Chapter Thirty-Three
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”
“HAPPY HALLOWEEN!”
“Halloween? Clark, it’s her birthday—”
“But she’s celebrating Halloween today too—”
“Okay, but you saying happy Halloween makes it seem like that’s why we’re here, but we are here to say happy birthday. Focus, you have to focus—”
“I am focused—”
“Neither of you is focused,” I hiss-yawn, rubbing my eyes and fighting to open them.
“Good morning,” Mom coos, sitting down next to me.
She slips her arms around me, squeezing me in a hug that she doesn’t realize is the only thing holding me upright.
Dad sits down on the end of my bed and they both give me a second to yawn and stretch and rub my eyes so that I can join in on my own life.
“Happy birthday to me,” I say, the words making it impossible not to smile.
“How does it feel to be a year older?” Dad asks, pinching my toe through my blanket.
I pull my knees to my chest and stick my tongue out, because clearly that’s what adults do.
“It feels like I need ten more minutes of sleep. And like I can vote. I suddenly feel very political.”
“And clever,” Mom points out, giving me a squeeze.
“Well, we know that you have big eighteen-year-old plans for today, and your party tonight, so we figured we’d get our time in early,” Dad says, him and Mom both standing up at the same time.
“We’re having dinner together,” I remind them, too tired for their pretend pity act.
“Well, who knows, you might decide to go out for dinner,” Mom says, shrugging her shoulders.
I mean, if they want to pay for me to go out—
“Come, we have a surprise for you.” Dad waves me up before he ducks out of the room.
I step into my slippers and head down the hallway with them.
Expecting to see some kind of box in the kitchen or—when nothing’s there—in the living room, I’m dumbfounded.
“The house looks clean,” I say, noticing how there doesn’t seem to be any progress on coffee or breakfast either.
Mom hands me an eye mask and I slip it on. The last thing I see is Dad heading toward the coat closet by the door. I shuffle along as Mom guides me by my shoulders. Being groggy and unsuspecting makes me realize I should’ve paid closer attention because I forget what direction I’m headed.
Then I hear the latch on the front door.
The brisk fall air litters goose bumps across my bare legs and arms, and I’m thankful that I at least have on my fuzzy slippers.
I hear… keys.
Keys.
FREAKING KEYS!
“Watch your step,” Mom says.
Dad’s hands find my outstretched ones and I step down from the threshold onto our front walkway. They guide me along the path, and I try to control the shriek building up in my throat.
We stop, and soon after dad lets go of me, I hear the keys again.
“Okay, take off the blindfold,” Mom says, though it comes out fast, barely able to hide her own excitement.
I take it—basically rip it—off.
A car. A CAR. MY CAR!
I run up to it, nearly tripping in my slippers, but thankfully remaining upright. Suddenly I’m not cold and I don’t feel tired. I feel like a girl who has a car!
It’s an old black Toyota RAV4, and I know that offhand because it’s one of the few cars I mentioned liking to Dad years ago.
And now it’s here.
And it’s shiny, and perfect, and it’s mine.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you,” I shriek, and scream, and squeal, and maybe cry a little. I pull them both in for a hug, and they hold me tight, making me warm, making me so, so happy. “This is amazing!”
“Well, we figured that an amazing girl, with amazing grades, who has always been an amazing daughter, deserved an amazing eighteenth-birthday gift,” Mom reasons, her eyes glassy.
“Thank you.”
“Why don’t you get dressed and try it out,” Dad says, handing me the infamous keys.
Precious, precious keys.
“Yeah, you could go get coffee with Kristen or something.”
We head back inside and I sprint to my room. I immediately grab my phone and text Kristen about the car. I practically bounce into the bathroom as her reply comes through with even more emojis than the happy birthday text she sent me plus the fireworks screen effect.
As I’m brushing my teeth, I tap over to my thread with Hannah. My parents are right to think I’d race out to spend the day with Kristen because that’s what I always do. And I’m going to let them think that’s the plan even though I’m going to spend time with Hannah instead.
HANNAH: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!
CLARITY: Thank youuuuuu
HANNAH: I can’t believe I’m dating an adult
CLARITY: OMG
HANNAH: an older lady
CLARITY: 5 seconds away from silencing my phone
HANNAH:
HANNAH: Ready to tackle the Gorge??
I spent the late hours of my birthday eve researching the Gorge Metro Park, our chosen destination for today.
It’s a level-three hiking trail with a dam and rock formations.
I took screenshots of the park maps in case the reception is bad, which I’m kind of hoping it is.
Bad reception usually means you’re deep enough in the woods that you can pretend the real world doesn’t exist.
Back in my room, I text back a picture of my feet, dressed in my laced-up hiking boots.
HANNAH: Pick you up in twenty?
CLARITY: NOPE
HANNAH: ????
CLARITY: I can pick YOU up
HANNAH: OMG! You got A CARRRRR
CLARITY: YEEEET I did I did I did I did
CLARITY: See you in twenty!
HANNAH: Can’t wait
Since Hannah and I will have to keep our relationship a secret at the party tonight, spending part of my birthday together beforehand gives us a chance to be ourselves. And given how we connected over the summer, a hike just feels right.
We hit the Gorge trail and take the right side of the fork up a steep incline. The lower level of the park runs by the Cuyahoga River and passes through a picnic area and fishing pier, hot spots for crowds. My goal is to avoid people if I can help it.
The hill takes us away from the water, but even through the trees, we can hear the sound of the river cascading over the Ohio Edison Dam somewhere ahead of us.
The noise is nice and helps me clear my head and settle into my surroundings.
It’s still warm, but evidence of autumn is everywhere here.
The trail is covered in a blanket of fallen leaves, a collage of yellows, oranges, and browns.
The leaves still on the oak trees provide a canopy overhead, dense enough that sunlight trickles through and reaches us in shimmering rays.
I don’t realize how quiet we’ve been until we reach the Mary Campbell Cave, a huge sandstone alcove flanked by cliffs covered in moss. It’s beautiful and massive, big enough that I tilt my head all the way back to take it in in its entirety.
“Amazing,” Hannah whispers beside me. I look over to find her head tilted back as well, marvel etched across her face. When she turns to look at me, I catch the sheen of sweat on her skin when it’s hit by sunlight.
I never thought of myself as a hiker. Exploring the woods around Camp Refuge was the thing we did to keep busy, to add a backdrop of adventure to our talks. But doing it only with Hannah made me associate them with each other.
Being here, in the woods, breathing in the scents of wet moss and black gum trees, makes me realize how I nearly lost something so special. For those weeks after the Incident, I was convinced I’d never find myself in this same pocket of nature and magic ever again.
“I hear the overlooks are cool too,” Hannah says, nodding toward the rest of the trail.
I fall in step beside her. “You ‘heard’?” I ask. She’s never mentioned any of her friends being into hiking.
“You’re not the only one with Google.”
The way she glances at me, her lips quirking in a smirk, sends heat flaring across my chest. Something about that cocky grin snares me every time.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just admiring you.”
She looks away, her gaze falling to her hiking boots, as red creeps into her cheeks. I love making her blush, knowing that I might have that same stomach-flipping effect on her too.
Ahead of us, the trail disappears around a bend in a thick line of trees. Birds call to each other high above our heads and leaves rustle as squirrels and chipmunks dash across the path.
We’re in our own world.
“Wait.” She cuts me off, holding up one hand and using her other to fish her phone out of her pocket. “This light is perfect right now.”
“What light?” I ask.
I tilt my head back to see where there might be a break in the leaves. I don’t know where the sunlight she’s talking about is coming from, but her shutter goes off, my face still turned to the sky.
“I wasn’t ready.”
“I was,” she says, her attention fixed on her phone.
“Can I see?”
I step up next to her as she turns so I can see the picture.
“I wish I had more like this, from this summer,” she murmurs, tilting her phone.
The picture shows me from the waist up, my face glowing, mouth parted in a slight smile, eyes reflecting soft, indirect sunlight.
She used portrait mode, so all the greenery behind me is blurred.
I imagine what pictures from this summer would’ve looked like.
Mostly lit by the moon and set against a backdrop of darkness.
I pull still shots from my memory and find myself wishing the same, that we had something tangible from our time at Camp Refuge.
“I’ve missed this version of us,” I tell her as we continue walking.
She takes a second before admitting, “I think about camp a lot.” Her voice is quiet, her tone leaving room for something more.
“I feel like we got to know so much about each other in such a short amount of time. I’ve been friends with Rowena since I was ten, but I felt closer to you in a matter of weeks than I have with anyone.”
I float my hand across the space between us and slip my fingers between Hannah’s.
“You’re my favorite person,” I say.
Hannah tugs on my arm, pulling my attention away from the trail ahead.
“You’re my favorite too,” she says, her voice quiet, intimate.
We stop walking. With our hands still entwined, Hannah uses her free one to cup my cheek, and within a millisecond, her lips are on mine. I close my eyes, give in.
“I love you,” I whisper when we pull apart, the sound filling the tiny space between our lips.
“I love you too, Clarity.”