Her face turns toward me, her brow furrowed, her eyes darkened with concern. Strands of damp hair zigzag across her forehead and hang in her eyes, and unbidden, my free hand moves to her face and smooths them back, tucking them behind her ear. I hardly need to move to reach farther around her head, to feel gently for the spot where the dried blood still clings, and to cup my hand at the nape of her neck, rocking toward her and touching my lips to hers.
Mya’s lips move under the pressure of mine, bringing a rush of dark warmth to my heart and flashes of yellow, green, and gold, as bright as summer sunshine, to the backs of my eyes. A cool hand presses lightly to my cheek, slides along my jaw, and a blaze of heat runs across my skin as her fingers trace down my throat, skim my collarbone, coming to stop, palm flat, against my chest. I’m lifting my other hand, ready to wind it around her waist, when I feel the pressure from that palm, subtle but firm.
Her head tips back, her hand pushing me away.
She draws away, and I watch her through eyes that ache to return to her the way I imagine a drowning man’s eyes ache for the receding surface. But there’s no use in trying to coax her back. Her eyes are already focused beyond my shoulder. She stares into the mist, at something inside herself, something only she can see. Whatever it is, she stays silent about it. Her lips are pulled tight, a fine, straight line, with no hint of my kiss left on them.
Finally, as if she’s waking from a dream, the darkness ebbs from her eyes. Her gaze meets mine and she gives me a weak smile.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s not that I don’t want you to kiss me. I want you to, and I want to kiss you back. But kissing you just now made me forget everything else. And right now, there’s too much I need to remember.”
Her eyes burn with an intensity that magnifies her words. I nod and try to return her smile before dropping my eyes and turning away.
And I realize that the one thing I need from Mya—the one thing I’ve needed from Mya all along—is for her to let go of the past. And I realize that that may be the one thing I cannot ask of her.
Little time passes before we are on our way, hiking the same trail we hiked this morning. It’s easier now that the rain has stopped—easier, but far from easy. We scramble up the cliff, shrouded in hazy vapor, then ease our way onto the rocky path above the ravine. I thank the Divine that the fog clings to the cliffs on the sea-facing side of the trail. Once we are descending into the valley, the mist is gone, though everywhere, on all sides of the rocks beneath our feet, water streams, rushing from the summit to the ground below.
We travel in silence, too focused on our footing to speak, Mya a few paces ahead of me. At places the water is high, running over our feet, but then we reach the spot where the trail splits, the pathway following along the ledge that hangs above the water-filled ravine. Progress is slow—we move no faster than wet boots can safely move over wet rocks, which is not very fast at all. My attention never leaves the ground. It isn’t until Mya stops, holding breathlessly still on the path for just a few moments too long, that I take my eyes off the rocks beneath my own feet long enough to look up at her.
My ears find focus first—the rushing roar of water passing deep within the ravine, the echo of stones worked loose by the flood, plummeting into the torrent below. My gaze settles on her back, focuses on her straight shoulders, her legs, one foot braced behind her.
Beyond her is the broad flat shelf of rock—the very one I stood on when I came this way before—when I looked down and saw her far below.
Across from her, in a pose that mirrors her own, stands Lo.
I can’t see Mya’s face. I can see only a sliver of Lo’s. Neither girl stirs, not a muscle flinches. A cloud slides away from the sun and all at once we are coated in hot, dry light. Finally, Lo speaks. “Mya. I was hoping I would see you again. I was hoping you were still nearby—”
“You will not hurt her—” I start.
“Mya,” Lo says again, in a voice that not only shuts mine out but invalidates it, as if she never heard it, as if I’d made no sound at all, so fixed is her attention on Mya. “I have no hope left—whatever I’d hoped to accomplish, I’ve failed. I will not make it home.” She moves, her hands rising from her sides, and Mya takes a wobbly step backward, her foot landing in a thin stream of runoff that pours from the wall and splashes across the trail, spilling over the side and into the rapids below. Mya’s shifted stance allows me a view around her, and I see that Lo is only lifting the hem of her parka, revealing something red and dark and wet. The wound is grotesque, and a wave of nausea swamps me. Something inside me shadows over, dimming my vision, shrouding the injury in darkness and hiding it from my sight. Without thinking, I step back.