The Distance from Me to You

by Marina Gessner

  She sat up and scrambled back. In the dark of both the starless night and her own exhaustion, she’d apparently decided to sleep right on the edge of a cliff. She had put on her cap and pulled on Sam’s sweater, all at the edge of a thousand-foot drop-off, jagged shale cliffs leading down to the water. Sam’s pack sat at the edge, too, leaning forward a bit, like it was about to take a swan dive. It would have been a gorgeous and panoramic view to wake up to, if it hadn’t come with the realization that all night long, she’d been sleeping so close to a literal edge. Maybe she’d started out a few feet away and rolled closer as she slept (she couldn’t believe that even in her depleted state, she wouldn’t have sensed that gaping cavern). If she hadn’t woken up at just that moment, she might have taken the final roll.

  What would it have felt like, waking up in midair? Falling, falling, falling, to the freezing water below.

  Probably it would have felt a lot like yesterday. The knowledge, grim and terrifying, that she could very well die.

  It was barely after dawn, a fine mist of dampness covering everything. Her nose and cheeks felt cold and stiff, and she could see her breath. Hugging herself in Sam’s sweater, she wondered how he’d fared without it. At least he’d taken his wool coat. She imagined the tips of his ears, bright red, maybe even frostbitten.

  No, that was dramatic. It was cold in the mountains, definitely, but not yet near freezing. Dire as their situation seemed, they were lucky in some respects. A few weeks later, and they might have been caught in a snowstorm instead of a downpour. There might really have been no way to survive, alone out in the elements, without even each other to cling to.

  Part of surviving would be facing these, the lucky aspects, recognizing the things that would help her continue to move forward. For example: the lake! Wasn’t the lake a landmark? Two days ago, she and Sam had picnicked by its edge. She might not have her compass, or know how to use it. But if McKenna was facing the lake, she was sure they had come here from the right. Unless they’d managed to walk all the way to the other side of it?

  She had no way of knowing if she was sitting anywhere close to the place where they’d been. The edge of the lake could span miles. McKenna took a sip of water, deciding to save what little food she had left. Her stomach had stopped expecting food anyway, and eating something now could just make things worse. The last thing she needed was for one morsel to set off mad cravings, fantasies of cheeseburgers and pancakes, great piles of spaghetti and cold bottles of Coca-Cola.

  She took off the sweater, which she’d worn over her fleece jacket, and stuffed it into the pack. The very real possibility that Sam could be dead washed over her, so shocking that she couldn’t even manage to be afraid.

  What should I do? she asked herself, heading in the direction they might have come from in the first place. Should she look for Sam? Or should she try to find her way back to the tent, and go for help? Even if she found the tent, she wasn’t confident she could make her way back to the trail. And even if she did make her way back, it could be hours before she ran into anyone, or managed to find her way to the nearest outpost in her current state.

  In her mind she heard it, the crack of her phone as she’d slid down that embankment. What an idiot she’d been not to get a new one. But then, looking around at the thick layers of trees and peaks, she realized there was a good chance she was in one of the few places left on earth where she wouldn’t get reception. The real idiocy had been in coming off the trail in the first place.

  McKenna walked on. This walking wasn’t like on the trail, where you knew you were taking down miles, heading toward a specific destination. Another surge of fury toward Sam rose up inside her, but was immediately tamped down by the sight of something amazing, a stream. Maybe the same one she’d found yesterday. Or maybe the one she and Sam had stopped at on their way here. The uniformity of forest made it so hard to find your way. But she reminded herself of her plan, to recognize blessings when they appeared. She glugged down the rest of her water and knelt to refill the bottle, diligently plopping in two iodine tablets and tightening the lid.

  “Sam,” she called out, just for the hell of it, her voice barely rising. She’d called in vain so many times yesterday she didn’t believe he was even out there anymore. For the first time it occurred to her: Sam might not even be lost. Maybe he’d figured out the way back to her tent and was waiting for her there. Or maybe he’d arrived at the campsite, taken what he needed, and headed back to the trail.

  Even as these bitter thoughts formed, McKenna dismissed them. Sam might have his issues, sure. But she knew the person she loved wasn’t a figment of her imagination. The person she’d spent the past months with would never desert her so cruelly. Because he loved her. She knew he did.

  “Mack!”

  She heard it. Not maybe heard it, like yesterday. But she heard it, the voice calling out.

  “Sam!” she yelled. “Sam?”

  “Mack!” came the voice again. It sounded loud and strained, a last-ditch effort, a final exertion of energy. “Mack!”

  Any tiredness disappeared. She ran in the direction of the sound.

  SAM.

  MACK.

  SAM.

  MACK.

  McKenna found herself at the edge of a sharp incline, a ten-foot wall of rock that would have been nothing for either of them in the daytime.

  There at the bottom, in a pathetic heap, lay Sam.

  Her mother always said that McKenna never got scared. But if she was honest with herself, way back when she sat in the Student Union with Courtney and decided to do this hike alone, she had felt scared. She’d felt scared when she knew she was falling in love with Sam. And she’d felt scared ever since they’d been lost out here, realizing that they could die if they didn’t find their way back. She’d never been more scared in her life than yesterday, when she’d woken up to find Sam gone.

  But none of that compared to how she felt right now, at the sight of Sam at the bottom of this drop-off. His face was white and he was shivering. His lips were colorless and cracked, with red sores starting to break through. He looked like he’d lost twenty pounds since she’d last seen him, only thirty-six hours ago. He looked like he could die right here in front of her.

  He must have stumbled down it in the dark. She had to get to him. She leaned forward and slid the pack ahead of her, then crab-walked down carefully, bracing herself with her feet and the palms of her hands.

  “That was impressive,” Sam croaked when she reached him.

  McKenna swallowed her fear—terror, really—because it wouldn’t do them any good. She pulled her hat onto his head. Then she raised her water bottle to his lips. Sam drank more deeply than she’d ever seen, glugging it down in such fierce pulls she worried he’d drain the entire thing, or that he’d drink too much and heave. Gently, she pulled it away from him. The sour scent of vomit clung to him. She put her hand against the side of his face. It felt like a sheet of ice.

  “Sam,” she said. “What the hell happened?”

  “Wanted to get you some food. Didn’t you see my note?”

  “Note? How could you have left a note?”

  “In the dirt. Right by your head. So you couldn’t miss it.”

  He was shivering so hard, teeth chattering, like the warmth gathering with the morning sun couldn’t reach him. McKenna pulled off her jacket. The faculty adviser from their hiking club had always told them the only way to warm up someone who had hypothermia was skin-on-skin. Her body was the warmest thing around. But she couldn’t bear the thought of having to expose him before the warmth would work.

  “Look,” she said. “I’m going to take your clothes off.”

  “Do you really think this is the time?”

  “Very funny.” She untied his shoes, those ridiculous damn sneakers, working off the duct tape and what was left of the canvas. His bare feet were full of so many bliste
rs on blisters, she wondered how he’d been walking. “Once we get you warmed up we can figure out a way to hike out of here. Sam. Jeez.”

  In her hand, his ankle, so many colors she couldn’t count them, and looking three times its regular size, the ankle bone not visible.

  “I think it’s broken,” he said, his voice small.

  McKenna dug through her pack—Sam’s pack, really—she wished she had one of those instant ice packs, sitting useless back in her tent. She was sure she’d thrown in some ibuprofen. Finding it, she tamped out four pills and pressed them into Sam’s mouth, giving him just enough water to get them down. Again, he tried to drink hungrily, an uncontrollable glugging, like he’d die if he couldn’t get as much water into his body as possible. McKenna wondered if he’d had anything to drink at all since she’d last seen him.

  But questions could come later. Right now she had to warm him up. She stripped off the rest of his clothes and piled the sweater and two coats on top of him. Then she covered him with the tarp and stripped off her own clothes and climbed under everything with him, pressing her body—the exact right temperature a body should be—against his. Sam shivered against her, she could feel his teeth against her neck, chattering, his body becoming violent as his temperature rose. She wrapped her arms around him and held him as tightly as she could.

  Desperate as she felt, she continued to feel thankful for small pieces of good luck. She had managed to stay warm last night, and had carried that warmth with her to Sam. After half an hour or so she could feel his body calming, warming against her own. The sky above their heads was blue and clear, no clouds, no threat of rain.

  She had found Sam. He was alive, and so was she. Not only that, but he hadn’t wandered off and left her. At least not on purpose.

  It was hard to say how much time passed. Enough for the sun to broaden, its rays reaching down and warming the top of her head—she pulled her cap off Sam so he could feel it, too. He lay still now, the shivering having subsided. His eyes were tightly closed but she couldn’t tell if he was sleeping or reveling in the sensation of being warm again or trying to block out what must be massive pain from that mangled ankle. The tiniest bit of color had come back to his face. He still looked pale, but his skin looked fluid again, as if those sheets of ice had melted. She pressed her hand against his cheek, imagining that she could feel blood pulsing underneath her palm, moving through his veins. She kissed him and his eyelashes parted, allowing her to see that burst of color, the pale but vivid blue, brighter than the clear sky.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey.” And then he kissed her back, his lips still dry but already mending. McKenna felt a surge of hope. They were so strong from these months on the trail. And they were young. Everything about them would regenerate quickly. They would bounce back. Every part of Sam would mend, just as his lips were mending. Their bodies pressed together for warmth and comfort. But also for love.

  “I love you,” she told him.

  “I love you, too. I’m sorry. That was the most boneheaded thing I’ve ever done, walking off like that. And I’ve done a lot of boneheaded things.”

  “No. It’s okay. You wanted to get food. You weren’t thinking straight. You meant well.”

  “Right, good intentions. That means we’re on our way to hell, right?”

  The warmth that had been gathering so consistently in her chest chilled for an instant. Then she said, “Sam. This is no time for pessimism. Pessimism could get us killed.”

  “I’m not being pessimistic,” he said. “I’m being realistic.”

  “A realist is just a pessimist who thinks he’s right.”

  “Who said that?”

  “Me. Right now.”

  “Yeah, well.” Sam winced, as if he’d moved the wrong way. McKenna had never broken a bone in her life, so she couldn’t imagine how painful that ankle must feel. “That’s very smart of you to say, but it doesn’t mean we’re not screwed.”

  McKenna climbed out from under the tarp and put all her clothes back on except for her jacket, which she stuffed into her pack. Sam sat up, too. He cut the right leg of his jeans with his knife, making room for the swollen ankle, and pulled them on. When they were both dressed again, McKenna put her hat back onto Sam’s head.

  “My dad always says the most important thing to keep warm is your head,” she said.

  “You know what? My dad used to say that, too.”

  McKenna sat next to him, offered a sip of water. This was the closest thing to nice she’d ever heard him say about his dad.

  “He wasn’t always so bad,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “You know how I told you my mom took us camping? Well, way back in the early days when we were little, my dad used to take us camping, too. I mean, we’d go as a family. You know how I kept telling you all the things I learned from the Boy Scouts? Well, I was never a Boy Scout, Mack. I learned all that stuff from my dad.”

  His face looked different, more vulnerable. She reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder, holding him steady. “Sam,” she said. “Let’s save the confessions for later. Okay? Let’s make them when we’re in a hospital, and you’re doped up on painkillers with a cast on that ankle, and we’ve got a roof over our heads and eighty more years ahead of us.”

  She stopped short of saying, Don’t act like this is your deathbed. Because I won’t let it be.

  “Mack,” he said. “Haven’t you wanted to ask what happened to my mother?”

  “I was waiting for you to tell me.”

  “She was cleaning this lady’s house, she did that sometimes when she could get the work. And she came across a cabinet with all these pills, anxiety meds, Valium and Ativan and Xanax. She carried them down to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water and swallowed every last pill. She threw the bottles away and rinsed out the glass—she was always considerate about little details like that. She didn’t like to leave messes for other people. Then she walked out of that house, I guess so nobody would find her in time to save her. She walked into the woods and lay down under a Kentucky coffee tree. And I guess all the anxiety went away.”

  McKenna’s hand held on to his shoulder.

  “I was fourteen,” Sam finished.

  McKenna lay down next to him, pulling the tarp back over them. She didn’t say anything—everything she could think of felt too trite, too much like something she’d heard other people say. So she just held him.

  After a while she finally said, “Sam? I’m going to tell you I’m sorry about what happened to your mom when I know we’re safe. But for now? No more confessions. No more energy spent on anything except getting out of here.”

  “There is no way out. Not for me. I can barely move. I definitely can’t walk. And I won’t drag you down with me.”

  “Well, then you better try harder. Because I’m not leaving without you.”

  “I shouldn’t have called out to you,” Sam said. “I was so freaking delirious. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have.”

  “Well, I’m happy for delirium, then,” McKenna said. She pushed the tarp off him. “We’re both walking out of these woods.”

  Sam sat up. He carefully moved his legs, wincing again from the pain. McKenna gave him a couple more ibuprofen, hoping they wouldn’t upset his stomach. She found some thick sticks and fashioned a makeshift splint, using liberal amounts of Sam’s duct tape. They ate the last of the awful salmon jerky, had a few more sips of water, and got to their feet.

  “I’ll get you up this cliff first,” McKenna said. “Then I’ll come back for the pack.”

  “I hate this, Mack,” he said. “I want to be the one helping you.”

  “So you wish my ankle were broken?”

  “No,” he said. “Though you have to admit, it would be easier for me to carry you than vice versa.”

  McKenna frowned and draped his arm around her. Sam almost laughed. �
��I’m not saying you’re not superwoman. If you’ve proved anything, it’s that you are. But I still don’t think you can piggyback me up there.”

  He was right. Just testing the smallest bit of weight he’d allow her, she quickly realized she couldn’t carry him at all. She might be able to support him if they were walking, but not while scaling a wall.

  “Here,” she said. “You do it without using that ankle. I’ll be right below you, to spot you where you need it.”

  They made their way up slowly, McKenna just below Sam; twice he slid down and automatically used both legs to stop himself, crying out in pain. But finally they got out of the little ravine. They stood at the top of the ledge, panting, each taking a tiny sip of sustaining water. Then McKenna shimmied back down to get the pack.

  “I’m just going to slow you down,” he said when she returned.

  “Stop it.”

  “I’m going to kill whatever chance you have of getting out of here. Which is the same thing as killing you.”

  “Shut up.”

  “But—”

  “Shut up. First, you’re always leaving. Now you want to make me leave.”

  “Mack, I—”

  “No. We’re in this together. Whatever happens, we stick together. I’m not leaving you ever again. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Sam said, but he didn’t sound happy about it.

  “I’m going to go look for a walking stick. If you use me on one side, and the stick on the other, maybe you can walk without putting weight on the ankle.”

  “Which will have us moving at the rate of an inchworm.”

  “It will if that’s your attitude.” McKenna was trying to use the stern voice her track coach used when spirits were lagging. But just as Sam’s voice, trying to be wry and realistic, was tinged with something past despair, so was her own with the sound of rising panic.

  And hopelessness.

  Yesterday she’d had a goal: to find Sam. That first goal achieved, her goal had become getting him warm and then out of his little ditch.