by B. B. Hamel
I meet her at the crossroads where we left each other last time. I stretch my legs a little bit, ignoring the dull ache in my knee. It’s actually less painful today than it has been in a while, maybe because it knows I’m about to do a more difficult hike than usual. I still have my walking stick, but I probably don’t even need it.
Addie’s running a few minutes late so I lean up against a tree and look out at the forest. It’s been so long since I really felt comfortable somewhere, and it’s strange how quickly I’m acclimating to being home. Russia never felt like home to me, especially since we lived in a major city. Moscow was nice, but there weren’t exactly pristine hiking paths all over the place.
I never really knew that I was a hiking and nature kind of guy. I didn’t miss it all that much out in Notre Dame, although I was admittedly too busy playing hockey and getting drunk to really notice it. Out in Russia, I definitely got sick of the hustle and the bustle, but again, I was oto busy playing hockey to really think too hard.
Now that I’m home though, back in Weston, I realize just how nice it is to be around nature. Having all this pristine land and all these hiking trails at my disposal is a huge blessing, one I don’t think I really appreciated when I was in high school. Granted, I put it to good use, but still.
The wind picks up, a tiny cyclone of leaves. I shift my weight to my good knee and I spot Addie coming down the short hill to my left, picking her way carefully through the tall grass. She spots me and waves, heaving over in my direction.
I go to meet her, trying to calm my hammering heart. She’s wearing short khaki shorts, hiking boots with tall socks, and a long sleeve dark blue shirt. My eyes linger on her body and I hope she doesn’t notice.
“Still got your cane, old man?” she asks.
I grin a little. “For now,” I say. “But I’ll be running circles around you soon.”
“Doubt it,” she says, returning my smile. “Know where we’re going?”
We start walking together. She sets a slow pace, which I’m thankful for. “Nope,” I say. “Didn’t give it much thought.”
“Of course you didn’t.” She’s still smiling as she runs her hand over top her hair, smoothing out her ponytail. “I know a good spot.”
“Yeah? Have I seen it before?”
“Actually, no,” she says, and glances at me. “I’m not sure you can do it.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s sort of a secret spot I found,” she says. “But it’s hard to get to.”
I frown. “If you can do it, I can do it.”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t get all masculine on me.”
“I’m not. My knee doesn’t hurt that bad.”
“Sure it doesn’t. So why are you limping?”
I wince. I didn’t think she’d notice. “I’m not,” I lie anyway.
She nods but doesn’t respond, lips pursed in thought. “Yeah, okay, fine,” she says finally. “Just don’t die, okay?”
“Die?” I laugh at her. “Where the hell are we going?”
She grins. “You’ll see.”
We head down along the path that curves toward the river. The water’s rushing gurgle colors our conversation as I turn it toward what she’s been doing these last couple years. She talks about Cara, although a little guardedly. I can tell she’s protective of her daughter, which I totally get, although I don’t know why she extends that to me. Unless…
“It’s been boring without you,” she says finally, ending a story about playing checkers with Eleanor every night for a week.
“Sounds horrible,” I say, smiling at her. “I mean, all that time without me?”
“Worse fate than death,” she says.
“Dunno how you did it.”
“Lots of sleepless nights.” She sighs dramatically. “If only you had come sooner to save me.”
I laugh and hip check her a little bit. She grins and bumps me back, making my knee twinge, but I ignore it.
We walk for a few minutes in easy silence. I spot two squirrels chasing each other through the underbrush and up ahead, as the path bends in toward the river, a deer darts away.
“Remember that case of beer we found?” I ask her, suddenly remembering a clear, crisp autumn afternoon back in high school.
She laughs. “What just brought that up?”
“We found it over there,” I say, pointing toward a small rock formation. “Tucked under a tarp. Remember that?”
“Yeah,” she says, grinning. “It was probably some senior boy’s stash.”
“Definitely,” I agree. “We drank so much that day.
“Yeah, we did.” Her face darkens a bit. “That was the day I decided I hate drinking.”
“You don’t hate drinking,” I say, laughing a little. “You hate drinking too much.”
“Same thing.”
“Most people can drink without getting hammered.”
“I never learned that trick.”
I grin, remembering that afternoon. We started out shotgunning beers, or at least trying to, over near the waterfall where the noise would mask the cracking of the cans. We were overly paranoid back then but it was pretty fun. Addie got beer all down the front of her and I didn’t do much better, and we were pretty sticky when we opened our next cans.
We ended up sitting at the edge of the falls, feet dangling over the side, drinking beer after beer and throwing them down into the river below. We weren’t exactly respectful of nature back then, which I regret, but not much I can do about it now.
“By the time it was dark, you couldn’t even stand,” I say. “Remember how terrifying it was trying to get you off those rocks?”
“Oh god,” she groans. “No, I honestly don’t remember.”
“Really? I hate to get up first and practically pick you up.”
“Holy crap. Weren’t we right at the edge?”
“Yep,” I say. “It was terrifying and dark and I was a little drunk too.”
“I just remember feeling dizzy one second, sitting up on those rocks, and the next puking in some bushes.”
“Not before puking on my shoes,” I say, laughing.
She groans again. “I don’t remember that, either.”
“I know. I never told you about it, didn’t want you to feel bad.’
“So you’re okay telling me now?”
I shrug, laughing with her. “It’s been long enough. Now it’s just funny.”
“Ah, youth,” she says, rolling her eyes. “We were really stupid back then, weren’t we?”
“Sure,” I say. “Not much smarter now though.”
“I’m a mom,” she points out. “I’m as responsible as I’ll ever get.”
“True,” I conceded. “I’m an ex-hockey player with no job and no prospects. So I guess the opposite of you.”
She laughs a little bit but the smile doesn’t reach her eyes, and I’m not relay smiling much, either. I think she can see right through my jokes, but she pretends ont to.
“You should probably know, what we’re doing today isn’t much safer,” she says without looking at me.
“Been taking risks lately?”
She shakes her head. “Not really. It’s just… well, you’ll see.”
I nod and we walk on. I don’t know where she’s taking me, but I’m exicted to find out.
As we come around the bend and angle toward the falls, I remember one more thing from the night we found that beer. I haven’t told her this part either, but it’s my favorite part.
After she was done throwing up and I was walking her home, she was leaning up against me, and we were holding hands. It was totally normal, holding hands and all, at least in that moment it felt that way. When we struck across the field toward Eleanor’s house, she stopped suddenly and looked up at me.
“You’re the prettiest guy I know,” she said, voice slurring.
I grinned at her. “Oh yeah?”
“Gorgeous,” she said, and laughed. “Isn’t that sad?”
/> “No, it’s nice.”
“Sad.” She shook her head. “Sad, sad, sad.”
“You’re not sad,” I said softly, looking down at her. She’s so small, sometimes it was easy to forget.
“Will you kiss me?” she asked, taking me completely off guard.
For a second, I considered it. We were friends, close friends, but I can’t pretend like there hasn’t been a flirtation there for a long time. She was beautiful and funny and knew me better than anyone else, and I almost did it.
We got so close. But then I smelled her breath. Stale puke and Miller Lite. I pulled back and she just put her head against my chest, groaning to herself.
“Let’s get you home,” I said, and we started walking again.
I don’t think she remembers that part, or at least we’ve never talked about it. I thought we might bring it up that night we finally slept together, but then things got so weird afterward, and it was hard to talk about anything anymore. I still don’t know what pushed her away so fast, but I’m starting to be able to make some guesses.
We come up to the falls and head right over to our usual spot. Instead of going down the rocks, we head off to the side, along the cliff. She steps next to a tree that’s barely holding on to the edge by its roots, right across from the waterfall itself, and looks back at me.
“Follow my lead,” she says.
I can’t stop her. She steps forward, grabbing onto the tree, and slowly lowers herself down.
“Addie!” I call out. I can barely hear myself over the rushing of water. I run over to the edge as fast as my hurt knee can take me, and look over the side.
Addie looks up at me, grinning. “It gets better,” she calls up.
I sigh, letting out a breath of relief. She’s on a rocky alcove, maybe five feet down. She starts walking along it carefully, heading over to the water itself. I grab the tree roots and use them to lower myself down onto the alcove, thanking whatever higher power I believe in when my feet touch solid rock.
I shuffle along behind her. I don’t look down. I have no clue how she found this spot or what the hell made her want to come down here, but this is by far the most dangerous thing we’ve ever done. She edges toward the water, getting way too close, before she looks back over her shoulder.
She grins and yells something. I can’t hear her. “What?” I call back.
She says something again, her grin even bigger, before turning forward and throwing herself at the water.
I gape before rushing forward. I don’t think as I follow her into the waterfall, terrified that she’s going to fall and drown. I don’t know what I’m going to do to save her if I fall right behind her, but I have to try.
Instead of falling, I stumble forward and slam into a wall. I’m soaking wet from where I passed through the water, but I’m still on rocky ground. The light’s dimmer here and the waterfall’s still rushing to my left, but there’s something else, something that opens to my right.
“I didn’t think you’d follow.”
Addie’s sitting on the ground, leaning back on her hands. “What… what is this?”
She grins at me. “Cave behind the water fall. Pretty classic, yeah?”
I stare and sure enough, there’s a cave that goes back into the rock. It cuts sharply down, going pretty deep.
“How’d you find it?” I ask.
“Went exploring one day and saw that the ledge we were on just disappears into the water. So I sort of stuck my leg through while holding onto the wall… and felt this.”
“Shit, Addie.”
She shrugs. “I know, it was stupid. I was a little reckless when Cara was first born.”
I don’t ask her why. “This is crazy.”
“I know. It’s pretty great.” She grins, looking really proud of herself.
I laugh and watch the water rushing in front of us. It’s bizarre and magic and incredible, and I suddenly forget that I’m dripping wet. I don’t care if I can’t imagine how we’ll get out of there. All I can do is laugh at this amazing spot Addie found, and marvel at how incredible she is.
She grins along with me as I slowly sit down next to her. “Have you explored back there at all?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Haven’t been able to.”
“Dark,” I say, and she nods.
“Still can’t do it.”
“I understand.” We lapse into a short silence. Addie hates darkness, especially tight, dark spaces. It reminds her of her childhood.
We watch the water pour in front of us. “Do you still think about it?” I ask her suddenly.
She looks at me, and she doesn’t ask what I mean. I think she’s not going to answer for a minute, but slowly she sighs. “All the time,” she admits. “I don’t know why. Especially since Cara was born.”
“I think that makes sense,” I say. “You’re a mom now, and you’re remembering what your mom was like.”
“Yeah, maybe.” She squeezes some water out of her hair, fidgeting the whole time. “It used to feel like a dream for a long time, you know?”
I nod, but I don’t say anything. We’ve done this before, and she’s said this to me before. It’s like the old days all over again.
“Except lately, it feels too real,” she continues. “I have these dreams where I’m back down there. I can hear the mice, the dripping water, my parents fighting upstairs, all that stuff. I wake up freaking out.”
“You haven’t had nightmares in a while, right?” I ask.
She nods. “Yeah, I mean, not since like the first year away.”
“And this is all since your daughter was born?”
“Yeah, and I don’t know why. I mean, it’s not like I’m going to lock her in a basement for weeks at a time and starve her within an inch of her life.”
She says it so casually but I know how hard it is for her to even speak those words out loud.
“No, you’re not,” I say. “You’re never going to do what they did to you.”
“I’m afraid, though. That’s… in me.”
I shake my head. “It doesn’t work like that. What your parents did, they did. Something happened to make them that way. You won’t make those mistakes.”
“Mistakes,” she says, laughing a little bit, although it’s not funny. “Nice way of putting it.”
“You know what I mean.” I pull my legs up to my chest, knee complaining. “You’re not going to lock your kids in the basement. And I’m not going to beat the shit out of my kids, whenever I have kids.”
She looks away from me, and I catch something in her expression. “I know you’re right,” she says finally. “It’s just strange, you know? Now that I have a baby, I can’t imagine what the fuck my parents were thinking.” She clenches her jaw and her fingers dig into the rocks.
I move across the space between us, putting my side against hers. We’re both soaking wet, but she’s warm against me. “They’re gone,” I say. “They can’t hurt you, and they won’t hurt your daughter.”
“Yeah.” She takes a deep breath. “You’re right.” She looks at me and shakes her head, smiling a little. “Sorry to dump on you like this. Whenever we’re together, it’s always such a pity party, right?”
“Right,” I say, smiling with her, although I don’t think it’s funny. “When’s the last time you talked about this stuff?”
“Not since the last time we talked about it.”
“You can’t talk to Eleanor?”
“She’s not good at listening. She always wants to give advice or talk shit on my parents. It’s just helpful.” She sighs. “Her advice is always good, but sometimes I don’t want advice.”
I nod a little. “I hear you. What about a therapist?”
“I haven’t seen anyone since Dr. Joey, and she retired.”
“You’ve bottled it up. Seems safe.”
She grins at me. “Look who’s talking. Anyway, I found an escape. You’re sitting in it.”
“Real safe.” I nudge her and she laug
hs.
“Well, whatever. I feel better.” She looks up at me. “Thanks for listening.”
“Any time, Addie.” I hesitate. “Seriously, any time.”
“Yeah.”
We fall into silence again, watching the water pour down. I don’t know how long passes like that, our legs and shoulders touching in the small space, the cave opening up behind us. She finally sighs, stretches her legs, and stands.
“Let’s get back.”
“Sure.” I slowly get to my feet. “Lead the way, since I don’t exactly know how to get back up.”
She grins at me and steps back through the water. I follow her, and have a mini fucking heart attack as I do it. That’s freaky as shit, but we’re back on the ledge and she shimmies back over to the tree. There’s a rock jutting out from the wall that she steps up onto and uses that to boost herself up just high enough to grab onto a root. She pulls herself up and over and disappears up top.
I follow her lead, and although my knee’s screaming out in protest, I manage to scrabble up the side. She helps pull me up and we end up on the ground, twisted up together and laughing.
“Holy shit, let’s never do that again,” I say, her body against mine.
“Honestly, that was way more terrifying than I remembered,” she says. “I haven’t been down there in a few months.”
“I’m glad you brought me. But yeah. Never again.”
She grins and we stay there a second, touching and close, before I finally pull away and get up. I help her to her feet and we walk back together, at an even slower clip than before.
We make idle small talk, but it doesn’t feel like it did back behind the water fall. It was like we were kids again and everything in the world was out to get us. We could talk about our problems and pretend like we’re alone together, ignoring everyone else, a happy little island of two.
Now though, we’re back on dry land, up where its safe, and somehow that feeling’s gone. Well, not totally gone, but muted.
“Thanks for doing this with me,” I say to her. “I had fun.”
“Yeah, me too.” She pauses a second. “I hate to admit it, but these hikes weren’t the same without you.”
“I know.” I grin at her one more time. “I’ll see you later, Addie.”
“See you.”