Feel Me Fall Read online

  Another night passed, and Derek must’ve been satisfied with my work, for I earned a full meal. It was raw snake, stripped of its skin. It was chewy and rubbery and tasted like…amphibian? It was hard to tell, as I hated snakes—they were revolting creatures—and I swallowed the nubs of meat as fast as I could.

  I asked him that night, with the roofless hut behind us, “Derek, I’ve been thinking. What if I left?”

  “You mean here?”

  “You could give me some mushrooms for the trip, and when I got rescued, I promise not to tell anyone about you. Or where you were. In fact, I’d go one better and tell them you were dead.”

  “Emily—”

  “No one would ever know. Your parents. Your mother. I’d lie for you, Derek.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Viv and Molly’s face alight with something—hope? Or fear?

  “I don’t want to discuss this any more.”

  “I understand what you’re doing. You can be happy here. You can trust me.”

  He slapped the ground and his eyes bored into mine. “I said I don’t want to talk about this anymore! Do you understand?” He took a breath and calmed down. No one spoke. He tried to lighten the mood. “We should think of a name for our house. Casa something.”

  Casa hell, I thought.

  “Emily, any ideas? You’re the creative one.”

  “Casa Derek?”

  He sighed. “It’s for everyone. Not just me.”

  Molly said, “How ‘bout Casa Selva? Don’t quote me on it, but I think selva means jungle in Spanish.”

  “Not bad. But it’s too obvious. We’re already in the jungle. The hut is an escape—a home.” We ate in silence a little longer and then he snapped his fingers. “I got it! What about Casa Shangri-La?”

  Viv said, “I like the sound of that.”

  “Me, too,” Derek replied. “Me, too.”

  That night, as I settled into bed next to Molly, I heard Viv in bed next to Derek. I didn’t want to hear, but I couldn’t help it. They’d grown closer over the last few days, not like any normal relationship, but more the way someone who adopts a stray animal. Viv gave affection for the simple fact that she got fed.

  Viv whispered to him, “I think what you’re doing is remarkable. If people could see you now, they’d know how special you are.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so.”

  I took a peek and saw Viv lightly rubbing her fingers over Derek’s arm. Molly moved beside me and I could feel that she was watching, too.

  “I’m sorry about what I said earlier. About my star and how it was a good thing I’d never see it. I love my star. I just knew I’d always have it, no matter where I was.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “We’re here now.”

  They were silent as Viv continued making patterns of her own design over his body.

  “I always knew it was you, Derek. Watching me from outside.”

  “You did?” He suddenly turned shy. “You weren’t mad?”

  She paused. “It’s nice to be wanted.”

  “I…don’t know how that feels.”

  “What if I showed you?”

  No, Viv. Don’t do it.

  “Showed me what?”

  “What it feels like to be wanted.” Her hand moved beneath his clothes, and his arms intertwined with hers.

  “I’ve never….” he said.

  “It’s okay.”

  I shut my eyes.

  I shut my eyes but could still hear.

  I could still hear the rustling as their clothes came off. The sounds of hands on skin. Of breath and movement and the bamboo beneath them. Almost as quickly as it began, it ended with a short gasp.

  Chapter 27

  There’s something about signing your name on a document that you can’t help but feel important. I’m legally a minor, so my mother signs, too. She told me earlier, “If this is a way to empower you, I’m all for it.” She hands the document to Alan White.

  I guess I’m officially making lemonade.

  “Welcome to the family,” Alan says and shakes my hand. “I’ll get started right away fielding offers. How soon do you think you’ll be ready to leave?”

  My mother says, “The doctors say she’s gonna be fine. The airline just wants to make sure she has the best care possible.”

  “The airline has an image to protect. So, maybe a couple days?”

  “That seems awfully soon,” I say. It’s happening so fast. Promises of talk shows. Publishing houses. Hotel rooms and schedules, and of course, the promised money and opportunities down the line.

  He shrugs sympathetically. “There’s always another story around the corner. Gotta move while the iron is hot.”

  My mother looks at me. “Whatever you want, honey.”

  “I’d rather wait. Just a little. I’m not ready to travel.”

  My mom’s hands go to her mouth. “Oh, Emily, I never thought of that. I’m sorry.”

  Alan quickly intercedes. “We’d hire a private bus to take her to New York, of course. Though getting on a plane would be a powerful symbol that you were moving on with your life.”

  Is that what I’m doing? Moving on with my life? “I am never getting on a plane again.”

  “I see.” A slight frown appears on Alan’s forehead. Then it’s gone and his eyes sparkle. “What if we brought the interviews to you?” Off my quizzical expression, he says, “The shows can come here. Equipment, host and all. In fact….” He strolls around the room. “These are good optics. White background. Stark. Empty.” He seems to be talking more to himself. “It creates this yearning for you to reach beyond it. People love a story. Something they can invest their hopes in. You’re a mirror for them, don’t you see? Hard-working girl tries to make good. Works at the local burger joint. Attends private school on scholarship. You’re the American dream. And then it’s tragically taken away. Yes, yes. This could work very well.”

  “But I don’t….”

  My mother gazes at me, and I hesitate to say it out loud, for it sounds too vain after all that’s happened. “I don’t look good. I still have scabs, and I’m too skinny.”

  “If you looked perfect, then people wouldn’t care. You wouldn’t connect. They want you to look like this. Then, when we do your book tour a year from now, people will see how far you’ve come. They’ll feel like they’re a part of the journey. Understand?”

  “I guess so.” But it all sounds so calculating.

  “Good, good. This is going to be an exciting time. Your life’s gonna change, Emily. It’s gonna change in a big way. Just remember: you earned this. You deserve it.”

  I smile, trying to convince myself. I deserve something, all right, but I’m not sure this is it.

  I had a fantasy that the gasp I heard from Viv and Derek’s bed hadn’t been the sigh of pleasure, but the sigh of Derek being stabbed to death by Viv. I opened my eyes and saw them together. There was no blood and no weapon. It had been sex, not death. They rose from the bed, naked in the shafts of moonlight. Rather than being erotic, they were skeletal, like drugs addicts doing what needed to be done to score their next hit. They put their thread-bare and filthy clothes back on. The bamboo creaked as they lay back down and Derek rolled over, his breath slowing and soon he was asleep.

  I caught Viv’s eyes. There had been a death, after all: a little bit of her soul.

  In the morning, after Derek went off foraging, I pulled Viv aside. “Why’d you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “You know what. You didn’t need to, Viv.”

  She gazed at me with that blank look of hers. I hated seeing her so far away. Suddenly, my thought became action and I slapped her. I wasn’t sorry. I needed Viv, not this other person who looked like her and simply took up space. Her cheeks blossomed red, and she suddenly appeared, that’s the only way I can describe it. Her eyes flared and she rubbed her face.

  “Don’t ever hit me again, Em.”

  Anger was good. Anger was energy
. I could harness that. “Why did you sleep with him?”

  “Because you didn’t.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Don’t you get it? He’ll listen to me. He’ll get us out of here. I’ll convince him. Because he will love me. He will do anything to make me happy. Maybe not right away, but soon. And when it’s all over, when we’re home, we can pretend this never happened.” She sighed with disgust. “You ask me what I did? I rescued us.”

  I stood dumbfounded.

  We were all heroes in our own way, heroes in the stories we told ourselves.

  “I’m sorry, I had no idea.”

  Then she slapped me. “That’s for Nico.”

  It stung. “I deserved that.”

  “That and more.” The anger in her face subsided, and she began fading, the far-away person coming to the surface. I wondered which was real and which was the imposter.

  I couldn’t let her go. “Come back to me, Viv. You warned me not to make Derek mad. I know you still care. I’m sorry. I miss you. Come back to me.”

  Her eyes were dead. “Better get to work,” she said. “Derek wanted this roof thatched before he got back.” Viv turned from me and began the work of the day, days I’d stopped counting.

  She was gone. She had been so close, but chose to drift. That was the most painful thing of all.

  When Derek returned later that afternoon, we had finished the roof, and it was only a matter of putting it into place. The roof was large, like a big, woven quilt of green and awkward to move. The four of us were able to rest it on the supporting walls and then push it on top and flush with the sides. I thought of the Amish raising a barn, and the pride they probably felt. I felt no such pride. I would’ve set fire to the hut if I could.

  We picked up our beds and moved them inside. It was dark and dank, except where spots of sunlight poked through from tiny holes, akin to fake stars affixed to a ceiling. The hut looked like an abandoned cabin you might find in the outback, rickety and empty, but for us, it was shelter. Viv started tearing up, and I wasn’t certain if it was because it was shelter, or the fact that it was so sub-par to any definition of normal living. There was something worse about it being like a home, because no matter how we might improve on it, it would never be one.

  “I can’t believe it. It’s like….” Derek looked out the front door. “It’s like we’re settlers in the Wild West. Homesteaders.” He ran his hands over the bamboo poles, feeling their stability, seeing how they held against his weight. To his credit, they did. The structure was solid. The floor, too, was stamped dirt and in time would dry.

  “This is only the beginning, you know?” He circled the hut testing each wall. “Course, after the first big rain, it’ll probably leak. But we’ll patch it up and soon enough it’ll be fairly water-tight.”

  “In the coming days, I’ll build the outhouse over there.” He pointed a few yards away. “You won’t have to walk far. Then I’ll build a fish station over there so we don’t attract any critters. I know it’s not much, but in time.... Maybe we can whittle down some wood and make plates. Even forks and spoons. Hell, we can put a table right here. We can have dinner. Lots to do. Lots to do.”

  He looked at Molly. “I nearly forgot! You can give birth here! We’ll have an all-natural birth. How beautiful will that be? It’ll be a child of the world. No citizenship. Just ours.”

  Molly seemed horrified by the idea.

  He motioned for us. “Gather ‘round.”

  We did as he asked and faced each other in a circle in the center of the room. Viv avoided my eyes.

  Derek said, “It’s like we’re a family.” He patted Molly’s belly. “A growing family.” He looked at us each in turn. There were tears in his eyes. “It’s my great pleasure to welcome you to Casa Shangri-La.”

  Chapter 28

  That night, we slept for the first time “indoors.” The walls helped me feel more secure, though they did nothing to diminish the noise from outside. Screeches and the drone of insects drifted through the doorway, seemingly echoing in the closed-off space. Across from me were noises of a different sort. Now that Derek had a taste of carnal knowledge, he was eager to learn more. If Viv wasn’t careful, Molly wouldn’t be the only one pregnant around here.

  This was insanity. Derek, with his utopian fantasy, and Viv, I didn’t know what to think. We would eventually leave and when she got back home there’d be no way to “forget anything had happened.” Something had happened; something she never would’ve done under any other circumstance. Was that courage or victimization? Derek might fall in love with her, but he would never go back to society. Why would he? Everything he wanted was here. A girlfriend he could control; a girlfriend who would never leave. He was king, Viv his queen, and we were his subjects. No one gives up position and power. Not without a fight.

  Unless Viv needed comforting herself. People in pain sought release. Maybe Derek was her answer, and if so, who was I to judge? If I was honest with myself, I needed comforting, too.

  As much as I held out hope, I was beginning to doubt if we’d ever be rescued. Derek was probably right. Someone somewhere had called off the search. All evidence pointed to total disaster: no survivors. The mission would turn from rescue to recovery, and after that, nothing. No one searches for ghosts.

  Viv and Derek were very much alive, though. Molly and I could’ve slept outside to avoid being so close to them, but Derek didn’t last long and soon he was asleep. I wanted to reach out and whisper to Viv. To tell her again she was my best friend, how I didn’t want to lose her, and I missed her dearly. She wasn’t alone in her pain.

  I never did, and I regret it every day.

  Sometime in the night, I rolled over, surprised to find more room on the bed. Molly was gone, the bamboo cool to the touch. She wasn’t inside the hut. Across from me, Viv and Derek slept, hatchet and spear by his side. I stepped off the bed and onto the dirt floor. Nico had run off like this, and he’d taken food. But there was nothing to steal, as Derek foraged for fresh food every morning.

  Molly didn’t seem like the type to run away and definitely not at night. The jungle was difficult enough to navigate during the day, but when dark descended, it was a whole other world. I stood near the doorway and heard the sounds of crying.

  It had to be Molly. I knew exactly how she felt. I thought of going outside to comfort her, but she’d left to get some privacy. I wanted to respect that.

  I don’t know what kept me from going back to bed, other than I was already up. Molly’s cries continued to float in the air, blending with the jungle’s cacophony. I waited a few minutes until I could listen no more. Like sonic breadcrumbs, I followed the sound of her tears, growing closer and closer until I saw her near a tree. When she saw me, her eyes were frantic, her face wet with tears, and she quickly turned away as if I’d caught her doing something wrong.

  “Molly?”

  She hid behind a tree. “I’m fine, Emily. Just stay there.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  Going to the bathroom in the jungle hadn’t been an issue; any vanity we had disappeared as soon as we entered the wall of green. I’d seen every bodily function and nothing could surprise me. So why was Molly acting so strange?

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Please, Emily, leave me alone.”

  I stood only a few feet away and waited for a sign. I thought if Molly wanted to be alone, let her. But the tremor in her voice made me think otherwise.

  I peered around the tree and Molly shrunk from me. Her pants were down, but she wasn’t using the bathroom. There was something on her thighs. I thought she must’ve had diarrhea in the night and rushed outside and was now embarrassed. Molly reached out as if to keep me away and I saw the same dark substance on her hand.

  “Molly, what happened?”

  “Go away!”

  I realized the substance wasn’t what I thought. She was bleeding. The dark substance was blood. I couldn�
��t imagine suffering a miscarriage alone, away from home, away from support. “Molly, are you okay?” I tried to comfort her, and she shied away from me even more.

  “Don’t. Just don’t.” She couldn’t meet my eyes.

  “You’re hemorrhaging. We’ve gotta get you help!”

  I turned to wake the others. If we didn’t stop the bleeding, Molly might die. I wouldn’t let that happen.

  “Emily, wait!”

  “You need help. I promise, we’ll do what we can—”

  “It’s not a miscarriage.”

  I stood, stupid, processing what she’d said.

  I’d been played for a fool. She’d never been pregnant. This was her period. “Were you ever?”

  She didn’t answer which was answer enough. She asked, “Do you have anything?”

  I shook my head.

  Molly said, “Will you tell the others?”

  “No. But they’ll find out eventually.”

  I didn’t need to ask why she’d made it up. She wanted preferential treatment: more food, less work, understanding when she lagged behind; compassion. Hell, I wanted compassion, too. I wasn’t mad. I understood the things people did to survive.

  But if she’d lied about this, she may have lied about something else.

  I asked, “Were you ever with him?”

  She shook her head. “I was tired. I didn’t want to walk anymore. It just popped in my head. And then you all started asking questions. It was easier to say it was someone on the plane.”

  So her relationship with Johannes had always been a lie. Rather than get angry, I was flooded with relief. He loved me, I thought. He really loved only me.

  I’m sorry, Johannes. I’m sorry I doubted you.

  I wanted to cry.

  I’d been loved, truly and totally. I should’ve trusted him.

  My body trembled and I had to stop from bawling. Being angry was easier than mourning. Being dead inside was easier than confronting death. Sadness fell against me. I caught my breath, trying to maintain my composure.