Feel Me Fall Read online

  Chapter 10

  The sun was setting and I wanted to cry. I couldn’t bear another night in the dark, another night in the damp, another night in the drizzle and fear. The trees seemed to form a prison of intertwining wood around us.

  Viv turned to Derek. “What do we do?”

  “What are you looking at me for? Ryan wanted to come this way, and you all followed along. Ask him.”

  The group turned to Ryan. Viv said, “How long to a village?”

  Ryan threw up his hands. “How should I know? Ten feet? A mile? Hell, maybe we passed one already because I can’t see shit. Can you?”

  “But you said we’d find a village. You said it, and I believed you. We believed you.”

  “And we will! There’s gotta be one along the river somewhere.”

  Viv looked up at the canopy that nearly blotted out the sky. “What if they never find us?”

  Ryan flared. “I’m trying to stay positive here. I’m trying to stay sane. Can you help me with that? Can you just for a second, stop being such a whiny bitch and maybe do something useful?”

  Nico shook his head. “Not cool, man. Not cool.”

  Derek rose, confusion on his face, and asked Ryan, “Why are you such a dick?”

  “What?” It was clear no one ever spoke to him like that.

  Derek reiterated. “You heard me. Serious question.”

  I don’t know why Ryan didn’t go after Derek. If this were school, things would’ve been much different. Out here, Ryan had no spectators, no reputation to protect. Or maybe Ryan was too tired like the rest of us. He leaned against his crutch and bent over, like a runner after a marathon. He seemed to mull the question in his mind. He stayed looking at the ground, as if finding an answer there.

  “This one time I go swimming. Swimming like I’ve always done. The water seems clean enough. Few hours later, though, I’m not feeling so well. Got this headache that just crushes me. Thought it was the flu. I was cold and shivering, and I had this weird rash, red splotches up and down my body. I pass out and the next thing, I’m in the hospital.”

  “I look down and…my legs are gone. I thought, ‘That’s not right,’ and I went back to sleep. I must’ve been dreaming. Had to have been dreaming. I wake up and look again. I’m not getting it ‘cause the weirdest thing is I can feel ‘em. I can feel my legs right there. I can feel myself wiggling my toes. What I’m seeing and what I’m feeling doesn’t add up.”

  “Then they told me. And you get the strangest ideas. Like, this has got to be the best prank ever. Or maybe they’ll grow back. Like a tail on a lizard. You know it’s not true, it’s crazy, but you wish. You wish so hard. ‘Cause your life is over. The life you knew is just done.”

  “They told me I almost died. At the time, I wished I had. I wasn’t gonna be this…thing. I had dreams, you know? I was gonna play football. I was gonna walk. Who thinks they’re gonna wake up and not be able to walk again?”

  Ryan straightened up and looked at us. “With everyone crying around me, I had to be the one that didn’t. Everyone around me was sad and weak-ass sorry-sacks, so I had to be strong. I spent most of that year getting homeschooled and recovering. I learned to walk again. I wore prosthetics. Every day that year I looked at myself and said, ‘Ryan, are you gonna be a whiny little bitch? Or are you gonna be a man?’”

  We stood around quietly taking in the enormity of his struggle.

  Derek nodded. “I’m giving you a big dose of respect for that. Really. Losing my legs would put a definite damper on things. But it doesn’t explain why you were a dick before you lost your legs. You’ve been an asshole since, what? First grade?”

  Ryan clenched his walking stick. “What do you want from me, Wart? Do you want me to say I’m sorry? ‘I’m sorry.’ How’s that? Will that do it for you?”

  Derek thrust his hatchet into a vine. “It’s so easy for you. You think you can say you’re sorry and it erases everything you did? Well, it doesn’t.”

  “What do you want, Wart?”

  “I want you to suffer like I have.”

  “You don’t know the first thing about suffering. And you should thank your lucky stars you never will. Everything you’re complaining about? You bring it on yourself.”

  “No one asks to be picked on.”

  Ryan let out a laugh. “Really? You tried to get a porn star to come to prom. Bet your parents are real proud. And whenever you apply to college? All they need to do is Google your name and there it is. Your tweets begging Luscious Funbags or whatever her name is to come. Your creepy YouTube invites. The internet’s forever, or I guess no one told you that.”

  Derek’s face contorted as if he was having an aneurism. “For the last time, the name is Wert, not Wart.”

  “I’m tired,” Ryan said. “I really am. I may not look it, but I am wrecked. You want to hash this out when we get back, be my guest. But for now, I’m done.” He turned his back on Derek, going nowhere, just wanting a different view than of his face.

  I was about to speak to break the tension, but Viv beat me to it. “We should make a shelter.”

  Derek turned on her. “Make your own damn shelter! All of you. You know how.” Derek stomped off and hacked down some bamboo. When he finished making his bed, he tossed his hatchet on the ground and promptly lay down.

  He watched us, passively, as I picked up the hatchet and did my best. I never felt so reduced to survival mode as I did holding that piece of metal wreckage in my hand. It took us twice as long to make a bed half as big. Viv slept next to Nico. I shared a bunk with Molly. As darkness fell, Ryan built a bed for himself, and under a blanket of bats and moths, we slept.

  Derek’s videos had gone viral, at least within the hallways of Riverdale Academy. I slammed my locker shut when I saw the double-doors open and Derek walk through. It was the exact opposite of a strut and more the walk of the condemned. Ryan stood near a group of his friends and he began to chant: “Wart! Wart! Wart!” The chant spread like a shockwave encompassing the hallway and soon everyone joined in, the metal lockers amplifying the noise.

  If Derek had thought asking a porn star to prom was funny or clever, he was sadly mistaken. A clique of girls laughed, a cackle of hyenas as Derek walked past. His face was stone; the hallway, pandemonium. A teacher poked her head from out of a classroom, and seeing the cause of the commotion, retreated back inside.

  Derek got to his locker and opened it, unleashing a cascade of photos on the floor. It was like a whirlwind of free money, hands reaching out, grabbing, sharing, pointing. He was prey, blood was in the water, and the students circled for the kill. The laughing increased to a fever pitch.

  A photo drifted over. Someone had Photo-shopped pictures of Derek having sex with the porn star, (clearly cutting and pasting Derek’s head on someone else’s body). It was horribly cartoonish, horribly humiliating.

  I walked over and helped him collect the photos, the chant growing in the background: “Wart! Wart! Wart!”

  He motioned me away, fighting tears, struggling to keep himself together. “Leave me alone, Emily.”

  I helped anyway, and handed him a stack. “Don’t let them get to you.”

  “They’re not.”

  But clearly, they were.

  Maybe it was pity. Maybe it was to take a stand against the awful tide of cruelty, but that’s when I made my decision. I would go to prom with Derek Wert.

  I woke in the middle of the night. Molly was snoring next to me—loud rumbles, and I was amazed she didn’t wake herself up. She’d moved over in the night and had taken up most of the bed, leaving me with a sliver of bamboo, and I found myself at risk of falling off. I nudged her, but she didn’t budge. I wondered what Johannes would’ve thought about seeing his two girlfriends sharing a bed.

  Around me, the jungle was alive with sound, as if every damned bug, frog or snake was trying to outdo the other. Above me fireflies danced, lighting up like a blinking Christmas tree. There were thousands of them, an entire solar system,
and I lost myself trying to count. I had the odd sense of the supernatural and half expected them to form the outline of a person and talk to me like a ghostly Obi-Wan Kenobi. “The way home is there,” the fireflies-as-a-person would say and point. I would say Thank you, I’m sorry for hating the jungle. The jungle is my friend. The flies would disperse, the sun would shine, warming my face and clothes, and all would end happily ever after.

  Of course, the flies did no such thing.

  As entranced as I was by their numbers and hypnotic blinking, I became aware that fireflies weren’t flies at all, but beetles. When I thought of thousands of beetles flying so close secreting some chemical that made them light up, their magical hold gave way.

  I was about to go back asleep when I noticed a figure in the darkness. The figure stood above Ryan. I almost shouted but I recognized from his slouch it was Derek. His face was hidden in the dark. I hadn’t heard him. The sound of the jungle must’ve camouflaged his footsteps.

  I saw the glint of the moon near his side and realized it was from his hatchet.

  He didn’t do anything. He just stood looking down on Ryan’s sleeping body, Ryan’s chest a metronome, rising and falling, rising and falling.

  I was paralyzed. What should I do? What could I do?

  Seconds passed and Derek did nothing, the hatchet rubbing lightly against his thigh. He turned towards the rest of us, as if to see if there were witnesses. I shut my eyes.

  Moments later, I heard him step back to his bed.

  I peeked: Ryan was still breathing. Still alive.

  I’m not sure I slept the rest of the night.

  Chapter 11

  I’m waiting to find my purpose. I’ve read about people who survived cancer and found a new lease on life. That hasn’t happened to me yet. I survived what my counselor calls a “tragic event.” Then why don’t I feel more relief? Why don’t I want to travel the world, follow some obscure passion that would make me whole, or learn to play guitar? The counselor calls it depression and to give it time.

  I call it fear.

  I feel like those kids who cheated Death in all those Final Destination movies where one by one, Death came back to claim what was rightfully his. Or that I’ll wake up and find that being in the hospital has all just been in my head—that these are my final thoughts—and I’ll find myself back on the plane taking my dying breath.

  I pinch myself to make sure it’s not true.

  I know it’s not true.

  I am here, in this hospital, with a second chance.

  I have no idea what to do with it.

  I wonder if I deserve it.

  Streams of light filtered through trees and here was the dappled sunlight I’d yearned for. I stretched and sat on the bed, contemplating whether to say anything to Ryan. The tension from the previous night seemed gone, and to bring up Derek’s oddness would only invite trouble. In fact, Derek wasn’t around. His bed was empty. In the mud, a trail of footsteps led into the jungle. I scanned nearby trees—not that I could see very far—but he wasn’t there. I waited a minute or two in case he was squatting somewhere. He didn’t appear.

  “Anybody see Derek?” I asked.

  The others leaned up on their makeshift beds. Their hair disheveled, their clothes filthy, they looked like feral children raised by wolves.

  Nico said, “He’s probably taking a leak.”

  I called out. “Derek?” No response. “Derek!” I looked back at the group. “You don’t think he would’ve run off, do you?”

  Nico said, “Where’s there to go? He’ll show up.”

  Then I wondered: did Ryan do something to him?

  There was movement in the woods, and just like that, Derek emerged holding a bunch of mushrooms, so many they seemed ready to topple from his crossed arms.

  Nico said, “What’d I tell you?”

  I chided myself for being paranoid and asked, “Where’d you go?”

  “Foraging.” Derek seemed in his element, more so than his weary existence at school. Here he was relaxed; here he was in control. Derek sat down on his bunk and laid out his bounty. Some of the mushrooms looked like puffy golf balls, others like umbrellas, and some were tinged yellow and looked like dried, wilted flowers. “Breakfast.”

  We looked over with jealousy, unsure if it was his breakfast or ours. My stomach gurgled. Viv said, “Is that an invitation?”

  “Of course. Mi casa, su casa.” Derek waved us all over. “That includes you, too, Ryan.”

  Ryan grunted from his bed, “I’m fine.”

  “Here.” Derek tossed a mushroom and by sports instinct Ryan caught it. “There’s more where that came from.”

  Too hungry to ignore the gift, Ryan bit into it and then gobbled the whole thing down, cap and stem.

  Derek said, “Look, I want to say something. I was out of line last night. Like Ryan said, we’re all tired. I’m tired. Sorry I took it out on you all. You, too, Ryan.” Derek reached out his hand. “We cool?”

  Ryan took a moment, made a decision and grabbed his crutch and walked over. Then he shook Derek’s hand. “We’re cool.”

  Derek played host and passed out the assorted mushrooms. Viv and I got the yellow ones. Molly, Nico, and Derek took the golf-bally ones. Ryan got the umbrella ones. We ate and chewed and in comparison to the grubs, it was nice to have something with texture, even if they shared the same mealy taste.

  Ryan said, “You really learned all this from the Boy Scouts?”

  Derek nodded. “A lot of it. Merit badges and stuff. That, and my dad owns a camping supply store chain.”

  Ryan spoke with his mouth full. “I’ve been camping, but it was never camping-camping. More like car-camping. Where if you need something, you just open the trunk or ride out to the nearest convenience store. Guess that doesn’t really count.”

  Derek said, “It counts.”

  Viv said, “I’m not much of a camper. As you can probably tell.”

  I said, “I think we’ve all had our share of the Great Outdoors.” We enjoyed the silence of eating, bonding as if at a dinner table and the world was our dining room.

  Viv asked, “Should we turn back around?”

  Derek caught Ryan’s eye and answered. “We’ve come this far. It’s best if we keep going. Besides, Emily left a trail. They’ll find it. And then they’ll find us.”

  I rinsed my face in a puddle, trying to keep a semblance of routine, a semblance of normality, and caught my face in the reflection. I was happy to recognize myself. My face was scratched, dirty of course, my eyes sunken, and I seemed older somehow. My hair was a rat’s nest, but nothing a good shower and a ton of conditioner wouldn’t fix. The reflection reminded me I was human and healthy. I would take good news where I could find it.

  We started off in our usual line, and after about an hour’s walk, Ryan suddenly stopped. His face took on the appearance of someone who was about to puke. He hopped out of sight, behind some scrub. We heard his gastrointestinal distress, cringing at the violent sound.

  Ryan reappeared, his face slightly pale. He waited a moment, then grabbed his crutch and moved on. We weren’t worried, we’d been eating grubs, mushrooms, and basically drinking watered-down mud, after all. Until he stopped to do it again.

  No one asked him anything. He was clearly not okay, but there was nothing we could do. We all had a multitude of irritations, whether it was a rash in our nether regions, sore feet, or too many bruises to count. There was nothing to be done but bear it and keep moving.

  To keep his spirits up, I asked him, “What are you gonna study in college?”

  Ryan rose from the bushes looking whitish-gray. “Sports medicine. Or speech. Like that guy who inspires people? You know who I’m talking about. The tall guy with big teeth?”

  “Tony Robbins?”

  “Yeah, him. Motivational guy.”

  “I think you’d be good at it.”

  “Nah, I’d probably just yell like my dad does.” He put more effort into walking and more weight o
nto his crutch.

  “Some people like that approach. Drill sergeant-style.” I walked with him, holding branches away from his face, and he seemed to appreciate it.

  “So hot out here.” Big beads of sweat formed on his forehead and he wiped them away. “What about you, Em? What are you gonna major in?”

  “I haven’t even thought about it. I still have to graduate.”

  He was breathing heavily. “Must’ve crossed your mind….”

  “I don’t know. Maybe writing?”

  “Writing? No one makes a living writing.”

  I guess growing up without a lot of money made me less focused on it. “Have you studied the ancient poets?” I saw his look and said, “Never mind.”

  He paused and held up his hand, looking queasy. A second later he said, “False alarm.” He motioned for me to continue. “Go on. I need to concentrate on something other than…this.”

  “The ancient poets used to write about war. Battlefield deeds. Who was worthy and who wasn’t. Who deserved to live on, if only in stories. They made people immortal, really.”

  “You should major in history.”

  “You don’t get it. The writers wrote the history. They decided what to tell.”

  Ryan paused again, this time longer. I said, “Why don’t we stop?”

  “No stopping.” He was growing weaker by the step. “Gotta treat myself the way I’d treat everybody else.” He clomped through the jungle, but he was slowing down, slower than the rest of us, and Nico, Viv, and Derek passed him. So slow, in fact, that even Molly passed him, and Ryan and I brought up the rear.

  As I helped Ryan navigate over bushes and beneath branches, he said, “Why are you being so nice to me?”

  “Why not?”

  “I was never nice to you.”

  “You were never mean, either.” This seemed to define pretty much all of high school.

  “That’s not saying much.” He nearly tripped and I felt his weight fall onto my shoulder. He almost knocked me over. I steadied myself and steadied him. “Can I tell you a secret?” He whispered, “I’m scared.”