Chapter Seventeen
SEVENTEEN
It’s almost exhilarating at first: the thrill of marching into an uncertain future.
But, after a while, when that future arrives and then just kind of keeps going, and all you’re doing is trudging forward on a rocky path with aching shoulders and blistered feet, your enthusiasm starts to wear thin.
For most of the morning, you and Troy are in the front of the line, shouldering a canoe, and trying to go fast enough so that Fran, Diana, and Will don’t smash into the back of your boat.
“Pick up the pace, NARPs,” Will says occasionally, and it’s hard to tell if he’s being sarcastic.
Midmorning, the trail turns marshy, soaked by the storm.
Your boots cake with crusts of thick, fragrant mud, and your legs feel ten pounds heavier.
Nobody speaks. Nobody knows if you’re headed in the right direction.
Or if this is all part of the great wilderness-therapy adventure you signed up for.
And nobody knows if you’ll ever see Silas with his backward hat and all your medication again.
Finally, by late afternoon, it’s all over.
You can’t walk another step. A cold wind sweeps through the trees, and your boots are soaked through to your socks.
Your arms feel like they’re no longer a part of you.
If you could be fully present in your body, you’d probably be starving.
But, as it stands, you have no idea what other needs you might have beyond the urge to cease all movement.
You don’t remember stopping, or heaving the crushing weight of the boat from your burning shoulders, but the next thing you know, you’re sitting on what appears to be the shore of a lake.
Coarse rocks jut out around you, lily pads dot the water, and the soil beneath you is the color of rust. After a while, someone shoves a bowl of what appears to be reconstituted hummus under your face, and you mechanically shovel it into your mouth with your fingers.
Then you wipe your hands on your pants and close your eyes.
When you wake up, it’s dusk, and you immediately hear a hollow clicking sound.
It sounds like it’s coming from inside your body, and it takes you a moment to realize it’s your teeth chattering.
The temperature has dropped. Precipitously.
It must be 30 degrees cooler than it was when you first set out this morning.
You lift a hand to wipe your eyes, and you notice that it’s shaking too.
You dig through your pack for a hoodie, and once it’s on, you pull the hood up, tightening it around your head like a ninja mask.
As you sit up, you hear the sounds of an argument going on.
“I told you that was the groundsheet!” says Will.
“The fly and the groundsheet are basically interchangeable,” says Troy.
“Says the guy who has never been camping!”
“Just shut up and hand me a peg.”
“I already—Ah god! I’m freezing!”
The two of them are violently rubbing their arms to stave off the cold, fumbling all the while with a large tarp that is either the groundsheet or the fly.
“I gave you the pegs a minute ago.”
“I have zero pegs, Will!”
Nearby, Diana and Fran sit zipped inside their tent, which is already pitched.
You can see them through the mesh. You slowly stand up, a little lightheaded, and start to zombie-shuffle over to them to ask how you got here.
You’re not warm yet, but your teeth have stilled for the moment.
You stop walking about halfway there because as you get closer, you see that the two girls are locked in conversation, the kind you think maybe you shouldn’t interrupt.
They’re both sitting cross-legged on the floor of the tent, holding water bottles.
Diana is nodding, and Fran is talking quickly and softly gesticulating with intensity.
You have no idea what they’re talking about—you’re just out of hearing range—but you know what it feels like to be with Diana like that.
To be blocking out the rest of the world and just lost in a simple moment of connection.
It’s what you miss the most.
There aren’t many people you’ve been able to just be with in that way, where you’re not hiding somehow or feeling self-conscious to the point of distraction.
Sean was one. And the other is right in front of you.
But she couldn’t be less aware of your presence at the moment.
You know you should turn around, go back and help Will and Troy with their shelter so all of you do not die of exposure, but you’re too woozy to make it happen.
So you just stand there, knees locked, staring through the slit in your hoodie.
“He lives!” says Fran finally. “He walks among us.”
Diana looks at you and blinks, and you think of what she said after the storm: I’ll cut you loose.
You had never heard her so serious, and since that moment, you can already feel it happening.
Less eye contact. Most comments made in passing.
You want to say something about it now. Something that lets her know that you don’t want to be cut loose, but instead you say:
“Where are we?”
Fran takes a swig from her water bottle.
“North,” she says.
She closes her eyes to think.
“And … by a lake.”
You take a cold breath and blow it out hot into your hands.
“We’re north by a lake,” she says. “Is that enough?”
You look down and see that her knee is touching Diana’s. She watches you watching her, but doesn’t move it.
“Fire,” you say.
They both just look at you. You are, you remember, standing there like a ninja with bad posture. And you’re speaking in one-word sentences.
“What was that, Frankenstein?” says Fran.
“We need to make a fire. For the cold.”
Diana nods slowly.
“Or you guys could put up a tent,” she says.
As if on cue, Will’s voice erupts from behind you.
“HOW COULD YOU LOSE A PEG?! IT WAS IN YOUR POCKET!”
In other circumstances you might laugh at the absurdity. But now you wonder if you’re going to survive the night.
“Somebody fed me,” you say to Fran. “Was that you?”
“Not I, said the fly,” she says. “That would be this one.”
Diana looks away. You try to wait her out, but she’s persistent.
“Thanks,” you say.
The light is disappearing quickly, and you know you’ll never start a fire when it gets dark. It will be hard enough in the remaining daylight, so you shuffle back in the direction of Troy and Will.
“IT FELL OUT! OKAY?”
“NO. NOT OKAY!”
“Guys,” you say.
“I’M FEELING VERY UNCOMFORTABLE WITH YOUR PROXIMITY RIGHT NOW,” says Troy.
“YOU’RE GOING TO FEEL MORE UNCOMFORTABLE WHEN I IMPALE YOU WITH THIS TENT POLE!”
“Guys,” you say.
Troy kneels on the ground and starts exhaling loudly.
“I’m done,” he says. “Just bury me now!”
“GUYS!” you scream. “WE NEED TO MAKE A FIRE! OR THIS COLD IS GOING TO FREEZE OUR DICKS OFF! DO EITHER OF YOU IDIOTS KNOW HOW TO USE THE FLINT?”
Will looks right at you, like he’s seeing you for the first time.
He shakes his head.
“I think Silas took the flint, bro.”
Troy blasts a breath from his nose.
“I haven’t seen it,” he says.
You look back toward the girls’ tent.
“No flint in here!” says Fran.
You reach down and extend a hand to Troy, who looks at it a moment before accepting. You pull him up, then you warm your hands again.
“People made fire, like, two million years ago,” you say. “I saw it on a National Geographic series.”
You start to shiver again, so you hop in place.
“They had flat skulls and ran around in the woods butt naked! And they could function better than we can. What the hell happened to us? How did we go from making fire with our bare hands to having panic attacks in a closet a couple million years later? What went wrong, guys?”
You’re on the verge of tears somehow. You’re not sure why talking about early humans has brought this on, and not, say, being abandoned by your Adventure Therapy counselor, but your brain remains mysterious to you.
And it’s likely to stay that way. You put your face in your hands, so no one can see the brewing tears of evolutionary shame.
“Hey,” says Troy, and walks over to you.
You slowly lift your head.
He’s opening pockets on his camp shorts. It takes him a moment to locate what he wants, but when he does, his eyes seem to jump.
“Look, Case,” he says. “Cavemen did a lot of badass stuff. No doubt. And it’s true that they would probably stomp us in a fight. But those guys didn’t have…”
He does a fake drumroll with his mouth. Then he brandishes something from his pocket.
“CAPITALISM!” he shouts.
With a flick of his thumb, a small flame shudders to life in his hand, emanating from a bright orange cigarette lighter. It’s a miraculous sight, a vision of pure, glowing hope. The fire flickers in the breeze, and you all follow its every shiver, transfixed.
“Behold!” he says. “I am modern man, and I make fire with my thumb!”