But I kept going, step by futile step, until the hairs rose on the back of my neck and the air crackled with ozone. My skin went taut, and the sky lit up with shattering brilliance while sending two simultaneous bolts of lightning to strike the ground right in front of me.
My shouting was drowned out by the earth-splitting crack of thunder that followed immediately after. I bolted straight into a forested thicket located just off the trail, diving beneath a canopy of dripping aspen trees and army-crawling through the mud, as low as I could, before wriggling on my belly into a makeshift shelter formed by a set of crisscrossing tree trunks that had collapsed against the hillside.
The pelting of rain echoed off the branches high above where I’d buried myself, but the dark spot I’d found was relatively dry, a decent waiting space. I wiped water from my eyes as they adjusted to the darkness. Only when I could see again, I found I wasn’t alone. Hunched mere inches from where I was, soaked and miserable—his eyes wide with fear, his back pressed into the soft dirt of the carved-out hollow—was Archie.
36.
“GIBBY,” HE SAID, and it was impossible for me to read his voice. Was he relieved to see me? Angry? Fearful? It didn’t matter. I hated him even as my teeth chattered and I trembled horribly with cold and wetness. My migraine, which had waned in the face of adrenaline and certain death, now swelled and pulsed its way toward a sickening crescendo unlike anything I had ever experienced.
More thunder crashed down on us. Shaking the ground and rattling the trees. It was as if hell itself had set up shop on that mountain, a deafening force capable of sparking images I never wanted to see again, shooting them straight into my field of vision—Marcus bellowing with his hands wrapped around my mother’s neck, his face bulging with fury; the righteous gleam in his eyes as he tore at her clothes, pinning her body with his, seeking to punish her with what was meant to be love; and me, cowering and helpless, forced to bear witness to it all.
Archie repeated my name and reached out to push my shoulder with his foot, pushing harder when I didn’t respond. I leaned forward with a groan to vomit between my legs. Then I did it again. And again after that. And then I couldn’t move. I just sat there, frozen, hands bleeding, knees bleeding, covered in mud and puke and drool and rage, and every nerve in my body was on fire.
“Shit,” breathed Archie. He didn’t touch me again. He just sat and watched me, something I begrudgingly appreciated since the worst thing people did when I fell ill was to try and shove food or water in my mouth or ask me a ton of questions about what they could do to help, when what I actually needed was absolute silence or, more precisely, the absence of all sensory input.
The migraine seemed to peak after I got sick, the way they often did, flaring then fading until I was able to collapse backward onto the ground and open my eyes without feeling like death.
“You okay?” Archie asked with a frown.
I didn’t answer. I had nothing to say to him.
“Those headaches of yours are pretty shitty.”
I still didn’t answer.
He lay back on his elbows. “So that’s how it’s going to be? Well, why the hell’d you come all the way up here if you weren’t gonna talk to me?”
I flipped him off.
Archie laughed. “You’re pissed, aren’t you? You’re pissed, but you’re not going to say it. That’s not how shit gets fixed, you know. That’s how you let life just keep pissing you off, day by goddamn day.”
“What do you know about fixing shit?” I snapped, turning to glare at him. “All you’ve done over the past few days is get people killed.”
“Maybe that’s all I need to know,” he said.
“You’re sick.”
“And you aren’t?”
“Rose is suffering because of you. She’s in pain.”
“Because of me?” Archie huffed. “You came up here on your own. You chose to climb that waterfall and dick around with me when you could have been saving that precious girl of yours.”
“Bullshit! You made me come up here! You stole the keys!”
“I didn’t make you do anything. You had the keys before we even started climbing. You could’ve left the campsite any time you wanted and been off this mountain by now.”
“But I promised Rose. I promised her I’d go with you.”
Archie wiped dirt from his hands. “You can’t seriously be that stupid. What’d you think would happen if you didn’t?”
“I’m not stupid,” I told him.
“Oh, yeah? What do you call it when you’re so desperate to make someone happy you end up becoming the thing that hurts them the most?”
“I’m not stupid,” I repeated.
“No,” he agreed. “You’re something worse.”
“What’s that?”
“Pathetic.”
—
I wish I could say Archie’s baiting and name-calling didn’t get to me. That I was able to be the bigger person and set my mind to doing what it was I needed to do so that we could both get back down the waterfall and the mountain safely and with the keys needed to lead us to help.
But his words stung and the storm raged and I stewed soppy in guilt. Hurting Rose was my deepest fear and hadn’t I already done that? Maybe she didn’t need to know of my infidelity in order for it to matter. Maybe betrayal bore its consequences with or without confession. After all, if Rose was right and math was the only thing in this world that could be counted on to be honest, then trust was an illusion. And without trust there could be no love. And without love, her love, I was nothing.
Nothing at all.
“You know,” Archie said after a moment, his voice lower, more solemn. “Maybe I’m being too hard on you. Taking the keys was a dick move. I admit that.”
I glanced over at him. “Yeah, it was.”
“But that girl, Rose, she’s not making any of this easy on you. You know that, right?”
“Not making what easy?”
Archie’s eyes widened. “Oh, come on.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You really don’t?”
“No.”
“Shit.” He dipped his head. Looked away from me before looking back. “Okay. I’m going to tell you something. I’m going to tell you about Rose. You remember that party we were at last year? It was in the spring. Out at that baby horse farm?”
“Miniature horses,” I corrected.
“Whatever. I was really fucked up that night. Just in a bad fucking place.”
“I know. I saw you.”
“Yeah, well, the thing is, before you got there, I was drinking with some of the guys inside the house. Manny fucking Grossman broke into the Richards’ liquor cabinet, so we were drinking all the clear stuff, replacing it with water.”
“Classy.”
“At some point your girl waltzes in, all by herself, just out of nowhere. But she’s smiling and giggling and the whole thing, wanting to sit with us. I’d never seen her like that, but I say, sure, you’re cute, come have a drink. Next thing I know she’s on my lap, touching my face, my hair—”
“I don’t want hear this,” I said.
“You should.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“Well, I’m going to tell you anyway. But first of all, I didn’t fuck your girl, so you can get over that, all right? That’s not what this is about.”