“I won’t let anything happen,” Quattro said flatly.
No, I knew he wouldn’t, whether he was boyfriend or friend. Wistfulness tightened my throat, as I thought about how much I wanted him to be my guy. The one who would think about me as constantly as I thought about him. Who would want to be with me. So much for my Boy Moratorium. That self-imposed no-boy diet didn’t do a darn thing to stop me from falling for Quattro, much less stop me from feeling hurt.
Why did I have to fall for the one guy on a well-enforced Girl Moratorium? A guy who seemed pretty much impervious to me?
Why?
Anything was better than beating myself up with these thoughts. So as we approached the stone footbridge, I asked Quattro, “Everything okay with you and your dad?”
“Sometimes Dad can be so by the book. I mean, life is just going to pass him by if he doesn’t watch out.” Quattro took a deep breath. On his exhale, he gestured to the river and asked, “What’s going to calm this down, do you think?”
It wasn’t me who answered but his father, who had caught up to us: “Time.”
Had Christopher overheard Quattro? His face, impassive as always, didn’t show it.
“Time.” The word came out as a derisive scoff from Quattro. He looked dangerously remote.
I understood. In all these months after Dom, I had retreated into my own fortress, refusing to let anyone get close to me, even my best friends. But now I wanted to echo Christopher and reassure Quattro: Time hadn’t just dulled my heartache over Dom. It had allowed me to see clearly. I’d never had a real relationship with Dom: We flirted, I chased, he showed me off when it suited him. For the first time in weeks, months, I actually felt at peace.
As soon as my parents neared us at the river’s edge, Christopher urged, “We better keep going.” As if to second that motion, the river swelled over the banks, spraying our hiking boots. I took a quick step back. “Looks like once we get across, we’ll have to follow the train tracks.”
“But what if a train comes?” Mom asked, worried.
“The trains aren’t running,” Dad answered.
“According to the rumors,” Mom said. “And there’s a tunnel I read about in some woman’s blog…”
The truth was, if the trains were running, we’d be roadkill, and we all knew it.
“We’ll have to make a run for it then,” said Helen. I saw her sidelong glance at Christopher, who nodded back at her confidently. He said, “We’ll just have to have a little faith.”
“Whoa, you sounded like Stesha there for a second,” I teased him, hoping to ease Mom’s anxiety.
“Yeah, I did,” Christopher said, grinning, looking exactly like his son at his mischievous best. I missed that Quattro.
“You sure this is safe?” Mom asked suspiciously as she studied the bridge. Frankly, the bridge’s stones and concrete looked fragile and insubstantial against the ruthless current.
“Nothing in life is ever a hundred percent safe,” Christopher said softly, his gaze flickering to Quattro. Without another word, Christopher accompanied Helen across the bridge, holding out his arm for her to take as water spattered them. Dad followed them and held Mom’s hand. He stopped to shoot a look at me. “Wait right there. I’ll help you across.”
“I got it,” I told him confidently even though I had my doubts, reinforced when another wave swamped the bridge.
Give it time, and a wild thought just might sweep away the last pangs of falling for the wrong boy. I took Quattro’s camera out and snapped a photo of this threatening river and whispered, “Good-bye, Dom.” Quattro’s eyes were trained on me when I lowered the camera.
The next best thing to having Quattro as a boyfriend was claiming him as a friend. So while my every girl instinct told me to flip my hair (which probably wouldn’t have moved, given how greasy it was) and challenge him with a coy “Afraid?,” I didn’t.
Instead, I said, “Our turn.” I held my hand out to him, waiting patiently as he hesitated before clasping mine in his.
Chapter Nineteen
At the end of our slog back to civilization, I was alarmed by the teeming crowds of bedraggled trekkers in Machu Picchu Pueblo. Every square inch in the town plaza had been turned into a homeless encampment and garbage dump. Whatever charm the square had was lost in the mess of tents, trash, and unwashed bodies. I stepped over a couple of discarded beer bottles on our way to the main street. A snaking line of frustrated people waited at an ATM, but after Christopher made an inquiry, we learned that all the cash had been withdrawn. What everyone was waiting for, I don’t know. Even worse, tourist after tourist confirmed that every single train had been canceled. A state of emergency had been declared. There was no way out.