Rebel and Soul

by Anna Kyss

  When the constant questioning becomes annoying, she guides me into the next room. A keg in the center of the kitchen is encircled by partiers. Someone hands us two beers. Maddie immediately sets hers down.

  “Your dad’s public image?” I guess.

  Her eyes widen, but she nods. She leads me out the open back door, but before we leave the kitchen, I discard my drink, as well. The fenced-in backyard has been professionally landscaped, with rose bushes and other flowers lining the fences.

  A dozen lounge chairs rest in the grass. I bet these girls work on their tans even in April. Most of the seats are occupied by intertwined bodies, so I settle onto the grass at the far end of the yard.

  Maddie wrinkles her nose but kneels in the grass so her sky-blue dress doesn’t get soiled. If she has trouble sitting on the grass in her own backyard, my challenge might be damn near impossible for her.

  “You didn’t have to put your drink down just because—”

  “If I want to win this challenge, I need to stay in control.” I wink at her. “I’m surprised your father let you join a sorority.”

  “It was his idea,” she says quickly.

  Of course it was. How could I think this lost girl could make such an important decision on her own?

  “He provided a list of sororities to rush for.” She glances around to make sure we have privacy. “The ones with the best networking and connections.”

  “So even your group can’t count toward what you love.”

  She studies her lap. When I watched her interact with other people at the party, she smiled and laughed, seeming so damn fake. This is the real Maddie, and I find her far more intriguing. “I don’t think I’m ever going to win that challenge.”

  “Keep trying. But in the meantime, I have another challenge for you.” More and more, I want to help this girl find herself. For the last week, I imagined what my life would be like if someone dictated every decision for me. I know who I am because I had the freedom to explore. My sister was really cool about letting me embrace whatever grabbed my interest in the moment.

  Maddie needs to be pushed to try new things and break her self-imposed boundaries. If she never steps outside her comfort zone, she’ll never discover what truly drives her.

  Besides, nobody should have to walk through life completely lost.

  “A new challenge?” Her eyes light up, and she leans closer. “What is it?”

  If I’m reading her right, she wants to spend more time with me. Lucky me. I feel the same. I can’t figure out what about her is so compelling, but I’m definitely drawn to her. Sage was absolutely right. Our meeting on the train was no coincidence.

  “A surprise. Be ready in the morning.” I jump up and pull her to her feet. “We need to capture this challenge for Sage. Otherwise, he’ll never believe I went to a sorority party.”

  “Have you heard from him? Abby didn’t answer when I tried to call.”

  I sigh. “Nobody does well when their bodies are pumped full of poison. I get that they need to eradicate the cancer, but…”

  “So let’s make him smile.” She guides me back into the house. “We’ll send him the craziest pictures ever.”

  We spend the rest of the night snapping ridiculous pictures. She comes up with a silly idea, then I come up with an even wilder one. The better the pictures, the more she smiles—real smiles, not the polished and practiced ones she typically displays.

  She’s so pretty when she lets her guard down and has fun, revealing what a caring, sweet side she has. Maddie’s spending her Friday night focused on making my friend, whom she’s never even met, feel better. I might be falling for this girl.

  Maddie

  WHEN THE doorbell rings, I’m one of the few girls awake already. It’s only eleven on a Saturday morning, and last night’s party was one of the biggest all year. I gulp my second coffee refill and run down the steps.

  Sure enough, Soul is waiting on the porch. Through the beveled glass that lines the front door, I watch him fidget for a moment. Am I really up for his challenge? After I made him suffer through my party, he could be planning massive payback.

  But I can’t turn down the opportunity to spend the day with him. He questions me and pushes me, yet I feel freer when I’m with him. I slide the deadbolt and open the door. “How are you up this early? I thought you would sleep through our challenge.”

  “No way would I skip out on you. I’ve been looking forward to this all week.”

  “You just invited me yesterday.”

  He leans close and whispers, “I’ve been thinking of where to take you since you stepped off that train.”

  Uh oh. I’m definitely in trouble.

  “Don’t worry.” He’s way too perceptive. With his keen insight, I can’t hide anything from him. “We’re going to one of my favorite places.”

  “Which is?”

  “Less fun if I ruin the surprise.” He scrutinizes my cherry-red sundress and matching sandals, and the lips of his mouth turn up. “Change. You’re too fancy for what I have planned.”

  “Change? Are you kidding me? I got up at nine to…” Look cute, entirely for Soul’s benefit. “It’s not like you gave me a dress code or any hint of what we’ll be doing.”

  “Fair enough.” He circles me, eyeing my smooth calves and freshly painted toes. “Go put on jeans and closed-toes shoes. Old stuff, nothing too fancy.”

  “But it’s going to be hot today. The forecast predicted mid-eighties, record-breaking temps for April.”

  Soul leans close enough to mutter, “Trust me. Bring a hoodie along, too.”

  “No boy is going to tell me what to wear. I like my dress.” I grab my purse and head out the door. When I glance behind me, he shrugs and follows.

  After a two-hour car ride and an hour-long hike, we’re still making our way to Soul’s secret destination. We left his beat-up Volvo on the shoulder of the dirt-logging road on which we spent thirty minutes bumping along. Maybe I’m a complete moron for going miles off the beaten track on a second date. That’s exactly the kind of thing they warn women not to do. But I’m not worried. Abby vouched for him, but even if she hadn’t, I would have felt safe with him.

  Safe, but completely annoyed. We’re not hiking on any of the hundreds of well-maintained trails in the Boulder area. Instead, we’re making our way through thigh-high weeds, on a path so narrow, it must be a deer trail.

  The grasses tickle my legs, and after a while, I can’t ignore the irritation any longer and brush away the growth from the hem of my sundress. I wish my stubbornness hadn’t kicked in. Soul was right—I would have been way more comfortable in jeans.

  “I bet you wish you had your jeans on about now.” He turns to grin at me.

  “Well, if you weren’t so secretive, I could have dressed properly,” I mutter.

  “I have the feeling, if I told you what we’re doing for our date, you never would’ve come.” Soul holds aside a low-hanging branch for me.

  “You’re trying to make me nervous. Why?” I stop and take a moment to look around. We’ve hiked deep into the forest, where the trees completely dwarf us. Sunlight streams through the canopy and paints the floor in a patchwork of sunshine and shadow.

  “Sometimes you need to take a person out of their comfort zone to really get to know them.” He heads over to the widest, tallest tree in this part of the forest.

  “Can you be any more judgey?” I follow him to the tree. “I don’t mind hiking. It’s actually beautiful up here.”

  Soul lifts my chin until we’re eye to eye. “I didn’t plan to go hiking for our date. That was our only means to get here.”

  His pale eyes pierce mine. For a moment, I’m lost in his gaze, until his words finally sink in. What does he have planned this deep in the forest?

  “Reinforcements!” A male voice shouts from above.

  I glance up to see a face poking through the leaves, far off the ground.

  Another voice—female, this time—shouts down, “Wooho
o! I can’t wait for a hot shower.”

  When I examine the tree more closely, I spot a small wooden platform connected to several tree branches. Two pairs of legs dangle off the platform as a man and woman wave at us.

  Reinforcements? My stomach drops as Soul’s words make sense. “What do you have planned?”

  Soul twists his lip ring as he grins at me. “First, let me remind you of the challenge rules—”

  “I remember the rules, thank you very much,” I snap. “A party at a sorority house hardly equals endangering my life climbing a tree.”

  “I brought top-of-the-line climbing gear, my one indulgence. You’ll be perfectly safe.”

  “Why were they talking about reinforcements?” I gesture toward the tree people.

  “We make sure the tree is manned continuously.” Soul’s smile falters, and he reaches out to place a hand to the thick ridged bark. “They’re trying to cut down this beauty.”

  “Wait? This isn’t just some adventure sport?”

  “You brought a newbie to squat with you?” The tree girl laughs. “This is a tree-sit, honey.”

  “Welcome to Non-violent Civil Disobedience 101,” the tree guy calls down.

  I grab Soul’s hand and yank him out of earshot of the tree. I prefer privacy for my arguments. “You brought me to do something completely illegal on a first date?”

  “Technically, it’s a second date.”

  I want to scream in frustration, but the tree people would definitely get a giggle out of that. Instead, I let out a controlled, exasperated sigh. “Are you deliberately ignoring the illegal part?”

  “So all that underage drinking at the sorority house was completely within the limits of the law?” Soul cocks his eyebrow, and his small silver ring lifts, as well.

  “It’s not the same thing.”

  “You’re right, it’s not.” Soul takes my hand and hikes rapidly into the forest. “Last night, people were focused entirely on themselves. Getting wasted doesn’t help anyone, and when you look at date rape and binge drinking statistics on campuses, you can even argue that it harms people.”

  “What are you? A lawyer?”

  He laughs. “My sister’s actually a lawyer. Maybe I’ve picked up some of her lawyer-ese.”

  The forest thins into a clearing. Only, it’s not a natural clearing. The trees have been decimated here, and stumps line the ground as far as I can see. For a moment, I can barely breathe.

  I’ve seen stumps before, but the remnants of the city-cut trees are small and easy to ignore. This clearing is filled with hundreds of remains of giants. I slowly walk up to the closest one. It rises to my shoulders.

  Soul laces his fingers together to make a foothold. Wordlessly, he boosts me onto the stump before climbing up himself. The top is so wide, we could lie down upon it and still have room for several more people. I stare out at the ugly remains.

  “The clear-cuttings often have this effect on people,” he finally says.

  “I took a class on the Holocaust last term.” On the first day of class, our professor played old film clips of the survivors, all skin and bones, marching out of the concentration camps. When class ended, the entire room was silent. A third of the students actually dropped the class. Oddly, this field of stumps brings up the same kind of feelings. “It’s one thing to know something’s happening…”

  Soul nods. “It’s another thing to witness the destruction firsthand.”

  “So this is your thing? You hike out here to protect the trees?” It doesn’t sound so crazy now that I’ve seen the wreckage.

  “As long as we occupy the trees, they can’t cut them down.” He gestures toward the stumps. “I can’t let this happen again, not under my watch.”

  If my father ever found out, he would likely disown me. Having his daughter involved in environmentalist activities doesn’t meld with his conservative platform. For a moment, I think about heading back to Soul’s car, but when I lower my hand to the stump, I’m transfixed by the hundreds of rings that circle its cut surface.

  Soul notices me tracing my finger along one of the widest rings. “Each ring indicates a year of growth. Some of the largest stumps out here were once thousand-year-old trees that were felled because of people’s greed.”

  “You really care.” I can see his point about last night’s party. Sorority parties do tend to be pleasure-fests, with partiers focused completely on themselves.

  I grew up that way, actually. My father was completely focused on his career, working his way from public defender to district attorney. Come to think of it, Andrew’s a lot like my father. He’s already planning for a career in politics, and each of his decisions has been carefully planned to aid his advancement.

  How would it feel to do something completely selfless?

  “Someone has to care,” Soul says. “Listen, I spend most Saturdays up here, but if you want me to drive you home, I can come back another day. I should have asked before dragging you out here.”

  “I never would have agreed. Not before I saw this tree cemetery.”

  His eyes widen. “What are you saying?”

  “Maybe I should give tree-sitting a try.” I shrug, trying to act nonchalant. “I can handle a few hours in a tree. Besides, I can’t let you win. Losing a challenge would give you way too big of a lead.”

  “Weekends are pretty safe. The loggers usually take Saturdays and Sundays off.” He hops down from the stump then turns to help me.

  “What happens during the week?” I ask as he lifts me down.

  He winks. “I’ll tell you once we’re actually in the tree. I can’t risk scaring you away now.”

  I can’t tell if he’s joking or serious, but I don’t want to wait any longer. “Come on,” I say as we hike back to the tree. Now that I’ve decided to go all adventurous, I better get into the tree before I chicken out.

  Soul

  I CAN’T believe Maddie’s letting me strap her into a harness. I figured we’d hike out here, she would throw a hissy fit about getting dirty, and we would go our separate ways. I couldn’t be with someone who doesn’t care. No matter how pretty the girl, apathy is a huge turn-off for me.

  Instead, I’m standing in front of Grandmother, the tree we’re going to be protecting, holding a climbing harness. Luckily, I brought two, just in case.

  “So are you planning on helping me into that thing?” she asks.

  She noticed how long I’ve been standing here, daydreaming about her. It’s been a long time since a girl has had such an effect on me. “Sorry, you just blew me away.”

  Honesty goes a long way when flirting shamelessly.

  “Because I agreed to sit in a tree with you?” She’s smiling, like she loves the idea of blowing me away.

  “For one.” This girl might be trouble. At this point, I don’t know if I could just walk away. That thought’s a little scary, because activism has always been my first priority. “Let’s do this.”

  I place the orange straps over her shoulders and arrange the harness so the O-ring fits neatly between her shoulder blades. Her sundress leaves that part of her back completely bare, and my fingers trail along her exposed skin, smoothing each strap.

  Goosebumps rise along her back in my fingers’ wake. It’s still blazing hot outside, so I must be having an effect on her, too. When she came down the stairs in her sundress, I never pictured strapping her into the harness. This is going to be… interesting. I warned her to change into jeans.

  Maddie stands still, watching me adjust the straps to fit her tiny body. “Are you sure this is safe?”

  “I’m double-checking each strap. Don’t worry, I’ve harnessed up nearly a hundred times.” The front straps are next. I take each strap and stretch them tautly across her chest. My knuckle grazes the swell of her breast as I pull. Focus.

  “Um, that feels tight enough.” Maddie bites her lip and looks away. “What’s next?”

  “The part where you wish you had worn jeans.” I kneel and grab one of the dan
gling black straps. It needs to wrap securely around her upper thigh before I buckle it in place. “Ready?”

  She nods but blushes. “Maybe I could strap myself in?”

  “No way, it wouldn’t be safe. I had to go through a special training before I trusted myself with the harness.”

  “Okay, go ahead.” Maddie stares up at the platform while I reach under the hemline of her dress to fix the strap into place.

  Her cheeks brighten until they nearly match the color of her dress. She’s as hot as can be in that cherry-red dress. I’m tempted to veer off course and explore, but somehow, I keep my fingers on the straps.

  “You’re going to have to close your eyes while I’m going up.” Maddie tucks the edges of her sundress through the cinched strap, trying to fully cover herself.

  “I might need to peek, for safety’s sake.” I wink at her while I fix her last strap in place.

  I want to linger on straightening her straps, but I’ve checked them three times already. Reluctantly, I stand and tug on the lines running down from the tree.

  “I’m actually climbing this thing?” She glances up again then lifts her arm to grasp the closest rope.

  Damn, she’s so enticing. I’m used to squatting with hippie girls and other activists, but this girl, with her red lipstick, shaved armpits, and perfectly styled hair tempts me. I don’t get it. She’s not my type at all, but I can’t keep my eyes off her.

  I position her in front of the right line, clip her on, and show her how to haul herself up. She tugs at the rope then slowly lifts herself, foot by foot.

  At first, her movements seem tentative, but about eight feet up, her confidence sets in. She makes steady pulls as her sandal-clad feet walk up the trunk. She’s moving upward nearly as quickly as one of the regulars. I’m not supposed to be looking, but I can’t keep my eyes off her.

  We typically wear greens and browns while squatting. When the loggers get really agitated, it’s best to blend in so we’re not easy targets. But Maddie’s splash of color brightens up the forest. Or perhaps I’m just giddy because she didn’t chicken out once she started climbing. Maybe this brewing attraction between us can actually work out.