Chapter 12
The next day, dad is on time to pick me up for our hike. When I slide into the passenger seat, he pulls me into a tight hug with one arm, and I hug him back.
“Perfect day for it, huh?” he says as I buckle my seat belt. It’s almost Halloween, but the weather hasn’t quite turned to unending rain just yet; instead, it’s cool and sunny today, just a hint of crispness in the air, the leaves on the maples around our house starting to turn.
I nod, and he smiles before turning to the Breathalyzer. A moment later, he puts the key in the ignition and the car starts. “Had just enough whiskey not to tip it off,” he says with a wink.
I can tell he’s joking—I got a DUI and didn’t talk to my kid all summer, ha ha ha!—but it’s not that funny. I know Dad, though, and it’s better if I react like it is, so I summon a smile, and that seems to satisfy him.
“You wanna pick the music today?” he asks, slapping the dashboard as we pull away.
I settle my backpack on the floor between my feet and dig my phone out of my jacket pocket, plugging it into the car stereo.
I skip past all the pop girlies and finally land on Paramore, something both of us can enjoy listening to.
“Man, I haven’t heard this one in a minute,” he says as the first song comes on. “What a classic. Your mom used to listen to this album all the time. It came out a few years after you were born.”
I can see the year in my music app, but I just nod.
I remember being in the back seat of the car as Mom drove me to and from elementary school, how she’d smile at me in the rearview mirror as she sang along.
This album tastes like chocolate milk, feels like a seat belt strapped across my body.
Even though it’s a rock album, to me it’s a moment of calm before the chaos of going to school and coming home.
I hope it’s a good omen for today, something to keep us anchored.
The trail Dad picked starts out near one of the visitor centers.
The place is busy, but as we climb, the groups of tourists and other hikers fade away.
Concrete under my boots turns to dirt, rocks, and twigs as we snake up a ridge.
Dad takes the lead and sets a slow pace, which is fine with me, because I’m not the speediest hiker either.
The trail is quiet except for birdcalls and the occasional piercing whistle of a marmot.
I scan the rocks around us, hoping to see one, and am rewarded by the sight of a small, furry, beaver-like creature standing upright to stare at me from a nearby outcropping.
He screams and disappears, and Dad and I both burst out laughing.
As the path gets steeper, my breathing gets heavier.
Physical exertion isn’t really my thing.
My thighs are already burning and I’m sweating despite the chillier temperature at this elevation, so I stop to take off my jacket and stuff it in my pack.
A few minutes later, the trail slacks off, and we emerge from the tree line into a meadow.
“Would you look at that,” Dad murmurs as we stop, staring across the meadow in front of us.
It rolls away like a soft green carpet, and across from us is Mount Rainier, no longer a distant vision on the horizon.
Even far away, she’s got the gravitational pull of a planet, but now we’re close enough to see the surface, and the view is breathtaking.
She’s cloaked in snow across the broad, rolling curve of the peak, and swathes of white blanket her sides, broken by spines and valleys of dark gray rock that slope downward from the sky to the earth.
I can see a waterfall pouring over one of them, tiny in the distance, continuing its path down a glacier toward the basin.
Dad hands me a granola bar, and we stand there together eating our snacks, gazing at the mountain.
I gulp some water from my water bottle without taking my eyes off her; I want to memorize this moment, this image, this feeling.
Dad motions me forward, phone in hand, and takes a few photos of me smiling with the mountain behind me.
Then he comes forward so we can take selfies, and I lean into him, both of our faces beaming on his screen.
I pull out my phone and snap a few of my own pictures, wishing I could send them to my friends, and to Forrest too. There’s no reception up here, so I don’t know if he’s texted me this morning. Maybe I’ll have messages waiting for me when we get back to civilization.
After a few more minutes, we turn away, cutting through the meadow.
The mountain looms in my peripheral vision, pulling my gaze back to it again and again.
I wish I could live in this meadow. Up here, my thoughts are clear the way they are in the garage with Shar.
It feels, for a moment, like my brain is my friend instead of my enemy.
“How’s the Queer Alliance thing coming along?” Dad asks.
I blink. He remembered. “Um, it’s OK?”
“You mentioned you were sharing the presidency with someone. Started with an F?”
“Forrest,” I say. “Yeah, at first I was . . . not sure how that was going to go. But it’s working out. I don’t know. We’re kind of . . . talking?”
“Oooh!” Dad says, turning back to waggle his eyebrows at me. “Talking?”
“Oh my god, not like that.” I roll my eyes. “Just, like, friendly, which is weird.”
“Weird how?”
“We didn’t have the best history,” I say.
“He is—was pretty annoying. And I was worried . . .” I trail off.
I’ve never really talked like this with Dad.
When I was a kid, it was Mom who cuddled me when I cried, Mom who talked to the principal when a kid was bullying me in elementary school, Mom who was always watching over me.
So it was Mom I turned to when I needed something.
After the divorce, Dad was so in and out of my life that confiding in him never even crossed my mind; instead, I was busy wondering where he was, whether he was OK, and if he’d even be coherent the next time we talked.
I swallow hard, blinking back tears.
“You were worried . . . ” Dad prompts me, a few steps ahead, his back to me as we approach another stand of trees. The trail is looping, heading back to the start, and there’s an incline ahead.
“Worried he’d mess it up, I guess,” I say, digging my toes into the sudden steepness of the trail. For a moment, we’re both silent, concentrating on pushing up the hill, and then we’re over the top and hiking down into the trees again.
“But he hasn’t,” Dad says.
“Nope,” I say. “Kind of the opposite.”
“Well, sometimes people can surprise us,” Dad says. “Do you like talking to him?”
I nod, then remember he can’t see me. “Yeah, I do actually.”
“Then don’t overthink it,” Dad says. “Just do what feels right.”
I catch myself before I laugh. Dad has no idea what goes on inside my head; overthinking is an understatement. But up here, it almost feels that easy. Just do what feels right.
Which I guess means that Forrest and I might be . . . friends?
On Friday, I wake up early to put together my Halloween costume. Strawberries are my favorite fruit, but I don’t have a whole lot of clothes in the right color palette. I’m more of an earth tones person, my coat hangers full of dark green, navy blue, burnt orange, gold, and black.
I pick out a shirt that’s more of a red-orange, and in the back of my closet I find a red velvet blazer I got at the thrift store last year.
I put on dark green corduroys—my legs can be the strawberry vines—and my olive green beanie, for the little leaves on top.
In the bathroom, I draw a strawberry on my cheek in bright red marker.
When I come out to grab breakfast, Mom is standing at the counter capping her coffee thermos. She sees me and her whole face lights up.
“Look at you!” she says. “Are you a . . .” She squints at me, taking in the whole outfit from my hat to my shoes.
“A strawberry,” I say after a few moments of silence.
“Yes, of course,” she says. “So cute. I love it.”
“Aren’t you usually gone by now?” I ask.
“I know,” she says, rushing to the door and stuffing her feet into her loafers.
“I’m late! I stayed up working on a new brand direction for the client—they did not like what we came up with originally, and I’m the lead, so.
” She grimaces. “It’s my responsibility!
OK, your lunch is in the fridge, HappyHalloweenIloveyoubye! ’
And she’s gone, the door slamming shut behind her. I wait for the click of the lock, but she must really be in a hurry, because it doesn’t come. A moment later, her car starts up and peels away outside.
“Thanks, I love you too,” I mumble, as if she’s still here, and pull open the fridge, snatching my lunch box.
She didn’t have any idea what my costume was.
I want to run back into my room and rip off all my clothes, scrub the stupid strawberry off my cheek.
If I’d been thinking about it, I would have gone thrifting or borrowed clothes from one of my friends, but it’s too late now.
I’m a strawberry. And it’s time to go.
When I get to school, I see only a few people in costumes.
Most people are dressed normally, and next to them I’m a pimple on unblemished skin, bright red and way too obvious.
On the way to my locker, I definitely hear giggles.
They’re probably not about me, but I keep my eyes ahead. Either way, I don’t want to know.
I text my friends to find out where they are, and weave my way from my locker to Anna’s, where I find her and Makayla.
It’s not hard, because Anna is dressed in head-to-toe bright orange.
Her earrings are huge orange slices made of acrylic, her dress is practically fluorescent, and her tights have a pattern that matches her earrings. Her eye makeup looks like a sunrise.