The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea

by Elizabeth O'Roark

  “Yeah, you’ll be pretty irresistible in three pairs of sweats. And by the way, just because something happened a long time ago doesn’t mean you aren’t still allowed to be sad about it.”

  I swallow hard. It would be stupid to be sad about something that happened fifteen years ago. Especially when there’s plenty to be sad about right now.

  He lifts himself from the floor in one swift move and opens the tent to go pee. I follow him out but my exit is way less graceful, my muscles screaming in protest from overuse.

  “Shit,” we say at the exact same time as we step outside. The sky is a worrisome gray, the cliffs are shrouded in fog. Everything, absolutely everything, is soaking wet. Chris and Kai are on a walkie talkie with someone. They both look troubled as they explain the situation to us a moment later: the trail will be treacherous, but we only have enough food for today, and if it rains tomorrow, we’re screwed.

  They leave it up to us, and as a group we vote to head back. No one wants to potentially be stuck here for several days if the weather doesn’t improve. We agree to skip breakfast just in case the trail’s washed out and we have to return.

  The rain is merely a light drizzle, but by the time we’ve packed everything and have the tent put away, I’m soaked through my rain jacket and Josh is so stressed about it all that he’s stressing me out.

  “I don’t like this,” he says. “Let’s leave your pack. I’ll dump my sleeping bag and the tent here and you can shove anything you want to keep in mine.”

  I stare at him in shock for a moment, and slowly my chest starts to warm. He’s not worried about the trail and he’s not worried about himself. He’s just worried about me. “I’ll be fine,” I tell him. “Besides, if we get stuck up there, we might need the tent and the sleeping bags.”

  I can see him trying to find an alternative, but he knows I’m right. “Promise me you’ll be careful,” he says, his jaw locked tight. “Small steps. I’m gonna be right behind you, just…” He blows out a breath and pushes a hand through his hair. “Just promise.”

  I can’t think of a time in my life where anyone has cared this much about my well-being, even when I was an age where they still should have. I have to swallow hard as I nod. “I promise.”

  We begin. The slope is muddy and slick. Our progress is painfully slow, and as we get higher we discover the narrow path is almost entirely washed out.

  “Jesus Christ,” Josh hisses behind me. “Slow down.”

  It’s in my nature to snap at even the mildest criticism, except I know he’s not criticizing me. He’s simply panicking on my behalf. I slow down.

  We make little progress, and even though we skipped breakfast and don’t dawdle, it takes us far too long to finally hit Crawler’s Ledge. I cling to the side, using vines and trees and anything else I can grab. Adrenaline has my hands shaking, my heart thudding so loud in my chest it seems audible, and when I hear a suspicious noise behind me, I turn, panicked I might find him falling. “Face forward,” he barks, his voice sharp. “Don’t worry about me.”

  It takes us hours to inch over the narrow paths that edge the side of the cliff. The ground is slick, the winds are occasionally strong, and the skies open sporadically, spitting just enough rain to make my chest seize up. I know if I start to slip, Josh will try to save me. It’s terrifying, more than anything else, because the odds are that I’d just pull him over the side with me.

  It’s late afternoon by the time we begin our descent into the Hanakoa Valley, yesterday’s lunch stop. The trail is slick and muddy, but at least I don’t have to worry I’ll look back to discover he’s gone over the edge.

  “What’s the first thing you’ll do when you get to the hotel?” I ask him, as if we are soldiers who’ve long been at war.

  “Eat,” he says. “I don’t care how filthy I am, I want the biggest steak you’ve ever seen in your life. And a potato. And maybe another steak.”

  I laugh. “I just want a shower. God, I want a hot shower so bad.”

  “And then what?”

  “Another shower.”

  Thirty minutes into our slippery descent we all hear it: the sound of rushing water. Kai’s shoulders sag. “That creek from yesterday?” he says. “It’s now a raging river.”

  When we reach the valley, we discover the campers who stayed down here last night are gone. Kai tells us the guide who helped them with dinner last night had the foresight to move them across the river before the bad weather started. But we have no such luck, and are forced to set up our tents inside a covered shelter near the creek’s edge. It’s so tight that we’re practically on top of each other—I could reach outside of our tent and right into someone else’s—but it’s better than trying to set up in the rain, and I don’t care where we sleep as long as I’m dry.

  Josh lets me change first. I groan aloud as I remove layer upon layer of wet clothes.

  “Are you okay?” Josh asks from outside the tent.

  “So good,” I moan, peeling off my sports bra and my socks at last. It’s cold today and I’m in here butt naked and it’s still so much better than being covered in soggy fabric. “Ecstatic. Most importantly, I’m almost dry.”

  He grunts. “I’ve never heard someone make dry clothes sound so sexual.”

  I use a spare t-shirt to dry off. “It’s better than sex, believe me.”

  He gives a low laugh of disbelief. “Then you’ve been sleeping with the wrong people,” he says, and I freeze in the middle of drying myself off, my stomach suddenly twisting with want. I picture him in here with me, pressing me flat to the floor, caging me in with his large body, those perfect arms braced on either side of me. And that’s probably nothing I should be picturing when we’re spending another night together, alone.

  Once we’ve both changed, we hang our wet things at the other end of the shelter with everyone else’s. We eat the food we should have had for lunch, and then, though it’s barely dark, we retire. There’s not much else to do and it’s not like it was going to be a late night anyway—I think everyone is as physically and emotionally drained as I am from the day we’ve had.

  Anna stops by each tent, delivering pieces of chocolate. I dig into a side pocket and discover that Six stashed enough mini-bottles of booze to share with the group, which certainly wouldn’t help my reputation if anyone knew who I was.

  Chris plays a few songs on the ukulele and then reaches out through the tent flaps to the couple beside him. “Pass it along until it reaches someone who can play it,” he says.

  Dietrich takes a turn and gives up, passing it to us. I start to hand it over to Kathy and Samantha, but Josh stops me.

  “Play something,” he demands.

  “What makes you think I can play the ukulele?”

  “If you can play piano and guitar, I guarantee you can do this too.”

  “It’s different,” I tell him. “It’s tuned differently.”

  He leans back with his hands behind his head. “I wouldn’t start pissing off the only guy here who can keep you warm tonight.”

  “I suspect Chris and Kai wouldn’t mind keeping me warm,” I suggest, and I laugh at his quiet growl before settling the ukulele in my lap.

  I try a few chords to get a feel for it. Each string is tuned about a quarter note higher than a guitar, but otherwise, it isn’t so different. I start slowly with Landslide by Fleetwood Mac, which my father taught me to play long ago, and though I refuse to sing in case I give myself away, Kathy starts singing and soon everyone joins in.

  They clap when the song’s over. “Holy shit, Lina,” says Kai. “Why didn’t you say something? Now I feel like an asshole.”

  I play Ryan Adam’s version of Wildest Dreams, and then let it morph to the song I’ve been working on.

  “I like that,” says Samantha. “Who is it?”

  “No one,” I reply. “Just this Russian girl I knew back home.”

  I try to hand the ukulele over, but no one is willing to follow me. “Keep playing, Lina!” they shou
t.

  “Sorry,” I call back. “I’m too cold.”

  “Liar,” says Kathy. “You just want to snuggle with your hot boyfriend.”

  I laugh and Josh does too.

  “Come here,” Josh says quietly. “Come snuggle with your hot boyfriend.” He’s joking but I thrill at the idea anyway. I lie down with my back to his chest and once I’ve stretched out, he takes my sleeping bag and the extra one and pulls them over the top of us both.

  He angles himself so his crotch is not against me, but the heat of his chest is plenty, and after another hesitant moment, his hand—broad, possessive—lands on my waist and slides to my hip.

  The shelter grows quiet as tent flaps finally close for the night. I can feel his breath against the top of my head.

  “Tell me something, Josh,” I whisper. “Tell me something no one else knows.”

  He presses his face to the top of my head and holds it there for a moment, as if he’s saying a prayer.

  “I was jealous,” he says quietly.

  “What?” I roll toward him, not understanding.

  He meets my gaze for only a moment, then his eyes fall closed. “The night we met? The shit I said about you stealing the silver? I was just pissed off and jealous, and I didn’t think he should get to wind up with someone like you. But instead of saying it all, I made it sound like my problem was with you. And I’m so unbelievably sorry you heard that.”

  I roll over again and press my back to his chest. I wish his hand, now resting lightly on my hip, would slide up along my rib cage. That he’d pull me tight against him, the way we woke this morning, and press his mouth to my neck. I wish I could hear the sound of his breathing grow heavy as I reached back to grasp him.

  I picture him rolling me to my back, his hands exploring my body, tugging my shorts down. Slowly pressing inside me.

  I squirm. It’s such a bad idea to let my brain venture down this path. He shifts onto his back then and I follow, rolling into the curve of his arm to face him.

  My hand falls to his stomach and brushes something else instead. He hisses through his teeth and turns away, rolling onto his stomach.

  “Sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean to…”

  “I know,” he grunts. There is silence. He can’t blame it on needing to pee. “It’s been a really long time,” he finally says.

  “Yeah, me too,” I tell him.

  I hear his disgruntled laugh. “It’s been a little longer than one night for me.”

  “I’m not sleeping with your brother,” I reply, my voice barely a whisper. “It was one of the conditions I set out before I’d agree to come on this trip.”

  He makes that noise he does occasionally, as if all the air’s been knocked out of him.

  He remains on his stomach but turns his head to face me. “Haven’t you been dating him for, like, a year or two? Why would you suddenly refuse to sleep with him?” His voice is as low and careful as mine.

  “We were seeing each other casually before and I ended things last August,” I tell him. “He asked me to give him a chance and I agreed, but I didn’t want…sex confuses things.”

  “I’d probably be better off not knowing that,” he groans, turning his face into his makeshift pillow.

  And I understand that. I’d be better off too.

  I’m exhausted, but I remain awake for a long time after that, wishing I was still just Ilina Andreyev, living in some shitty apartment I can barely afford, and curled under a blanket with a doctor named Josh. Whose brother I’d never met.

  29

  JOSH

  February 1st

  I wake in the morning, hard as nails.

  It’s not entirely a surprise, as that’s how I spent most of the previous night.

  It doesn’t help that I’m currently pressed—insistent and throbbing—against Drew’s ass. I roll away from her, willing it to retreat, and she wakes.

  “Is it just me or did the temperature drop about forty degrees?” she asks, yawning.

  I’m pretty sure it did—another reason I was up most of the night. Cold weather and significant temperature changes can trigger asthma. I spent the night alternating between checking her breathing and trying to will my erection away. I want to ask her about it even now, but I’m worried I’ll trigger a panic attack if she senses I’m concerned. My fury at Joel has only grown over the course of this trip.

  She rolls over, clinging to my back for warmth. I can feel her nipples even through her sweatshirt.

  Fuck my life.

  "You talk in your sleep," I tell her.

  "You're making that up,” she says, but when I don’t argue, she concedes with a sigh. “What did I say?”

  "You were talking about how hot I am.” I can feel her cheek curving against my spine as she smiles. "Fine. I might have misinterpreted that part. No seriously, you just kept repeating numbers.”

  “That lines up," she says. "I'm extremely good at math, having made it all the way through the eleventh grade."

  I laugh. “It was less math and more like…you were ordering Chinese food. You kept repeating the same numbers again and again saying ‘the one-ninety-nine’ and ‘the eight-eight’. Do you remember what it was?”

  She stiffens and rolls away. “No.”

  There are no jokes about Chinese food or implications that they were sexual positions.

  That’s how I know she’s lying to me.

  The river is deemed passable when everyone wakes. We pack up our stuff and plunge in, tethered to one another. The water is surprisingly cold, and I place a hand on Drew’s shoulder—in part because the stream is still rushing fast enough to sweep someone to sea, in part because it allows me to silently assess her breathing once more. She still seems fine, thank God.

  When we reach the other side, everyone is soaking wet and filthy but buoyant, thrilled to have made it. There are cheers and laughter and it’s a relief, but I don’t feel all that celebratory. When Drew and I say goodbye at the airport tomorrow, that will be it…unless she actually stays with my brother, which would be even worse.

  The commentary grows bawdy as we descend toward Hanakapiai Beach and our final river crossing.

  Dietrich, Anna’s husband, says something to Kathy and Samantha about noises coming from their tent and says he was tempted to watch.

  “We heard you in your tent last night too, Dietrich!” shouts Kathy in reply. “Sounded like you needed to be watching someone because you were definitely doing it wrong.”

  There is laughter and then Kai says, “If we’re watching people, my vote is for Josh and Lina because how does that work? He’s, like, twice her size.”

  “I bet they make it work,” says Kathy with a throaty laugh.

  I shut my eyes momentarily. God help me, but I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how we’d make it work. Drew buries her face in her hands, simultaneously amused and embarrassed. “We’re both virgins, actually,” she announces.

  “Josh, dude, tell me she’s full of shit,” begs Kai, sounding personally wounded by the possibility.

  “She’s full of shit,” I mutter. There’s literally no way that would be true if she and I were a couple.

  We cross the last stream, make our final climb, and then descend at last. At the end of the trail, the women hug and Kathy pulls Drew aside and asks for an autograph.

  “You don’t look that different with darker hair,” she says, winking at me.

  We head to the parking lot. Even from a distance, I can see Joel there, sitting on the hood of the Jeep. He hops down and starts to approach with a bouquet in one hand, a bottle of tequila in the other—and a shit-eating grin on his face like he’s already sure he’ll be forgiven.

  That grin is what has me walking faster. Drew grumbles behind me, accusing me of trying to compete with her, but that’s not what this is.

  Joel steps forward, still smiling, holding out the bottle of tequila, which I suppose is some kind of Thanks for taking care of my girlfriend gift.

&n
bsp; My fist swings out before I’ve even thought it through. He bends over, airless and gasping, and I hit him again.

  “What the fuck, dude?” he shouts, but I’m not done. I throw him against the Jeep, and it all spills out. All the tension I’ve held inside me for two days has corroded my patience with him down to nothing.

  “You had her fucking inhaler!” I shout. “She could have died because you couldn’t be troubled to show up!”

  “I didn’t know!” shouts Joel. I have no idea if he’s telling the truth. It hardly matters. He should have checked. He should have killed himself not to abandon her.

  “Josh,” Drew says behind me, soft and shocked.

  I let him go and he walks straight to Drew, pulling her against his chest. She is stiff in his arms.

  “I’m so sorry,” he says. “I had no idea. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she says, stepping away from him. “We should get going. I want to shower before we head to the airport.”

  “I’m really sorry,” Joel says again. “I meant to meet y’all at the stop, but the interview ran long.”

  His hand goes to the small of her back, as if she didn’t need any assistance along one of the world’s deadliest trails but needs assistance now, across ten feet of flat parking lot. He picks up the flowers he dropped when I grabbed him and hands them to her. “These are for you.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” I mutter, reaching over to remove her backpack.

  Her eyes meet mine. Her smile is apologetic. I hope to God it doesn’t mean she’s letting this all go.

  PART IV

  OAHU

  “Say what you will about the other islands, there’s no doubt Oahu’s medical care is second to none.”

  Oahu: The Adventure of a Lifetime