Feel Me Fall Read online

  “The jungle,” she stammered, “it’s closing in on us.”

  “It’s not, Viv. It’s not. We’ll be okay.”

  Viv fought the hysteria rising in her voice. “We’re gonna die, we’re gonna die….” She was hyperventilating, and I was angry that she brought my own fear—my own doubts—to the surface. “We’re gonna die out here. No one will ever know what happened to us.”

  Molly stepped up to Viv and sharply slapped her in the face. We all stopped. This never would’ve happened back at school.

  Nico pushed Molly away. “The hell you do that for?”

  Molly nodded toward Viv. “She seems fine now.”

  Sure enough, Viv did. The slap took the fear out of her and replaced it with anger.

  In P.E. class, a volleyball smacked against my head. I hated volleyball. I hated track. I hated P.E. To me it was a wasted hour that I could have spent sleeping in, reading the latest John Green, or doing a million other things than mandated exercise. The only thing I liked was seeing how the unisex gym shorts and shirts made all the girls look the same, even the most endowed of us. In gym class, no one looked good. No one stood out. It was fashion communism.

  P.E. was the only class I shared with Molly Higgins. She was a year older than me, a Senior, and while I don’t like judging people or being critical about appearances (I’m well aware of my own issues), there’s no denying that she’s, well, big. But there were a lot of big people in high school. What made Molly stand out was her face. With a permanent frown and exaggerated bone structure, she looked like an angry bull. It says something about her that she earned the nickname Mean Molly over Fat Molly. I never saw anyone pick on her. Not even in whispers. I’d heard that in grade school she beat up boys and smacked around girls. The reputation stuck.

  One time after gym class, we went into the locker room. Molly stood across from me, and I watched her change. She took off her shirt and I saw the rolls of fat and I felt a stab of pity. It must be very hard to be Molly Higgins. Then she caught me staring.

  She said, “Think you’re better than me?”

  “No.”

  “Then what? You like girls?”

  “No,” I sputtered.

  “Then stop staring.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s right,” she said. “You are sorry.”

  We moved like numb marionettes moving for the sake of moving, in a line, one behind the other. It was the easiest way to travel. Not side-by-side but single file, as if moving through a tunnel. Suddenly, Molly stopped, breathing in short bursts. I thought she might be having a heart attack.

  Ryan said, “We have to keep moving.”

  “I can’t.”

  We stopped, each privately grateful for the break, and grateful we weren’t the cause. One minute became two and two became three. Ryan prodded her. “C’mon, Molly.”

  “Don’t touch me!”

  “Molly.” Not a question: a statement, a command.

  “I’m tired. I’m hungry. I didn’t even want to take this trip.”

  Ryan looked at her coldly. “If you don’t get up and start moving, I will leave you where you are. We will leave you where you are. Is that what you want?”

  “I’m tired.”

  “We’re all tired!” He took a breath and rubbed his face. She was immovable and he squatted right in front of her, gently lifting her face so that they were eye-to-eye. “Doesn’t matter what your body is telling you. Your body is lying. It’s lazy. But you’re not. You can get up. You can do extraordinary things. If I can do it, you can, too. You can do so much more than you think.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can. You will. Say it after me. I can, I will.”

  She said quietly, “I’m pregnant….”

  We were stunned.

  Ryan said, “What? Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” She looked away in shame. “I was scared. Embarrassed. I should’ve known better.”

  Having a baby at her age was going to be a life-changer. No matter our past, I felt sympathetic. I couldn’t imagine becoming a mother. Not for a long time.

  Derek asked, “Who’s the father?” I wondered the same thing. I hadn’t seen her around with anyone. Maybe it was someone from a different school.

  Viv said, “Does it matter?”

  He shrugged. “Just curious.”

  We waited for Molly to catch her breath. I feared if we didn’t move soon, our bodies would turn to stone. After a time—too much time—we began walking again and made our way parallel with the river, towards the ocean and hopefully a village.

  My tongue seemed heavy, an appendage that didn’t belong. I tried to remember if we could drink river water, whether it was fresh water or salt, or if it didn’t matter because of all the bacteria and parasites that polluted it. Probably any water was drinkable with iodine or boiling, but we had no fire, no iodine and no canteen—no god damn nothing.

  I admit the thought of drinking my own urine crossed my mind. I’d seen it done on some Discovery survival show and what had disgusted me then suddenly seemed necessary. But without a bowl or glass I wasn’t even sure it was possible. I was getting desperate enough to drink blood. Kill an animal and gorge on it like some kind of maniac. Anything but die of thirst.

  Derek seemed to read my mind. He stopped near a big brown puddle of stagnant water and got on his hands and knees. About two feet from the puddle, he began digging a hole.

  Ryan stopped, unsure of what was happening.

  Once the hole was about a foot deep, Derek stopped and sat back on his ankles. Water slowly filtered into the hole, rising from the bottom up. The group circled around him.

  “Now what?” Ryan asked.

  “We wait,” Derek said.

  “For what?” I asked.

  “The water to filter out and let the dirt settle.”

  We continued to stare at this most basic of things—water seeping into a hole and after what seemed like an eternity, the hole was filled.

  The water was still brown. Molly said, “Looks gross.”

  “Better than dying.” Derek was about to place his face in the water when he stopped. He took a gentlemanly pose, offering the first drink to Molly. She reluctantly obliged and lapped it up like a dog.

  I fought the urge to push them all aside and submerge my face, and looking at them, felt they were thinking the same.

  Derek went next, followed by Nico and Viv.

  Nico asked him, “Where’d you learn to do that?”

  Derek looked pointedly at Ryan. “Boy Scouts.”

  I could tell Ryan’s pride wanted him to deny the water, but his thirst was too much. Letting his stick drop, he moved to the hole and hopped over. As he took a drink, Derek said, “Betcha don’t think Scouts are such fags now, do you?”

  Ryan finished and wiped his hand across his face. He held Derek’s gaze and then got back up, retrieving his stick while I took the last drink. The water was surprisingly cool. To me it tasted like champagne. I was surprised that something so elemental lifted my spirits. This was my Fountain of Youth. We were going to be all right. We would survive. We would be okay.

  I was wrong.

  Chapter 3

  Just because I attended Riverdale Academy High, one of the premiere private high schools in Los Angeles, it didn’t mean I was privileged. Take the parking lot, for example. Lost among the fleet of BMWs, Mercedes and even cars that looked like they could fly when their doors opened, sat my used, dented Honda. I nicknamed it Harriet. No reason. Every morning started with a gentle pat on the dashboard and a soothing c’mon, Harriet. She never failed and carried me within the triangle that was my life: home, school, and work.

  As a scholarship student, I worked part-time everyday after school at Burger King, home of the Whopper, minimum wage, and a large serving of humble pie. No extra-curricular activities for me. Work and study were my two basic food groups.

  Derek worked with me, not that he needed mon
ey. His parents forced him to work in order to understand the ins and outs of business from the ground up. While I worked in the back, he worked the cash register and was the face customers saw, especially school kids.

  Unfortunately, kids from our school.

  I never really knew Ryan before now. He seemed like one of those people who made decisions easily, as if he was born fully formed, fully adult. One time he came in with his girlfriend-of-the-moment. Her father ran a movie studio and there was talk that he’d buy Ryan’s life-rights for a feel-good-kid-faces-adversity-and-does-well kind of story. Never materialized.

  Derek asked, his face emanating grease, “May I take your order?”

  Ryan ordered a combo meal. His girlfriend turned to Ryan, and she whispered something while giggling and pointing at Derek’s face.

  Derek kept calm, seemingly used to it. But sometimes I caught him looking in the mirror, rubbing his palm over his cratered face and cringing. I could relate, as I often found myself looking in the mirror at home, unhappy with the size of my breasts or the shape of my body.

  “Seriously,” she said, “he’s, like, a walking oil slick.”

  I watched helplessly from behind the grill. I hated it. Not because of any love for Derek, but anyone who wore the polyester hat like I did was okay in my book. Messing with him was like messing with me.

  Ryan said, to his credit and my surprise, “Just order, will you?”

  She turned to Derek. “I’m not trying to be mean, but you should see a dermatologist. They can fix that, you know. If your parents don’t, that’s like, abuse.” She paused to take in the menu. “I’ll take a burger. No onions.”

  I pictured her sticking her finger down her throat and bringing it back up later.

  Derek asked, “Anything to drink with that?”

  “Just water.”

  No, I didn’t spit in her food. That’s gross. But I did wipe her bun on the bottom of my shoe.

  The heat was oppressive. We were swimming in air, rather than walking through it. I had a constant sheen of moisture on my skin. To distract myself, I pictured wearing a fedora, wielding a whip and machete, and facing any situation with humor like a female Indiana Jones. It was the only way to pretend this was something adventurous. I told myself we weren’t running from a plane crash; we were running to an Indian tribe who would feed us, save us, and maybe offer us an ancient gold relic with magical powers. Like the power of going home. I lost myself in this mini-fantasy until I got sick of almost tripping, swatting away bugs, and fighting the throb of a headache.

  Seemingly moving in place from one green prison cell to another was making me dizzy. I fought the sensation of nausea, looking up in the sky to get a point of reference. The rainforest was like a real-life myth: the Minotaur’s labyrinth colored in lime.

  Inspired, I said, “Hey.” The formation stopped. “We should leave a mark. A trail. Let rescuers know we’ve been here.”

  Nico asked, “With what?”

  “I don’t know.” Sensing it was a good idea, everyone searched their pockets and found nothing. Then I noticed my cross-body bag. I opened the zipper. Rummaging inside, I found my wallet, cell phone—

  I’d forgotten it was there! Even though it was soaked, I pressed the power button and in crazy desperation hoped it would work.

  Please, please, please.

  “You got your phone?” This from Ryan.

  I waited and waited, my hope soaring and soaring, only to crash.

  I felt so stupid for allowing myself to believe.

  Ryan said, “Throw it here.”

  We watched as he tried the button over and over, a holy grail that wasn’t holy anymore. Frustrated, he swore and whipped the phone into the jungle.

  Seconds passed and Nico asked, “Any of you carry lipstick?”

  Viv wore makeup. She never left the house without it, but she didn’t have her purse. Molly and I went natural.

  I looked again in my cross-body bag and pulled out a book. It was small and the pages were wet, the edges curled. It was from my English teacher, Mr. DeKoning. He’d self-published a book of poems.

  He’d given me the book and encouraged me to explore writing. He said, “I thought you might like it.” He’d even signed it To Emily, my favorite student.

  I opened the book, took a page, and ripped it out. It was a poem entitled Longing For What Never Came. I hesitated. This had been a gift, an inspiration. The page lay in my hand, an artifact from the past. I approached a tree and silently said thank you to my teacher and then pierced the page with a branch. “This should work.” The poem hung on the tree. I knew the pages would dissolve in the moisture before too long; I only hoped we were rescued before that happened. Just as Theseus had left string in the Minotaur’s labyrinth in order to escape, so did I. Page by page, branch by branch, I left little signposts of paper in our wake.

  The café was dark. A barista with a handlebar mustache gave us our lattes. Hipsters flitted to and fro, socializing among themselves. A lone microphone stood near the back. Viv turned to me. “So, we’re here on a Wednesday night for…caffeine?”

  “Wait, you’ll see.”

  We took a seat away from the ad hoc stage—a tiny wooden plank—and sipped our drinks. I felt alive and excited, and couldn’t tell if it was the caffeine or the thrill of coming here. After a few minutes, a balding man with suspenders came to the microphone, cleared his throat and thanked the sprinkling of audience members for coming to tonight’s poetry reading.

  Viv’s eyebrows leapt up. “You brought us here for poetry?”

  “C’mon, give it a chance. It won’t be that bad.”

  “Em, it’s poetry,” as if that said it all. She checked her phone and engaged in a text conversation I wasn’t privy to. She asked, “Why couldn’t I have brought Nico?”

  “I don’t know, Viv. I want a girls night every once in a while.”

  The first speaker must’ve been an alcoholic because he spoke lovingly about his affair with a beer bottle, and how after they broke up he smashed the bottle, only to try and piece it back together like Humpty-Dumpty. The second guy did some mash-up of words talking so fast I couldn’t tell what the point was other than a kind of spoken Jackson Pollack painting.

  Then the balding man introduced the next speaker, as simply, Johannes. I saw him rise from the audience. He looked over the scattered crowd, his eyes finding mine, surprise on his face.

  “Hey,” Viv whispered. “It’s Mr. DeKoning.”

  Mr. DeKoning seemed nervous, so much different than how he stood in front of the classroom. In class, he exuded a youthful confidence. He was the kind of teacher everybody wants: funny, almost our age (well, 24, but only a few years out of college), with an interesting history: he was first-generation Dutch, which brought an avalanche of jokes and comments about Amsterdam’s red light district. Of course he was handsome, but not in that cocky, bad-boy way. He was sensitive and loved literature. He held a piece of paper in his hands, and the page slightly shook from his nervousness. I found it endearing.

  “This is titled Longing For What Never Came.” His nervousness disappeared as he spoke, less words and more emotion translated into air.

  I listened and felt I was seeing into his soul.

  “He’s good,” Viv whispered.

  He was speaking to me, as if the words were written for me. About me.

  As he finished, he’d mesmerized the whole audience, and I so wished I’d recorded it on my cell phone. It was seriously one of those things that would’ve gone viral. The audience gave a hearty applause.

  I watched as he sat down, alone. No girlfriend, no posse of supporters. No fellow teachers.

  Viv and I stayed for the rest, but the other speakers were forgettable. The balding man closed out the event, our coffees were empty, and I told Viv I was going to say hi to him.

  “Ask him for his autograph,” she teased.

  As I approached him, a wave of pleasant anticipation filled me. “Hi,” I said.

&
nbsp; “Hi. Didn’t expect anyone would show.”

  “Why not? You invited the whole class.” I couldn’t tell if he was depressed by the lack of student participation or relieved.

  “I kinda knew in the back of my head no one would come. Poetry’s poetry, you know? Hard to get people excited by it.”

  “Um,” I said, pointing at myself. “Hello?” I had to admit I came because I was probably a teacher’s pet, but there was no denying my curiosity about him.

  Around us, the café started to empty. “I appreciate it. I really do.”

  “Was this your first time?”

  “It was,” and he laughed. “Could you tell?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I purposely invited people, otherwise I might’ve bailed. Forced me to show up.”

  Talking to him felt like talking to…not a teacher. But a normal guy. “I loved it. Your poem, I mean. Definite A+.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, it’s way better than the stuff we read in class.” I quickly added, “Nothing against your assignments.”

  “I doubt T.S Eliot and Maya Angelou would feel the same.”

  “No, really. I feel like I saw a side of you that you keep hidden. And maybe you shouldn’t…’cause it’s nice. That side.” I blushed. “Sorry if I just got corny on you.”

  “Not at all.” He looked at me differently. I could feel the shift. “Thanks, Emily. It means a lot. Now you can see if I’m practicing what I teach. Or if I’m just a total BSer.” In class he’d always called us by our last names. Like Ms. Duran.

  I returned the salutation. “See you in class, Johannes.” I walked away, feeling his eyes on me and I felt…connected somehow. As if I just met the missing piece of the puzzle that was me.

  In the car on the way home, Viv said, “So that’s why we went there.” She playfully sang the kissing song: “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage!”

  “It’s nothing like that, Viv. He’s, like, old.”

  “He’s cute, isn’t he?”