Cross Country Hearts

by Suzanne August

  Slowly, to make careful conversation, I say, “I like nicknames.”

  Behind me, somewhere in the hallway, I hear pounding on a door and Lila yelling, “Get up, you idiots! It’s time for breakfast!”

  “Yeah?” Thomas says, and he doesn’t look phased by Lila’s crazed yelling. He doesn’t even acknowledge it. Instead, he only addresses me. “You got a nickname?”

  Huh. Maybe Lila goes around screaming at people all the time? “June is it.”

  “Really. What’s your given name?”

  I glance over my shoulder when I hear a door open and slam shut. When I return my attention to Thomas, he still doesn’t seem to be paying attention to anyone but me. So, I ignore the commotion too and answer. “I don’t usually tell people.”

  He raises his eyebrows. “Hate your name that much?”

  “I like June.”

  He shrugs. “As you like.” He flips a pancake again, then scoops up another one and places it on a plate to the side of the stove. Several pancakes are already stacked on it.

  I hear a scream that sounds suspiciously like Jasper.

  I frown. “Is… are they okay?”

  Thomas laughs. “They’re fine. Lila usually elicits a negative response from the people she wakes up.”

  I think that I’m glad I was already awake before Lila came to my door.

  “So, June,” Thomas says now, tone light, “have you ever been zip-lining?”

  My eyebrows knit together, but I’m unable to reply. Lila has emerged from the hallway, and she’s not alone. She has Jasper and Ren by the ear and is dragging them into the kitchen. I pull back and watch, alarmed, as Jasper tries to draw away from her.

  “Let go of my damn ear, Lila!”

  “I don’t know. I kind of like the feeling of being motherly.”

  He snorts. “You have no motherly bone in your body.”

  Ren swats Lila’s hand away from his ear. “I’ll cry for the kid the day you have one.”

  “Not planning on having one.” Lila shoots a grin at me, and I stare at her back, eyes wide. “I got the morning birds up.”

  And she sounds so happy about it, like a job done well.

  “Rude awakenings are cruel,” Ren grumbles. He massages the ear Lila had been gripping.

  Jasper stares at Lila, eyes dark. “Especially at eight in the morning.”

  “It’s nine,” Thomas corrects.

  “I don’t care what time it is. It’s too early!” Ren drags a chair out from the kitchen table and slumps into it. “The only perk from waking up this early will be these pancakes.”

  Thomas places one more pancake onto the stack before turning off the stove. “You’re welcome.”

  Jasper drags out the table’s other chair and sits across from Ren. He lets his forehead drop to the table and groans.

  Lila swats the back of his head. “You’re not sleeping!”

  He jerks up. “I wasn’t going to!”

  “Drag over a chair,” Thomas tells me. He gestures to a couple of folded-up chairs leaning against the wall before turning back to his pancakes. Lila pulls a fourth chair to the table as Thomas passes by me, placing the plate of breakfast in the center of the small and cramped table, which is already set with plates, glasses, juice, and syrup.

  I study the table, frowning. I see a fourth person squeezing in, but five? It’d be impossible to eat.

  “Don’t worry,” Ren says, probably seeing my discomfort. “It’ll work.”

  Not knowing what else to do, I take a chair and place it between Lila and Thomas and have just enough space to squeeze between them.

  “Now eat,” Lila demands. Ren shoves a plate into my hand.

  I take a glass, fork, and two pancakes from the plate centered on the table. It’s definitely cramped. I elbow Lila and almost stab Thomas with my fork. I’m terrified that the orange juice Ren is pouring into my glass will knock over.

  And yet, no one seems to mind how cramped it is. They don’t even seem to notice the severe lack of personal space. Ren is still grumbling about waking up so early. Meanwhile, Jasper is readily responding to Lila’s rapid-fire questions about how his last year in Boston has passed, which—listening to him answer—was more eventful than I would’ve thought for the high school loner and recluse. Thomas is in his own world, creating an American flag with blueberries, strawberries, and butter on his pancakes.

  “It’s what he does,” Ren mutters to me, and he’s still nursing his ear. Lila breaks off from drilling Jasper and flashes an upturned mouth my way, the corners of her eyes crinkling. Her expression says, See? Thomas is the cook. And then she goes back to questioning Jasper.

  I dig into my pancakes and say not one word, but I don’t mind. There’s an air around the four that is, put simply, enjoyable. I’ve heard Jasper laugh before this morning, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard him laugh so much before. The corners of his mouth turn up so far that two dimples appear. He cackles while he dumps loads of syrup on Ren’s pancakes when he isn’t looking, and there’s a mischievous grin while he’s trying to discreetly tell Thomas about a girl he met in Boston.

  But Jasper is terrible at whispering, and Lila has the ears of a bat. “Why haven’t I heard of her?” she demands.

  “Didn’t work out.” But the way Jasper’s smile turns lopsided, a knowing glint in his eyes—you know there’s more to the story.

  Lila rolls her eyes, but she turns to look at me. “It never works out for him.”

  I open my mouth to ask why, but Ren is already saying, “He says the girls are never real.”

  “Real?” I say.

  Lila rolls her eyes again, and then just as quickly as the topic changed to Jasper’s relationship with a girl that didn’t work out, it’s changing again to Lila telling the story about how she got locked out of her apartment last week. Which, by the sounds of it, happens a lot.

  The carefree air that cloaks this table of childhood friends is so different from how my own friends and I are with each other. It’s more than eating a homemade breakfast together. Jasper and his friends openly tell everything to each other. There are no secrets between them. The only friend I have that can compare is the one to Georgia. Though, at times, Melanie is my closest confidant, and no matter what she is, she’ll keep your confidence and tell no one else. You can trust her. That much is true.

  But this is also yet another side of Jasper I’ve never seen before. It’s Jasper with dimples and wrinkles around the eyes, whose carefree laughter is contagious. Better yet, there are no pauses in the conversation while he thinks about what to say. Every word flows out of him like a painting once inspired needs to be immediately let out, and there’s no thought needed on how to do it.

  It’s almost shocking how many sides to Jasper I’m discovering, and all it does is unease and confuse me. This Jasper King is a different Jasper King I’ve known for the past three years of high school.

  Despite the unease, I like the atmosphere he and his friends generate between them. Despite my discomfort of being with people I’ve just met, their comfortableness with each other rubs off on me bit by bit, with every bite of the pancakes that Thomas made.

  “So,” Jasper says when he clears his plate and has drained his orange juice. “What’s in store for me and June today?”

  Lila and Thomas share a slow-growing grin. It’s so full of mischievous promises that I set down my fork and stare at them, unsure of whether I should be excited or alarmed.

  “You haven’t decided without me, have you?” Ren cries.

  Thomas points his fork at him. “That’s what you get for sleeping in.”

  “It’s only nine o’clock!”

  They ignore him.

  “So, June,” Lila begins, casual and light. She pops another bite of pancakes in her mouth. “Have you ever gone zip-lining?”

  Thirteen

  “She’s a city girl!”

  One hour later, I’m ushered into a cramped car even smaller than my own. An hour after that, I’m
standing fifteen minutes into a forest trail, equipped with a backpack, a water bottle, and insect repellant.

  “Man, you gotta stop wearing those black shirts.”

  Considering Ren’s comment, Lila picks at Jasper’s black fabric. “Always the non-stylist teenage boy, aren’t you?”

  Jasper frowns and slaps Lila’s hand away. “There’s nothing wrong with this shirt.”

  “Except that you always wear black,” Thomas points out. “Doesn’t he always wear black, June?”

  “Huh?” I tear my attention from the canyon and move it to the group. Lila is still trying to pick at Jasper’s shirt. He’s scowling, trying to dodge her. “Oh, uh… yeah. I haven’t seen him wear a color since we left Boston.”

  Lila points to her chest. “I’ve tried giving him suggestions, but he never listens to me.”

  With Jasper and Lila standing side by side, I notice how much they contrast each other. Jasper is all bleached hair and dark colors, which is even starker against Lila. Her blonde hair peeks out against the palettes of cotton pink and sky blue. The scarf tied around her neck is a rainbow of flowing and twisting colors, and that doesn’t even get into her bright clothing. She’s outstanding, and Jasper is a shadow compared to her presence.

  But I can’t pay attention to them fighting about how Jasper is always wearing black. Instead, the canyon before me consumes all my attention. I don’t even have to look over to hear the rushing, crashing noises of an angry river. At least, it sounds angry.

  “June? Earth to June.”

  “Call her Judith.”

  “Huh? Judith?”

  “Yeah, that’s her real name.”

  I snap my gaze back to Jasper, seething. “My name is June.”

  Jasper holds up his hands, palms out. “Sorry. Your given name is Judith.”

  I catch Thomas bobbing his head at me. It’s a nod to our earlier conversation. I turn to him, but Lila’s speaking to me again, and I realize she’s been trying to catch my attention for a while.

  “S-sorry,” I stammer. “I’m sorry. What is it?”

  Lila puts her hands on her hips, but if anything, she only looks amused. “Well, I was going to tell you Jasper is departing from us now, and we’ll meet up with him later, but now I’m asking if you’re okay.”

  “Oh. Yeah, I’m okay. I mean—” I shake my head. “No, it’s just… I’m sorry, but when you said zip-lining, what did you mean? And hold on—” I cut my gaze to Jasper. “Where are you going?”

  Jasper grins. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so nervous.”

  That only irritates me.

  Lila rolls her eyes. “He’s going the long way to Sandy Place. I don’t know if he’s mentioned it to you, but he’s terrified of heights.”

  “Right,” I say slowly. “How, uh… high above the ground is this so-called zip-line?”

  “It’s not that high,” Ren says. “Jasper is just a coward.”

  “I am not,” Jasper says, and I hear the indignant tone. “You can ask June. I went—”

  Lila waves a hand at him. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Get out of here already. I want to get there by noon!”

  Jasper shoots her a glare but closes his mouth without continuing. I’m about to say it myself about how Jasper went on a roller coaster yesterday, but I hold back. What is it? Why can’t I come to Jasper’s defense or say something nice about him? I’m conflicted. There are no more intense waves of dislike towards him, but the urge to share the defeat of his fear with his friends unsettles me.

  Melanie would not like where my thoughts are headed, and when I think this, I wonder why I should care what she thinks.

  “Well,” Jasper says. He gives a mock salute. “See you guys in an hour.”

  The three friends return the mock salute, making for an amusing show of goodbyes, but I’m still too distracted to wave Jasper off. He disappears into the trees in the opposite direction where we trekked before we stopped to talk, and I’m still staring down the canyon. It’s at least twenty feet before you hit the water.

  And I realize Jasper abandoned me, leaving me behind with his three friends I’ve only known for twelve hours—eight of which I was asleep for.

  Beside me, Thomas adjusts a strap on his backpack. His friendly smile, which seems to always be there and is a small tip upwards on each corner of his mouth, is directed at me. “Don’t let the height scare you.”

  Lila starts moving forward before I reply. The rest of us are forced to follow, and while I linger a few paces, I still hear her when she calls over her shoulder, “I still can’t believe you’ve never gone zip-lining!”

  Ren, the closest to me, calls back, “She’s a city girl!”

  I don’t know why, especially because I’ve never been ashamed of being from the city, but I blush. Then I trip on a root. Thomas catches my arm and steadies me, but to make it all worse—when I look back to the roots, I realize I’ve tripped on nothing. My blush deepens to a beet red.

  Thomas releases my arm. “Nothing to be ashamed of, you know.”

  I glance at him and try to feign ignorance. “Huh?”

  “It’s okay if you’ve never been much of an outdoors person.”

  “I am an outdoors person.”

  He just looks at me.

  My face is so red now I can’t even look at him. “I used to go camping all the time when I was little. My dad used to take my sister and me.” Of course, once my father was gone by the time I was ten years old, no one else in my family liked camping enough to ever take me.

  “Why don’t you anymore?”

  “What?” I almost stumble again. “My dad isn’t around anymore. My mom hates camping.”

  Thankfully, Thomas doesn’t ask for any more clarifications about my father, but he does say, “Well, I guess we’re about to see how much of an outdoors person you really are then.”

  “Don’t worry!” Lila calls, back from where she is several feet ahead of us. “This will be fun.”

  ~.*.~

  It’s not going to be fun. I know that because now, ten minutes after Thomas promised me this was going to be the time of my life, I stand in front of a zip-line that’s definitely not what the name suggests.

  There is no way I’m getting on that cable. At my look, they inform me that it’s the same kind of cable that’s used for all zip-lines and that it’s perfectly safe. They have some hooks they’re going to use, but it’s far from the harness and clips that make an actual, real zip-line safe.

  “It’s okay, June,” Lila says brightly. “We’ve been doing this for years.”

  Ren pipes up. “We’ve been on this hundreds of times.”

  I wonder how none of them have died yet. I don’t care that the cable attaches to an ancient—though I’ll admit healthy and sturdy looking—tree with thick roots running deep through the ground. That doesn’t reassure me. The rope hovers over the river, which at the most is a twenty-foot drop. Although the canyon is wide enough that the decline isn’t too steep, there’s nothing to slow you down. The cable attaches to another tree rooted in a sandy clearing at the bottom of the other side.

  If someone freaks out, how are they supposed to slow down?

  “It’s not as scary as it seems,” Lila says now. She’s rummaging through her backpack. “You’re supposed to let go in the middle of the canyon, so you land in the water, but if you don’t, there’s plenty of time to land on the grass on the other side. No one’s ever gotten hurt.”

  And then, she pulls out a bent pipe and a clip, which she slides onto the middle of the pipe. That’s what she’s going to use for the zip-line?

  I should’ve gone with Jasper. These people are crazy.

  “It’s not dangerous.” Thomas pats my shoulder, which does nothing for me. “If you get scared to jump, you might scrape your knees in the grass on the other side. It’ll be nothing.”

  “Nothing,” I echo. And wait—if I don’t jump off?

  Ren must see the wild look in my eyes. “Just watch one of us do it! I
t’s so cool.”

  “Um…” Nothing about this seems cool. Or fun.

  Lila motions for me to hand over my backpack, which I do. And then she pulls out yet another bent pipe and clip. I should’ve paid more attention to what she packed in her purple bag before she let me borrow it because there’s no way I’m going to use that pipe.

  She holds it out to me. “I’ll go first. It’s simple. You just let go and jump into the river.

  “Hold on.” I put my hands out in front of me, shaking them and refusing the pipe. “You want me to let go?”

  “Look.” Ren moves to stand at the edge of the cliff and points to the sandy clearing below us, under the other side of the canyon. It’s like a small, secluded beach the river doesn’t engulf. “It’s a calm patch of the river for about a mile, almost like a pool. It’s deep too, so you’re not going to break anything jumping in. You’re not going to get swept away by an undercurrent, either.”

  “You can swim to the other side once you’re in,” Thomas adds. “It’s nice down there. People have left things at Sandy Place. Chairs to sit in, a barbecue. If you look, you can see a hole in the cliff where people stash things for general use.

  Oh great, it’s a place where the lunatics congregate.

  “I’ll go first,” Lila repeats. She’s started to watch me closely, speaking slowly, almost like she doesn’t want to scare off a wild animal. “Watch how I do it, and once I’m on the other side, I’ll yell up for you to go. I’ll tell you when to let go.”

  “No,” I say immediately. Oh no. No, no. “I’m sorry. We can’t do this. This is so dangerous!”

  “It’s fine,” Thomas says. “We’ve been doing this for years.”

  “If you’re worried about the rope, we buy a new one every few years,” Ren responds, nonchalant.

  Lila frowns. “I thought you’d want to try it. You said you would.”

  “I don’t know…” I say, eyeing the river and doubting their reassurances that this is perfectly safe.