by Liz Fichera
It was too late to take it back.
17
Riley
When Sam put me back on the ground, my lips were warm. Everything was warm. And everything was happening all at once and it was happening at some kind of speed that wasn’t discernible to the human eye. It had its own pace.
Above us, from the helicopter, someone in a fluorescent orange jacket lowered a cylinder basket. There was already another person inside the basket with a matching jacket. Holding hands, we stood in our underwear on the biggest boulder on the ledge that we could find.
We released hands so that I could slip on my sweatshirt. It was still damp and smelled of pine. I would have preferred Sam’s warm arms to my sweatshirt any day. Slipping on my jeans was impossible because my leg still throbbed. I just pushed down my sweatshirt till the ends reached my thighs.
Sam thrust on his jeans and then his shoes. He stayed bare-chested but wrapped his gray T-shirt around his forehead. From the waist up, he looked fiercely Native. He looked as if he’d just stepped off a Western movie set, except for the low-cut jeans and the waistband from his boxers that peeked above the top. I shivered again from the cold. Yeah, it must have been the cold.
As soon as we were reasonably clothed, we held hands again and waited for the helicopter basket to lower to the ground, shielding our eyes from the blowing dust by hugging into each other. The helicopter’s propellers grew more deafening the closer they got. We half walked, half hopped toward the lowered basket until Sam swept me into his arms and carried me the rest of the way, taking my breath along with everything else.
The man in the basket gave the helicopter the thumbs-up sign when the basket was inches from the ground. He wore headphones, and a mouthpiece covered his lips. His lips moved but I couldn’t hear his words, not at first.
When we were practically on top of him, he yelled, “You kids all right?”
That was an interesting question. Hard to answer. All right? I looked up at Sam and his gaze locked with mine. He was trying to tell me something with his eyes—I was sure of it. But, what? After a few seconds, we both nodded.
“Good!” he said and flashed a wide smile. He was wearing those reflective silver sunglasses. In his lenses, I could see myself in Sam’s coppery arms, my knees folded over his hands. Hair flying in every direction, his black against my blond. The man fluttered his fingers and Sam lifted me higher into the basket and into the man’s extended arms.
“Her right leg is pretty banged up,” Sam yelled. “Might be broken.”
The man nodded as he stood me upright, still leaning against him. Then he wrapped me in some kind of life-preserver thingy that was attached to more ropes. My body started to shiver, not with cold but with fright. Now was not a good time to tell anyone that I disliked heights. I still gripped Sam’s hand, squeezing it hard.
“It’ll be okay,” Sam said next to my ear, as if he already knew what I was thinking.
I nodded, looking down at my chest and waist now covered in ropes with silver clips and hooks. The basket was barely big enough for me and the man with the cool sunglasses. I wondered how Sam would fit. He was taller than the man beside me. That worried me.
The man lowered his face to mine. “You’ll have to let go of your friend’s hand now.”
I cleared my throat. “Yeah, okay,” I said, but I didn’t let go.
Sam placed his other hand over mine and I leaned closer to his ear. “You’re next,” I said brilliantly when I really wanted to scream, Why can’t we go together? We had done everything together in the past twenty-four hours. It seemed cruel to all of a sudden be pulled apart.
Sam’s fingers inched away from mine but my fingers gripped his. “Wait!” I yelled.
The man stopped talking into his mouthpiece and Sam stayed beside the basket. The sun glinted off his chest and I could see every muscle, every indentation. His hair flew about his face but I could still see the whites of his eyes through the strands. Sam tilted his head toward me, waiting for me to say something.
“I’m going to help you get Fred!” I shouted.
The relieved smile on his face faded to something else. He started to shake his head.
“Yes!” I said. “It’s the least I can do. You saved my life. I want to help you. We can do this, remember?”
Sam stepped farther away from the basket, his palms raised. I watched him until the basket sailed straight up into the sky, in between a thousand pine trees, and then into the helicopter. I forgot all about the nausea building in my stomach as we shot up into the clouds.
Through the open door of the helicopter, I watched as Sam looked up at me, his hair flying about his face, his hand shielding his eyes. I watched him until he was just a speck on the flat mountain rock. Then I wondered if he really saw me at all.
18
Sam
Our parents and Mr. Romero were on hand to greet us when the emergency helicopter landed, but I wasn’t sure you could call it a greeting. There was relief and tears and tight hugs from Mom and even a little anger, especially as the Berengers looked from me to Riley and back again. I remembered Dr. Berenger from the hospital, the day that Mr. Oday had had his heart attack. I had never really seen Mr. Berenger before—maybe a couple of times at Fred’s golf tournaments, but always from a distance. He looked like Ryan, only older, dressed in khaki pants that appeared to have been ironed. I could guess what they were thinking as Riley and I—filthy, wet and half-naked—sat on stretchers inside the hospital. I knew my parents were wondering the same thing, but they would save their questions for the long car ride home.
“The good news is that the kids are safe,” Mr. Romero kept telling everybody who’d listen at the hospital. “Just a few scratches and sprains. No harm done.”
Yeah, right. Tell that to Mr. Berenger. He was glaring at me as if I had molested his daughter.
Of course, the Berengers had chartered a private helicopter to whisk Riley back to Phoenix after the rescue helicopter had landed at the White Mountains Hospital. Didn’t everybody do that? Insert my extreme sarcasm here.
Mr. Berenger had offered to take me and my parents, too, but Dad had simply said “thank you,” and that he and Mom had already driven up in their car, and away we went. How else would we get our truck back to the Rez? I figured that Mr. Berenger already knew that we’d say no, but had asked, anyway, in that crowded hallway with plenty of people to hear it. That was so like a Berenger.
I never got a chance to talk to Riley about what she’d said—about what she’d promised. Not with a dozen paramedics checking our vitals from the moment the helicopter landed. Riley’s knee and ankle were sprained, not broken. Her leg had been wrapped in a castlike bandage. They’d given her something for the pain that had made her groggy.
I’d gotten a gash in my leg, probably from when I scaled down the mountain after Riley, that I hadn’t noticed. It was covered in red-black mud, the blood absorbed by all the pine needles and dirt from our makeshift bed beneath the tree. The gash required three stitches, but that was really the extent of it. “You’re lucky to be alive,” Mom said before she burst into tears against Dad’s shoulder. Dad’s gaze grew darker the harder she cried, and he studied me over her head as if to say, “I expected this to happen.” If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Dad looked strangely relieved.
“What were you thinking, Samuel?” Mom added between sobs, her eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot. “What were you doing so close to the rim? You should know better!”
I shrugged, embarrassed, feeling guilty that they’d had to miss work because of me. It was an accident. I didn’t plan this, I wanted to tell them, but I was too numb and exhausted to explain. What did it matter? It wasn’t like I could change anything.
“That folding knife you got me came in handy,” I said to Dad, trying to lighten the mood in the hospital room, which really wasn’t a room at all. It was more like a noisy hallway. But Dad only nodded, as if he’d forgotten that it had been the best and only
present he’d ever given me. I was going to take it out of my pocket and show him, but I thought, Why bother?
As the tension grew thick between Dad and me, Mom hugged me. Dad just stood behind her, his hands stuffed in his front pockets, his gaze distant, hovering above our heads. When I tried to remember the last time Dad had hugged me, I couldn’t. I must have been a baby.
Even in her groggy state, Riley kept telling everybody and anybody who’d listen that I’d saved her life, but, to be honest, I wasn’t sure anybody believed her, least of all her parents. They kept looking at me with suspicious eyes, as if I had been responsible for her fall off the Mogollon Rim. I had a feeling that they believed Riley wasn’t capable of doing a single solitary thing wrong. Me, on the other hand… I could see the judgment flicker in their eyes, plain as clouds in the sky.
A small part of me thought that maybe they were right. It nagged at me like an itch. I might not have pushed Riley off the edge but maybe I’d driven her to fall. Maybe we should have tagged after Jay Hawkins and all the others. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken Riley in a completely different direction for the scavenger hunt. That would have certainly made things easier.
If only I could convince her that I was hardly hero-worthy. I wasn’t That Guy. I would never in a million years be That Guy. Let the Ryan Berengers of the world take that role.
I dreaded the long, uncomfortable car ride back to Phoenix. But most of all, I dreaded Monday.
19
Riley
Monday morning couldn’t come fast enough. Mom wanted me to stay home and rest till at least Wednesday, but…well, no way. It was bad enough staying cooped up in my room all day Sunday. Another day of doing nothing and I would freak out.
“I’ve got an English paper to turn in, and a trig exam. I can’t stay home,” I said.
Mom finally agreed—she usually did when things like papers and exams were concerned—as I limped my way into Ryan’s Jeep, with Ryan carrying my messenger bag. “Well, okay,” Mom said. “But call me if you change your mind. The instant your leg starts to bother you, go to the school nurse. And remember, no dance practice.”
“I couldn’t dance if I wanted to.” So that was our compromise. To be honest, a few weeks away from afternoon practice would be a good thing, especially with everything that I had planned.
“At least wear your leg brace.”
“Please, Mom. That thing looks hideous. I’d rather limp for the rest of my life.”
Major eye roll. “Stop being so dramatic, Riley.”
“I’m not. I’m totally being serious.”
“It will help your leg heal.”
“My leg barely hurts anymore.”
Mom and I continued our eyeball war until Ryan revved the engine. Then Mom blinked.
Victory. Freedom. “Gotta go. We’re going to be late,” I said and blew her a kiss.
Mom waved goodbye once I was belted inside Ryan’s Jeep. Worry was etched into every crevice of her face.
“Jeez, Riley. Mom’s practically forcing you to stay home and you say no? Are you insane?”
I looked out the passenger window as Ryan backed out. It was hard to look at him straight-on. “I’ve got a lot on my mind. A lot I have to take care of today.”
“You are such a Goody Two-Shoes.”
“Shut up, Ryan.”
“I think those pain meds Mom gave you messed with your head.”
“Thanks for your concern,” I replied, deadpan.
Ryan hesitated and then said, “You know I didn’t hear about what happened to you until late Saturday night. I was over at Fred’s.”
My palm lifted. “Naturally.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ryan signaled left to turn onto Pecos Road and then pressed the accelerator. The Gila River Indian Reservation spanned south as far as I could see.
“Nothing.” We drove into the sun and I turned down the visor, and began thinking about Sam.
Ryan chuckled.
My eyes rolled but I didn’t turn. “You’re irritating me.”
“Would you be irritated to know that you and Sam—well, especially Sam—are all that anyone’s been talking about this weekend? It went viral.”
I spun around to face him. “Really?” That was a first.
Ryan smirked. “Uh-huh. Thought that would get your attention.”
“What else can you tell me?”
“I suppose we’re about to find out.”
I faced front and smiled. Finally. I would finally be known at school as something other than Ryan Berenger’s Little Sister. “I wish you would have said something before we left. I would have done something more creative with my hair. Maybe worn nicer pants.” I looked down at my stone-washed jean skirt, smoothing over a wrinkle across my thighs. Then I flipped open the visor mirror.
“You look fine.”
I turned. “Really?”
“No.” Ryan laughed.
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
“Jerk.”
We didn’t say another word until we pulled into the Lone Butte High School parking lot.
20
Sam
I waited with Martin and Peter near the entrance to the freeway for Mr. Oday’s van. Martin’s truck was in need of a complete overhaul and despite his having worked on it most of the weekend, the engine wouldn’t turn over. Totally dead. Fortunately Mr. Oday’s van was more reliable, though not by much.
I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t thought about ditching school at least a hundred times, especially while I’d barely slept last night, tossing and turning the whole time. It would have been only the second time I’d done it in my life. I wasn’t sure the time that Peter and I had cut in the seventh grade from the Rez school to go fishing counted at this point.
“Dude! How was dork camp?” Martin said, his eyes flashing all sorts of crazy. I could tell he knew more than he was letting on.
“You already know. Why don’t you tell me?”
“You were on the news on Saturday—you and Berenger’s sister.”
“On the news?” Peter jumped in, equally as pumped. “Dude was the news.”
Martin chuckled. “True, that. My mom said that everyone at the restaurant was huddled around the chef’s television in his office, waiting to hear what happened to you. Chef didn’t get mad, either. His eyeballs were as glued to the set as everyone else’s.”
“I thought you were picking up rodeo queens Saturday night.”
“We were. My mom loaned us her wheels. Got back here as soon as we saw you headlined on the news, though. And that Berenger chick is pretty hot,” Martin said. “Never noticed her.” His grin spread. “Till now.”
“Shut up,” I practically growled.
“So what happened?” Peter said, still with the twenty questions. “What really happened?”
I exhaled. It was bad enough that I’d had to explain the whole pathetic tale to Mr. Romero, the paramedics, my sister and, of course, my parents. Now my best friends had to hear all the not-very-interesting details. What was the big deal? “Riley was standing too close to the edge of the Mogollon Rim and she fell. I went after her. It started to storm. We found shelter for the night. Helicopter found us in the morning. The end.” I looked down the road, hoping to hear Mr. Oday’s van sooner rather than later.
“That’s it?” Martin and Peter said together, sounding disappointed.
“That’s it.”
Martin chortled, bringing his chin close to his neck. “Dude. That’s not what everybody is saying.”
My neck bristled. “Who’s everybody?”
“People are saying you and Berenger’s sister ran away,” Martin said.
“Said you wanted to be alone,” Peter added, wiggling his eyebrows.
“Said—you know.” Martin’s head tilted toward my crotch.
I felt my traitorous cheeks flush. “Who’s saying that?”
“It’s all over Facebook,” Martin said. “Says the cop
s found you and Riley buck-naked. How come you never told us about her?”
“There were no cops!” Just about a million doctors and paramedics.
Peter ignored me. “Vernon said Twitter was even worse. He got alerts on his phone all night. You even trended, bro!”
“That’s just crazy,” I said. “Nothing but stupid talk.”
“Why didn’t you tell us you were hot for her?” Martin pouted. He even looked a little hurt.
I stared back at him, dumbfounded. “Um. Because I’m not?”
Martin paused. Then he said. “Well? Was she?”
“Was she what?”
Martin got louder. “Was Riley Berenger naked?”
My mouth opened and closed. “We were cold,” I stammered, looking from side to side as if someone could hear us while we were waiting on a corner in the middle of nowhere. “We had to.”
“Had to what?”
“You know. Take off our clothes. Because they were…wet.” I cleared my throat. “Because it was cold.”
Their eyes grew wide.
“Sweet!” Martin said, grinning, as I glared back at both of them.
“Nothing happened between Riley and me. Nothing.” I had pushed the memory of our kiss to the back of my mind, as far back as it would go.
They snickered.
“Sure,” Martin said, nodding at me in slow motion as if I were a mental patient. “Sure it didn’t.” But he hardly sounded convinced.
“You always gotta play the comedian, don’t you, Martin?” I said, poking a finger at his chest.
Martin turned all serious again. “I’m not playing anything. I’m just telling you what’s going round.”
“Well, why don’t you shut your mouth and stop spreading crazy-ass rumors.” Anger began to fill my every pore, my every muscle. I hated losing control, but that was exactly what was happening. So far, the morning was off to an even worse start than I’d anticipated.
I knew they were just joking with me, but I wasn’t in the mood for jokes. None of this was funny.