CHAPTER 05 - AVERY
The curves of the hills we passed through didn’t make this trip any easier. The driver had slowed the bus down, but it still felt like we were going a little too fast, and each time we went over a bump, the churning in my stomach caught some air like when you tossed pizza dough up and spun it around before catching it. Needless to say I wasn’t really enjoying this trip anymore.
At the same time, as I pressed my face against the window to watch the storm batter the land around us and I marveled at just how much distance I had managed to put between me and Meridian when I had chosen to come to school here. It wasn’t that obvious all the other times I’d traveled along this road — which I didn’t do very often, because I mostly preferred to stay at school, but even so, this time felt different.
I finally realized it was because this time we were making the trip so slowly — it was as if we were agonizing over every foot traveled between the two, as if asking the question each time — are you really sure you want to do this?
I was more convinced than ever that going away to school was the right idea for me, if only to be away from the bright lights and constant sounds of the big city. Nature had its own sounds and lights, to be sure, but there wasn’t the sense of buzz around that never seemed to leave you alone while you were in Meridian.
At school I’d managed to take long walks alone, just listening to the soft ambient sound of the regular world, untouched by hustle and bustle of city life. As we drove through the darkening hills, it felt like I was getting a slowly moving movie version of that through the window of the bus, only this time I had to stop every couple minutes and wipe off the frost that kept forming.
It was absolutely worth it to be able to sit in this kind of heat, though - I was thankful for the bus driver for keeping the interior warm.
Every mile we drove took me closer to my family, and the pit in my stomach got bigger and bigger. I knew the conversation with them wouldn’t go well, and might take days to really get out there. At the same time, I knew it was for the best - I needed them to understand that this was my life and that as much as I loved them and wanted them to be happy, I needed to find my own path.
Naomi would be in the room, figuratively of course. Even though she’d been gone for years now, she still lived in the same house with my parents, and more than once I had wondered if, when no one else was around, they still talked to her like she was alive.
I knew they’d never really fully recovered from her passing, and at the same time , I knew they never really would. I wondered if it were possible. Naomi was older than me, and our age difference was enough that she and I hadn’t been close in a long time. I felt her passing more as an idea rather than something concrete, and I suppose I’d never really wrapped my mind around it either.
“How you doin’ back there?” I shook my head as the sound came piercing through the low hum of the bus’ cabin. It took me a moment to realize the driver was asking me — which made sense, cause I was the only other person here.
“F-fine,” I said, meeting his smile in the center rearview mirror.
“Gonna be just fine, rest of the trip,” the driver called back.
I waved, and he smiled back at me.
And then everything fell apart.
The next thing I knew the driver was cranking the steering wheel as hard to the right as possible, curses coming out of his mouth in a wave as the entire bus whined, trying to turn right.
I looked out the left side window on the other side and saw nothing but empty space filled with falling snow. Then gravity kicked in and I felt myself pulled to the side, straining against the seatbelt I was suddenly glad I was wearing.
We turned a long corner going way too fast and the sounds of grinding gears got even louder as the driver fought against physics to keep the bus right side up.
He was unsuccessful.
The last thing I remember was the anguished look he gave me through the central mirror before all the lights came crashing down and then I knew nothing.
***
Cold. The first thing I felt was cold.
Everything hurt and nothing was alright. I could feel the pain lancing through my body, arcing all over the place.
Even more than that, something was wrong.
Balance.
Gravity.
Something was off.
When I opened my eyes the world shifted from black to white in an instant. The sound in my ears was almost deafening and I felt more lightheaded than I ever had before.
My arms were outstretched, swaying in the harsh wind that whipped around me. I blinked, trying to dispel this bad dream, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t make anything go away. It was all real.
Finally my eyes focused and I was able to look around, and, slowly, when things finally started to fall into place and make sense, I realized that I was upside down.
Where the hell was I? What was going on?
The wind kicked up again and I shivered, clasping my hands together below my head to keep my fingers warm.
I was hanging by a seatbelt, the belt I was wearing on the bus…the bus from school to…Meridian! The holes in my memory filled themselves in slowly as I swayed back and forth, shivering.
Buses weren’t usually supposed to be upside down like this. At least not any buses I’d been on before.
A creaking noise, like metal tearing apart, emanated from all around me and I felt the bus shudder, like it was threatening to turn over again. I jerked my head around in fear, still trying to make sense of what was going on. How had I gotten here?
The driver. Where was the driver?
I was facing the back, so I gripped the belt around my waist and pulled on it till I turned around, looking toward the front of the bus. The driver’s seat was empty, and the floor, or, rather, the ceiling, underneath it was too.
He must have been thrown from the bus during the slide. The windshield was mostly gone, and a layer of snow had begun to form on the new floor.
I was all alone.
I pulled on the belt again, spinning around as slowly as I could not to disturb anything. Pieces of memories leading up to the accident floated back into place as I tried to figure out how I’d gotten here. There was a cliff, and a turn, and speed…
I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. I could figure out the why later. First thing I had to do was get myself out of this belt and back down to the ground - I couldn’t concentrate with all this swaying back and forth doing a number on my already precarious sense of balance.
I reached up and gripped the seatbelt’s buckle.
“Stop!” A voice cried out, harsh and loud, even through the wind and the haze of the storm.
I turned around slowly, relief washing over me that someone else was here, even if he could have been nicer about it.
“Help me!” I shouted back as I turned, scrambling till the voice came into view.
“Hold on, just stay there and don’t move.” The voice sounded a little closer now, and I heard more creaking, like things were moving.
I didn’t think he understood just how scary this was. “Get me out of here!” Still spinning, still trying to get a good look at whoever it was, but I was still groggy and nothing made sense.
“Will you shut the fuck up for a minute? I’m trying to keep you alive!” came the retort. Whoever it was, they were being a dick.
“I’m the one stuck up here!”
“And if you don’t let me work, I’m gonna leave you there.” The voice was closer now, deep and rumbling. Or maybe that was the storm, I couldn’t tell anymore. Looking out the broken windows of the bus, I could see snow all around, and more falling.
“You wouldn’t dare!”
I finally turned all the way around and came face to face with an upside down man’s face. “Why are you upside down?” The words sounded wrong as soon as I said them.
“Listen to me,” he said, moving his face in close. “You’re the one who’s upside down. You’ve been in an accident.”
“No shit I’ve been in an accident!” I yelled back, trying to figure out what he’d look like if he, or rather, I, were right side up. “You think I like to hang out like this for fun!?”
He held up his hands, and for a moment I was afraid he would clap one of them over my mouth. “Keep it down!” He leaned back in and I could feel the warmth of the steam coming off his breath. “I don’t think you quite appreciate the situation you’re in.”
“Get me down from here!” As soon as I started shouting I heard a low rumble underneath.
He Shhhhh-ed me with one hand and lowered the other like he was taking something’s temperature. “That’s what I’m talking about, that right there. You feel that? Do you even know where the fuck you are?”
“I’m hanging by a seatbelt in a bus in a storm, with someone being really unhelpful right now. Does that about cover it?!”
He chuckled, and I saw the beginning of a smile forming on his upside down face. Dark hair, dark eyes. Chiseled, angular facial features. Cheekbones that could cut glass. “There’s a little more to it than that. The bus you’re in is at the edge of the cliff and there’s a snowdrift pressing against it. Make too much noise and it might send both of us flying a long way. I didn’t pack a parachute, did you?”
I tried to take all of that in but my mind pretty much shut down. I did understand the part about keeping my voice down. “Get. Me. Out. Of. Here.” I hissed as loudly as I could, immediately thankful that I didn’t hear the same rumble as before.
“I’m working on that, but you’re being a little difficult.” Again that grin. I hated it already. So smarmy, like he had all the answers.
Like anyone had any answers in the middle of a blizzard like this.
“I’m being difficult?! Who the hell are you?!”
Just when I closed my mouth I heard a catching sound, like a release, and then the world whirled and blurred as I flailed my body around, falling downward. In the moment before I hit I braced myself to hit the frosted-over ceiling of the bus below me, but just as I felt my fingertips brush against the metal, I landed in strong arms and felt my downward momentum stopped, way more gently than I had expected. My eyes were clenched shut.
“Relax. You’re alive, Princess,” the man said.
“Don’t call me that,” I whispered, before opening my eyes, one at a time, still unsure whether I’d go crashing to the ground as soon as I moved.
I felt us move a few tentative steps to one side before he spoke again. “This isn’t that kind of threshold, Princess,” I gasped when he said that last word, so soon after I had told him not to, “so I’m going to let you down now. You might want to open your eyes for this part.”
I opened my eyes one at a time just as I felt my feet hitting the ground - I could feel the cold snow through my shoes, even though they were the thickest pair I owned. Why didn’t I wear boots? With this storm coming on? Jeez, Avery. Way to plan ahead.
When I finally felt stable I waved away his hand and got a good look at him, such as it was, considering most of his head was covered by the hood of his thick jacket. What I saw could only be described as the very definition of tall, dark, and handsome. Those dark eyes, the hint of the short black hair peeking out from the front of his hood, the way his stubble just….mmmmm, now was definitely not the time for this.
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” He whispered, that grin coming back. OK, from the right side up it was way sexier, but also just as smarmy and self-assured. Maybe even more so, I couldn’t tell right now.
“You’re hilarious. People tell you that often?”
His eyes dropped for a brief second. “Still’s nice to hear.”
I narrowed my gaze. “I don’t really like you.”
“Luckily you don’t need to like me for me to save your life, then, yeah?”
“Great job of it you’ve done so far.”
“One second.” He held up a hand, pointer finger stretched out. “You said you didn’t like it when I called you ‘Princess?’ Could have fooled me, the way you’re acting.”
“Ugh!” I shouted, unable to control myself. I had no idea who this guy was and he already made me so mad. “I’ve had enough. I’m getting out of here.”
As soon as I closed my mouth I knew I had screwed up. The rumbling came fast and without warning, and I felt the bus lurch forward underneath us, and start sliding back down the incline.
Toward, I was sure, the cliff we’d passed by just before the accident.
“Shit!” I heard the man say, and before I knew what had happened next, I felt strong arms wrap themselves around me, and then I was flying again.
It was a short flight, and it ended when we crashed into the snowdrift just outside where the bus had most recently been. By the time I had opened my eyes and grappled to my feet, dusting myself off in between spasms of shivering, I watched the bus slide closer and closer to the edge of the cliff, the metal screaming in protest as it scraped against the ground, pushing the snow out of the way.
The bus came to a stop just at the edge of the cliff, and it looked like even looking at it funny would send it right over.
I didn’t realize it, but the man’s arms were still around me, and mine were wrapped around his neck. It was…much more cozy and intimate than I would have liked, but it really did feel…kinda good.
He was smiling, because of course he was smiling at a time like this. I shook my head. “It’s cold, don’t flatter yourself,” I said, hastily pulling away from him, fast enough that I already missed both the heat and the feel of his muscles against my body, keeping me, above all else, safe.
The smile disappeared as we separated, and he looked at me with a stern glare, one that spoke more volumes than I could count.
“We’re not out of this yet.”
I looked at him through the falling snow, trying to see just how serious he was. “What do we do?” I shouted, coming off as way more hysterical than I wanted to sound, but feeling just as scared as I sounded.
He looked deep into my eyes, his expression hard and humorless, like he was trying to understand me but not really caring about what he was learning.
“We have to get out of this snow. Get to some shelter.”
That made sense. I looked around, and couldn’t see much around us except the cliff, the road stretching back the way I’d come, and the road in front extending up the hill.
“There was nothing back there,” I said, pointing back toward the school. That must have been north.
“There isn’t supposed to be,” he said, waving me away and looking forward up the hill. “We have to go that way.”
“Just like that?” I asked. “Without knowing where we’re going?” I held out my hands. “This snow isn’t stopping any time soon, and I doubt anyone else is going to come down this road until the storm lets up. We can’t just walk to Meridian, you know.”
“We can’t stay here, Princess, it’s too cold and we don’t have any shelter.” He pointed behind us. “There’s nothing back there, we both drove that route before the accident. Our best bet’s moving forward.”
“I told you not to call me that.”
“Well, we haven’t been formally introduced yet, so I’m just going on the information I have.”
“I am starting to hate you.”
“The feeling’s mutual, despite my surprise.”
“Surprise?”
“I just saved your life.” He said it with a very confident air, which was tough to pull off in a storm like this. “I usually make it a point to save the lives of people I like, so this is a little strange for me.”
I shook my head, unable to deal with him right now. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Good idea.” He looked me up and down, a gleam in his eye. “Where’s the driver? I assume you weren’t the one running this operation.”
Oh shit, the driver! “I don’t know about him, he wasn’t here when I came to.”
He nodded. “May have been thrown clear, may have made a run for it.” He looked up, like he was trying to remember something. “I know just the place. Come on.” He started walking along the side of the road, leaving me behind with a pace that suggested he was no stranger to hiking through storms.
“Wait!” I said, running to catch up, careful not to trip and slide backwards like the bus just had. “Where are we going?”
He stopped and I watched his broad shoulders raise up slightly, like he was taking a deep breath before turning around. “To safety. It’s a bit of a hike. Are you gonna be alright?”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, putting on a brave face. “But we can’t leave yet.”
“Oh?” He turned around fully, and even though my hands were starting to shake in the cold, he stood rigid, like a statue, like he’d been in that exact spot since the beginning of time and had no intention of moving anywhere. “And why’s that?” He raised a hand up and caught some snowflakes on his fingers, brushing them together. “You do realize there’s a storm on, don’t you?”
“I’m well aware, thank you very much. It’s just that I need to get something.” His eyes widened. “From the bus,” I added, point back down the hill at the over turned bus on the edge of the cliff. He wouldn’t understand, and I didn’t want to even try to explain it to him. We’d only be in this together for a little while longer anyway.
He cocked his head to the side and squinted at me, then reached out and grabbed my head.
“Hey! What’re you doing?!” I said as I tried to shake him free, but he was too strong for me. “Quit it!”
He dropped his hands after running his fingers all through my hair, then pulling back and staring at them. “Doesn’t look like you have any open wounds, but it’s certainly possible you were concussed in the crash,” he said, matter of factly.
“I’m fine!” I snapped back, starting to balance between my feet. It was so cold, I couldn’t just stand here too long.
“Clearly you’re not, because you just mentioned something about going back,” he pointed behind me down the road to the bus. “Down there and into that for some luggage. Have you seen the cliff next to the bus?” He separated his hands, one as high as it went, the other as low as he could stretch. “I took a look over the edge. It goes down pretty fucking far.”
“There’s something I need in it!” Of course I couldn’t tell him what, he’d laugh at me, or worse, leave me here and save himself.
“Princess,” he held up his hand just as I was about to admonish him, “listen to me. Unless you’ve got a working car stuffed into your suitcase, or a helicopter, or a jet pack, or the fucking Starship Enterprise, or something else that can get us the fuck out of here right now, there’s no fucking way we’re going back into that bus. Do you understand me?”
“You don’t understand!” I protested, fighting back the tears that were just behind my eyes.
“I am very comfortable not understanding you right now,” he said folding his arms across his chest. “You’re not really making any sense.”
It was a standoff. We were both cold, the storm was all around us, snow coming down in buckets, the skies darkening, and neither of us were moving any more than we had to, each of us like stubborn children convinced that we were in the right.
Finally he broke the silence. “You know what? Fuck it. Come on. Because I haven’t nearly gotten myself killed enough today.” He stepped toward me, grabbing my shoulder as he brushed by walking down toward the bus. After a moment, I followed him, letting him pull me along by the hand after his hand slid down my arm, secretly thrilled that he was at least giving me a chance.
It took us about 2 minutes to trudge through the thickening and hardening snow to get to the edge of the cliff. It felt weird, holding the hand of a guy that I didn’t know, but the heat that transferred back and forth between us during the walk felt really good, and it occurred to me more than once that it would feel pretty great holding this guy’s hand even if we weren’t stranded in the middle of nowhere while a blizzard threatened to kill us both.
Down, girl.
We stopped next to the bus and I reached out with my free hand to touch it, and he hissed at me, shaking his head. “You don’t want to do that,” he whispered when I looked at him. “We don’t know how precarious its position is. It could fall at any moment.”
I was sure it wasn’t all that, but then again I didn’t really know what I was doing in these kinds of survival situations, and whoever this guy was, he seemed to know a little more than me. I nodded.
He pulled on my hand and we turned to look off the edge of the cliff 10 or 15 feet in front of us. It went down pretty far, and off in the distance I could see an icy lake down below, ringed by tall trees that were covered in snow.
As if on cue one of the trees hundreds of feet below suddenly cracked under the weight of all the snow the storm had deposited and collapsed, falling over right onto the lake, crushing through the ice and leaving the top of the tree submerged. The sound of the falling tree echoed back to us and he whispered “look!” to me and pointed at the bus.
The reverberating sounds from the tree in the distance shook the bus, and I saw it move an inch or two closer to the edge of the cliff.
Oh shit, he was totally right. That bus was headed right off the edge and it was not safe for us to climb into.
Even if I needed to get Naomi’s diary from inside. I should have kept it on me. If it had been around my neck, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
The tears came quickly, and I tried to wipe them away before he could see them, but I knew from his softening look that he’d noticed. I wiped them away anyway, before they froze up and stuck to my face.
“There’s nothing we can do,” he whispered. “Let’s get out of here.”
“W-We have to try!” I blubbered. “It’s really important!”
“I’m sure it is, princess,” he said. “But whatever it is, it’s not worth dying over.”
And then, as if the discussion was already over, he pulled on my hand and we slowly walked away from the bus. Every minute or so I’d stop and turn around and look back at it to make sure it was still there — to make sure Naomi was still there.
It was just a stupid diary; but it was so much more than that. No one else would understand. I didn’t need anyone else to understand. I just needed to have it back.
I promised myself, right then and there, that I’d find a way to get it back.
He tugged on my hand again, squeezing his fingers around mine, and we started walking away, back up the hill.
“Where are we going?” I asked a few minutes later, after walking in silence.
“There’s a bed & breakfast a couple miles up.” He kept walking.
“How do you know that? What about your car?” He had to have gotten here somehow.
“Dead. Back there,” he waved behind us with his free hand. “I haven’t been driving it enough and the snow was too much.”
There was a story to that that I wanted to understand, but later.
“Does your phone work?” I asked, reaching into my pocket and thanking myself in retrospect for having zipped it shut before the accident. I pulled it out and unsurprisingly, didn’t get service here.
The guy shook his head. “I got nothing.”
“It’s not too far. We can make it. It’s the only stop on this stretch of the road.” He looked back at me. “Hopefully it’s not abandoned, but even if it is, as long as it’s still standing, we should be able to hole up there.” He looked up and opened his mouth, letting a few snowflakes collect on his tongue before closing It. “At least until this blows over.”
“How long’ll that be?”
He once again focused on the sky. “It’s moving real slow. Could be days.” He straightened up, and the softness in his voice disappeared. “We better get moving. No distractions, Princess. Once we’re out of the cold we can give each other our life stories, but for now, we’re marching. Got it?”
After a moment I nodded, letting the princess thing slide this one time.
Hand in hand, we silently hiked through the storm, leaving the bus and my sister behind.