“Absolutely.”
Richard hugged Desiree next. “Take care of my boy,” he said almost too low for me to hear, probably meaning for me not to hear it. She nodded while her head was still on his shoulder.
When he approached Jeremy, Richard said, “You don’t have to stay.”
“Yes, I do,” he answered.
“I figured you’d say as much. I’m not going to argue with you. Just take care of yourself, and take care of your little brother. You guys need each other.” Richard finally lost his full composure when he pulled Jeremy in for a hug.
“I will. Goodbye, Dad,” Jeremy said, which was the first time I could ever remember him using the word.
“No,” Richard said, pulling away. His cheeks were tear-stricken, but his grin rose all the way to his eyes. “This isn’t goodbye. I’ll see you soon.”
Richard left the room with Mr. Gordon, and I didn’t know if I’d ever see him again. A small part of me seriously thought it was goodbye, but I tried to shake the thought as soon as it planted the poisonous seed in my mind.
Afterward, Jeremy lay down for a nap on a top bunk. Desiree and I claimed a bottom bunk, laying side by side, our faces separated by mere inches in between kisses.
“Where did you go last night?” Desiree asked.
I felt a socked foot rubbing up against mine. “What?” I asked, now realizing I didn’t leave as stealthily as I’d thought.
“I saw you leave least night, sneaking out of here without even opening the door.”
“I didn’t want to wake anyone.” I went to kiss her again, but she pulled back.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she said sourly.
“I went to find my father.”
“And where did you go?”
“I found him in this interrogation room,” I said. “There are prisoners here.”
“Really?” Desiree sounded surprised. “What happened?”
I didn’t want to tell her the state the captured man was in. She had seen enough horror when we arrived in Doria, and we were bound to see more, so I wanted to shield her from it when I could.
“Nicholae was just talking to them, but stopped when I arrived. As you’ve probably noticed, he’s not very forthcoming with information.”
“Where’d you go in the woods?”
“What? You were following us?” Now I was the one to pull away, pushing up on an elbow.
“No,” she insisted. “I saw you guys go down the path, but I didn’t follow.” She stopped talking, searching my face for a reaction. “The wolf would have probably turned on me if I did.”
“Yeah, Ingrid’s pretty protective.” I could now hear Jeremy snoring in the bunk over. “Do you want me to show you?”
Her eyes lit up and she rolled out of bed after pecking my lips with a quick kiss. We carried our shoes to the door, pushed through the metal, and we were soon standing in the cool afternoon air. A bright sun shone down through intermittent clouds. We hurried to slip on our shoes like two students ditching class, which in some sense, we were.
“Com’on,” I said, taking her hand, leading her away from our building, trying to remember the way Nicholae had guided me last night. It was a different starting point and many of the buildings in the compound looked alike, so it took me a while to get my bearings. The edge of the camp was easy enough to find, but we had to follow it almost a half circle to find the trail. When we finally did however, I confidently led us into the forest. We didn’t need a guiding light ahead and a protective wolf behind; we had each other and a clear day, which for the time being was more than enough.
“What’s out here?” Desiree asked as we continued down the winding path. “Anything special or just a nice walk?”
“You’ll see,” I said with a smile, playfully squeezing her hand.
She interlaced her pinky with mine and didn’t insist on an answer. It felt so good to be with her, alone at last. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she still wore the oversized Elliott Smith sweatshirt. I could barely remember the last time I’d seen her with makeup, but she didn’t need it. She didn’t need to hide and she didn’t need to enhance. She didn’t need anything else. I gave her a sidelong glance just to see her face for a moment. When she looked over, we both smiled shyly and broke eye contact.
The air became increasingly damp and the white noise of the falls grew as we approached our destination. When we reached the clearing, Desiree’s eyes widened as she took in the majesty of the waterfall pouring off the rocky cliff hundreds of feet high. The water frothed where the falls violently hit the pool, creating a mist extending nearly out to the shore like a thin cloud.
We stepped back into the sun and approached the bank. The edge of dirt and pebbles sank into the water ever so slightly, falling away somewhere unseen, farther out. I guided Desiree to the cluster of various-sized boulders where Nicholae and I had sat and talked the night before. The falls extended far beyond what I had seen the night before with the lonely orb illuminating the clearing. The waterfall rounded a corner of the cliff, and behind it were at least three more distinct crescent-shaped waterfalls all emptying into the sparkling pool.
“It’s so beautiful,” Desiree said, finding her perch on a boulder a foot higher than mine.
“Welcome to Doria Falls,” I said, my tone sounding like Nicholae from the previous night.
“This is what the town’s named after?”
“I guess so.” I laid my head against the side of her leg and placed a hand on her closest calf. “Are you still hearing from Reid?”
“Sometimes,” she said. “Not as much as before, but she’s still around.” Desiree stroked my hair, her fingernails scratching lightly against my scalp.
In a strange way, I missed Nero. After everything we’d been through, I still found comfort in knowing he was there. Like I had felt in my room with TJ. Now they were both gone and I had to come to accept never hearing either voice again.
“Do you still think about Anna?” Desiree said softly. I almost didn’t hear her over the roar of the falls, which drowned out almost every other sound in the world.
“Do you? She was your friend long before she was mine,” I said. “Do you still think about TJ?” I knew it was a silly question, knowing she’d never stop thinking about TJ.
“You risked everything to come find me, but…” She didn’t have to finish the sentence. I knew where she was going.
“I didn’t have a choice at the time, when I saw her in that room.” I swallowed hard. “I shouldn’t have made it out the first time. I wouldn’t make it a second.”
“But we now have help.”
“If I had just gone alone like I should have, she and Eli would be safe at home right now.”
“I know. It’s not your fault though.”
“Actually, it is,” I said, lifting my head off her leg to look at her. “They wanted—well, Anna wanted to go, but I didn’t have to take them. I knew there would be risks. They had no idea. It’s all my fault and now Eli’s with them, and Anna…”
“She’s alive,” Desiree said, but I couldn’t tell if she even believed her own words. “Somewhere.”
“Eli wouldn’t be on their side voluntarily. They must be forcing him or brainwashing him or something.”
“I dunno,” I said. “You didn’t see him in there.”
“I know him. He’s a good person.”
“Good people do bad things when they’re provoked.” I laid my head back onto her leg and stared out at the falls.
“Can we just be thankful that we’re here now?” she said. “A lot of bad things have happened along the way, but you’ve found your father, we’re here together, and safe.”
“For the moment.”
“This moment is all that’s important right now.” She forced me to look up at her. “Mr. Gordon has always told us to believe and have faith. We can’t lose hope now when we’ve come so far and accomplished so much. If I could go back to the first day of school, I’d pic
k the same seat.”
“Even with all the trouble I’ve caused?”
“I wouldn’t want to chance not being with you right here, right now,” Desiree said and bent down to kiss me.
I swiveled into a better position, placing both hands on her thighs as my lips explored hers.
“If you hadn’t sat next to me, my whole life might be different,” I said when our lips parted.
“And not in a good way.” She smiled.
“That’s true.”
Desiree stood up and carefully climbed off the rocks, headed toward the bank of the rippling pool. Squatting down, she dipped one hand into the shallow water. A shiver ran through her whole body. She pulled back a perfectly round stone, polished by its wet surface.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“About what?”
Desiree threw the stone into the middle of the pool. It disappeared into the mist from the falls. She cupped her hand and threw a handful of water at me. Though the droplets didn’t reach me, her intent was clear.
“You’re crazy,” I said.
She shrugged and stood up. After kicking off her shoes, peeling off her socks, and rolling up her jeans, she waded ankle-deep into the now cloudy water. The painful expression on her face gave away her obvious discomfort. She gasped and cringed, but didn’t retreat.
“Feel good?” I asked, laughing.
“It’ll wake you up. Are you gonna join me?”
I thought of standing here, free of fear, with Nicholae; sitting at the edge of my pool with Anna, which seemed like forever ago, while she kicked her feet in the freezing November water; disappearing beneath the surface of the water in Lake Arrowhead while nearby boats sped by, unable to propel myself upward; and Nero leading me to the bottom of the river before pulling me out, pulling me into a new plane. When I reached the edge, I realized that the crippling fear was indeed gone. I wasn’t excited about the water by any means, but it didn’t control my actions any longer. I did. And I was going to follow her in, as crazy as it felt or sounded. Then I realized, following was not enough.
“Are you all in?” I asked.
She looked at me queerly, not sure of what I was asking, but replied anyway. “Yes.”
I peeled off my shoes and socks, and then added my jacket and shirt to the pile. I still had the shiny barbed wire scars zigzagging across my chest and stomach. And now there were several yellow and blue bruises from Nicholae’s gunshots as added reminders of my trials and injuries.
“My God,” Desiree said, looking at me, and not in a tone of admiration for my amazing physique, the jock physique I didn’t have. “Are they from the asylum or Nicholae?”
“Nero, mostly. The bruises are from Nicholae.” I saw the concern on her face. “I feel fine, don’t worry,” I said and didn’t let myself stop undressing, not allowing myself the time to get self-conscious. I threw my pants on top of the pile and waded out into the water in my boxers.
“Holy crap, this is cold!” I yelled and dove in before I chickened out. Now the warmest place to stay would be to remain in the water. I didn’t have an exit strategy.
“Who’s the crazy one now?” Desiree called out to me.
I wiped the water from my eyes and was about to try and persuade her to jump in, too, when I saw her stripping to her underwear—a black bra and panties that must have been in the closet with the rest of the clothes from our room—setting her pile next to mine. I couldn’t help but admire how perfect she looked, her milky-white skin flawless, and then I realized the reason I was so drawn to her skin. The catheter and purple bruises that had covered her body when I found her in the asymmetric plane were gone. She was healed, without a mark left on her entire body that I could see—which then helped me connect the dots with why she’d asked Mr. Gordon into the bathroom this morning.
Her arms were folded tightly over her chest, her knees shaking. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
“The water’s refreshing,” I insisted.
“Don’t lie to me, Oliver Lorne. It’s freakin’ freezing!”
“It’s better than standing out there in the cold. Ever hear of the Polar Bear Plunge? Get in here!”
Desiree stuck out her tongue and then made a run for the water, remaining standing until she was knee deep, and then taking the full plunge. Her head emerged next to me a few seconds later and she screamed from a mixture of shock and jubilation. I laughed and wrapped my arms over her shoulders, drawing her in. Her whole body shook from the cold, as did mine. Her teeth now chattered directly into my ear. Skinny arms folded around my waist, and we were suddenly shaking and chattering as one person.
“What’s the craziest thing you’ve done lately?” I asked, tugging her wet ponytail, pulling her head gently back, and sliding my lips from her chin to her shoulder, just barely above the waterline.
“This is probably right up there,” she replied, and breathed more heavily as I continued to leave soft kisses on the top of her shoulder.
As we kissed and groped passionately for each other more, we shook less. The falls drowned out everything else around us. This was our paradise bubble, impenetrable from the outside world. Although our bodies were practically entwined, I wanted to be closer to her, strived to connect with her in every way possible. I ran my hands down her gooseflesh-filled arms and then down her sides, gliding over the sides of her panties, returning and finding a resting position on either side of her toned stomach.
“You’re not gonna hurt me, are you?” Desiree asked in between breaths and a brief separation of lips.
“Of course not.”
She kissed me, long, slow, and with the fervor that I had the only oxygen left and she needed some to survive. “I believe you,” she said after our lips parted.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you.” I stopped just short of saying I love you.
“I feel the same way,” she said and paused. “You looked like you were about to say something else.”
“You’re so incredibly beautiful,” I said.
Her cheeks flushed and she bit her lower lip, making her look even more beautiful than before.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” she finally said.
I moved my hands up her back, over the clasp of her bra, and up to the surface of the water where the bottom half of her ponytail swayed in the ripples.
“Whatever happens, I just want you to know it’s okay,” Desiree said, pushing up on her toes to nuzzle her chin on my shoulder. “I chose to be here. It was my choice.” And after a long pause, she added, “I’m sorry my choices have been pretty poor lately.”
“I don’t consider this a poor choice,” I said.
“You know what I mean,” she said, scolding me. “I was hurt and confused, with a string of bad decisions to regret. I’m still hurt on some level, but I’m no longer confused. And I’m trying, trying really hard to make the right decisions.”
“And what is right?” I asked, looking her straight in the eyes.
“This,” she said. “This is right.”
The water didn’t feel cold anymore, or maybe my body was just fully numb. Desiree’s body no longer shook. We held each other for a long while. We kissed occasionally, but our embrace had become more important than our connected lips. I didn’t want to let her go, but knew we’d have to get out of the water sometime. If we were gone for too long without anyone knowing where we were, there would be a search. I didn’t know about Desiree, but for me, I knew this was not where I’d like to be found.
“We should get back,” I said.
Desiree nodded, but returned her head to my shoulder. “It’s gonna be cold out there.”
“We’ll survive.”
The open air was so much colder than the water when we waded back to dry land. Desiree walked ahead of me and I couldn’t take my eyes off of her as she scampered back to her discarded clothes in her dripping underwear. It was an image I never wanted to forget.
After debating how best to dry off, we b
oth used our shirts as towels, which weren’t great replacements for true bath towels, but they proved better than nothing. We redressed in everything but our shirts, laying them out on the boulders to dry. I zipped up my jacket. Desiree was back in her Elliott Smith sweatshirt, but I still pictured her bare skin underneath with a childlike giddiness.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, tying her second shoe.
“Nothing.”
“Tell me!”
“It’s nothing… Okay. It’s everything. All this. Us—jumping into a pond in our underwear when it’s like fifty degrees out here. I can’t believe we did it.”
“It was your doing, mister,” Desiree said sarcastically. “Remember that. I was content with just having my feet in the water.”
“I wasn’t,” I said and took her in my arms, kissing her forehead, the tip of her nose, and then her soft lips. “Shall we?”
We walked back to the camp faster than our leisurely stroll to the falls. Our hair was wet and we wore one less layer of clothing than before, so we were a bit more motivated to get back to our heated room and out of the brisk air. I looked forward to changing my boxers because I could feel the dampness spreading to my pants.
When we got back to civilization, I noticed a change in the atmosphere. There were more people out and about, and they all seemed to be rushing in different directions to put out countless unseen fires.
“What’s going on?” Desiree asked.
“Something bad,” I said and took off running, pulling her along.
Just when we reached our building, the door opened and Colton stepped out. He looked as surprised to see us running toward him as we were to see him exiting our room.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“Nicholae needs to see you,” he said forcefully. His handgun was out and pointed to the ground. “Now.”
“Can’t I—”
“Right now.” He holstered his weapon and gestured for me to follow him.
I looked at Desiree and was about to tell her—
“It’s okay,” she said. “Go.”
I backed away with our arms still attached, my fingers slipping through hers until our union broke. She looked small and sad standing alone in the doorway. I finally turned and marched off with Colton to find my father.
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