“Which is to say, I know what sex sounds like, and I heard it coming from this room.”
“No,” she said. “Impossible. You’d think I would be the first to know about something like that.” Her cheeks flushed.
“I have, um, proof.”
Stage two: denial.
“That isn’t me,” Allie said when I played the file—low, so our parents wouldn’t hear it. “You faked this.”
“That’d be the first time a guy faked a girl’s orgasm,” I said. “Why would I do that, anyway?”
“You make stuff up all the time to get people to click on your videos.”
“Allie,” ?I said.
“I didn’t mean that.” She covered her face. Then she covered her ears while the moaning went on and on and on. “Turn it off! Please!”
Stage three: anger.
“You pervert!” she shouted. “You thought it was me, and you started recording?”
“Shhh! I only recorded it because I couldn’t believe it. And you’re lucky Mom and Dad didn’t hear you too.”
“And they never will. Delete it,” she said.
“Sure. Whatever you want.” I deleted it.
“And the backup?” she said.
“Okay. Come watch me do it if you want.”
She followed me into my room and watched over my shoulder as I pulled up the file on my computer, deleted it, then emptied the trash. As far as I was concerned, I hoped that would be the end of it. If she was lying about it—because she was embarrassed or whatever—then she would try to be quieter next time so she wouldn’t get caught.
Allie sighed with relief after I deleted the audio file. A moment later she said in a low voice, “You really heard that last night?”
“Allie, I have no reason to lie about something like this.”
She nodded. “If you hear it again, come wake me,” she said.
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Promise me, okay?” Her voice shook.
Stage four: fear.
“I promise,” I said.
Lucinda threw a rock at David that hit him in the arm. “I told you what would happen if it was a sex story.” She looked at Tino. “Give me the knife.”
“That’s really messed up,” Cody said. “She was your sister.”
David rubbed his arm where he’d been hit. That rock was definitely going to leave a bruise. “It wasn’t like that!”
Sunday and Georgia had returned while David was telling his story, and they’d sat with Cody, still whispering to each other. I kind of wished I’d been able to hear what they’d talked about in the woods.
“Anyway,” David said, “you didn’t let me finish.”
Jaila motioned at Tino, who’d fallen asleep and was snoring on top of his sleeping bag. “Yeah, I think we’ve all heard enough. We should get some sleep.”
As we each laid out our sleeping bags, Jenna and Lucinda kept forming a wall that forced David to lay out his pack away from the rest of us. Neither said anything, but they made it clear he wasn’t welcome near the fire.
When we’d all settled in, Cody asked, “Do you think we’ll make it back to camp on time?”
No one answered. The Bend might have been built on a philosophy of teamwork and strength through unity, but we were no team, and we definitely weren’t unified. If I had to guess, I’d have wagered most of us were wondering if we’d manage to make it back to camp at all.
DAY 2
BREAKFAST WAS A MEAL of grouseberries that Jaila assured us definitely weren’t poisonous, though we were each so hungry that I doubt it would have mattered if they were. Striking camp was a quiet affair. Tino and Lucinda gave each other a wide berth, and Cody clung to Georgia, except when she went off to take care of business. No one wanted much to do with David, and he wandered around with a hangdog expression on his face that might have earned him sympathy if he hadn’t started telling us a story about how he recorded his sister doing something no guy is supposed to want his sister doing.
David hadn’t actually slept much, which I knew because I’d followed him when he’d gotten up in the middle of the night to walk into the woods alone. I thought at first that he was going to take a leak, but he wandered a good ways off and then stood by a tree talking to himself for a while. He kept saying how he knew they were there and it was okay if they took him too. Then he cried for a while before finally returning to camp. I don’t think he noticed me watching.
“Are you sure we’re going in the right direction?” I overheard Jackie asking Jaila when I came back from taking care of my own business.
Jaila shrugged. “Think so, but it’s hard to be sure. Doug got me all turned around driving out here. I’m pretty sure the Bend is northeast, but we could walk right past it and never know, so . . .”
I wasn’t the only one eavesdropping. “You don’t know where we’re going?” Lucinda came out from behind a tree, speaking loudly enough for the others to overhear.
Tino, who was sitting with his back to a tree and had looked like he was trying to catch a few more minutes of sleep, opened his eyes. “That fucking figures. I knew we shouldn’t have listened to you.”
Jackie frowned at Lucinda and clenched her fists. “Is that what she said? Maybe you need to clean your ears out and listen better.”
“Can we not do this so early?” Georgia asked.
“No,” Tino said, rising to his feet. “I want to know if we’re lost or what.”
“We’re not lost,” Jenna said before Jaila could.
Then Sunday went, “Says the pyro,” and it was an all-out war of words that had everyone shouting at each other. Tino got in Jackie’s face, and Jenna covered her ears with her hands, and Cody stood in front of Georgia, like he was going to protect her, though I might have been mistaken in my first impression of her because I didn’t think she needed any protecting.
Finally, David shouted, “Can we please, please just start hiking? Anywhere? Please?”
“Whatever,” Tino said. “But I’m leading today.”
“No one’s following you who doesn’t want to get lost,” Sunday said. “Jaila’s the only one of you who actually knows what she’s doing!”
“You think you’re better than the rest of us, don’t you?” Tino said. “We’re nothing but a bunch of fuckups, every one. We got a girl lighting shit on fire, a guy who gets off watching his sister, a closet case who probably pushed her friend off the side of that mountain, and you probably tried to blow up your school or something.” He shook his head.
“I’m not a perv—” David started to say.
Jaila cut him off. “We’re not lost,” she said.
“How do you know?” Cody asked. His voice wasn’t accusing the way Tino’s had been, but simply curious.
“Because,” Jaila said, hanging her head low, “I know something about being truly lost.”
“THE SUBJUNCTIVE”