It sounds foolish now, I realize, but I marveled at the compass doing exactly what it was supposed to do, and while I’m certainly not a cynic or anything, there’s not much in this world that impresses me. So there you go.
Before heading off after the rest of the group, I glanced over my shoulder, startled to find Avery and Archie still with me. They hadn’t budged from where they stood by the trail marker, and it was pretty clear they hadn’t stayed behind because they were eager to fall in place behind my natural leadership skills, but because they were arguing.
“Put it away,” Avery said.
I froze. There was a tone to her voice that stilled me. Not to mention there was something uncomfortable in the way Archie’s hulking form loomed over her smaller one. He was more broad than tall, but with the way the sun hit his back, his shadow consumed her entire body.
“Put what away?” I asked.
Neither answered me, but Avery’s gaze darted toward something in Archie’s hands. I looked. My gut clenched.
He had a gun.
A fucking gun.
“Goddamnit.” I felt my legs go weak. My relationship with firearms was complicated, to say the least. “Why in the hell do you have that?”
Archie shot me a baleful look, then shrugged. “Protection.”
“Protection from what?”
“You never seen Deliverance?”
“Arch . . . ,” Avery said.
Archie gave a sick grin, letting his wide shoulders slump. “Kidding. I’m kidding. But, Gibby, weren’t you the one warning us about bears and apex predators? I mean, I don’t plan on getting mauled out here and dying like an asshole, do you?” That’s when Archie swiveled suddenly, his arms pointed straight out, hands held together, the gun aiming for the trees. Avery yelped and stumbled back while he pretended to pull the trigger.
I blinked. Very quickly. A brief flicker of pain pulsed along my jawline before edging higher, toward my left eye.
Shit. My vision blurred. I swayed on my feet a bit.
“You okay?” Avery asked me.
“Just put it away,” I told Archie in a low voice. “Put the gun in your bag and leave it there. If you see a fucking bear, then we’ll talk.”
And that was that. Archie looked pissed, like I had no right telling him what to do, but he put the gun away, stuffing it into his backpack and zipping the whole thing up while engaging in some consummate under-his-breath bitching, which I guess was the effect I had on people. Then he huffed off after the others. As if his sensibilities had been offended. I watched him go.
Well, okay, then.
Blowing air through my cheeks, I turned back toward Avery. It was on the tip of my tongue to snap at her, to ask what the hell she saw in him. The taste of high school guys notwithstanding, surely he wasn’t her only option. Abstinence had to be better than that. Archie DuPraw was dick jokes and muscle shirts and beer bongs at eight a.m. Concealed weapons, too, apparently.
“Well, that was interesting.” Avery tugged at her long braid, wrapping it around her neck so that it hung just below her shoulder.
“Your boyfriend’s a real piece of work,” I told her.
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
I lifted an eyebrow.
“Archie’s my cousin,” she explained. “His mom’s a Diaz. That’s his Mexican half. It’s the better half, trust me. The DuPraws are . . . well, they’ve got problems. He’s proof of that.”
“Oh.”
“But even if he were my boyfriend, it wouldn’t be my fault that he’s an asshole.”
“I didn’t say it would be.”
“But you were thinking it, weren’t you? Everyone always blames women for the things men do. It’s why men never learn.”
Well, that sounded like something Rose would say, and while I knew better than to argue, I didn’t exactly agree with the sentiment. Men could be stubborn, yes, and unreasonable—violent even, in the most destructive of ways. But I also knew there were women in this world equally destructive—ones who did what they did, while all the while making sure they never had to take the blame for their actions, leaving them free to cause more and more pain until everyone within their reach was suffering. But what I said to Avery was, “I’m sorry.”
She softened. “Don’t be. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m just . . . I don’t like feeling like I’m his babysitter. It’s his fault for needing one.”
“Absolutely.”
“You did a nice job of dealing with him, you know.”
“I did?”
She nodded. “He listened to you and Archie doesn’t listen to everybody. Not even me. And he likes me.”
“Well, I don’t think I did much of anything,” I said.
Avery had an easy smile. One that never made me wonder what it was she was thinking. “Always the modest one, aren’t you, Ben?”
I tried smiling back—I liked what she’d said, I really did—but I felt unwell all of a sudden. As if the adrenaline from seeing the gun had finally drained from my body, and the remaining grit of guilt and shame was working hard to stir up those memories inside of me I’d tried for so long to forget.
Avery said something else I couldn’t hear. I didn’t answer her and felt bad about that. Instead I fumbled for my water bottle and took a long swig. Then another.
“Sorry,” I gasped.
“Headache?” she asked.
“No.” I drank more water, and the dumbest thing was, part of me wished it were a headache bothering me, because awful as they were, at least I could explain those to people. With Avery I wouldn’t have to do that. She’d seen me sick before. In sixth grade, she’d even helped me to the office once when the left side of my face went numb and didn’t make me feel bad when I confided in her how scared I was.
“What is it, then?” she asked.
I glanced up, taking in Avery’s easy smile and twinkling eyes, the gold vixen hanging from her neck. In that moment, I ached to tell her how deeply the aftermath of her mother’s death remained etched in my mind—not just the funeral or the wake, but all of it. The way her desk in our third-grade classroom had sat empty for weeks, such a vivid symbol of loss; the way that golden haze of syrupy sorrow had enveloped her upon her return, as if she were a queen encased in a hive of her own sadness; and the way I’d watched that sorrow squeeze the brightness out of her, day by day, leaving behind something drab and stale. A flat soda of a girl. I couldn’t stand it back then, to see her transformed by an act that couldn’t be undone. Grief, I guess, was the proper word. I longed to tell Avery all that because I wanted her to know it was the way I felt, too. Every day.
But I didn’t. Instead I slid my water bottle back into its strap.
“You ready?” I asked and nodded toward the waiting mountain.
“I’m ready,” she said.
And just like that, we were off.
14.
IT DIDN’T TAKE long for us to catch up with the rest of the group. When we did, I found Rose and took her hand, separating her from her brother. None of us said anything about the gun or what had happened back at the trailhead marker. Not me. Not Avery. Not Archie. It wasn’t anything any of us agreed to do, but at that point in time, the gun was gone, hidden, out of sight. There really wasn’t much to say. So we moved on.