I knew I had to let go of Adam at some point, and I knew it had to be sooner rather than later so we could both begin to heal and move on with our lives. The girls and I bought each one from a vendor, a Thai girl no more than fifteen years old, and I borrowed a pen from her and wrote on the thin paper:
Adam,
I have loved you, and I always will love you. I’m sorry I hurt you. I accept that we are not meant to be together, and I have to let you go. I wish you all the happiness in the world.
Eternally grateful for you,
Harper
Then I carefully pulled the paper apart, and the lantern took shape. Jade held the wire at the base, and I took her lighter and lit the fuel cell. Once it sparked and ignited, I held the wire base as it lifted from my fingertips. And as it ascended into the sky with a hundred other wishes, I exhaled the breath that I had been holding and listened to a little voice in my heart saying, all is well.
***
The next day, I felt one-hundred percent better. After indulging in another waffle and bacon breakfast with the girls, we wandered the silver boutiques where I bought a necklace for my mother. As the sun rose to high noon, we ducked into an air-conditioned Internet café, ordered iced lemongrass teas, and sank back into the cushioned chairs, and fingers on modern keyboards.
Excitement bubbled as I read the email from my mother.
Hello darling,
Your father and I are booking our flights to Sydney this week. Please let us know as soon as you can what you want to do in Australia so we can sort our dates. We can’t wait to see you!
Love,
Mom and Dad
They hadn’t left Toronto since Audrey died. Like me, they had been held captive not only by their crushing depression but also by their fear of traveling, and I was ecstatic to see them overcoming it. With my guilt for leaving them lifting, I began researching things for us to do: the Zoo, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, of course the Opera House and since they will have flown around the world, we should go up to see the Great Barrier Reef.
After my research, I logged into Facebook and scrolled through my notifications. A message stopped my fingers. A message from the crush I had made that regretful decision with when I was nineteen. Hey, Harper, I trust you are doing well. I heard that you are in Southeast Asia. How long are you going to be there? Where are you going to be? — Miles
My face froze as my nails dug into the keyboard.
“Everything okay?” Jade asked, peering over her monitor across from me.
“Yah, yah, fine. Just breakup stuff blah blah blah,” I lied.
If she knew Miles had messaged me she would have thrown the computer across the room. Hell hath no fury like the best friend of a woman scorned.
I had heard this from Lana before and didn’t know if there was any truth to it, but it seemed that the moment you became single and happy with life, a pulse is sent out across the universe alerting all ex-flames to reach out to you, and try to ruin your happiness.
At first, I was intrigued to hear from him. Even after all these years, he could still make my heart flutter. But then I remembered why I hated him. It took all my might not to respond, what’s it to you, asshole? But no, I was in a good mood that day and I wasn’t about to let him ruin it, so I closed his message instead.
I still hadn’t responded to Adam, but I couldn’t tell him that it was over for good in such an impersonal manner as Facebook. So I logged out, paid for my Internet time and tea, and left the girls to go to the boutique across the street we had fallen in love with. Browsing the gift items, I picked up a stationery set crafted from mango leaves. Back in the Internet café, I took a table near the window and drafted a letter that included the words I had sent into the sky the night before, along with my explanation of why I couldn’t marry him. I owed him that much. And before we left Chiang Mai the next day I dropped it into the postbox.
It was the final act of letting go of my first love.
As I stared into the dark abyss through the slit in the post office, I decided that it was time to focus on myself. Focus on my work and focus on winning the photography competition.
Chapter 14
After our time in Chiang Mai, we headed northeast to the Thai border. As we left civilization, we were subjected to the worst music on Earth from an obnoxious Eastern European eighteen year old riding shotgun who insisted on controlling the minivan’s stereo. Lana proposed a coup, and all of the passengers in the back, myself and Jade included, plotted to overthrow the tone-deaf tyrant. But before we could hatch our plan we arrived at Chiang Khong on the eastern banks of the Mekong River. It featured little more than a hostel, a few roadside noodle stalls, and two passport photo “studios.” There really was no reason to go to the remote jungle town except to cross the border into Laos.
We crossed the river, which served as the border, and even as we were herded like cattle through the immigration line on the muddy banks, I still knew nothing about the country I was standing in. Lana only said something about “tubing,” whatever that meant. But there’s something to be said about going somewhere with no expectations whatsoever. Even while stuffed in a very uncomfortable minivan for eleven million hours straight, thankfully sans the insufferable stereo hog, I was completely taken by surprise. It turned out Laos is one of the least known countries in the continent, so it was delightfully undeveloped and under-populated with tourists. For the eleven million hours I had my face pressed against the glass I could count the number of buildings we passed on one hand. However, as we approached Luang Prabang in the falling dusk, the number of man-made structures increased. Once night had fallen we were dropped off in the town with little to orient us besides the driver pointing us in the directions of guesthouses, leaving our new surroundings to be a surprise. We found a spacious loft that resembled a dollhouse with dark wood floors, antique furniture, and gossamer mosquito nets at a steal of a price.
***
Date: February 23, 2010
Luang Prabang, Laos
We slept in as much as we could but were pulled from our beds by the aroma of freshly baking bread. It turned out that our loft sat above a bakery. Luang Prabang was a ghost of French Indochina, and as such, much of the French culture and influence still permeated every day life. As we ate breakfast al fresco on the sidewalk table downstairs, I drank in the easygoing energy of the town where East and West fused in its energy, colonial architecture, and food. Vintage cars that suggested summers on the Riviera puttered down the road while local girls whizzed by on motorcycles, accelerators in one hand and parasols in the other. I wondered if the part of France Xavier was from looked like this.
“So what’s there to do here?” Lana asked before stuffing a flakey piece of chocolate croissant into her mouth.
“Well, we can do the Buddha Caves or the Kung Si Waterfalls,” Jade replied, slathering strawberry jam onto her toast. “Keep in mind we’ll only have one full day here.”
“I vote waterfalls,” Lana said. “It may be our only chance to bathe.”
When Lana tried to shower earlier, we learned why the gorgeous room was available at such a low price: we were robbed of running water.
With the decadent aftertaste of croissants and bittersweet coffee lingering in my mouth we wandered the main street, which stretched barely a Toronto city block, popping into jewelry and art boutiques. Stopping in at one of the few tour counters, we booked our minivan to Vang Vieng for the following day, and as the girls asked about getting to the waterfall, I snapped away at the Technicolour orchids that adorned the building.
“Harper?” Jade called out as I turned my lens on a tangerine-robed monk. “Want to cycle to the waterfall with me?”
Checking the playback, I called back, “Sure,” before looking up to find his baldhead disappearing through a temple door across the street. I would definitely be able to capture more of the countryside taking our own time rather than shooting out of the back of a speeding tuk tuk.
As Jade and I mounted o
ur black and yellow bikes, seemingly built for the roughest terrain imaginable, Lana bid us farewell as she headed off for a massage. It only took ten minutes to leave our charming urban oasis behind as we peddled towards the lush green countryside. It also didn’t take long for me to ask the question I should have asked from the start. “How long is this going to take?”
“Well, we’re cycling thirty-five kilometers.”
“Are you trying to kill me?” I wheezed.
“It’ll go by quickly,” she said, but the tremble in her voice made me suspicious.
The first several kilometers weren’t actually so bad. The emerald green hills rolling into the horizon like enormous sea swells provided a welcome distraction from my seriously under-exercised legs. Stopping periodically, I was able to put my panoramic setting to good use.
But about an hour in at the ten-kilometer mark, I was choking on those words. Half way up a ceaseless incline I affectionately called Death Mountain, I began to see stars. The sun beat down on us from its zenith in a cloudless sky. Despite the forested hills surrounding us in every direction, the trees sat beyond the deep ditches that flanked the road. Setting my bike down, I stumbled for shade as Jade followed my lead.
“Are you okay?”
Collapsing into the meager shade of a scraggly bush, I pulled my water bottle from my bag and sucked on the few drops I had left. “I’m just trying to remember why I thought this was a good idea.”
Jade flopped to the ground next to me and offered her water bottle to me. Though my tongue scratched at the roof of my mouth like sandpaper, I refused it as she barely had any left. I figured I’d take one for the team and die of dehydration first. The world needed her ethically conscious yogawear. After leading a breathing exercise, she pulled me to my feet and showed me how to stretch my leg and ass muscles. Even with just that little break the stars retreated, and I began to feel more like myself again.
As she began to fold forward to stretch the back of her legs, she stopped mid bend. “Do you hear that?”
I shook my head. The only thing I could hear was my pulse pounding against my eardrums. She turned and looked down the road in the direction we had come. Hearing the faintest sputtering sound, I stared down the crumbling tarmac, and then I saw it. Over the crest of one of Death Mountain’s mini-hills the top of a jumbo-sized tuk tuk puttered into view.
“We can flag it down,” Jade turned to me with an unreadable expression carved in her face. Disappointment? Concern? “I mean, if you want.”
Dear God, I wanted to give up. And salvation was approaching. My legs were on fire, my nether regions were beginning to bruise, and I was acutely aware of how out of shape I was, but as the tuk tuk approached, I couldn’t find it within me to raise my hand. Maybe I was more exhausted than I thought. As it passed us I saw Lana waving out of the back as she and a few other passengers laughed. No doubt laughing at our dumb decision to cycle.
In my dehydrated delirium, those faces and voices melted and transformed. Lana’s face morphed into Adam’s, mocking me, “You don’t stand a chance in the competition!” Ms. Hatching appeared next to him. “I always knew you were dead weight.” Even my tenth-grade teacher who failed me in art peered out of the window. “Ms. Rodrigues, I’m afraid to inform you that you have little to no artistic vision, and no sense of humour.”
Their faces faded into the ether as the tuk tuk disappeared over the crest of Death Mountain and my blood boiled over.
I’ll show them all.
“We could get the next one.” Jade’s small voice was even quieter.
“No,” I said, balling my hands into fists and marching towards my bike. “I can do this. We’re finishing this ride.”
Pushing through the burn flaring in muscles I never knew existed, we came over the crest of Death Mountain and as I gently braked on the long decline, I relished the cool breeze licking my sweaty skin. A new energy filled me as I caught my breath — at the same time I saw two young local girls selling bottles of water on the side of the road in the shade of an oversized umbrella at the base. I braked and pulled over in front of them with Jade following suit.
“The Universe delivers,” Jade said setting her bike on the ground next to them.
As we drank, we chatted with them. In broken English they told us they were thirteen and eleven years old, they spend the time they weren’t at school selling water, and they were sisters. They reminded me so much of Audrey and me. Swallowing the lump in my throat I thought of how theirs was a love I once had and will never have again. I asked if I could take their picture, and the older one gave an enthusiastic yes, while the younger hid behind her hands. My heart nearly burst as the older one grabbed the younger one, pulled her hands down, and rained kisses on her cheeks. I captured the entire scene like a comic book, and they laughed with delight as I showed the series of photos to them.
“Let’s get moving?” Jade said.
I nodded, finding it difficult to tear myself away from them. Freshly hydrated, we stocked up on as much water as we could carry, bid them farewell and set off for the remaining twenty-five kilometers.
Five hours after setting out, just as my legs were about to give out on me again, we saw the sign just past a grassy field for the waterfall. We pushed through those last few kilometers. After locking our bikes together to a tree in the parking lot, we high-fived each other, bought fresh mango fruit shakes, and followed a dirt path in the welcome shade of tall jungle trees. My breath caught in my throat as we followed a series of waterfalls, some narrow, some wide, feeding crystal blue water to lagoons surrounded by an overgrown forest.
My shutter stopped when a tuft of sandy blond hair in the distance caught my eye. He looked so familiar.
“Are you okay?” Jade asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I thought I saw…someone. But it couldn’t be,” I said, shrugging off the thought.
Following the path upstream we found what appeared to be a jungle watering hole for backpackers. Bandana-clad wanderers hung out on picnic tables chatting and mingling while others waiting for a turn on the rope-swing queued up on the fat branch of a huge tree overhanging a lagoon slightly larger than the first.
“Took you guys long enough,” a dripping wet Lana called from a picnic bench. “Go get in the water!”
Jade and I stripped to our bikinis, leaving our things with Lana, who was deep in flirtation mode with a pair of guys with muscle shirts and strange accents. Climbing the tree we waited for our turn on the rope-swing. As I watched the macho males try everything from dives to backflips, many ending in belly flops and face-plants, we decided to keep it simple and just swing and let go. Once Jade splashed into the water, I took the rope and stepped from the branch, full of my newfound confidence. As I broke the surface, the cold water punched the breath from my lungs. Ignoring the chill biting at my skin I ran my trembling fingers through my greasy hair as Jade floated on her back enjoying the serenity. I had seen pictures of waterfalls from all over the world, but none quite looked like this one.
I swam around, taking a closer look at the rocks, and the delicate leaves of the ferns hanging over the water. Leaning over the waterfall, I stood in the current, watching the water cascade to the next pool a few feet below, watching a tiny rainbow hovering in the mist, proud of myself for finishing the cycle trip. Jade and I already decided that we would take a tuk tuk back with Lana instead of riding. Doing that trip once was enough.
“Help!” A voice shattered the quiet. “Someone please help!”
I turned towards the direction of the voice to see a woman standing at the water’s edge pointing frantically at the water. “He jumped but didn’t come back up!”
Jade turned and dove beneath the water. I held my breath, staring at the water as I waited for my best friend to reemerge. I looked up to see people gathering around the woman who had collapsed to her knees in the dirt.
Where are you, Jade?
Then she broke the water’s surface clutching the lif
eless body of a man around his torso. I swam across the pool as fast as I could and helped her lay him flat on his back in the mud. The crowd that gathered had multiplied, each closing in for a better look.
“His pulse is weak,” Jade said holding two fingers to his throat.
“Mark, no, no, no!” she wailed.
“Lana,” I called, recognizing her flip-flops and summoning my relevant knowledge from Baywatch re-runs, I yelled, “Move everyone back, please.” I turned to the wailing girl. “What’s your name?”
“Veronica.”
“Veronica, I’m going to need you to remain calm,” I said looking her in her dinner-plate eyes. She nodded, and for some reason listened to me.
As I stretched my arms out trying to keep the crowd at bay, Jade began chest compressions. Nothing happened. Veronica was now crying hysterically as Jade pinched Mark’s nose and covered his mouth with hers. His chest rose and fell but still nothing happened. The moment she pressed her hands to his chest once more a low, yet strangely familiar voice thundered from above me, “Let me do it.”
It couldn’t be.
Moving to the side he crouched next to me, and I looked at his face.
Holy shit, it is.
My gaze never left him as he performed a set of forceful chest compressions. After two rescue breaths the lifeless vagabond was reanimated, gasping and vomiting out water.
“Oh my God, Mark, I thought you died,” Veronica said, pushing me out of the way. Sprawling in the mud and not sure if I was actually awake I watched her throw herself on my apparition. “Thank you for saving him.”
I suppressed a smile as his eyes scanned her half naked body.
“You’re welcome,” he said, as he stood and pulled Mark to his feet. “Let him catch his breath. He should be fine, but if he’s still not feeling well within thirty minutes find a doctor.”
Runaways Page 14