Chapter Twenty One
TWENTY-ONE
“Gimme the whisk,” says Will.
Troy holds tight.
“Give it to me, bro. You’re going to whisk your eye out or something.”
This has been going on for a few minutes, but Troy will not let go of the whisk.
If anything, his grip has gotten tighter.
So Will finally gives up. He drops his hands to his sides and just stands next to Troy.
It’s strange to see the two of them next to each other without fighting.
But here they are. And when Will speaks, his voice is soft and calm.
“Do you want to sit down?” he asks.
Troy shakes his head.
“Look, I’m pretty sure you just saved my life,” says Will. “Sit down. Rest.”
Troy doesn’t move. Finally, he puts his face in his hands and mumbles something no one can hear.
“What was that?” asks Will.
Troy raises his head.
“She was showing bluster,” he says.
“What does that even mean?”
“It means I didn’t save your life. Black bears don’t really attack much.
It’s almost unheard of. Even if they think their cubs are in danger, they retreat.
All that stuff the mama bear was doing was just out of fear.
It was fake. You were going to be fine. I didn’t save anything. I’m just having a breakdown.”
Troy takes a few breaths and looks up at the sky.
“I don’t know,” says Fran. “She looked pretty pissed to me.”
“Also, how do you know all that … about bears?” says Diana.
“Discovery Channel,” he says. “I have insomnia.”
Everyone takes this in. We all have different ways of dealing with the sleeplessness. This, apparently, is Troy’s.
“So your anxiety saved us,” Fran says.
Troy actually looks her in the eye this time.
“Ha,” he says. “Right.”
“I’m serious,” she says. “If you didn’t have anxiety, then you probably wouldn’t have insomnia.
And if you didn’t have insomnia, you wouldn’t’ve stayed up watching nature documentaries.
And if you didn’t watch the documentaries, you wouldn’t have known how to scare off a blustering bear.
So, Will, Troy’s anxiety saved you. I think you should thank it. ”
Will is quiet. He doesn’t thank Troy’s anxiety. But he doesn’t not thank it.
Troy just holds tight to the whisk, and everyone is silent as the sun finally makes its way over the horizon and sheds some salmon-colored light on the campsite.
The lake is pink and orange, and it meets the sky at a point on the horizon.
The clouds hover over it all, reflecting the light.
You stare for at least a minute, as the night disappears around you.
Once again, it would be beautiful in other circumstances.
It would be beautiful if it wasn’t for the revelation the light brings.
Because even though it’s faint, you can see everything around you now.
“Oh my god,” says Diana.
Decimated.
That’s the word that comes to mind.
What looks like every bit of your food has been shredded and half digested.
Wrappers strewn all over. And when you open the lid to the cooler, you almost begin to cry.
Because it’s empty. At least, that’s what you think at first glance.
And you’re almost right. At the very bottom is a small package of lemon drops.
The one food Silas brought with zero nutritional value.
He had them, he said, to dole out on the hardest hikes in order to boost morale.
And now here they are, the lone survivors of a devastating attack, the last of your store-bought food.
“Is it that bad?” asks Troy in a matter-of-fact voice.
Instead of speaking, you tip the cooler upside down and let the package tumble out. It hits the grass with an anticlimactic thwap.
“Whoa. I risked my life for lemon drops?” says Will.
The package stays in the grass until Will finally gets off his seat and picks it up.
He looks at it briefly, then he rips open the package.
For a moment, you’re afraid he’s going to chuck it into the woods out of frustration.
But, instead, he starts walking around. He walks, and he solemnly hands out some candy.
Nobody protests or tells him to save it.
Everyone knows not to argue. You could all be eaten by a bear any minute.
So you take the candy. You take what is offered, and you put the hard, tart lemon drop directly in your mouth.
It could be the last sugar you ever have.
So it is both amazing and deeply sad at the same time.
Your taste buds are overwhelmed by the citrus and sweetness, almost burning, but there’s no way you’re going to spit it out.
“Hey,” says Fran suddenly.
There’s an odd expression on her face. Your body is so exhausted from the panic that you can’t bring yourself to look up the way you normally would. This time it takes the words she says to bring back the tingle that had only moments ago receded.
“Is that Silas’s hat?”