by Kieran Scott
“Oh, because your boyfriend is so perfect?” Callie shot back, then instantly regretted it.
Lissa’s face practically turned purple. “Zach might not be perfect, but he never would have let this happen.”
“Really?” Callie demanded. “Then maybe you should have let him come with us!”
“Or maybe we shouldn’t have let him come,” Lissa snapped, pointing at Jeremy.
Before Callie could think of a comeback, Lissa turned and started shoving everything back into her dripping bag. Every inch of her vibrated, like she was fighting as hard as she could to keep her rage in check. Callie felt a lump in her throat. Jeremy studied the ground.
“It’s only another seven miles to the trail stop,” Lissa said firmly as she packed. “We should be there by the end of the day. We’ll throw out everything we can’t use and buy some more supplies when we get there.”
Penelope fiddled with her woven bracelets as she eyed her phone, which was clutched in Lissa’s hand. “Lis, come on. Don’t you think we should—”
“No. I don’t.”
Lissa emphatically pressed down on the off button, then tossed the phone back to Pen, who, luckily, caught it.
“Well, let’s at least double back to the end of the bridge,” Jeremy suggested. They had veered a ways downstream chasing Jeremy. In fact, the bridge looked much farther away than Callie would have thought. “We’ll pick up the trail again from there.”
Callie nodded, thinking that was a safe plan. Meanwhile, Penelope looked forlornly down at her phone.
Lissa rolled her eyes, as if she simply couldn’t take another minute of insubordination. “If we just cut diagonally through here, we’ll meet up with the trail again and it’ll be much faster. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, isn’t that right, Science Boy?” she said tersely, like she was explaining basic math to a twelve-year-old. “Now let’s go.”
She paused before turning away and looked Jeremy up and down. “And if you even think I’m carrying that soaking-wet bag, you’re insane. It’s all you.”
Then she stomped off up the incline and disappeared from sight. Callie turned to Jeremy just in time to see him shoot a look after Lissa that could have felled that huge crane midflight. His jaw was set and his brown eyes narrowed; his nostrils flared. For a second he looked so different she hardly even recognized him.
“We’d better catch up to her,” Penelope said with a resigned sigh, half walking, half crawling up the incline.
Jeremy shouldered the big bag and shrugged at Callie. Just like that, he was himself again.
“Sorry about your phone,” he said.
“It’s okay. I was due for an upgrade anyway,” she told him.
They both smiled and then she let him walk ahead of her up the riverbank, casting one quick look over her shoulder at the spot from which the crane had taken flight. There was nothing there. Nothing but the silent, dark trees.
By the time they stopped for lunch, the sky had turned an ominous gray, with thick clouds crowding low. In the distance, thunder rumbled. Callie, still damp and shaken, sat at the foot of an ancient oak, munching on a handful of Goldfish and trying not to imagine what it was going to be like to hike through a thunderstorm.
Lissa silently cut up an apple with a Swiss Army knife and passed a couple of slices to each of them.
“Thanks,” Callie said.
“No problem.”
They were the first words anyone had uttered since the river. Jeremy shoved an entire apple slice into his mouth and looked away as his teeth crunched down on it.
“Okay, this has to stop,” Callie said. She’d only come on this insane torture trip to bond with her friends, and that wasn’t going to happen in complete silence. “We can’t just spend the next three days not talking.”
“What do you want to talk about?” Lissa asked, pulling her knees up. “The fact that we now have yet another embarrassing Jeremy story to tell?”
Jeremy huffed and Callie fixed Lissa with the most scathing stare she dared to direct at her. Lissa frowned back, and Callie dropped her gaze.
“Well, we definitely shouldn’t tell any more scary stories,” Pen spoke up from where she sat beside Lissa.
“True,” Callie sighed. She thought back to her friends in Chicago, how they used to fill the endless winter evenings when it was too frigid out to leave the house. That gave her an idea.
There was a possibility that Lissa and Pen would think what she was about to say was dorky, but at that moment, she didn’t care.
Callie took a deep breath. “How about we play a game instead?”
“Like what?” Penelope asked, delicately lifting an apple slice.
“Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board, maybe? Or Truth or Dare.”
Jeremy sighed. Callie knew his preferred games were things like Trivial Pursuit and Apples to Apples, but of course they didn’t have any board games on them.
“How about I Never?” Lissa suggested, biting into her apple slice.
Penelope frowned but didn’t say anything. Callie chewed on the inside of her cheek. It was no big surprise that Lissa would suggest I Never. Brave Lissa had probably done a bunch of exciting things that Callie had surely never done. And now her lameness was going to be exposed. But if it would end the silent tension, she’d give it a whirl.
“Okay,” she said finally. “I’m in.”
“Sure. Why not?” Jeremy said, clearly trying to be a good sport. He pulled the king-size bag of peanut M&M’s out of his bag and ripped it open. “And every time we’ve done whatever the person says, we eat one of these.”
“Now I’m totally in,” Callie said, scooting forward.
“You’re such a chocoholic,” Lissa joked.
Callie shrugged. It was almost annoying how Lissa ate the perfect high-protein, low-carb, veggie-heavy diet and rarely indulged in anything bad for her.
“Shouldn’t we preserve those?” Penelope asked. “Just in case?”
“He’s got enough to feed an army, and we’ll be at the trail stop soon,” Lissa said, closing the conversation. “I’ll go first.” She crossed her long legs and leaned back on her hands. “I’ve never been to Europe.”
Callie’s heart did a brief happy dance. Maybe she wasn’t so lame after all. She reached for the bag of M&M’s and pulled out a red one. Lissa was wide-eyed.
“You’ve been to Europe?” she asked.
“Um … yeah. A few times.” She popped the M&M into her mouth.
“A few times.” Lissa looked around the group like she was somehow offended by this statement. “Wow. I had no idea you were so cultured.”
It was amazing, how she could make that sound like a put-down. “My parents are both professors and they sometimes get asked to give lectures or teach classes abroad,” Callie explained. “We spent a whole summer in Germany when I was ten and I’ve been to Spain and Portugal. I’ve been to Brazil, too, because I have lots of family there. Cousins and uncles …” She trailed off, wondering if she was boasting.
“Wow. That’s really cool,” Penelope said, fiddling with her bracelets. She glanced over at her iPod, which she’d laid on the grass in hopes of drying it out, no longer caring, apparently, if Lissa knew she’d brought it along. All of her bracelet-making supplies—various spools of thread and some sort of plastic loom—were laid out, too. “I don’t even have any cousins, but if I did, I’d want them to live someplace exotic like Brazil.”
Lissa and Callie looked at Penelope expectantly. Callie knew that Penelope had been to France with her family last year. It was one of the first things she’d told Callie about herself when they’d met back in January.
“What?” Pen asked.
“You didn’t take one,” Lissa said.
“Right. I forgot.” Penelope laughed and brushed her fingers off before reaching for the bag. Jeremy looked down, scratching his neck as he held the M&M’s out to her. He had a nasty bug bite right where his hair came to a point back there.
>
“You forgot spending an entire month in France?” Lissa asked. “That just escaped your mind?”
Penelope put the M&M in her mouth and rolled it around. “What? I was distracted by Callie’s surprise internationalism.”
“Okay. I’ve never snuck into the movie theater without buying a ticket,” Jeremy interjected.
“Lo-ser!” Lissa sang, grabbing an M&M along with Penelope. Then they all glanced at Callie. It was her turn. She chewed her lip, and then thought of the obvious.
“I’ve never been camping before,” she said.
Jeremy shook out three M&M’s for himself, Penelope, and Lissa. “Like we didn’t already know that,” Lissa laughed.
“I just wanted to make sure you all got your sugar rushes,” Callie joked.
“In that case, I’ve never lived in a big city,” Penelope said, smiling at Callie.
Callie took an M&M, grateful to Pen for giving her that.
“Ugh, you’re not supposed to make it so easy,” Lissa groaned, glaring at Penelope.
To Callie’s surprise, Pen glared back.
“I’ve never cheated on a boyfriend,” Penelope blurted.
Silence.
Lissa’s face tightened. Callie could practically feel the instant regret pulsating off Penelope. She’d said something Lissa clearly didn’t want said.
Lissa slowly hinged forward, took a blue M&M, and held it for a second between her front teeth. Then she crunched into it and leaned back on her hands.
Wow, Callie thought. She and Jeremy exchanged a glance. She wondered who Lissa had cheated on. Zach? They’d been together a long time. Callie’s stomach churned uncomfortably and she glanced at Pen, who was watching Lissa worriedly.
Lissa looked toward the trees, somewhere over Jeremy’s head, and casually recrossed her legs at the ankle.
“I’ve never kissed someone that one of my friends had already kissed,” she said.
No one moved. A single spider picked its way across the circle made by their legs. Lissa flicked it away when it reached her knee, and she looked right at Callie.
“You should be eating, rookie.”
Callie blinked. “What? But I never—”
She automatically looked at Jeremy. His eyes were on the ground. Penelope’s were, too.
“Wait a minute,” Callie said, dread and realization spilling hot across her whole body. “You two—”
“Nice one, Lis,” Jeremy said, getting up and shoving the M&M’s back into his bag.
“Hey! She didn’t eat!” Lissa protested, as if that was the important factor here.
Penelope pushed herself to her feet and grabbed her iPod, fumbling it into her pocket with shaky hands. Slowly, Callie rose from the ground, but immediately regretted it. Her knees were weak with nerves and her brain felt fuzzy, like she’d just done a flip and landed upside down.
Jeremy and Penelope had kissed?
When? How often? Had they been a couple? How was it possible that she’d been with Jeremy for almost six months and no one had said anything about this until now?
Suddenly Callie couldn’t stop thinking about all the time Jeremy and Penelope spent alone together. Their families had dinner every other week. They’d spent a weekend at the Cape just this July. She imagined them talking about her behind her back, whispering about this big secret and how stupid Callie was for not figuring it out. Had they done that when she wasn’t around? Had they kissed when she wasn’t around? She felt tears start to well in her eyes.
“Callie,” Jeremy said.
The sound of her name woke her from her stupor. The sadness and confusion she’d felt was now replaced with hot anger. Thunder cracked overhead, as if the sky was as furious as she was.
She swung her backpack onto her back, yanked on the straps, and tightened them with a zip. She didn’t know where she was going, but she had to get away for at least a minute. She had to get away from the embarrassment that was coursing through her, away from Jeremy, away from Penelope, away from the betrayal.
She turned to storm off, but then stopped in horror.
She had almost walked face-first into the large wooden handle of a hunting knife.
“Omigod, no! No!”
Callie staggered back and bumped right into Jeremy, which sent her whirling in the opposite direction. Thunder sounded again, this time so close it shook the ground beneath her feet.
“Callie, I’m sorry, but you don’t have to—”
“Look!” she shouted, pointing at the knife. The handle was sticking straight out of a gray tree trunk, the blade all but swallowed by the meat of the tree. It looked old and used, the wood on the handle faded and cracked, but the gash in the tree was not. The wood around the point of penetration was bald white, untouched by rain or wind or scurrying animals. The bark had only cracked away recently.
“What is that doing there?” Penelope asked, adjusting her backpack as she joined them.
Callie took a sideways step, instinctively putting distance between herself and the liars. As she moved, something caught her eye and she stepped closer to the knife, narrowing her eyes. There were spots on the handle. Dark spots.
“Is that blood?” she heard herself say, though the high pitch of her voice was unrecognizable.
At that moment, the sky opened up and the rain began to fall. Fat, cold drops landed on Callie’s bare arms.
“Don’t freak out,” Lissa said calmly, her hands out as if she were trying to soothe a rabid animal. “Anybody could have left that there at any time. People do some stupid, crazy stuff out here. Maybe someone got mad and stabbed the tree, then couldn’t pull the blade out again.”
“Oh. That’s comforting,” Callie snapped, no longer caring if she stood up to Lissa. “So there’s a camper with violent anger issues wandering around out here somewhere. Awesome.”
Callie turned on her heel and stomped off. The cool rain actually felt good on the back of her neck, but it was about the only positive thing she had going for her at the moment. She had never fought with her friends back in Chicago. Not about anything more important than what movie to watch. And Jeremy was her first boyfriend. This situation was not something she knew how to deal with. The only things she knew for sure were that her boyfriend and best friends were all traitors and liars, she was stuck in the wilderness and reliant upon said traitors and liars, there was almost no food to share between them, and now? A knife-wielding psycho. This day could not get any worse.
“Callie! Callie, please wait up! Let me explain!” Jeremy called out.
She walked faster. Her hair, which had just started to dry into its natural curls, was now plastered against her forehead. She pushed it back, fishing in the pocket of her shorts for a ponytail band.
“Callie.”
Jeremy fell into step with her as the trail dipped slightly. The rocks beneath her feet were uncertain within the muddy terrain. The leaves on the trees seemed a brighter green as they shone with a fresh layer of rain, but everything else was gray. A swirling mist surrounded them. The woods themselves were denser here, crowding against the trail, threatening to suffocate her.
“Please don’t be mad,” Jeremy said. “Can you just hear me out?”
Callie clenched the ponytail band between her teeth while she attempted to gather up as many of her thick, wet curls as she could while still walking, the cold rain sluicing down. She removed the band from her teeth, tied her hair back, and let the band snap. “I don’t really feel like talking right now, Jeremy.”
Her heart felt bruised. Jeremy had always been so kind, so considerate. Before today she never would have been able to believe that he could do anything to make her feel this way. But now he had. She felt sick, sorry, stupid, and sad. She felt like she needed some time alone to think. If only she were home, safe in her own room. The stress of being out in the unknown was simply too overwhelming once emotional upheaval was added to the mix.
“What the—” Jeremy said.
Callie looked up and her shoulder
s slumped. Spread out before them was a huge, muddy expanse of water, its brown surface dotted by pockmarks from the rain. It swallowed the trail at their feet, and was so wide Callie couldn’t see where, or even if, the trail picked up again on the other side. Spindly trees snaked up, their roots submerged deep below. A cloud of gnats traveled across Callie’s line of vision, the tiny gray bodies within it a frenzy of non-stop motion.
Lissa and Penelope trudged up from behind. They both stopped abruptly.
“Well,” Lissa said casually. “That’s not good.”
Something inside Callie exploded.
“Okay! That’s it!”
She whirled around and shoved between the girls, starting back in the other direction.
“Where’re you going?” Penelope asked meekly.
“Home,” Callie replied firmly. “I’m going home.” She wiped the rain from her face with both hands and stared them down.
“We can’t let a little puddle stop us,” Lissa said.
Callie barked a laugh. “You call that a puddle? That’s a lake! Probably with frogs and snakes and who knows what else living in it. And I am not about to try going across it with a bunch of people who’ve spent the last six months lying to my face!”
Callie crossed her arms over her chest. The rain came down harder. Jeremy looked at Penelope, then they both quickly looked away, which made Callie want to scream. For a long moment, no one said a thing. Then Lissa turned to look out across the muddy water.
“There’s a trail marker!” she exclaimed.
“What? Where?” Penelope stood with her toes at the water’s edge and looked where Lissa pointed. “Oh, yeah! There is.”
“I don’t care if there’s a trail marker,” Callie replied. “I want to go home.”
The second the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. Her voice sounded petulant and whiny right when she wanted to be defiant and strong. One particularly fat drop of rain smacked into the center of her neck and snaked its way under the collar of her T-shirt, carving a long, frigid line down her spine.
“Callie, look. If we can get across the mess, we’ll be at the trail stop in no time,” Lissa said, approaching her. “You can get dried off, get some real food. And then, if you still want to go home, you can call your dad from their phone, or from Penelope’s. Whatever. Just don’t bail on us now. Please?”
