Played
Page 6
“No.” Riley lifted her chin. “I was a Bluebird.”
“What the heck is a Bluebird?”
“Someone who didn’t want to be a Girl Scout.”
“Did they happen to teach survival techniques to Bluebirds?”
“No.” She looked up at me, totally serious. A raindrop clung to her eyelash and I thought about reaching down to wipe it away with my finger. “But I did get a cooking patch for making macaroni and cheese from scratch.”
“Totally useless right now.”
“Agreed,” she said, grimacing.
We laughed again and Riley blinked, the lone raindrop trickling down her cheek.
I leaned back against the tree trunk again with Riley pressed against my chest. We looked out past the branches. The world had become a gray wall of water, and I wondered how much longer the tree branches would shield us.
Since it looked like we’d be stranded for a while and Riley was tucked inside my arms, I got brave and said, “So, what’s with all the pink?”
She turned her head to peer up at me from beneath the brim of her cap. “What do you mean?” she said, although I knew she knew what I meant. I mean, come on!
“You. Pink. It’s all you ever wear.”
Her clear eyes widened. “How would you know?” She turned defensive and I immediately felt like an idiot. Here I was just trying to make small talk, and I succeeded in pissing her off again in less than twenty seconds.
Just as I was about to open my mouth and apologize, she said, “What about you? Ever heard of a washing machine?” Her button nose wrinkled for emphasis. The awkwardness between us had returned.
I closed my eyes and counted to three. “I was at a party last night. Got home too late to change.”
“How nice for you.” She didn’t hide the contempt in her voice.
“Our maid doesn’t work on Saturdays,” I added, matching hers with more of my own.
“Ha. Ha.” She exhaled. “Now you think we have a maid?”
“Well, don’t you?” Ryan Berenger had gotten a new Jeep for his sixteenth birthday. He wore expensive sunglasses and his parents were members at the country club. Didn’t people like that employ maids?
Riley exhaled again, loud. Loud enough for me to hear the disgust in her voice. Or maybe it was disappointment. She shifted in my arms. “Look, could we just not talk?” She tugged on the rim of her baseball cap again.
Now my shoulders shrugged indifferently. “Sure. Just making conversation.” I looked out at black clouds blowing straight for us.
“Well, insults don’t exactly make good conversation starters.”
“Okay,” I challenged. “So you say something. We might be here awhile, you know.” I hesitated to tell her that it could be more than a little while, especially when she kept reaching for her leg, the one she said hurt the most.
“I wonder what everyone’s doing up at the campsite? You think anyone’s noticed we haven’t come back yet?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not.”
“Hasn’t it been hours already?”
“Maybe.”
“I wonder what they’re thinking,” Riley said. She had finally stopped shivering.
“Who?” I really hoped she wasn’t referring to Jay Hawkins again.
“The other kids.”
“What do you care what they think?”
“I always care what other people think,” she said. “Years of practice. Can’t help it. Don’t you?”
I chuckled. “I couldn’t care less.”
She sighed, heavy. “I wish I was more like that.”
“Then why aren’t you?”
She looked at the name tag on my chest. I reached down and ripped the soggy thing off.
“I suppose you’re the one who nicknamed me Pink Girl. Real nice, by the way. Very original.”
“That really fits you. And I may borrow it from time to time. But it wasn’t me.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
Her chin lifted. “Which one?”
“Guess.”
She sighed like she didn’t want to play. But then she said, “Bossypants.”
I bit back a laugh because that nickname seriously had crossed my mind for Riley Berenger. “Nope. Not me.”
She pulled back. “Smart?”
“Nope.”
Her voice grew louder. “Thorough?”
I smiled down at her. “Bingo.”
“But that is so…lame.”
“I thought it was perfect for you. The perfect nickname.”
“Thorough is for grandmothers and computer manuals, Sam. A girl doesn’t want to be nicknamed Thorough.” She rolled her eyes and looked away. “I thought for sure yours was Pink Girl.” Then she reached for her name tag and peeled it off her sweatshirt. She crumpled it up and slipped it into her pocket.
“So which one was yours?”
“I’m kind of hungry. Are you?” she said, ignoring my dumb question since her pink ink on my name tag made it pretty obvious which nickname she’d chosen for me. I was Complicated, though? What did she mean by that?
“What do you have?”
She reached into a pocket in her sweatshirt. “One water bottle.” She reached into her other front pocket. “A slightly broken granola bar.” And then she reached inside her pocket a third time. “And one stupid pinecone.” She threw it as hard as she could into the slanting rain.
“Nice throw.”
“It’s a gift,” she said.
I looked down at her as she continued to stare straight ahead. Riley’s neck was long and pearly white, almost translucent. For some reason my eyes landed on the skin just below her ear and stayed there. I swear I could see her pulse move, and it stole my breath for a second. I did a mental headshake. But before I could stop myself, I said, “You know, you’d be a lot prettier without that hat.”
Silence. She turned to me, unamused.
I swallowed, hard. I had no idea why I’d said that. It just popped out. Suddenly I was a fashion expert?
But it was true.
“I’ll shut up now,” I said.
Riley nodded and looked away. Instead of making stupid small talk, we listened to the rain.
13
Riley
Sam was seriously starting to freak me out. Why did he say such things? I knew he was a little odd—well, I really didn’t know that to be a hard fact, but I had heard that he acted strangely.
Scratch that.
More like it was what I’d observed.
Sam often sat by himself in the cafeteria. I knew this because I sat alone sometimes, too. And when you sit alone, pretending to study the math book beside your sandwich or doodle in the corners of your notebook, your eyes tend to scan the whole room beneath your eyelashes. My attention was usually drawn to other loners like me. There weren’t many of us but, if we wanted to, we could have started a club.
The one thing that stood out about Sam was that he didn’t mind being alone. He wore his aloneness like a badge, challenging anyone to mock him. No one ever dared to look at him funny or anything. It was sort of a mutual unspoken understanding, which I suppose you could negotiate when you were well over six feet tall and, maybe, two hundred pounds. Even the biggest senior boys kept their distance from Sam. One time I’d sketched his face in my notebook because I liked the way his expression never seemed to change and yet it said everything.
And now he sat behind me, his arms wrapped around my shoulders like we snuggled all the time. Like we were best friends. And he’d said that I could be pretty. What kind of boy says something like that after insulting you a half-dozen times? None that I knew—not that I knew many.
But Sam Tracy was indeed a strange boy. He wasn’t like my brother’s friends, and it wasn’t just because he was Gila or Native or Native American or whatever he called himself, either. He was just different from all the boys I knew. He didn’t say much, and when he did he didn’t waste time with too many words.
Weakening, I peeled back the wrapper to our only food source. I wasn’t ready to eat pinecones. “What some?” I pointed my granola bar at him.
He shook his head. “Nah. You eat it.”
“We can share.” I pulled back the paper and broke the bar in two.
Sam lifted his hand. “Better not eat it all at once.”
“Seriously?” My voice got higher. “You seriously think we’ll be here that long for it to matter?”
He looked up at the tree, considering my question. “Maybe.”
So I halved the half and stuffed the other half back in the wrapper. “For later,” I said.
Sam took his piece and chewed it slowly, his lips making a perfect circle, which looked really strange on him.
I did the same, trying to savor each morsel like he did. I closed my eyes and tasted the tiny bit of chocolate, a sliver of almond, a breath of dried cranberry and then crunchy honey and oats. It was probably the first time I had ever truly tasted a granola bar, despite inhaling at least two after every dance practice for the last two years. “Not bad,” I said when I allowed myself to swallow the last bite.
“I would rather have had your macaroni and cheese.” There was a smile in Sam’s voice.
“Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“True,” he said.
“Now for the water. Pretend it’s champagne.”
“Have you ever tasted champagne?”
“No,” I said, popping open the cap. “This is pretend.”
“Then I’ll pretend it’s a chocolate shake.”
“Yum. Even better.” I passed the bottle to Sam. “You first.”
First he raised his hand, motioning for me to take it, but I insisted. “Just a sip,” he said, finally tipping the bottle to his lips. And a thimbleful was all he took. Barely enough for a bird. “Now, you.”
I took the bottle and it took all my willpower to drink just a sip. I could have swallowed a gallon. “I guess if we get desperate we can suck the water off leaves, right?”
“I hope we don’t have to.”
Lightning flashed all around us and the mountain lit up like a birthday cake. A few seconds later, the sky cracked open even louder than before and I jumped. “This storm is freaky,” I said, my knees curling into Sam. “And it feels like it’s getting colder.” He pulled me closer.
“We’ve got to do something to pass the time,” Sam said. “Or we’re really going to go nuts.”
“Damn straight,” I said, almost leaping into his lap when the lightning cracked again.
“See? You’re not as perfect as you think. You even curse.”
“Who said I was perfect?”
“No one needs to.”
“You don’t really know me.”
“I know enough.”
“Humph,” I said, slightly taken aback. “Well, since you’ve got me all figured out, tell me something about you.” I paused, just as lightning filled the sky again, turning everything all silvery-gray. Like a camera flash. “Tell me something no one else knows.”
“No,” Sam said quickly.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“What’s it matter? We’re not going anywhere for a while. You said so yourself. And besides that crazy elk, we’re the only ones out here.” Rain splattered above us, droplets bouncing from one branch to another, one pine needle to another. It was as if we sat below a giant fountain, each raindrop trying desperately to reach our hiding spot. “I’ll give you the rest of the granola bar if you do.” My eyebrows wiggled.
“Forget it.”
“You’re no fun.”
“Wait. I thought I was complicated?”
“Touché.” I sighed and looked away.
I counted raindrops when the storm quieted for a few seconds. During one stretch, I almost reached one hundred. But the rain always returned to pound around us like an encore. The sky soon became so dark that we didn’t even get a sunset.
Sam’s shoulders began to shiver. I hadn’t thought he ever got cold, but he was wearing only a T-shirt. At least I had a sweatshirt.
This wasn’t good.
“Okay,” I said, mostly to keep our minds off the growing cold and our grumbling stomachs. “If you won’t go first. I will.” I bit the inside of my lip to keep my teeth from chattering, because if they started again I wasn’t certain they’d stop.
“What are you talking about now?”
“I’m going to tell you something personal,” I said. “And you have to promise never to tell a soul. Can I trust you?” I looked up at him, just as the sky flashed another bolt of lightning, squiggly white lines stretching in every direction. “Promise?”
Sam surprised me by nodding. Or maybe he was shivering again. Whatever it was, I decided to tell him. What if we never made it off this mountain? What if we froze together tonight in each other’s arms? What did I have to lose?
I took a deep breath to steady myself and said, “I let my best friend use BOTOX on my forehead on Friday night. That’s why I’m wearing this stupid baseball cap.”
Dead silence.
Sam’s chest began to shake—but not from shivering. From laughter. It was the dry-heave, raspy kind, like he was having difficulty catching his breath. It started slowly and then built to a splitting crescendo.
“Thanks,” I said, between his chest heaves. “Thanks a lot. Glad you find it hilarious.”
His laughter turned into a coughing fit when he tried to speak. He raised his hand, begging me to wait. Sam’s laughter finally subsided until all we could hear were raindrops again.
“Why would you do that, Riley?” He reached for the brim of my baseball cap but I slapped his hand, which only got him chuckling again.
“I’m gullible. I was bored. I don’t know. My best friend, Drew, talked me into it. I blame her.”
“Does your forehead hurt?”
“I don’t know. I can’t feel it.”
Sam started another laughing fit and I just shook my head at him, biting back my own smile.
When he finally quieted, I challenged him. “Okay, now it’s your turn to play. You’ve got to tell me something juicy, something really personal. And I swear to god I’ll keep bugging you till you do. I could bug you all night. I swear, I will.” I looked out beneath the branches into nothing but infinite blackness. “We’re not going anywhere, so make it a good one.”
14
Sam
“I’m not playing.”
I was defiant. I even forgot how chilled I’d become for a few seconds. There was no way I was playing Riley’s stupid game.
It was such a girl thing. Why did girls always feel compelled to share personal embarrassing stuff? And BOTOX? Are you kidding me? Why would a pretty girl do something like that? Girls confused me.
“Please?” she begged.
“No.”
“Chicken!”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe you’ll play?” She tugged on the collar of my T-shirt, hard.
“Never.”
“Then I’ll have to guess.”
In the growing darkness, I heard her lips smack. It was obvious that she was giving this way too much thought. I could practically hear the wheels spinning in her head. Or maybe that was just her teeth chattering.
“Still cold?” I said to change the subject.
“I’m freezing,” she said, just as a gust of wind blew through the tree, knocking icy raindrops off the branches. “This is miserable.” We shivered in each other’s arms.
“Your sweatshirt is wet.”
“So’s your T-shirt.”
We hugged tighter. We breathed heavily for warmth. We rubbed skin where we could reach. We didn’t have a choice. And while it didn’t seem so bad in the dark, now that we couldn’t see each other’s eyes, the si
tuation was clearly going from bad to really, really freaking bad. Ugly words raced through my head—hypothermia and pneumonia, for starters.
“Riley.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way—” I paused for courage “—but there’s something we need to do. Now.”
“You’ve changed your mind about playing?” Her voice turned giddy, even as her teeth resumed chattering. I hoped she wasn’t starting to crack. I’d read about such things in life-or-death situations. Some people turned crazy as a survival mechanism.
My eyes rolled. “No. I’m not talking about playing your game. Be serious.”
“What, then?”
“We have to take our clothes off.”
Her body stiffened against mine.
“We’re soaking wet,” I added by way of explanation. “We could freeze to death if we don’t take them off.”
“We could freeze to death with them on.”
“True.” I nodded, trying to play to her reasonable side. “But we should at least…consider it. For body heat.”
“Get naked?” she whispered.
“Get naked.”
But then her shoulders softened beneath my hands. “Yeah, I was thinking about how to handle the wet clothes, too.”
“This is survival,” I stammered a little. “Nothing else.”
“Agreed,” she said. “Survival.” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than me. “What about underwear?”
“I guess…I guess we can leave those on.”
“Okay,” she said. It sounded like she was trying to work up her nerve.
At least it’s dark, I wanted to assure her, but that sounded like something a creepy guy would say. “I’ll go first—”
Riley caught my arm in the dark, interrupting me. “Let’s do it together.”
“Okay. On the count of three.” I counted slowly. “One…”
“Two,” Riley said with me.
“Three.”
With only a couple of inches between us, we stripped out of our wet shirts. Blindly, we fumbled and felt for a branch beside us to hang them in the hopes that they might dry, knocking arms at the same time.
“Sorry,” we said at the same time when our elbows crashed against each other. I winced when hers caught my funny bone.
I doubted that our shirts would dry even a little in the damp night air. Removing our pants was harder. I had to help Riley pull off hers, one slightly soggy leg at a time. When her jeans pulled over her injured leg, she moaned.