The Liar's Guide to the Night Sky

by Brianna R. Shrum

  “Cool,” says Jonah.

  He stands and shoves his hands in his pockets, and I hear myself saying, “Why you?” when Jaxon stands with him.

  He turns his gaze on me and arches an eyebrow. “Because,” he says, “I’ve spent a fuck-ton of time up here, and so has your cousin.”

  I glance at Jaxon, and Jaxon’s mouth quirks up. “Weed’s legal, but not if you’re under twenty-one.”

  “It’s legal at Old Snowy Ridge,” says Jonah.

  I groan, but I’m smiling.

  Half of us are, which means that it sucks, but . . . it’s okay.

  It’s still okay.

  Jaxon and Jonah leave, and it immediately seems less okay. The split in the group sends insecurity scratching over my skin.

  But that’s not logical; they’re fine. They’re going to be fine. They do know this mountain, and Jonah is an Eagle Scout, for god’s sake.

  And we’re going to be fine here; I’m practically an EMT already thanks to the vocational classes I’ve been loading up on, just a couple steps from becoming a paramedic, and Sam is pre-med. If there is such thing as an ideal group to be stranded in the woods, it’s . . . well, okay. Let’s be real. It’s not us. We’re a bunch of freezing cold kids who are not Jason Momoa or Bear Grylls or anyone who can live the winter in a cave they’ve burrowed in themselves.

  Jolie runs her hand through her hair and sits beside me on a decently dry patch of pine needles. She says, “Tell me about Boston.”

  I stare at her. The silence thickens into something I can almost touch, like I’m almost mad. Like how dare she ask me something stupid and inconsequential and kind of painful when we are trapped in the woods?

  But . . . but of course she’s doing it on purpose.

  Of course she knows me, and she knows this is crashing through the order in my world and I’m a half a second away from snapping.

  I take a breath.

  “It wasn’t Boston,” I say. “But I can tell you about Massachusetts.”

  “Okay,” she says. Her shoulders drop and her mouth relaxes into a smile. And maybe this is as much for her as it is for me. Her very favorite is gone, and her second favorite is good enough. “Tell me about Massachusetts.”

  I shift back and lean against a pine tree that scratches my back. “It’s wet and cold and beautiful and small. And I love it. I—” I want to say that I had a million friends there, and that’s kind of true, but also I haven’t really been checked on by anyone outside the group chat.

  Not that group chats don’t count.

  But also . . . that it’s not like I really had a best friend in Massachusetts. My best friends always switched around every few months and I never could hang on to anyone. Never found anyone I wanted to hang onto enough even if they did.

  I always hated it—enough that I never let myself think about it, not until now in this cold moment stranded in the mountains. Like what the hell was so wrong with me that I didn’t have a person I’d loved since the first grade to finish my sentences and go shopping for prom dresses with like it was a foregone conclusion?

  I had a million friends.

  But not A Friend. Not A Friend who wasn’t someone else’s more than they were mine.

  So I say, “I miss it.”

  “It sucks,” says Jolie. “Having to leave like that. Your senior year.”

  “Yeah.” This close to the heels of a truth, the lie is a little less painful to tell. “All my friends, you know.”

  Jolie says, “At least you’re starting school with me in a couple weeks! I’ll introduce you to everyone. It’s not—I know it’s not the same . . .”

  I smile. “Yeah. That’ll be good. Great. I’ll be fine.” I will. It will be good. I want to do this, I want to start school and hang out with her . . . with her . . . what kind of friends? I blink, realizing I can’t exactly picture her hanging out at school, can’t conjure who she hangs out with or what she even does at school, because my conversations with her have been limited to cozy one-on-ones at family Thanksgivings and Instagram comments.

  At some point, Sam and Tzipporah have wandered over and Sam says, “You ought to, like, do a movie night before school starts up. With all your crazy theater friends. Hallie can be the mysterious cousin from the east.”

  Tzipporah says, “No no. Do Rocky! Rocky Horror niiight.”

  “Ugh,” says Jolie. “You guys don’t know my life.”

  Tzipporah says, “Rocky Horror night. And invite Yvette.”

  Jolie’s pale cheeks pink and she says, “Dude, Yvette performs Rocky Horror; as though she’d want to come hang out in my janky basement and watch it again.”

  “Please,” says Sam. “All that means is that it’s the perfect film to make out during. She’s already seen it.”

  “Ugh, godddddddd,” says Jolie, but she’s smiling.

  And I’m hurt or something. Like how dare even Sam— not Tzipporah, Tzipporah’s girlfriend!—know more about my own family than I do. I feel so lonely suddenly, like that’s the biggest problem I have right now. But I feel lonely. I feel . . . cheated. I smile, like I can fix it, somehow catch up and regain all this ground I’ve lost by living two thousand miles away. I say, “Ooooh, who’s Yvette?”

  Jolie says, “No one!”

  And Sam corrects: “Someone,” with this smirk on her face.

  Jolie rolls her eyes. “It’s nothing. Just this girl in theater. She—I don’t know. We’re friends. She’s one of the actors and she’s so . . . perfect in, like, every single role. It’s not like we’re onstage together; I do tech. Anyway. We’re friends.” She digs her teeth into her lip.

  I arch an eyebrow.

  “You should . . .” Jolie blows out a breath and looks up at the cold, frosted sky. “You should see her hair, though. It’s so blue and shiny. You should see her smile.”

  “I knew it!” says Tzipporah.

  “UGH,” says Jolie, falling backward dramatically, and for a second, I feel this flutter in my chest. Like, look at me! She confessed to ME. Maybe I really am the favorite cousin. Maybe I mean to her what she does to me. Maybe I can . . . be part of this.

  I don’t know.

  My head sounds weird and desperate.

  I am, for the second time today, so glad that telepathy isn’t real.

  Jolie jumps up and says, “Damn this ground. It’s like rock.”

  “Of course it is; it’s Colorado. You know that’s, like, our number one flora,” says Tzipporah.

  I laugh.

  Jolie says, “It’s not actual rock. It’s the ground. It’s just . . . too cold.”

  And suddenly all of us are brought back to reality. To where we are.

  To Lydia rolling her ankle and sucking back tears and Oliver, who looks so, so young right now, warming his hands by the pile of warm ashes, eyeing the granola bars like he’s about to stage a coup.

  It’s morning, dude! Get it together!

  “How long do you think they’ll be gone?” I say.

  Jolie looks off toward the direction they left, worry sparking in her eyes. “Not long, I think.”

  What she means is: I hope.

  We spend the rest of the day just kind of wandering around, trying to get warm, trying to comfort Lydia and Oliver, trying not to think about food.

  Telling tiny snippets of stories here and there to distract ourselves.

  Looking.

  Looking, listening for any possible sign of Jaxon and Jonah.

  We spend the day . . . waiting.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  IT’S DARK.

  Dark enough that I’d started to wonder if, like, a mountain lion had gotten them both. If Jaxon was off trying to wrestle a bear or Jonah was stuck in a ravine under a rock ready to gnaw his hand off.

  And what a shame that would be to do to his perfect hands.

  Ha ha.

  Hilarious.

  All of this is hilarious and appropriate to joke about.

  Ha. Hahahahaha oh my god are they okay?


  I’m standing at the edge of the not exactly campground, pacing, pine needles crunching under my feet and breath drifting out of my mouth like clouds. Clouds that come faster and faster as the time passes.

  Maybe I should go look for them? My cell doesn’t have much juice left, and it’s totally useless for service, but it’s got enough to use the flashlight function. And I’m trained in first aid; it makes more sense that I go to rescue them than anyone else.

  Fine; it’s fine. I can go tromping through the woods in the dark.

  It’s my responsibility, I think. For some reason.

  I don’t know why, except that it just . . . it just feels like someone needs to do it.

  I keep pacing.

  Hesitating.

  Pulse choking me, breath dying in my lungs.

  Then there’s the crunch of leaves coming not from behind me, but from the fathomless dark in front of me.

  I shrink back, operating on instinct—what if it’s the bear? What if it’s the bear that ate Jaxon and left Jonah stranded in that ravine and forced him to gnaw off his arm?

  What if it’s coming for its revenge?

  I blink hard.

  Jesus, I may need to go eat something.

  Still, I fall back to the campfire—which we left Sam and Tzipporah to the challenge of starting. Only one of us (Jonah, Eagle Scout, surprise, surprise) brought a lighter. How the hell did I not bring a lighter, of all things? And Jolie brought some matches, but we’re reserving those for more emergent situations. So the girls basically spent all day going back and forth debating a number of internet-tested methods I have mentally logged away. Eventually, they settled on a method that involved a can of Coke and a chocolate bar and a focused beam of light, which I think was just an excuse to snag a Coke and chocolate, but what are you gonna do? The point is it worked, and I’m finding my way back to the familiar warmth and light.

  Away from whatever murder-bear-ghost is coming at me in the dark.

  “Jacob,” I hear, and Jonah’s voice about buckles my knees.

  “Oh, thank god,” I say, and I break out toward them in a run.

  I don’t throw my arms around Jonah—that would be weird—but I practically tackle Jaxon.

  “SHIT,” I say, punching him hard in the arm.

  He flinches. “What the hell?”

  “I thought you were dead. Do you know how long it’s been? And you!” I say to Jonah. “Thank god, your hand.”

  He smirks and says, “Oh come on, Hal—wait, I’m sorry, what?”

  Then I realize what I said, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that they’re okay and they’re back and maybe, maybe they’re back with information.

  Slowly, the rest of the cousins (and crew) begin to notice the commotion, and they crowd around the fire. Most of them have been here since the sun dipped.

  There’s excited chatter from everyone, like now that we’ve sent our best and brightest out, we won’t have to resort to cannibalism to survive.

  This is it: the daring moment of escape, the reveal of the getaway vehicle, the teary sighting of help landing over the ridge, rising with the sun.

  “So,” says Jaxon, running his hand over his stubble-sprinkled jaw. “So, okay, I don’t . . . I don’t want anyone to panic.”

  The mood darkens considerably.

  Quickly.

  So quick it feels like the sky is suddenly crushing down on my shoulders, like physical night has descended and decided to push me into the earth.

  Jonah is standing beside Jaxon, arms folded. He looks tall, looks kind of giant even though he isn’t that big, not really. He just holds authority in his stance. Holds . . . our future, really. Like when Jaxon spoke, he gave all our hope to Jonah Ramirez.

  Jaxon looks at him, face all pleading.

  Jonah would take care of it.

  He always did, didn’t he?

  Since they were little, Jaxon’s been getting into shit and Jonah’s been getting him out.

  Jaxon: diving into the lake without a life jacket at nine years old the time we all decided to meet up at Lake Powell in the summer.

  Jonah: furiously ripping off his Ninja Turtles T-shirt and tossing in a life preserver and going in after him when—SURPRISE—it turned out Jaxon was a shitty swimmer. Jonah was not.

  Jaxon: trying to sneak off with some skis that were supposed to be rentals when he was thirteen, getting caught by a grumpy old security guard who was having a very bad day already.

  Jonah: sweet talking the grumpy old security guard, somehow wrangling two free day passes he pocketed (he’d earned them) and Jaxon not like . . . going to juvie or getting banned for life from the mountain or whatever it is they do to seventh-grade ski gear thieves who don’t have a Jonah to stand up for them.

  Jaxon: getting caught by my parents with weed at Fancy Snowy Ridge at sixteen.

  Jonah: taking the blame, getting a total earful from my dad, almost getting his trip privileges taken away, never actually telling Jaxon what happened.

  That last one twinges something in me.

  My dad—my parents always twinge.

  I ignore it.

  The point is, Jonah always takes care of everything, now that I really let myself think about it. And so of course we all know he will take care of this now.

  Jaxon is fidgeting, looking for some kind of purchase, some way to say whatever he needs to say. And the harder he struggles looking for it, the more restless we all get.

  Jaxon blows out a shaky breath in the quiet and eventually open his mouth to continue, and Jonah just sighs.

  He says, over the obvious relief in Jaxon’s eyes, “No truck. No truck, no car, no sign of it. We couldn’t find any of our trail markers, but that’s not a surprise. None of it is a surprise. It was worth a shot, we took it, and now we can rest easy knowing we did what we could today.”

  “Rest easy?” says Oliver. Oliver, I know, is Lydia’s best friend and it’s good he’s here and I’ve always liked him, but he can be a little exhausting sometimes, just a little . . . I don’t know. Concernicus. Now is of course the time for concern in all forms, but for some reason that probably has to do with panic and cold and hunger, it feels like Jesus, of course it’s Oliver with the smartass C-3PO commentary.

  “Well,” says Jonah, “rest like shit.”

  I rub my curled fingers over my own knee. Over and over. Hard and fast enough I think the jeans might ignite.

  No truck. No SUV. No trail. No nothing.

  Okay.

  Sure.

  Alright.

  This is fine.

  This. Is fine.

  Jonah says, “No-panic rule still applies. We can’t be that far from the vehicles; we’re not, like, lost in the middle of the Himalayas in the dead of winter, no rescue in sight. The fact is that in one direction or another, we can’t be that far from the road. We’re close enough to town. It’s going to be fine.”

  I shudder and hug my coat around me. The fire only does so much against the dry Colorado cold.

  I can feel the pink in the tip of my nose.

  I can feel the panic everywhere else.

  I try, I physically try, to slow my pulse and warm myself at the same time.

  I don’t know that I can reasonably ask for both.

  I’m cold.

  I’m cold I’m hungry I’m cold.

  FUCK.

  Fuck, we are TRAPPED.

  I lean forward, elbows digging into my knees, hoping the sharp pain of my bones on my own bones will snap me back from the rising fear.

  That’s not what does it.

  What does it is the sudden gulping I hear coming from the other side of the fire.

  It sounds like someone is sucking air through a straw, a straw that’s cracked at the bottom.

  I look up and it’s Sam. She clutching her throat and Tzipporah is suddenly down on the ground, hands on either side of Sam’s face, and Sam is losing it.

  Shit.

  “Sam?” I say.

  I click
, from Regular Allowed To Freak Out Hallie to Paramedic I Live to Fight Fires Hallie. I cannot let my fear own me, and in this immediate, effortless shift, I don’t even know how I would.

  I’m not even shaking anymore; I’m completely calm.

  I say, “Sam,” and elbow my way past all of my cousins on the way to her.

  The only person I don’t straight up shove is Tzipporah, because the girl she loves might have a better shot at calming her than I do.

  I kneel beside Tzipporah and yell back over my shoulder to the group, “Shut up. SHUT UP. Shut the FUCK up,” and the camp goes silent.

  “Pursed lips,” I say to Sam, and Sam’s panicked eyes find me. They’re wide and bloodshot and her face is going a little blue. With the cold? With the lack of air? Both?

  Everything in my brain zeroes. I am not cold, I am not worried, I am not panicked. I am focused. I see: her face. I feel: the rhythm of her breathing. I hear: the shallow breaths.

  I don’t even blink.

  “Pursed lips,” I say again, and this time it’s a total command.

  Sam struggles into it and I say, “In through your nose.”

  She tries. The sound is horrible.

  “Sit straight up and in through your nose. Now. Out through those pursed lips. Breathe out twice as long. Keep going.”

  Tzipporah is whispering to her, hands gentle and strong at once on her face, and I’m still playing bad cop over here. But she’s listening.

  She’s listening, and after a minute, two, the color enters her face again and she starts to breathe. It’s ragged at first, and then just shallow. Then finally, finally, it returns, more or less, to normal.

  No one moves a muscle.

  No one knows what to say.

  Until Jaxon offers, “Panic attack?”

  “Asthma,” says Sam. Her voice comes out rough, like her trachea is a little bruised.

  I frown. “Do you . . . did you not bring your inhaler?”

  “Of course I did; I’m not fucking stupid,” Sam snaps, and I flinch.

  Then she breathes again, quiet and slow. She says, “Sorry. I’m sorry.” She looks hard at me, an apology that’s not really necessary written on her face. “I just mean, yeah, I brought it. But we lost it in the mudslide.”