Six
The next morning, Rilla opened her eyes to the god-awful sight of Thea hunched under the eaves, kitchen tongs brandished in one hand and a new cell phone in the other. “I’m cooking bacon. Get it while it lasts,” she said, tossing the phone onto the blankets.
Rilla rolled over, an involuntary moan escaping as her muscles protested every movement. The sides of her back felt as if someone had wound the length of her muscles into snarls overnight; and her hamstrings were definitely two inches shorter than they’d been when she went to bed. The cold morning air wasn’t helping. She turned on the phone and texted a friend from home, Layla.
Hey got a new phone, finally. Call me! It was mid-morning back home; Layla was sure to reply soon.
Rilla pulled on a pair of socks and climbed down the ladder to the hallway. It was a little easier today—to walk past the strangers in a strange house.
Thea was in the kitchen, cooking bacon under a wall of oppressively dark walnut cabinets. Rilla leaned on her elbows just inside the kitchen door, on the edge of the pea-green counter, logging back into social media and inhaling the smoky-salt scent of bacon. “This weather is giving me whiplash,” she said to Thea’s back, switching over to the camera to see what manner of death she looked like today.
Rilla frowned and held the phone farther away. Sorcery. Her hair looked frizz-free and tousled in a way she’d never ever be able to replicate on purpose, and her cheeks were flushed pink, making her look alive. She took a selfie and flicked over to Instagram, trying to ignore that Layla still hadn’t replied.
“It’s the desert. Cold at night, warm in the day.” Thea set a plate in front of Rilla and licked her thumb. “Did you get any schoolwork done last night?” Thea opened a cupboard next to an honest-to-god rotary phone and took out a glass.
Rilla put the #hangoverselfie on Instagram and picked up her bacon. “I looked at it.” She passed the pile of books on her way to bed.
“I can’t believe your grades were all failing. Don’t you remember how much you loved school?”
Rilla remembered. She remembered when Mom, Dad, and Daddy were in jail for check fraud, and Thea hid it from everyone so they wouldn’t get separated. Rilla would spend hours in the library after school, until Thea came to get her from work. Funny how Thea was doing the same things Mom always did when it came to remembering the reality of someone else’s life. Rilla decided not to answer.
“They wanted to make you redo junior year,” Thea continued. “But I told the principal about your situation, and they agreed to let you make up the work over the summer. I told her it’d be different. You’d be different here. With some stability.” Thea filled the glass and handed it over. “Right?”
Rilla took a sip of the water and nodded. “Right.” Her throat felt dry. She took another drink, and her phone lit with a notification. A friend from home had commented on her photo.
You can take the girl away from the Skidmores, but you can’t take the Skidmore away from the girl.
Rilla made a face. The hashtag was supposed to be funny, Bobby Jo. A joke. West Virginia got involved and suddenly Rilla felt tragic. Rilla put the phone down.
Thea’s neatly wrapped chignon bobbed briskly as she lectured, flipped pancakes, and made three other plates.
“Aw, shit,” one of the women said, coming out in a hooded sweatshirt that hit her knees. “Bacon!” She grabbed pancakes off the pile.
“Rilla, this is Jessica. Jessica, this is—”
“The baby sister,” Jessica said, eyebrows high on her forehead like she had finally hit on something interesting while channel surfing. She seemed around the same age as Thea. “Hey, Rilla.”
Rilla forced a smile.
Another woman came into the kitchen, smiling at Rilla like she already knew her.
Rilla pressed her lips tight and glared at Thea’s back. When had Thea turned into a person who told everyone her business?
“I’m Lauren,” the smiling woman said. She had shoulder-length black hair and tattoos covering one arm.
“Hi,” Rilla said curtly.
Thea turned, giving Lauren a look Rilla didn’t understand.
“Still settling in. Got it,” Lauren said, taking her plate. She gave Rilla the universal look of oh shit, you’re in trouble, and disappeared.
Thea resumed her lecture as she finished cooking the pancakes. “It’s stupid that you waste your brain like this . . . this is manageable. If you work hard . . . I know you can do this. You just have to want to do it.”
As if Rilla didn’t try and still, somehow, didn’t get it right. As if she wanted to fail. It almost made her not hungry for the fluffy pancakes Thea piled on her plate. Almost. Rilla dumped syrup over the pools of melting butter.
“My schedule is on the calendar on the fridge,” Thea said, wiping off the griddle. “When I’m not here, you need to be doing your schoolwork. I’ll leave my computer on the counter. Don’t leave the Valley. Be smart. Be safe. And be home by nine thirty.”
Home was in West Virginia. Rilla couldn’t feel like California was home—there was nothing here to make it hers, and it would be ripped away whenever Thea decided. Rilla stuffed a bite into her mouth and tried to shift the conversation. “Do all rangers have to work this much?”
It was the wrong question. Thea’s forehead creased. “I don’t work that much. They’re just long shifts.”
“How did you get into this job, anyway?” Rilla asked, cutting her pancakes. “Do you have a boyfriend, or is this basically your life?”
Thea shrugged. “I like this. I don’t know what you mean by is this my life? You can have a life without a boyfriend.”
Rilla poked at her pancakes. This wasn’t going well. New direction. “Walker says you climb? I went with them up to this hole in the cliff. The water was so cold it gave me a headache jumping in, but . . .” She paused to shove a mouthful of pancake into her mouth, and continued talking over it. “I mean, I didn’t hate it. Walker tried to show me—”
Thea looked up from where she flipped through mail. “Walker is great as a person, but he’s not a guy to get involved with. You know that, right?”
Rilla blinked, fork midair. Was she that obvious?
“I worked with him all last year. I mean, I’d say this to his face and he knows it—he goes through girls quickly. Plus, you definitely don’t need to be involved with anyone right now.” Thea raised her eyebrow. “Don’t you think?”
Rilla’s pancakes now tasted like shame. “Sure. Yeah, totally,” she said, and finished eating in silence.
Layla hadn’t replied yet.
After breakfast, Thea left for work and Rilla went back to bed. She woke covered in sweat. This weather made no sense. Stripping off her pajamas, she sat on the floor in her underwear, staring at the seen receipt on Layla’s unanswered text. There were more comments on her Instagram.
OMG, girl, you’re going to kill yourself.
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro, huh?
Who you been fucking already ho?
Skidmore never dies.
Lolololol you look so high.
Rilla swallowed and turned the phone dark, putting it facedown on the floor. A sweaty, sick feeling clamored on the edges of her ribs and into her throat. The people she knew were still commenting on her social media, but wouldn’t return a text, like they were all relieved distance would do something they hadn’t known how to do themselves.
Deep down, she hated that they weren’t wrong—that she had been partying, that it was everything they’d thought. But she wasn’t.
Right?
The waterfall whispered outside, and she closed her eyes, rolling her shoulders to try and loosen the aching muscles. The pool from yesterday shimmered in her memory. The way everyone had gathered—dirty, weird, and oh-so-stupidly cool and older. If she were someone like that, it would prove everyone at home wrong about her. It would show she was meant to be something bigger all along. No one back home knew what she was capable of.
Doubts pinged somewhere in the back of her brain. But Rilla ignored them, pulling on leggings, a football T-shirt from home, and her sandals. She somehow had to find Petra and become a climber. Rilla quickly shook out her hair, did her eyeliner and mascara, and left the phone facedown on the bed. Fuck you people. At the last minute, she doubled back to pick it up—just in case Thea called.
Out in the Valley, it was almost as if Rilla imagined yesterday. No one looked familiar. The Valley, while small in square miles compared to the surrounding wilderness, was still huge and full of strangers. If Petra and the others couldn’t stay there, where did they stay?
Rilla walked the same path she’d followed Petra and Walker along the day before, scanning each passing face for someone she recognized.
Along the road, a ranger SUV passed and hit its brake. Rilla slowed, thinking it was Thea. In the rearview, she locked eyes with Ranger Dick Face. Not Thea. The SUV began to reverse.
Hurriedly, she turned off the path into the woods. Let him get out and chase her. He’d have to burn calories. Her heart raced, and she kept glancing over her shoulder. But he didn’t follow.
Walking all the way across the Valley to the cafeteria in Half Dome Village, she found Jonah serving corn instead of mashed potatoes. They shared a cigarette outside on his break, but he still had most of his shift to go, so when he went back inside, she aimlessly set off the way she’d come. After crisscrossing the meadows, she found her way back to the path, on the far edge of the parking lot of something labeled “Camp 4.”
A long line of people waited in front of the ranger shack, snaking its way through the rows of cars. Most were young. Everyone was fit, thin, light on their feet, older, cooler, and unlike her. Beyond them, a whole little village of tents and cold campfires spread under the trees.
Rilla crossed her arms over her chest and pretended she did not feel like a heavy-pawed bear, with her un-toned arms and normal-as-fuck body, bumbling past a flock of birds aching to take flight. A sick feeling unspooled in the bottom of her stomach. Maybe she should just go back to Thea’s and try to find her schoolwork. She had been a disaster at real climbing anyway.
The late afternoon sun was high, and dust and chatter billowed up under the whispering cedars. Her skin tightened with each step. She told herself she was looking for Petra, but she kept catching herself scanning for a six-three, muscled cowboy in weird track pants with good forearms.
Her phone buzzed and in her hurry to get it out of her pocket, she flung it onto the dirt. Oh shit. If she broke it the first day she had it—
She picked it up, relieved to see it was fine. The text was from Layla, finally.
Who is this?
Rilla, she replied.
(typing)
Rilla’s stomach tightened.
Oh. Hey.
Hi. How is everyone? I made it to Cali.
Cool.
Rilla’s chest seemed to be cinching tighter.
Hey that stuff with Curtis was totally blown out of proportion, Rilla typed. It was hard not to regret ever hooking up with Curtis in the first place—with the amount of grief it had caused them both. But he’d been a football player, hot, and he had made her less of a joke. Until now.
K.
I mean . . . it was just an argument.
No response.
Rilla bit her lips tight.
Nothing.
Do you have his new number? Rilla texted, stomach hurting.
(typing)
Rilla bit her thumbnail and stared.
The response was one word. No.
Rilla stuffed the phone in her pocket, not feeling any better for finally having made contact with someone. The path circled around toward the road, and her steps slowed. All she wanted was to call Curtis, drive out to the river, and make out in his truck. The past forgotten. Everything erased. Maybe it wasn’t good, but it was something she’d actually had.
A passing car slowed, the window rolling down. Rilla turned and blinked away the moisture in her eyes, pretending not to see it. The last thing she should be doing is giving directions to a clueless tourist. But the car stopped and Petra’s white-blond hair peeked out from the driver’s seat. “There you are,” she called, as if Rilla had made a date and stood her up.
Rilla swiped at her eyes. There she was. Like magic.
“You coming?” Petra asked, patting the seat. “You can sit up front. Backseat’s full.” She jerked her thumb toward Hico and Gage crammed into the backseat with huge packs on their laps and a plastic storage container set between them. Hico sat with a spaced-out expression in a cut-off hoodie. On the other side, Gage, with messy hair and a buttoned-up plaid shirt, looked half-asleep. Both boys’ limbs splayed in exhaustion.
“I can’t be out too late,” Rilla said, ignoring that Thea had also told her not to leave the Valley.
“We’ll bring you back.” A car behind them honked. “Come on,” Petra hollered.
Hoping she wasn’t about to do something Thea would disapprove of, Rilla jumped in—catching the door as they sped away under the pines.