19
We’ve been walking for several hours now, and we’ve only just made it past the valley below our cave. My back and legs hurt, despite the ibuprofen Lennon gave me at breakfast. He had it laid out for me on a bear canister when I woke up, along with one of the blue coffee cups. I’m not sure how he got out of the tent without me knowing. All I know is that every time I woke during the night, his arm was still wrapped around me. And then sometime around dawn, I was vaguely aware of being a lot colder. By the time I fully emerged from sleep, he’d already started a fire and was readying everything for our breakfast, last night’s roller-coaster emotions exchanged for the promise of hot coffee and a new day.
Not a bad way to wake up. Except that my body feels as if I’ve been hit by a truck that’s backed over me several times out of spite.
Hiking hurts.
It hurts even more when we crest over a steep hill. But it doesn’t matter, because I’m eager to see where we’re going. Lennon made another map. He drew it inside his journal this morning and recalculated our route while I tried not to stare at the dark stubble growing over his jaw, because it gives me inappropriate feelings about him. After taking that wrong turn yesterday inside the cave, he said we’re going to stick to a more established trail that I’ll like better: It’s marked on the official King’s Forest map and leads to not only a ranger station but something scenic along the way—only, he insists on that scenic thing being a surprise.
He knows I hate surprises but talks me into accepting it. I tell myself that I’m relenting because of what he revealed last night, but it’s probably the stubble. It’s really good stubble.
We are at a crossroads where two trails diverge. A signpost tells us that the larger path in front of us is Emperor Trail. And through a break in the cedar trees, we are now staring at white-capped mountains that glitter in the bright sun.
“Oh, wow,” I murmur.
“Right?” Lennon says. “The brown peak on the left is Mount Topaz and the gray jagged one on the right is Thunderbolt Mountain. So many climbers die up there.”
It doesn’t look deadly. In fact, it looks beautiful. Majestic. Yes, I definitely see why people say that about mountains. I stretch out my arms and fill my lungs with clean air. Something stings. I slap my arm.
“Oh, we’re entering mosquito territory,” Lennon says, turning around and pointing at his pack. “Dig around in the second pocket. There’s a small bottle of insect repellent.”
I unzip the pocket and slip my fingers inside, finding the bottle in question. We take turns anointing ourselves in citronella-scented oil that makes my eyes water. Once we’re slathered up and mosquito-proof, we set out on the trail that cuts through a cedar grove. It doesn’t take long for two things to happen: (1) we see other hikers ahead of us, and (2) we see them walking up a towering set of granite stairs that’s been carved into the mountain.
“What the hell is that?” I say.
“Emperor’s Staircase,” Lennon says, waggling his brows. He’s wearing a slouchy, black knit cap with a skull on it, and the spiky ends of his hair stick out from beneath it. I wish I had a hat to cover up the disaster that is my mass of frizzy curls. Nature is unforgiving.
“We’re going up those rock stairs?” I ask.
“Not just rock stairs, Zorie. It’s nature’s noble staircase,” he says in a grand voice. “More than eight hundred steps carved into the granite cliffs in the late eighteen hundreds. Three men died building them, and nearly every year since then, someone’s died on these stairs. Fifteen in the last decade. This is the currently the deadliest trail in all the US national parks.”
“What?” I say, alarmed.
He grins. “Don’t worry. The people who die are generally just idiots who fall over the side trying to do stupid things. You’ll understand why when we get farther up. If Brett were here, I’d give him a fifty–fifty chance of surviving, because he wouldn’t be able to resist the call of death. Which almost makes me wish he were still with us.”
“That’s not nice,” I complain, though I can’t help but smile a little.
“But,” he insists, “you and I will not be following in any daredevil footsteps.”
“Um, I would hope not?”
“It’s fine. Thousands of people with basic common sense hike these stairs every year and live to tell the tale. It’s one of the park’s most popular features. You are going to love it, I promise. There’s a huge treat at the top.”
“A hot tub and a pizza?”
He chuckles. “Not quite, but you’re going to like it. We’ll break for lunch halfway up. Let’s do this, Everhart!” he says enthusiastically, an infectious smile splitting his face.
And so we begin the ascent.
We have to climb a normal uphill path for about a half hour before we hit the stairs. They’re rough and wide, and pretty wildflowers and lacy grasses grow alongside them. They casually snake up the mountainside, and the top steps are hidden from view, around the back of the peak. The steps are steep in parts, and a little wonky, but apart from the strain on my calves, I can’t really understand why they’d be dangerous. I hear water that gets louder as we ascend, so I assume there’s a nearby river, just out of sight.
Climbing, I realize that I’m feeling better physically. Not exactly 100 percent, but Lennon says it takes time for the body to get used to hiking. It’s a slow and steady endurance, not a race. And the pristine scenery definitely helps to motivate me.
The problem with hiking is that it strips away everything. There’s no distraction of checking your online feeds. No TV. No schedule to keep. It’s just you and your thoughts and the steady pace of your feet moving over rocky ground. And even when I try to keep my head clear, it’s busy working in the background, quietly trying to solve things that I don’t want solved.
Like Lennon.
And me.
Us.
We haven’t talked about last night. Not about sleeping in the same tent, and definitely not about his dad dying. I have questions upon questions, but I’m waiting for him to give me some sort of indication that he’s ready to answer them.
Or maybe I’m not ready to hear those answers.
I hate quandaries.
After we’ve been hiking up the steps for twenty minutes or so, both my head and legs feel close to exploding. No amount of internal reflection or pretty scenery can distract me from the pain. “I can’t go any farther,” I tell him, breathless. “Worst StairMaster workout ever. I hate these dumb steps. I hate them, I hate them, I—”
“Take it easy. We’re almost to the halfway point. Right up there,” he tells me, and I spot a place where the steps break. There have been a few rest areas along the way up the mountain, but this one is a smooth granite plateau with several carved-rock benches. One is occupied by a family of tourists with day packs—two kids and a mom and dad. They’re also loud, shouting to each other over the ever-present roar of that unseen river. This is startling after not hearing or seeing another soul all day yesterday.
Lennon dumps his backpack on a shady bench over near the mountainside of the plateau, and I collapse next to him, sitting for a moment perched on the edge of the bench before I unhook the straps on my pack. We’re in a semiprivate, protected area, so the noise of the river isn’t as bad here.
“I’m sweating,” I tell him. “I don’t remember the last time I sweated before this trip.”
He opens up his bear canister and retrieves the same lunch we ate yesterday. “It’s good for you.”
“Is hiking how you went from skinny to jacked?”
Squinting eyes fix on mine. “I didn’t realize I was.”
“Oh, you are,” I say as my neck warms. Smooth, Everhart. I’m veering too close to the subject of me spying on him in his room with my telescope and decide to quit while I’m ahead and drop it.
“You never got to look at the stars last night,” he says after a moment.
Ugh. He was thinking about me spying too. Terrific.
“It’s fine,” I tell him.
“I promise that you’ll get some quality stargazing time tonight,” he says, and after some reflection, clears his throat. “I haven’t asked today if you want to keep going all the way to Condor Peak. The ranger station I told you about is on the other side of the mountain. We should get there this afternoon. I mean, I know I just assumed you’d be here tonight to stargaze, but if you want to call a car at the ranger station . . .”
Oh. I actually hadn’t been thinking of that.
“You don’t have to make a decision right now,” he says. “Just think about it and let me know. So I can make contingency plans.”
I nod, and the subject is dropped. We eat in silence, mostly because I’m too tired to do two things at once. Chewing is all I can handle. But by the time we’re packing back up, the tourist family has left, and we’re alone on the cliff. That’s when I start to notice Lennon’s leg bouncing like a jackhammer. He does that when he’s concentrating too hard—when he takes tests—and also when he’s antsy about something.
When he catches me staring at his leg, he immediately stops bouncing it and sighs. “This is stupid. We should just talk about it.”
“Excuse me?”
“Last fall. Look, I told you about my dad. Now I want to know about yours.”
“My dad?”
His eyes narrow and flick to mine. “I’d like to know what he told you about me after homecoming. I assume he told you something. I just want to know how much of it was true.”
“Not following,” I say, shaking my head.
“After homecoming. What he told you.”
I stare at him. “Um, he just had a talk with me and told me I’d be better off staying away from you. That it would be best to make a clean break and move on, because it was causing me . . . stress.”
“That’s it?”
I don’t know what he wants me to say. “Pretty much. I didn’t tell him about . . . you know. The experiment.”
Lennon squints at me. “And he didn’t bring it up?”
“Why would he?”
He starts to answer, but then changes his mind. Twice. After biting his lower lip and another rapid leg bounce, he finally says, “I’m trying to figure out why you cut me out of your life and started seeing Andre.”
“You ditched me at homecoming!”
“I texted you.”
“Once. ‘I’m sorry.’ That’s it. That’s all you said. I texted you back a million times and you didn’t answer.”
“Well, excuse me if I was busy with my father attempting suicide.”
My body stills. “That was . . . on homecoming?”
“It was one of many shitty things that happened that day.”
“Umm . . . Do you want to share these things with the class?”
He stares at the mountains in the distance as if they might grow legs and walk away. “That’s why I was asking about your dad. He didn’t say anything about what happened that day? At the hotel?”
“What hotel?”
He closes his eyes and mumbles something to himself, slumping low on the park bench. “Never mind.”
“Oh no, you don’t,” I say, getting irritated. “Absolutely not. You brought this up. You finish it. What hotel?”
He covers his eyes with one hand and groans.
Which totally cranks up my anxiety several notches. If Lennon thinks it’s bad, it must be far worse than I ever imagined.
“Just tell me,” I plead.
He slaps both hands on his knees, elbows bent, as if he’s about to stand, but instead inhales sharply and blows out a hard breath. “Last fall, things had been, well, changing between us. The Great Experiment was undertaken.”
“I was there,” I remind him.
“I thought it was going well. Well enough that we agreed to tell our parents and go public,” he says, leaning back against the bench and slouching lower, arms crossed over his chest. “And I guess I . . . was overenthusiastic about the importance of homecoming. I thought, well, you know. That we had the friend thing down. We were expert friends. And when we . . . I mean, my God. The things we did on that park bench.”
“Not everything,” I say, feeling my ears grow warm.
“No, but it was good. I mean, really, really good. Right?”
It was amazing. Awkward at times, especially at first. It’s odd to kiss your best friend. But also not odd. Also very nice. So nice that I can’t think about it right now, because it makes me flustered. This entire conversation is making me flustered. I think I’m sweating again.
He relaxes when I hesitantly nod to confirm. “So, yeah. Things were going well. We agreed to go public. It felt right. But then homecoming was approaching, and you were getting a little stressed out about telling your dad—”
My fingers are starting to go a little numb.
“—and I don’t blame you. He’s not friendly or approachable. And, you know, he’s never liked me.”
I don’t correct him, because it’s true. When we were kids, Dad didn’t seem to have an opinion about Lennon—until he found out that Lennon had two mothers and a Muslim father. That’s when he began to say snarky things about the Mackenzies.
Lennon continues. “I’m just saying that at the time, I understood you not wanting to tell him, but I especially understood after what happened the day of homecoming.”
“Which was what, exactly?”
He sighs heavily. “I knew some seniors who were getting hotel rooms for homecoming night.”
That happens every year, both at homecoming and prom. Sometimes the rooms are reserved by groups of kids who want to party, and sometimes it’s just couples.
“I thought I’d get a hotel room for the two of us. Alone,” Lennon says.
I make a strangled noise. This is . . . not what I expected to hear. At all.
“In retrospect,” he says, “I’m aware that this sounds as if I was making some pretty big presumptions about where our relationship was headed. And I guess I was. But to be fair, I thought we were on the same page. Or at least, that’s what I told myself.”
I have no idea what I’m feeling right now. My skin feels like it’s on fire and numb at the same time. “You couldn’t have asked me about this?” Honestly, at the time, I probably would have been thrilled out of my mind, but it’s weird to hear about it now. “Like, consulted me beforehand?”
“I thought I was being romantic by surprising you.”
“By renting a room where we could have sex?”
He squints one eye shut. “Well, when you say it like that, yeah, it sounds pretty skanky. But I never would have pressured you. You know that. Right?”
“But that wasn’t your intention?”
“Like I said, I thought we were simpatico on this subject. At the time.”
Okay, maybe we were, that’s true. There are only so many extreme, heavy-metal, where did my bra go? make-out sessions you can have before you start to lose your mind a little.
“Please do go on and tell me what happened next in your romantic hotel scheme,” I say drily.
He sighs again. That’s not good. When he sighs a lot, it’s because he’s about to say something he doesn’t want to say. “So anyway, you may not remember this, but the day of homecoming, I wasn’t at lunch.”
I nod.
“I had sneaked off school grounds to reserve the hotel room. Only, I was worried the hotel wouldn’t let me, because I was sixteen, and I knew that other kids getting rooms there were using their parents’ credit cards, so . . . I sort of borrowed Mac’s credit card.”
“You . . .”
“Okay,” he admits. “I guess I stole it.”
“Oh, God.”
“I know. It was stupid. I wasn’t thinking straight. I thought I could charge the room, sneak the card back into Mac’s purse, snag the bill when it came in, and pay for it before Mac noticed. And Ina Kipling’s cousin was working the desk at the Edgemont Hotel—”
“Whoa. That’s—”
“Fancy. I know. Ina told a few of us about it in drama class. She claimed her cousin would bend the hotel’s minimum age policy, so I sneaked out of school and went to the Edgemont Hotel the day of homecoming. I was at the desk, and it was Ina’s cousin, and she asked me what name to put on the reservation, and I didn’t want to use our real names. So I panicked and used my dad’s name. And as I’m spelling out ‘Ahmed’ for Ina’s cousin, she’s asking me if I’m Arabic—which sort of pisses me off, because first, I’m not a language, and second, she’s acting like I’m a terrorist or something.”
I roll my hand to move Lennon along. Get on with it, man!
“And as we’re having this conversation, and I admit that Ahmed is actually my father’s name, she tells me that I have to give real names or she’ll get in trouble. So I give her my name and your name, and then, out of nowhere, your dad shoves me.”
Hold on. What?
“My dad?”
“Your dad,” he repeats in a voice that’s heavy with resentment.
“What in the world was he doing there?”
“He was apparently behind me in line and overheard the whole thing. Because he made a huge scene. We’re in the middle of this luxury hotel, with bellhops and gold luggage carts, and he’s screaming at me that if I so much as look at his daughter again, he will beat the shit out of me.”
I cringe, covering my eyes in horror as Lennon continues.
“Then he threatens Ina, saying that she should be fired for giving a hotel room to a minor, and . . .” Lennon sighs loudly. “It was horrible. I wanted to die. And then your dad snatched Mac’s credit card off the counter and demanded to know if my moms had sanctioned this. He called them ‘dyke heathens.’ ”
“Oh, Jesus Christ.”
“Yeah,” he says. “That’s when I lost it.”
“What happened?”
“I slugged him.”
WHAT? I stare at Lennon in disbelief.
“Yep,” Lennon says, tapping his thigh repeatedly with his knuckles. “Punched him the jaw. Hurt like hell. My knuckles were bruised for days.”
My mind flashes back to memories from last year. Dad had a swollen cheek and his jaw was bruised. He told us he’d been hit by falling scaffolding when he was walking past a construction site.
“After I landed the punch,” Lennon continues, “he started to go after me, but one of the hotel employees stepped in. And then Ina ran to get the manager. And . . . to make a long story short, your dad hauled me outside the hotel and said he wouldn’t call the cops and have me arrested for assault and battery if I stayed away from you. No homecoming dance. No visits at home. No talking at school. No phone calls or texts. He said he’d be monitoring your phone.”
“Jesus,” I say, shocked. Can he monitor my phone? Has he already? My parents have always given me a fair amount of freedom. I never thought in a million years that they would invade my privacy.
“So that was it, basically,” Lennon says. “I planned on telling you anyway. At least, after I drove around town and stopped freaking out. That’s when I texted Avani and told her to let you know that I’d meet you at the homecoming dance, because our plan for me to show up at your house and tell your parents we were dating was . . . not happening. So I thought I’d just tell you what happened with your dad at the dance and we could figure out what to do. But then Sunny called and said my dad had tried to commit suicide, and we rushed into the city to wait at the hospital, because they didn’t know if he would live or not.”
He swallows, and his throat bobs. “Dad made it through the weekend. And my moms made sure his girlfriend was prepared to handle him at home—bought groceries for them, and stuff. And anyway, it was draining. And I didn’t get back into town until Sunday night. I was going to try to talk to you at school the next day, to apologize for homecoming and explain what happened. But then my dad made his second suicide attempt, and that time, no one was there to stop him.”
“Oh, Lennon.”
“Yeah.” He gives me a tight smile that fades. “That’s when I texted you the last time.”
I’m sorry.
I see the text in my mind as clearly as the day I received it. “I thought . . . you were saying that you didn’t want to be in a relationship. That you were chickening out of telling me in person.”
“I was afraid your dad was monitoring your texts, and I was in the middle of a nightmare. I couldn’t think straight. I just told myself that when I got back after the funeral, we’d sort it out. The last thing I expected was to come back to school and see you with Andre.”
Oh, Jesus.
Everything begins to slot together inside my head.
I remember that Monday with perfect clarity. I’d been crying all weekend, thinking he’d decided that being anything more than friends was too weird, and that he’d bailed on me. I didn’t want to go back to school. Mom forced me to go after I confessed about the Great Experiment. She said I should talk to him and find out what happened. Give him the benefit of the doubt. And—
“My dad had a long talk with me,” I say, too agitated to sit. I jump off the bench and pace around the plateau. “He said Mom told him I was upset and that I’d be better off not talking to you. To let it go, that all relationships change, and it was better to have pride than be the one begging. He . . .” I stop and put my hands on my hips to steady myself. I think I’m going to be sick. “I thought he was being a concerned father. Why would he care what we did or didn’t do?”
Lennon throws his hands up. “Right? I never understood it. I mean, I know my parents are way less uptight about sex—”
Dear God. I feel myself flush.
“—but it was so weird to me that he blew up like that.”
“Oh, he blows up, all right,” I say, pacing again. “He’s a keg of dynamite.”
“He’s petty, too. He kept Mac’s credit card—for leverage, he told me. When she went into a tizzy, trying to find it after my dad’s funeral, I couldn’t stand lying to her. So I confessed to the whole thing. She was furious at me. You know how she is about stealing.”
“I know.”
“But afterward, she was more furious at your dad. All the shit he said about the sex shop . . . That was the first big screaming match between our families, you know. It was about you and me. Mac went over to your parents’ clinic while we were in school and gave him a verbal ass-whipping.”
It was about us? All of this mess is what started the bad blood between our families?
He nods his head. “I wanted to talk to you about everything, but after my dad’s funeral, I walked into school, and there you were, kissing Andre in front of your locker.”
“I thought we were over! I embarrassed myself, crying at homecoming, and he was nice to me. He was there, and you weren’t, and I thought you didn’t . . . I never would have, if I’d known the truth. I didn’t know your dad died—you could have told me!”
“I thought you’d find out. It was on the news. But you didn’t say anything, and I wasn’t supposed to go near you, or your dad would kill me. The only time I could talk to you without him knowing was at school, but there you were, with Andre. Andre! And you wouldn’t so much as look my way. I felt like a disease. You moved to the courtyard at lunch to sit with Reagan and Andre, and then I saw you guys on a date at Thai Palace. . . .”
“I thought you hated me. I thought we were finished.”
He lifts his cap to run a hand through his hair and then settles it back down more tightly, tugging it low on his forehead. “I was messed up about my dad. . . . I didn’t know what to do. Everything was completely screwed up, and I thought you didn’t want anything to do with me anymore. I was shattered, Zorie. Shattered.”
I hear the hurt in his voice, and it matches what I’m feeling in my heart.
Overwhelmed, I walk to the edge of the plateau and glance down the twisting steps. They look otherworldly, like ancient steps of a Tibetan mountain temple. Only, it’s just California, and there’s nothing holy here. No monks. No shrine.
Just the mountain and the sun and the two of us with all this pain in the middle.
A group of hikers climbs the steps far below. They look like ants. I walk a few steps to the benches circling a short wooden rail and gaze out over the jagged scenery. I wonder if this is one of the spots at which people fall off the mountain. It certainly doesn’t seem like a place people should die. It’s far too beautiful.
I hear Lennon approaching, but I don’t turn around. I don’t know what to say. I can’t process this. I’m trying, but I’m angry and utterly heartbroken, and everything feels raw.
Is all of this my fault, for crying on Andre’s shoulder and assuming the worst about Lennon’s motivations?
Is all of this Lennon’s fault, for assuming the worst about me?
And then there’s my father. . . .
“Everything that happened in the hotel . . . ,” I finally manage, talking more to the mountains than to him. “I mean, it’s almost blackmail, what my father did to you.”
“Actually, it was. See, there was something niggling me. Why was he at that hotel checking in? It was the middle of the day. And who needs a hotel in town when they live twenty minutes away? I didn’t really think about it much after everything went to hell. Not until that package was misdelivered to my parents’ shop last week.”
My body stills, heart racing erratically. “Why?” I ask, almost a whisper. I’m not even sure I want to know.
“Because the woman in those photos . . . I realized I’d seen her before. She was in the hotel lobby, standing near the registration desk. And then I saw her again, looking out the rotating doors when your dad dragged me outside.” Lennon pauses, and then says, “When I thought about it later, I wondered if maybe he made such a big scene to distract me from seeing her.”
This is the final blow. I want to hold my hands up in surrender. I’m dead now, so you can stop shooting, please and thank you. Nothing can hurt me anymore. I’m beyond pain. I’m just numb.
I stride toward our bench and slide into my pack, hoisting it onto my shoulders.
“What are you doing?” Lennon asks.
“I need to think,” I tell him. “I just . . . need to think.”