squished just so.

  Jake gives a final tug to the straps and, hands still now, he hooks on a carabiner, which connects to a silvery rope and another carabiner, twisting them both so the lever isn’t exposed.

  “There’s no way that can come undone, right?” I ask.

  “No way,” he says, smiling at me again. Then he gives the harness a few tugs that make the shorts situation somehow even more awkward than before. “Safety first. That’s what my pop-pop says.” He smiles, but then looks away, almost bashful. “Now you just need a helmet.”

  He begins digging through his pile and comes up with an electric-yellow one. I put it on, but it’s way too tight.

  I hand it back to him. “Sorry, but my head’s kind of big.”

  He laughs. “No biggie.”

  I pause, staring at him, trying to figure this situation out.

  “I know, I know,” he says. “Dad jokes. I’ll stop.”

  It’s not his cheesy humor. It’s only that I wish my head were more normal-sized, like Katie’s. Even more, I wish I hadn’t sent that photo of her. I wish I could wrap my supersized head around what is really going on right now. Have I stepped into a parallel universe, all Twin Peaks Red Room kind of thing, and in this universe the wildest coincidences are entirely possible?

  The wildest coincidences are right here in front of me, digging around for an extra-large helmet?

  “Here,” Jake says. “This one might work.”

  It does. I clip it tight, and Jake gives me a smile, a smile that looks exactly like the one in the photo he sent me. Still, the nerdy glasses are missing, one tick mark in the Jake is not Elm category. Besides, the world is full of doppelgängers. Just the other day, I got stopped outside of the downtown Brooklyn Target and a girl swore up and down we’d met at band camp in Vermont. It’s too big of a coincidence. It can’t be him. He’s just an attractive (and a little awkward) new coworker who’s seen me in a denim diaper and knows my head is about three sizes too large.

  Then I see it, glinting in the bright mountain sunlight.

  The scar.

  A little ridge, right under his left eye. Just like in the photo.

  “All right, two thirty!” he yells. “Welcome to the New York Zipline Experience. Are you ready to zip-line?”

  A chorus of claps and woo-hoos.

  “I can’t hear you!” he calls. “Are you ready to zip-line?” He sounds like a pro, even though he’s new. I wonder briefly if he’s worked at a place like this before.

  The chorus grows louder, and I make my way to the side.

  “First, uhh, a few safety things,” Jake says. “Never, I repeat, never, try to unhook or adjust your equipment on your own. Second . . .”r />
  He continues on, delivering a verbal disclaimer, but his words turn soupy in my head.

  Jake is Elm. Standing here in front of me. Someway, somehow.

  “Okay, two thirty, let’s do this,” Jake says, eyes flitting around the space, as if making sure everyone’s listening. He shifts his weight, ever so slightly, from foot to foot. “Follow me,” he says, after just a beat too long, and we walk across the grass and toward a cluster of trees. It’s crisp up here, despite being the thick of summer, the mountain air a hell of a lot more pleasant than the air in Brooklyn in June. As we approach, I see a wooden platform, the shiny silver rope that must be our first zip line.

  “Bryson is waiting for you guys just on the other side.” Jake turns, giving a large wave to the dude who must be Bryson. “Who wants to go first?”

  An older woman, who has to be at least sixty-five, steps up.

  Just in front of me, a girl my age cheers. “Go, Grandma!”

  Jake grabs the lady’s carabiner and hooks it onto the rope above, then twists it and gives it a tug. “Ready?” he asks.

  “Hell yes!” she shouts.

  “Put your hands here,” Jake says, showing her where to hold her rope. “And then you’re good to go.”

  She takes a deep breath and then, just like that, jumps off the platform, a high-pitched wail of thrill echoing through the canopy of trees.

  “Next!” Jake calls.

  I hang out in the back, staring at my carabiners, wondering if they can break, as each of the other people in the group goes ahead of me. I suppose getting crushed into the bottom of a mountainous ravine is one way to fulfill my parents’ desire for me to “get out of my comfort zone.”

  Finally, I’m the only one left.

  “Lucky number eleven,” Jake says.

  “Isn’t it lucky number seven?” I ask, feeling like I really do need luck right now—all the luck I can get.

  Jake shrugs. “It rhymes, at least. Another bad joke, I suppose.” He smiles, instantly calling that photo back to mind. “But, come on. Let’s do it.”

  I step up onto the platform, feel sweat beginning to pour from beneath my helmet.

  Jake’s eyes catch mine, and for an instant, his own awkwardness fades away. “Wow,” he says, voice soft, eyes wide with concern. “You really are worried, aren’t you?”

  “I know it’s stupid,” I say. “I know that it’s safe and you double-checked everything, it’s just—” I gulp. “It’s the heights thing. I don’t know.”

  My face goes hot and suddenly, inexplicably, I half want to cry. Here I am, the girl who watches horror movies on the reg, sees women and men fight back against their attackers, outsmart their killers, face down their biggest fears, and yet I can’t even get on a zip line, one that a grandmother just did, no problem at all.

  “Hey,” Jake says, putting his hand on my arm, my skin turning warm at his touch. “Hey, you’re shaking. It’s okay.”

  “I know.”

  He holds me steady. “No, I mean. It’s okay to be scared. This is going to sound stupid, and I can’t believe I’m even telling you this, but I used to be deathly afraid of the dark.”

  I laugh weakly. “When you were five?”

  His hand drops from my arm, and he stares at the ground. “When I was fourteen,” he says sheepishly. “I almost had a panic attack when the lights went out at a middle school dance.”

  “You’re messing with me,” I say.

  He looks up then. “I wish.”

  “I guess you should never be a movie theater usher then.”

  He laughs. “And I guess you shouldn’t work at a zip-line company—oops, too late.”

  We both laugh then.

  “It won’t be as bad as you’re imagining,” he says. “Besides, I only sleep with a night-light like one out of two nights these days.”

  I burst out laughing.

  “Hey, I landed one,” he says.

  “You did.”

  He tilts his head to the side. “Are you okay to do this?”

  I nod. “I can try.”

  “All you’ve got to do is step off that platform. The equipment does the rest.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “Here,” he says. “Er, if it’s not too weird, take my hand.”

  I do, and it’s warm, and we walk up to the platform together, and it’s so strange, because I’ve been talking with him for months, and I felt like I knew him so well; but in a weird way, it’s like none of it compares to us holding hands right now—how much you can learn about someone in just one touch.

  “Don’t look down,” he says. “Only up.” He gives my hand a squeeze, and I squeeze back, and for a second, I feel only safety, because he’s here with me.

  “Ready?” he asks when we’ve neared the edge. “I’m going to stop forcing you to hold my hand now, but I’ll be right behind you.”

  I don’t want to do it. I want to turn around and take the ski lift down, tell anyone who will listen that I’m quitting on the spot. I want to go back to Brooklyn and my old, predictable life.

  Only I don’t have a choice now. I’m up here, all hooked in, and I promised my parents I would give this a shot.

  I have to. For them—and for me.

  I take a deep breath.

  I unclasp my hand from his, and I look up, not down, at the sky, blue and beautiful.

  “You got this,” I hear behind me.

  I’ve got this, I tell myself. I’m not going to be afraid anymore. I’m not going to be stuck.

  Eyes locked straight ahead, I take a step.

  Like that, the ground is gone from beneath me, the air is whooshing around me, the line is buzzing above me, metal on metal, and the sky is everywhere, open and welcoming and complete—

  I’m flying.

  Freddy

  My heart is still beating fast, a feeling of elation, of freedom, running through my blood as Bryson helps unhook me. He’s short and stocky, with a shaved head and tattoos snaking up and down his arms.

  We stand, untethered, on a wooden platform that connects to another wooden platform via a rickety rope bridge. I pause, looking around me.

  I did it. I freaking did it. I went for it, and it didn’t blow up in my face.

  No flubbing up an application. No stumbling over lines.

  I flew.

  Now to just tackle the rope bridge ahead of me that looks as if it wants to fall apart at any minute.

  “How was it?” Jake asks, stepping onto the platform and unhooking himself.

  “Good,” I say. “Awesome, actually. Though, to be totally honest, the bridge over there is another story.”

  “Right?” Jake asks as he ambles up to me. “I’ve only been here a week, and I already hate that bridge. Heights or no, it gives me the willies. But, far as I know, no one has died.”

  I feel a chill crawl up my spine.

  “Relax,” he says as he reads the look on my face. “I was only kidding. I do that, if you’ve noticed.”

  I laugh. “Really? I missed that.”

  He laughs, too. “Seriously, this place doesn’t mess around with safety. I promise.”

  I watch as Bryson helps the group of zip-liners cross, one by one. It’s slow-going, and I have a minute alone with Jake as we make our way toward the group. “Thanks,” I say. “For helping me back there.”

  “I was right, right? It wasn’t as bad as you imagined?”

  I shake my head, reaching out to steady myself on a tree. “Yeah, it was kind of amazing, actually.”

  He beams. “I knew you would like it.”

  My eyes land on his scar again—proof, staring right back at me.

  Still, I want to hear it from his mouth, I want to find a way to ask him, to hint at our conversations without giving myself away. I need code lingo, like Steinway on her walkie. I look straight ahead. About half of the group has crossed the bridge.

  Something subtle. If I can throw myself off a cliff, surely I can ask him a question about his life. “So . .
. do you like movies?” I ask.

  Immediately, I want to chastise myself, palm to forehead, only I’m afraid if I make any sudden movements, I’ll lose my footing and fall to my death, even though the edge of the platform is still several feet away.

  Jake only laughs. “I do,” he says. “I do indeed.”

  “Horror?” I ask. It’s stupid, so obvious. All my cards, revealed at once. But I want to hear it from him.

  Jake’s mouth forms a grin. “How did you know?”

  My heart thumps in my chest. How did I know?

  I’ve been chatting with you since March. Hey, old friend!

  I sent you a pic of my best friend because I was not #facegoals that day you asked.

  What Would Meryl Do only makes sense if you’re as cool, popular, and easygoing as someone like Meryl!

  Hi, my name is Olivia, and I’m a horror-holic. Thus I know you from the Reddit horror community we both frequent.

  “I just . . .”

  “Oh yeah,” Jake says. “Steinway threatening me with her dumb nickname.”

  Nickname? “Right,” I say, racking my brain for what it was.

  It hits me just as he says it.

  “See, I made the mistake of telling her, early on, that my favorite movie is A Nightmare on Elm Street. So she started calling me Freddy, for Freddy Krueger. Only I made her stop because Freddy is a super weird name.”

  I swear to god I feel the blood drain from my face.

  “Oh shit,” he says. “Your dad’s not named Freddy, is he? I’m sorry.”

  “No,” I say, forcing a smile. “No, I don’t know anyone named Freddy.”

  “That’s a relief,” he says, scratching at the bottom of his chin. “Anyway, if she were going to give me a movie-inspired nickname, it should be Elm. That’s my handle on Reddit anyway.” He grins sheepishly. “Sorry. Nerd alert.”

  I swallow, my breath shallow, and suddenly I feel like I can’t move. It’s really him.

  I mean, I knew it was him. I recognized his face. I saw his scar.

  But still, holy shit, it’s really him. No freakishly similar doppelgänger with a freakishly similar scar.

  Just Jake. Just Elm. Only merged into one, standing in front of me, confused.