Chapter 9 Eden
Nine
Eden
Thankfully, you don’t need survival skills for basic hiking.
And thankfully, I’ve been able to mostly avoid my horribly smug ex-boyfriend so far this week during Boundless Horizons.
However, if I had a gratitude journal, these would be the only two entries. Because other than that, I’ve been in pure, perspiration-and-mosquito-bitten hell. Mother Nature is supposed to do wonders for your health and well-being, but for me, it’s the total opposite. My skin is
irritated and scratched up, my feet are blistered, and my nose is breaking out in unsightly zits from all the sunscreen that
has sweated off my face. I feel like I’ve been in the woods since the time of the dinosaurs and it’s only Wednesday.
Our fearless leader JJ has taught us how to use a compass (which to my surprise I’m sorta getting the hang of?) and how to
collect fire-starting twigs versus longer-burning logs. (I’m dreading the day we’ll have to test those qualities by actually
starting a fire—in the city this would so be illegal.) We’ve even done a segment on edible versus poisonous mushrooms. (No chance I’m consuming either. And again, seems like it should be illegal. Too bad my dad’s in entertainment law—I could really use a professional opinion.)
This morning, my hiking partner is Kiera. She’s nice enough, but the banter is seriously lacking. I’ve mostly tagged along
as she collected mushrooms for the past hour—she even brought a mushroom knife from home, and a magnifying glass.
“If you accidentally put anything fatally poisonous in your mouth, I’ll kill you myself,” I tell her, trying to be funny.
But per usual with this crowd, she simply stares at me, blinking. “That would be redundant.”
I swallow my disappointment and take a sip from my water bottle. (A small sip. I’ve learned my lesson on overconsuming beverages.)
“Oh, hey, look.” Kiera crouches down next to a tree. “That looks like a lion’s mane! See its shaggy ball shape?”
I try not to spit out the water. Shaggy ball shape. Where are my friends when I need them? They’d be cracking up over this.
“Oh wow, cool, yeah, so shaggy. Like a lion’s mane?” I say, winging it.
“Exactly!” she exclaims, beaming at me. I’ve found my way to her heart after all: acting interested in mushrooms.
But it’s hard when I’ve been spending fourteen thousand percent of my attention making sure I don’t end up alone with Leo
again.
And if I’m being honest, ever since Rhys’s friend Mateo put the word sabotage into my brain at our backyard firepit, I haven’t been able to let the idea go. It’s maddening how Leo always thinks he knows
best. It would be so satisfying to wipe that smug smile from his face, even for a moment. To show him that he doesn’t know everything. To, yeah, embarrass him a little, take him off his high horse. Make him experience what it’s like to be the
rest of us.
After our messy breakup, we never spoke. I never got an apology. And that hurt—for a long time. I’m not saying I need revenge;
I just want to feel for once like we’re on even footing.
And besides, this Boundless Horizons thing is already so dull . . . so I’ve been working on a little plan.
The only problem is that it’ll require getting close to Leo—at least long enough to execute the mission.
By some miracle, Kiera and I make it to the “rendezvous point” in decent time and we’re allowed to start having lunch while
we wait for the rest of the group to arrive. Leo and his partner, Jorge, are already here, along with a few other teams. I
try not to watch as Leo moves a respectful distance from the group to re-douse his entire body with bug spray (he does this
religiously, every hour of every day). I try not to notice what amazing legs he has—strong, taut calves, not too bulky. He’s
always had great legs. It’s a soccer thing. But so what? If only one’s calves were a measure of one’s personality!
I’m snapped out of my not-staring by the rumbling of a pickup truck breaking into our little clearing. What?! I’m immediately shocked—I didn’t know there was a way to get a car to this part of the woods! Why the hell did we have to hike our way up? I briefly hope we can get a ride back down.
But then JJ goes over to the truck and pulls out our fishing equipment, announcing that we’re switching partners to practice
fishing for the afternoon.
I suck in a breath. Now’s as good a time as any.
Before I can change my mind, I saunter up to Leo and Jorge just as Jorge is shoving a huge bite of sandwich into his mouth.
“Hey, Leo, will you be my fishing partner?” I ask without making eye contact.
He raises an eyebrow. “Hey, Eden . . . I . . . have to say, I’m surprised you’re asking me.”
“I remember that story you told me once, about fishing with your uncle Ted from Florida? So I figured you already know what
you’re doing.”
“You remember that?” he says, sounding even more surprised.
“Yeah, of course,” I say with a shrug. It’s just one of the many stories he regaled me with when we were dating, and I was
young and naive enough to hang on his every word. “I remember everything,” I add pointedly.
He steps closer, hovering nearly a head taller than me, and his gaze bores down. “I remember everything, too.”
Those words send a shiver down my back. He remembers everything as in, everything he did to hurt and humiliate me? The fiasco
of Becca Johnson’s fifteenth birthday party?
Does he really have no regrets?
Or is he saying he remembers everything as in, all the good times?
All the quiet moments, just the two of us, laughing over our chemistry or Russian history homework, his hand finding mine underneath the library table.
Hanging out alone in his apartment after school, when his parents were both at work . . . all the things we used to do.
As I boldly look back up into his brown eyes, all those memories flood me, too. The truth is, Leo was my first everything.
My first kiss. My first . . . all the things that come after a kiss. Well, almost all the things. We didn’t go all the way. But the point is, I trusted him wholeheartedly.
That’s what made the way he ended things all the more cruel.
I clear my throat. “Okay, then, so it’s settled. Do you want me to grab your, um, rod?”
“My what?” He blinks. “Oh, yes. I mean no. I’ll go get all the equipment for us. Wait here.”
The air feels cooler now that he’s stepped away, and I shiver, momentarily wishing I’d worn something more than my gray ribbed
cutoff tank top, my frayed black jean shorts, and my trusty neon platform sandals. While he goes over to the truck to load
up our fishing rods and tackle boxes, I glance over at his backpack.
Now now now. After just a small moment’s hesitation, I take a breath and decide to go through with it.
While Leo’s back is turned, I grab a canister from my bag, jaunt over to his backpack, and swap out his beloved bug spray
with my own spray can—which looks almost exactly the same, due to my extreme craftiness last night.
I manage to zip his bag and step away just as he turns around and walks back with two fishing poles and two tackle boxes.
“Come on,” he says with a nod, handing me one of the poles so he can pick up his pack and strap it on. “I’ll carry your tackle
box,” he offers.
I decide to let him carry it, even though it’s annoying that he’s being polite. “Where are we going?”
“According to my map, the river is northwest of this clearing,” he says. “I don’t know how much luck we’ll have at this hour,
but at least we can work on making sure you know what you’re doing.”
I roll my eyes, though if Leo notices, he doesn’t say anything.
We trudge through the woods and I rehearse the prank in my head. When his skin reacts to the spray, I’ll convince him he must’ve
walked through poison ivy. (“I thought I noticed those clusters of three leaves!” I’ll exclaim, parroting what JJ told us
and pretending I have any idea what poison ivy looks like.) His legs will be covered in an uncomfortable, burning rash for
at least thirty minutes, and he’ll probably be yelping in pain. It’ll be much funnier if this happens in front of the rest
of the group.
With that in mind, when we finally spot the river sparkling through the trees, I suggest we find a spot that’s not too secluded.
“I don’t want to completely lose sight of the crew,” I tell him. “You know I don’t like feeling alone out here.”
Leo cracks a smile. “It’s cute how scared you are of nature.”
“I’m not scared!” I retort automatically, though my brain is stuck on cute?
“It’s okay,” he says. “I feel like half of Stuyvesant kids are just like you. One time I went hiking with Mark Ling and a deer crossed our path, and you should’ve heard him scream. Over a deer.”
I laugh. “I never would have taken Mark Ling for a screamer.”
“People can be deceiving,” Leo says as we near the river.
“No kidding.”
We climb over a couple of medium-sized boulders at the edge of the water and throw down our backpacks. I sit on the largest
rock, which dips straight down into the rushing current, and Leo squats a foot away, busying himself with the tackle boxes.
“Hold out your hand,” he orders, and I follow his command.
Then he swivels and drops something into my open palm—and I scream. I don’t just scream, I drop the thing he put in my hand
and jump up to my feet, tripping on my own wobbly sandals and nearly falling backward off the rock.
“Was that a dead cockroach?” I screech.
Sure, I’ve seen them in the basement of our building and on subway platforms plenty of times—but frankly, I’ve never not screamed
in horror.
Leo rocks back onto his heels and laughs. “Eden, relax, relax! You’re gonna hurt yourself! It’s just a dead cricket. They
make great bait.”
I shudder, trying to collect myself. “I can’t. I can’t do this. No way. Why do we need to use dead crickets?!”
When you see people going fishing in movies, it always looks so peaceful, their legs dangling off the side of a dock, birds