Feel Me Fall Page 21

  He made me his assassin. His murderer.

  I felt crazy. Insane. My vision pulsed, and I realized it was my heartbeat in my eyes.

  Maybe I knew all along this is what had to happen to get Viv to leave. She never would’ve left with me, not without a reason. Now I’d given her one. We were free. I had rescued her.

  Viv gently moved a strand of hair out of his face. Maybe in the process of sleeping with him she’d grown to care for him. Her jeans were wet with his blood, and she sat, unmoving.

  At least he seemed at peace.

  Molly slowly stepped behind me. I couldn’t decipher the look on her face. Fear? Shock? Or gratitude that I had done the hard thing when no one else could? She asked no questions, and I took her silence as tacit agreement.

  Viv said quietly, her voice quivering, “He was falling in love with me.”

  I think in her grief it was the other way around.

  “Viv,” I said. “He was never going to leave.”

  “He was….”

  “He was never going to leave—”

  “I would’ve made him. I would’ve convinced him.”

  “He was going to die here. No matter what you did. No matter how many times you slept with him.”

  “You didn’t give me a chance.”

  Viv didn’t cry; she held him, rocking him in her lap. Moments passed and I kept irrationally thinking the police would come. Sirens would sound in the distance. Someone would help us. Someone had to help us before we disintegrated.

  Viv said, “I didn’t want it to be like this. It didn’t need to be.” She softly moved Derek’s head from off her lap. “You killed him.”

  “Don’t you see? We’re free. I saved us, Viv. I saved you.”

  Her energy shifted from mourning to anger. “Don’t bring me into this. He wasn’t stopping you.”

  “He stopped us as soon as he killed that man.”

  “And killing Derek makes a difference?”

  “He was a murderer.”

  Viv’s eyes were cold. “So are you.” There was a hardening between us, a wall of cement growing firmer with each passing second. “And now you’ve sentenced us to starve.”

  I couldn’t believe she didn’t see the truth. “Viv, we’re going to leave. We’re going to choose a point in the distance and keep walking towards it until we get out of here. We’re going home now. Don’t you see that?”

  “You murdered him, Emily.” Viv reached out and picked up the hatchet. Her whole body shook.

  “What are you doing?”

  She stood and faced me, and I was scared. She hadn’t been acting herself. She was capable of anything.

  “I slept with him, Emily. I let him inside of me. Do you think I wanted to do that?”

  “No one asked you to!”

  “Because I didn’t want to kill him! And now it’s all for nothing!” She waved the hatchet in front of her. “You didn’t need to do it! He didn’t have a weapon! He wasn’t threatening you! He had his back turned! You could have run off!” She was hysterical now. Whatever dam of stress she’d been keeping bottled up, broke. “You’re a coward! A coward and a killer!”

  I had to keep this contained. I had to control the situation. “Viv, you’re not thinking right.”

  “I’m not thinking right?”

  “Please, just put it down.”

  “He was your friend.”

  “Viv, you’re my friend. My best friend. Please.” I approached her and she slashed the hatchet at me.

  “Stay away from me!”

  “Viv, listen to me! Listen to me!”

  I stepped towards her and that’s when she cut me. The hatchet sliced my arm, not deeply, but enough to bleed. In that moment of shock, there was an absence of sound, beyond silence, and there might’ve been space to make things right, to calm the waters, but the moment ended too quickly. The blood seemed to scare her. She looked at the hatchet, this weapon in her hand and dropped it like a burning object. She found me—a stranger to her—and then turned and ran.

  “Viv, stop! Stop!”

  I chased after her, but that only fueled her paranoia.

  “Viv! Please! Come back! Come back!”

  Viv scurried like prey and driven by adrenaline and fear, she was soon out of sight. She was all I had left. I stood in the middle of wherever the hell I was, watching the leaves she’d run through fall back to stillness, and it was the last time I would ever see her.

  I waited in the jungle. If there were footsteps, they were buried under an avalanche of sound. If there were tears, they were lost in the drizzle of rain. I thought I could track her by following her footprints in the mud, but if I went too far from where I came I would get lost. I shouted her name over and over and got no response. Above me, trees swayed, their branches and leaves like a wicked creature, mocking my efforts. One moment Viv was in my world, my best friend, my confidant, and the next she was gone. Disappeared. I could not lose her. She was an appendage, part of my identity as much as my fingers and toes. Without her, I was nothing.

  I shouted until I was hoarse. “Viv! Come back!”

  I staggered back to the hut, hoping Viv had returned by a circuitous route, hoping she would understand. I imagined us hugging. She would cry and we would be sisters bound by blood. Our lives would stretch toward weddings and maids of honor, closer to each other than any husband.

  But when I arrived, there was only emptiness.

  She wasn’t there.

  She hadn’t come back.

  Viv was a city girl through-and-through. There would be no way she could survive. Watching her run off was as good as a death sentence. She’d left me. She’d left me to die by herself.

  My own best friend didn’t trust me. The last thing on her face had been horror. She’d been terrified. If I had passed a puddle of water, I would’ve looked at myself to see if I had changed. I felt the contours of my face, and they were the same. Whatever scared Viv was not how I looked, but what I did.

  I killed Derek. I took a life. His life.

  Was Viv right? Was I a murderer?

  I didn’t know anymore. I shut my eyes, losing myself in darkness.

  I was too tired to stay awake, too distraught to sleep; I existed between extremes: freedom and captivity, the present and the past.

  Molly stood near the doorway to the hut. She said, “I didn’t know if you’d come back.” It was she who rushed and hugged me. “I’m sorry, Emily. I never meant any of the things I said. Don’t leave me. I can’t make it on my own. Please, don’t leave.”

  I never liked Molly and still didn’t. She offered nothing in the way of skills or survival, but I would not be so callous to toss her aside. Instead, I would become her savior. I looked at her red, tear-streaked face and said, “I won’t.”

  “What about Derek?” Off my confused look, Molly explained. “His body.”

  I didn’t give it a second thought. “Leave it.”

  Molly nodded. Whatever I told her, I was certain she would do. I could play a game of Simon Says and she would do everything.

  “We’re leaving now.”

  She didn’t nod. She just followed, a puppy behind her master.

  Molly and I walked and walked. She never complained. She didn’t even ask what had happened to Viv. For all Molly knew, I had killed her. I could sense Molly’s fear. Not just of the jungle, but of me. I told her: we won’t stop; we won’t sleep; we will move until we find help or until we can’t move anymore. We didn’t waste energy with conversation. Every ounce of life was spent in motion.

  I never did see the road again. I must’ve gone in the wrong direction. But it was too late to backtrack. By the time it was getting dark, we spotted a river. Whether it was the same from days ago, I didn’t know. At least it was a landmark.

  I pointed across the river and said to Molly, “There. Do you see them?”

  She squinted. “The mushrooms?”

  It was too far to see if they were the edible or poisonous kind, but they wer
e sprinkled across the shore like a field of creamy flowers. To me they looked just as beautiful. “I say we cross and eat, then take as many as we can. What do you think?”

  “If you think we can.”

  “We’re gonna need to eat. Can’t be too deep, right?”

  “No,” Molly said. But I saw the hesitancy on her face.

  I tightened my shoelaces and then rolled my jeans into the sides of my shoes. Hopefully, it would act as a barrier against leeches. I stepped into the river and the water was cold. I tiptoed further. The water went up to my ankle, then my calves, knees and finally up to my waist. It was brownish and smelled like salt. Rather than feel cleansed, the water only made me feel dirtier. Molly was right behind me. The cold intensified as we waded towards the center and we shivered, two human bobbers floating on muck.

  My feet bounced on the mud below, and the closer I got to the mushrooms, the hungrier I became. I could taste their earthy goodness, my stomach waiting for sustenance.

  The river’s current pushed us and we trudged against it. Step by step I walked, and suddenly, the bottom dropped out. The river became very deep. Fear took over as I tried to step back to gain purchase, but the current dragged me. I treaded water and shouted to Molly to be careful, but it was too late.

  She stepped into the deep, and the current took her, too.

  I kept my gaze on the shore and swam towards it. No matter how much the current wanted to pull me away, I was like a plane in turbulence, only focused on my destination.

  Behind me, Molly screamed my name.

  We were so weak. Every stroke took effort, and energy leaked from my body. I fought the urge to give up, to let go. The water enticed me, a giant womb, as if whispering come to me, come back home. You belong here. Water splashed in my face, blurring my vision. The shore was only yards away. The current was stronger now, very strong, and I couldn’t move. My feet were stuck. I wasn’t moving at all.

  That’s when I knew: this was no current.

  It was Molly; she had grabbed my foot.

  She was behind me, flailing, her face no longer human, but a creature screaming, filled with panic, her mouth open, trying to breathe, but the more she tried, the more water she inhaled. It was a vicious cycle, and her fingers were like a vice on my shoe.

  I was so weak.

  “Molly, let go! You’re gonna drown us! Let go!”

  She was too scared; that’s all she was now: pure panic. I couldn’t make out the sentences she said, only fragments.

  I couldn’t save her unless I saved myself. I kicked against her, trying to break free. I inhaled a mouthful of water and coughed. Molly was taking me down with her. I went under, water filling my ears, all sound going mute, air bubbles releasing to the surface, and came back up. I fought against her, and the more I fought, the tighter she held on.

  I thrashed and we were two whirlpools.

  The sounds she made were all garbled.

  She was no longer Molly; she was a monster.

  I had no choice.

  I would survive.

  I kicked at her, hitting her in the face with my free foot. Once, twice, until I heard the snap of her nose and I was free. I didn’t look back. I took off for shore.

  Almost there.

  I spit out water from my mouth.

  Another stroke.

  I found traction on the river floor and four-legged myself onto land. I was soaked, out of breath and fiercely tired. The edges of my vision blurred and finally came into focus. I gasped for air, spending moments coming to a normal rhythm.

  I heard no human sounds.

  I moved my head. Molly lay face down, floating on the water’s surface, easing down the river with a bizarre tranquility, as if a small blanket had been thrown overboard, and it drifted, rippling on the current, further and further away.

  Chapter 32

  There were mushrooms on shore. Loads and loads of them, edible and safe, and I gorged myself. They were at the base of trees, spread out, a treasure trove of food, gold at the end of a rainbow. I never won anything, no awards, no lottery, nothing, but I won food, and it felt wonderful. A vicious thought intruded: you could’ve saved her. You could’ve saved Molly.

  No, I argued with myself, she would’ve killed me. She would’ve drowned us both.

  Did you really need the mushrooms?

  Yes, I thought, and chewed.

  How can you just sit there and eat?

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked to no one. “I can’t do anything.” Not anymore.

  You killed them both.

  I yelled into the sky. “I killed them so that I could live! Is that so wrong? What else was I supposed to do? It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault!”

  I thought: I have survived childhood; I will survive here. No one will drown me. Not my mother. Not Molly. No one will ever drown me. No one will ever take me down with them.

  I ate until I could eat no more.

  I rose from the ground, sopping wet and hewed close to the river.

  I kept repeating to myself: the river leads to the ocean. The river leads to the ocean.

  I drifted like a sleepwalker, walking for who knows how long. Days came and went. At some point, I had to veer from the river, as it became impossible to walk near it. Rocks and sudden drops became too hard to cross. I was back in the jungle, my old friend and nemesis, and it seemed to whisper you will never leave. Snakes and spiders kept their distance. I was one of them, a creature of this place.

  I walked through daylight; I walked through nighttime. I stopped for nothing. Not food or drink. Not to use the bathroom. I was no longer scared of the dark. I was the unknown in this place. I was capable of anything. My sense of self fell away. I didn’t know who I was. I fought to remember my name.

  I am Emily Duran. I am Emily Duran.

  I said those words over and over until they became meaningless, just sounds in my head. I said them to the point of ridiculousness, to where forming the words on my mouth felt odd, until language itself felt foreign. Alien. Like me.

  I simply was. I existed. Sounds fell away, and I walked and walked.

  I became a ghost haunting these woods. I had no substance; no hunger, no thirst, no desire.

  I stopped feeling anything at all.

  I thought I was dying.

  That’s when I saw the light. The bright light. It was Death, come to claim me.

  When the helicopter medic asked me if there was anyone else with me, I hesitated.

  Was this real or was I creating a conversation in my head? It took me a moment to process there was someone standing in front of me, an actual physical presence and not a hallucination. Nico, Ryan, Molly and Derek were gone.

  What about Viv, I thought to myself. She could still be alive.

  This wasn’t who I was supposed to be.

  I wanted a clean slate.

  I’m no murderer.

  I wanted to put this all behind me. Bury it in a big hole and never look back.

  I would live and tell the story of who I was meant to be.

  In that moment, less than seconds, I crystalized who I was: I chose between the past and the future, between who I was and who I would be.

  I shook my head. “I’m the only survivor.”

  If my mother is awake and listening, she shows no sign of it. Her breathing is calm, rhythmic and deep. I whisper, “I was so angry at you for never being around, for being weak, but I’m so much worse. I’m a murderer. I’m a murderer and I’m being hailed as a hero. What do you think of that?”

  She doesn’t respond.

  The guilt has been eating away at me, a disease with no cure but the truth.

  “I wrote the story of what happened to me. The story you read. The story I tell everyone. It’s like when I was talking to Ryan about the ancient poets. I determined what was worth telling or not. I determined who was a villain and who was a hero. Rewriting my own story made it bearable.”

  It’s so dark in the room and my words float into n
othingness.

  “It’s scary to realize what you really are. Not who you say you are, but who you really are.”

  What does that make me, I think?

  A survivor.

  Or a ghost.

  Maybe Emily Duran did die in the jungle. Her body came back, but not her soul.

  “You might wonder, why didn’t I just tell the truth about killing Derek? People would understand—my shock, fear, Derek going crazy. But I think when I got back here, I felt bad for him. He hated his life. I wanted to give him a good ending, better than the one he really had. Like mine. Maybe in death, if only at the end, people will remember him for doing what was right. Maybe that makes up for everything that led up to it. A final act of forgiveness. We all need forgiveness, don’t we?”

  “Or maybe,” I laugh. “It was guilt. All the time I sat telling his mother he saved my life, I had to restrain myself from blurting out, ‘I killed him! I killed your son! I bashed his head in with a rock until he didn’t look human anymore.’”

  There are so many lies. I am drowning in lies.

  “When the boar was killing Ryan? I never picked up a piece of bamboo and waved it off. No, I stayed right there, listening to his screams. I can hear them now. I was terrified. And that boar, it didn’t kill him right away. It took its time. It would gore him and then step back, like a cat toying with a mouse. Going back and forth, protecting its turf. All through it Ryan screamed for help. The boar finally got a piece of him, a piece of meat and walked off. That’s when the screaming stopped.”

  I try to shake the image away.

  “The only thing that makes me feel better? No one else did anything, either. We were all cowards that day.”

  It’s so quiet I can hear the ticking of the analog clock.

  “When Nico fell and I went down the cliff to see him? I didn’t go to say good-bye. I went to get the bag of food. I was hungry. And you know what? I did eat it. I wasn’t going to save it for them. I ate the last few mushrooms while I climbed up. It wasn’t many. Maybe two or three stems. But Derek was right to accuse me.”