Dad may have been going blind, but his hearing worked just fine. Then again, mountaineers on Everest, miles above sea level, could have heard Mom’s sharp cry when she spotted me hobbling toward the hotel’s bridge: “Shana!”
Fury thundered in Dad’s every step toward us. “Where the hell have you been?”
But Mom elbowed Dad aside; her angry frown had already transformed into an expression of fierce concern. She raced to me, inspecting me from head to toe first with her eyes, then with her hands.
“Mom!” I protested.
But did she back off? Still probing my scalp to determine whether I had sustained a head wound, Mom demanded, “What happened?”
“I just twisted my ankle. It’s nothing,” I said, pulling away as she lowered to a squat. Oh, dear Lord. Now what? I hopped back. She followed. “Mom. Mom. I’m okay.” I sighed as she went all Red Cross on me, now poking at the swollen skin that covered what used to be my bony ankle. “Ow.”
Satisfied, Mom said, “We should get some ice on this, but surprise, surprise, there isn’t any.” She sighed, frustrated. “Where were you? The helicopters have been flying all morning, and you weren’t here.”
An excuse! How had I totally and completely forgotten to craft the perfect, reasonable, and plausible excuse for sneaking out to Machu Picchu this morning? Quattro and I had had hours to coordinate our story, but our return trip couldn’t have been more awkward, me limping with his arm around my waist, both of us sweating, neither saying a single thing. I was too busy trying not to cry, apologize, wince, or groan to come up with anything.
It was Quattro’s father who answered for us: “They went to Machu Picchu.”
“You could have been killed!” Mom’s voice teetered on the fine line between anger and fear.
“What were you thinking?” Dad demanded before he turned to Quattro, his curt words damning: “You put her at risk.”
Quattro hung his head, ashamed.
“It was my fault,” I said, unable to stand his defeated expression, especially when I knew he already held himself responsible for my accident, and worse.
“No,” Quattro said, straightening as he looked at my parents. “You’re right. It was my fault.”
“I volunteered to go with him,” I said.
Dad held up his hand to stop any more words, studying me with disappointment. I couldn’t meet his eyes, so I lowered mine. “We don’t have time for excuses. We’ll be lucky if we get on the helicopter now.” As hard as his tone was, Dad placed his arm around me gently, taking over from Quattro as my human crutch.
“Quattro.” Christopher sighed, the lines around his mouth deepening. “This was a total breakdown in judgment. I’m not sure what you were thinking when I told you no, but—” There was a pause. “I understand.”
The barest sigh escaped Quattro. Maybe those two words were his own private Machu Picchu, which he had been trekking toward all this time. When I glanced over my shoulder back at Quattro, he had already disappeared, leaving his father alone on the bridge.
At least five hundred people were gathered in front of the flimsy gate at the makeshift helipad. No wonder my parents were so upset that I hadn’t been around earlier. My ears were filled with competing needs: “My son! I need to be with him!” and “I’ve got a heart condition!” And those were just the sentences I could pick out in English from the torrent of languages. However tough the few soldiers looked, outfitted in their uniforms and armed with their machine guns, they didn’t seem prepared for the animal panic that swept through the crowd.
A helicopter lifted from the ground, the wind from its twin blades blowing my hair loose from my ponytail. The sight of the departing helicopter caused people to jostle more vigorously. Mom nearly lost her balance. She grabbed Dad’s arm just as he tugged her tight. He glanced quickly over his shoulder to make sure I was close. I was—but only because Christopher acted as my battering ram. Where Quattro was right now, I didn’t know, but I kept scanning the crowds for him. Nothing.
My eardrums throbbed from the chopper, so much louder than I had imagined. I watched it fly away. I just wanted to stay, unready to leave despite my injured ankle. Hazel eyes so similar to Quattro’s focused on me now as Christopher said, “Thank you.”
“For what? Being stupid?”
“For being his friend.”
I highly doubted that Christopher knew about the real guilt weighing down his son. But it didn’t seem like my place to share that confidence, especially when I couldn’t say for sure that Quattro even considered me a friend, not the way he had rushed off without saying good-bye. Not when he was so pointedly absent now.