“Everything,” I said, and I felt like a petulant child. My heart was pounding, and blood was rushing to my cheeks. I leaned down and I kissed her. Then I kept kissing her, frantically, eagerly, passion blooming inside me for the first time since she’d come back. In that moment, I couldn’t stand it, the way I felt; I had to have her. I pulled her down on to the bed beside me, pawing beneath her clothes and cupping her tits.
Rose kissed me back, but she laughed, too, like my ardor was something humorous. I didn’t mind, so long as she was with me, willing to meet me where I was with her own brand of passion. We stayed locked like that for a while, rolling around a bit, with me slobbering on her neck and dry humping her like crazy, but then she was pulling my jeans down, my boxers, too, and I wanted to take her then, push my way on top of her. But Rose had other plans, because she twisted out of my grasp and slid to the floor like a cat to settle between my legs.
I groaned, despite myself. Having her mouth where she put it was the hottest thing, but I couldn’t touch her when she was doing that and I wanted to touch her. So even as I loved what she was doing, even as she laughed again before quieting down and allowing the room and space around us to fill with a different sort of sound and the most perfect sort of feeling, a softness and rhythm that pushed me toward a shuddering end I lacked the ability to control, all I could think was, Oh, Rose, I want this, I do, more than anything. But this isn’t how I wanted it.
I wanted you to want me, too.
6.
TWO MORE STUDENTS showed up for the next orienteering club meeting, lured perhaps by that promise of PE credit. Otherwise I wasn’t sure what had brought them. The first was Shelby Sawyer. I’d known Shelby since her days as the bucktoothed, blond-haired, overly freckled girl who cried snotty tears every morning at kindergarten drop-off, but I had a hard time talking to her now that she’d emerged from puberty as this sleek, six-foot-tall, volleyball-playing goddess. This was clearly a personal flaw, because Shelby was friendly with just about anybody. She’d confided in me once that she preferred spending her time raising alpacas for 4-H, but that her parents insisted volleyball would look better on college applications. It made me feel bad to hear her say that, but I also saw their point.
The second person who showed up to the meeting was Tomás, Rose’s snob of a brother. Like I said, they were twins—fraternal, obviously—but with Rose’s short hair, the similarity between them was overwhelming, Tomás’s Y chromosome and crappy personality notwithstanding. It always startled me to see her bright brown eyes on him since the expression on his face usually read as if he were seconds away from throwing himself in front of a train.
It would’ve been easy, by the way, to believe Tomás had come to the meeting because of Shelby, only he’d never been anything but completely open about the fact his interests lay elsewhere. And yeah, sure, I wish I could say stuff like that didn’t matter—to Teyber, to me—but of course it did. His hating me didn’t help much either.
We picked the site of the first backpacking trip together, as a group. I liked that about Mr. Howe. He treated us, if not like equals, then as if it were a given that we would be someday. There’s just something about presumed competence that makes you really want to try, you know? We spread a map of Northern California out on Mr. Howe’s desk and scoured the acreage for an appropriate locale.
Archie DuPraw immediately homed in on Mount Shasta or Mount Whitney. Both had name recognition and a sense of imminent doom—climbers had perished on those mountains—but Mr. Howe pointed out that taking on a California fourteener as our first mountain was like getting a Mercedes as a first car. What would we have to look forward to?
“Be humble,” he told us. “That’s the only way to survive out there.”
Mount Lassen was in play, in all its volcanic beauty, but we finally decided on Thompson Peak—the tallest summit in the vast Trinity Alps, which felt like an accomplishment all on its own. Our day of departure would be a Friday in the second week of October; school would be closed for administrative development, which was a stroke of good fortune. The trip was soon, Mr. Howe acknowledged, and we had a lot of work ahead of us to prepare. But we wanted to get out there on the mountain well before the storm season hit. At 9,000 feet, Thompson Peak was crusted in permafrost, and there was usually snow piled high well into the summer, making fall the most accessible season. October was the warmest time in Northern California, full of dry heat and crackling with fire danger. The worst weather we might get was a touch of rain. And even that, Mr. Howe told us, was highly unlikely.
—
Shelby and Tomás needed permission slips, which I hadn’t thought to bring, so I had them follow me down to the faculty supply room on the first floor while Mr. Howe took the rest of the group outside. As we walked the empty halls, Tomás’s loafers squeaked on the linoleum floor in a way that sounded rude. I wanted to ask why he bothered wearing expensive shoes in such a shitty place, but I already knew the answer: There was nothing Tomás Augustine wouldn’t do to remind himself how much better he was than the rest of us.
Once in the supply room I tried using the copy machine, which had detailed instructions laminated and pinned to the wall above. I followed these instructions in precise order only to have the copier promptly jam, making me swear. Tomás rolled his eyes and walked out of the room, phone in hand. I crouched to fix the machine—there were no instructions for that—and just ended up pushing a lot of buttons.
“Let me.” Shelby elbowed me aside, squatted down, and pulled out the bottom tray, the one with the angry blinking light. She reached her arm in and dug around for the stuck paper. I mumbled a few words of gratitude, before getting up and stepping back to watch her work. I appreciated the help, naturally, but thing was, the farther Shelby reached, the higher the hem of her insanely short shorts went. Not to mention, it appeared she wasn’t wearing any underwear. I couldn’t help but stare. Already I could see bronzed skin, the sweet pull of tight curves, a hint of shadow and more. I held my breath and felt lucky. Willed Shelby to keep reaching.
And reaching.
“Jesus Christ, Shel,” a voice behind me said.
I whipped around at the same time she did, only to see Tomás leaning in the doorway, his jaw tight and his arms folded. He spoke to her while looking directly at me. “Your entire ass is hanging out.”
“Is it?” She reached back to pull her shorts down, wiggling her butt while she did it. “Hope you got a good look, Ben.”
“I didn’t see anything,” I said. “I swear.”
“Yeah, right.” Shelby stuck her arm in the copier again. Groped around for the jammed paper.
I glanced back at Tomás, to gauge his reaction to my lie. The dark look on his haughty face said it all: He hated me more than ever.
7.