Feel Me Fall Read online

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re apologizing?” He laughed to himself. “What would’ve made a difference, a real difference, is if we went upriver when I said it the first time. I don’t want to say I told you so, but….” He looked at all of us with steely anger. “I told all of you.”

  “No,” said Viv. “This,” and she reached for an idea. “This is just like a video game. Right before you level up you face the biggest challenge. The Boss Challenge. This is our Boss Level.” She tapped Ryan. “Right, Ryan?”

  Ryan said, half-heartedly, “Right.”

  “C’mon, Ryan! I’m being positive here. What do you say? Nothing can kill the human spirit. We’ll life-hack this. We’ll make it.”

  Her speech didn’t seem to rouse anyone. If anything, we only sunk deeper into despair.

  “A fire! Let’s make a fire,” Viv said. “They’ll see us from the sky. The smoke will billow up in big clouds. They’ll see us for sure.” Her smile almost convinced me.

  Derek looked at her as if contemplating someone who didn’t speak English. “If I could’ve made a fire, don’t you think I would’ve? I’ve got no matches, no lighter, no glasses, and everything here, if you haven’t noticed, is wet.”

  “What about rubbing together two sticks? You must’ve done that.”

  He sighed. “That’s a lot harder than it looks. Almost impossible. And that’s in optimal conditions.”

  When Derek made no move to at least try and start a fire, Viv got up and searched the surrounding area. She pulled at a root. A moment later, she picked up a stick. Sitting down, she began furiously rubbing them together.

  I knew nothing would happen, and yet I held out hope, a fantastical hope of a spark, a miracle, a godsend.

  Viv rubbed and rubbed, flakes of bark came loose like tiny, brown orange zest. She rubbed so hard the stick broke. As an A student, she wasn’t used to failing. She repeated the entire process: searching for sticks, rubbing them together, her face one of concentration, biting her lower lip, and then the expected failure. In a fit, she threw the root and stick on the ground. “Nico.”

  “What?”

  She looked at him as if it was obvious. “Do something.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Something.”

  He reached into his baggie, picking at the remaining bud, and swallowed a piece. Viv jumped up towards the bag, but Nico pulled it out of her reach. His eyes flared. “Don’t ever do that again.”

  “Why? Do you need it?”

  “It sure as hell helps.”

  The tight circle had broken. Derek got up to pee. Molly stretched. Viv and Nico peeled off and argued in subdued voices.

  Ryan whispered. “They’re going to leave me. I know it. They’re going to leave.”

  I tried to reassure him. “No, they won’t.”

  “They will. Know how I know?” He waited for me to respond. “I’d leave me.”

  “I won’t leave you.”

  “Then you’re dumb.”

  Was I? “I won’t let another person die.”

  “We’re in the animal kingdom. Different rules. Different code. What would your poets say to that?”

  I got up and approached Derek. I wrung out the wetness from my shirt and pants where I could. “Ryan thinks we’re leaving him. Tell him it’s not true.”

  Derek glanced at Ryan’s body, splayed out on the ground. “Em, I know you don’t want to hear this, but every day we sit here waiting for him to get better is a day wasted.”

  “I know.”

  “Good. Then it’s decided.”

  “Nothing’s decided. I’m not leaving him.”

  Derek looked at me strangely. “Why do you care?”

  “Let’s give him one day to rest. One day for all of us to rest.”

  “One day could mean the difference between life and death.”

  “I’m betting on life,” I said.

  “So am I.” He pulled away from me.

  “Then let’s take a vote.”

  “A vote it is.” He waved over Molly, Nico and Viv. They formed a circle around us. “Emily wants to take a vote.”

  Nico asked, “About what?”

  Derek pointed at Ryan. “He’s not doing well. Might be malaria, might be something else. But I say we keep going and come back for him. There’s no way we can carry him anymore. We don’t have the strength. All in favor of moving on, raise your hand.”

  Derek raised his. Without hesitation, Molly followed. Nico knitted his eyebrows, and after a second, he raised his hand.

  Viv couldn’t believe his vote. “Nico?”

  “We’ll come back for him.”

  Derek counted our hands. “That’s three to two. Majority rules.”

  “Wait,” I said. “What about Ryan? Doesn’t he get a vote? That’ll make it three to three.”

  Molly said, “Don’t I get two, then?” She placed her hands over her belly. “This isn’t just about me anymore.”

  The five of us stood, the silence between us growing until Derek said, “Tomorrow morning we leave. No matter what. You understand, Emily? No matter what.”

  Chapter 14

  After my shift at Burger King, I drove over to Viv’s. It was late on a school night, and I was still wearing my uniform, but she wanted to show me something that couldn’t wait. I toyed with what it could be, chewing on my fingernails—a habit I gave up in junior high—but had inexplicably returned. I felt their jagged ends as I gripped the steering wheel.

  I pulled into her driveway, my muffler rattling, and did a double take. A figure was perched in a tree. Not a cat or raccoon: a person. They brought their legs up to try and hide. I flicked on my brights. The beam didn’t go high enough, but the person now knew I’d seen him.

  As I opened my car door, the figure jumped from the tree, landed on all fours and scrambled away, dashing behind Viv’s yard and through a neighboring privacy hedge. Whoever it was disappeared into the night, though I could’ve sworn from his loping gait it was Derek. I’d seen the back of his head for hours on end at work, his rounded shoulders as if caving in, and it had to have been him.

  I walked to the tree and looked up. It was an old towering maple that stood next to Viv’s house. Whoever had rested on the upper branch had seen directly into her window, a window currently with the blinds open and the lights on. Must’ve seemed like a burlesque show from the outside.

  I went to the door and rang the bell. A melodious tone echoed inside. A minute later, Viv met me wearing Hello Kitty pajamas, her hair wet, and motioned me inside. “You came!” I thought there’d been an emergency. Her happiness threw me off. Inside, the foyer was laid with white marble, and I followed Viv up the stairs. My hand sliding up the carved banister, I walked past photos of her family—mother, father, Viv and an older sister already away in college. Going up the stairs was like moving through time. At the bottom Viv was a baby, and she grew older as the stairs ascended, from skiing trips to her standing in front of the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben.

  I’d been here many times and was thankful not to have the usual interrogation disguised as conversation from Viv’s mom. “Where are your parents?”

  “Date night.”

  “Parents really do that?”

  “Mine do. Not every week, but every month.”

  I couldn’t fathom having a “family,” let alone one where parents actually loved each other.

  At the top of the stairs, we reached Viv’s current age on the wall of photos from a recent trip they took to Lake Tahoe. We turned left down the hall and into her room. When I went to college, at least I knew I’d probably have a better dorm room than my own room. It would be an upgrade, and I would adapt well to living away from home. Viv, I thought, not so much. No dorm room could match the amenities she had here: an oversized room with her own en suite bathroom, a Queen-size sleigh bed, dark wood flooring, and triple-paned windows which kept the place draft-free and nearly soundproof. I admit, I was jealous. Her room, like h
er life, was protected, provided for, and mapped out on a road of seemingly rising steps to bigger and better things. Mine, not so much. Yet walking into her room felt as if I was being welcomed into a secret society, no matter my pedigree.

  I went to her window and looked out onto the maple tree. “What were you doing a few minutes ago, before I came over?”

  She opened the door to her walk-in closet. “Just got out of the shower. Why?”

  I closed the blinds. “I think you had a Peeping Tom.”

  “Really?” She seemed both surprised and flattered. She rushed to the window and looked through the slats. “Where?”

  I pointed at the maple outside her window, a tree that would give me nightmares. The type of tree I imagined that would come to life, shatter the windows and kidnap me to some cruel underworld.

  She peered over the lawn, as if she would find a trace of who it was. “Did you see them?”

  “Yes and no. I couldn’t tell.” I wasn’t going to finger Derek if I wasn’t 100% sure.

  “Well, who do you think it was? A boy? An old man? A serial killer?”

  “I don’t know,” I lied. “Someone our age by the looks of him.”

  “So you saw him.”

  “I saw his back.” Viv waited for me to elaborate. “Viv, I saw a blur. That’s it.”

  She kept looking out the window. Not scared. More intrigued.

  “Aren’t you going to call the police?”

  “And tell them what? It’ll just freak out my parents. My mom’ll put me in lockdown if she thinks I have a stalker.”

  “Maybe you do.”

  “I don’t think so. Climbing trees seems so….”

  “Gross?”

  “Innocent,” Viv said. “Somehow sweet.” She saw my face and explained. “I mean, if we’re talking some creeper, yeah. But if it’s a cute guy from school….”

  “Unless he’s out there recording you.”

  “Ew. Now that you put it that way….” She double-checked that the window lock was latched and flattened the slats.

  I sat on her comfy bed, the kind where you could jump and jump and it wouldn’t move, careful not to rub any of my grease stains on it. “So, what’d you want to show me that was so important?”

  She went into her closet and with a theatrical “ta-da” pulled out her prom dress. “What do you think? It’s Jovani.”

  It was beautiful. It had a high leg slit and a ruched bodice. Viv twirled with it in her room and went off on its details. “Feel the fabric. Like a cloud, right? And how great will my butt look in this? I thought of going with cream, but I went with red at the last minute. Impulse! Tell me you like it!”

  We were so different, but she needed my approval as much as I needed hers. “You’re gonna look like a movie star.” I hadn’t even bought my dress; I was going to look at second-hand shops. “You’re still going with Nico, right?”

  “Of course. I got him a color-coordinated tie.”

  Viv proceeded to tell me the story of choosing dresses, and the decision was as fraught as if she were shopping for a wedding dress. Colors, shapes, styles. Near misses, drama with a capital D. She wanted to make sure no one else would show up in it.

  As she spoke, I zoned out, still wondering about Derek, if it was indeed him looking inside, and how it seemed odd that Viv wasn’t more upset. It was as if she knew someone was outside; as if it happened regularly and she enjoyed the attention.

  She could have her secrets and I could have mine.

  Or maybe I was over-thinking the whole thing. She was so happy; giggling after every sentence, wanting to share her joy, bouncing on her feet, that’s why she insisted I come over and why it couldn’t wait. She really was like Beauty, swaying on the ballroom floor that was her bedroom, which by definition made me The Beast.

  She offered me the dress. “Hold it up. See what it would look like on you.”

  I was a member of her club. I would be a sister to her. I met her warm smile with my own.

  “I’d love to.”

  Ryan’s face took on a sallow, yellow color. I wasn’t sure what was wrong, but I knew it wasn’t food poisoning. I’d had food poisoning once after eating a batch of clam chowder at some beach shack years ago and the sickness was vicious, like I want to die vicious. I still can’t stomach the scent of clam chowder. But even in the throes of my misery, I never looked like this. I was never yellow. If Ryan kept going the way he was going, he’d turn Oompa-Loompa orange.

  “One day they’ll regret it,” Ryan whispered, talking to no one. He lay on the ground, his head resting on a mound of dirt. “Got ‘em hanging on my wall.”

  I knelt next to him. His pupils were constricted, small back dots surrounded by white. His breath was more a wheeze than anything else. “Who do you have hanging on the wall?”

  “They remind me.”

  I asked again. “Who do you have hanging on the wall?” He’d fallen into a fever, and I wiped his forehead with the arm fabric from my shirt.

  “Rejection letters.”

  College rejection letters, I thought. He hangs his college rejection letters on his wall. To keep him motivated. Seemed like torture. A kind of Longing For What Never Came in a different form.

  “They’ll regret it,” he said.

  “They will,” I whispered. “They will.”

  I hoped the fever would break by morning. At the very least, I hoped his fever dreams sent him someplace far from here.

  I got up and walked a few feet over to Molly, Viv, and Derek, who were busy building beds. “Do you feed a cold and starve a fever? Or is it the other way around?”

  “Neither,” Derek said. “Starving’s never an answer for anything.”

  “Ryan should eat.”

  “We all should,” Derek said and looked at the sky. “Too late to forage. Dark’s coming.”

  I pointed at the cross-body bag around Molly’s chest. “Then we’ll eat the leftover popcorn.” Popcorn seemed a more appetizing word than the real thing.

  Derek said, “Why don’t you grab Nico? Let us finish making the beds, and then we’ll eat.”

  I asked Viv, “Where is he?”

  She pointed and said, her face tight, “Being a jerk.”

  “Good to know,” and I peeled off to find him. I walked into the wall of green, careful not to go far. Too many steps away from a visual marker were akin to an ocean tide washing away your footprints and with it your sense of direction. Up ahead I saw Nico, I thought, relieving himself near a tree. Then I saw his hand rapidly moving back and forth, and I realized with a start that he was doing something else. Something private.

  I looked away. Embarrassed. Curious.

  I stepped back and a branch cracked under my foot. Hearing it, his head spun, and a look of horror spread across his face. He stopped, flipping up his pants, and for a moment I thought he might run into the jungle out of shame. Seconds passed and he walked towards me, not meeting my eyes.

  He got to me and said, “Please don’t tell anyone.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He appreciated the lie, nodding. “I just wanted to feel good, you know? I needed a moment of forgetting I was here.”

  “Like I said, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” We could all use a moment of pleasure, even shared pleasure if we had the strength or interest.

  Nico changed the subject. “Viv is driving me a little crazy.”

  “I gathered.” I tried to make a joke. “I’m sure it’s mutual.”

  “This….” He motioned to the jungle around us. “It changes things. Changes everything. Or maybe it didn’t change anything at all. Just made me finally see.”

  “It’ll all go back to normal when we get home.”

  “That’s just it. I don’t want it to go back to normal.”

  We took in the sounds of the jungle. The incessant buzz of insects had become a kind of sonic Chinese water torture. Suddenly, he lunged forward and kissed me.

  I pushed
him away. “What are you doing?”

  He looked like a scolded little kid. “You ever think about that night?”

  “No,” I lied. “I never do.”

  “I do. All the time.”

  “It was a mistake.” I hated that I had no one else to blame but myself.

  “You got me wrong, Em. It’s not just about that night. It’s what could’ve been. You’re fun. You read. You think about things. Viv,” he sighed. “She’s great and all. But she’s not you.”

  I didn’t know what to say; there really wasn’t anything to say.

  Nico said, “I’ve been doing things for other people. Trying to make them happy. ‘Bout time I did things for me.”

  “Like what?”

  He was about to speak when from beyond the jungle, we heard: “You bitch!”

  Nico and I looked at each other. Had we heard it right? We paused, unsure, until we heard it again. “You fat bitch!” It was Viv’s voice.

  We ran.

  Rounding a tree, we saw Viv holding the cross-body bag. She stood, pointing an accusatory finger at Molly.

  I yelled, “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s gone. The food. The grubs. Gone!” To prove it, Viv showed us the empty bag, turning it upside down. Gravy-like goo dripped from what little remained.

  Molly shook her head, seemingly as shocked as we were. “I didn’t eat them.”

  “Then who did? You were the only one who could have!”

  “I swear I didn’t eat them.”

  “Then how come they’re gone? They didn’t just slink out on their own.”

  Molly was on the verge of tears. “I’m hungry, too. I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.”

  Somehow we found ourselves on one side—Nico, Viv, Derek, me; and Molly on the other, an unconscious firing squad.

  Nico tried to keep things calm. “Molly, was the bag ever out of your sight?” When she didn’t answer, he asked again.

  “No! It was never out of my sight. I wore it across my chest. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know how….” She reached for an explanation. “Maybe they fell out.”

  This time, it was Viv who rolled her eyes.

  “Maybe while walking, the bag went sideways, and the grubs slipped out.”