22. Serena
Serena
“Glad you like the place,” Graham says, off-handedly, when we emerge from the grotto.
I insisted on staying in there through the golden hour, and I also insisted on stripping down to my underwear and going into the pool.
The water was bracing, welcome against my skin after all the sweating and sticky sprays.
I’d floated on my back, stared up at the cave ceiling, eyes focused on the rocks dripping down like icicles.
“Stalactites,” Graham informed me when I asked if the ceiling knives would fall and impale us. “And not likely.”
“But they could.”
He didn’t answer that, and when I lifted my head to look at him where he sat alongside the pool, his gaze was turned decidedly away. I imagine the only reason he didn’t leave me altogether was the worry that if something happened to me, Ryan might be upset with him for not saving me.
I’d never spend the money on something like a sensory-deprivation tank, but I’d seen them online. And back-floating in that water, so clear and so blue, was the closest I’d ever felt to being truly weightless.
Now, I say, “Like is not the word that I would use. It’s amazing…”
He glances down at me, then over his shoulder. He’s been worriedly looking to the east—at least, I think that’s the direction—since we got out here.
“What’s going on?” I ask, dropping into one of the tiny triangles he claimed were camp chairs.
“Sky looks bad.”
I follow his gaze, but see nothing beyond a slightly hazy sky. “What, like a fire?”
I’ve heard of those happening out west, but maybe it’s just as much of a problem here. Doesn’t feel possible, with how humid it was today, but I’m not a scientist.
“No.” Graham focuses back on the tent he’s started to put up. “Storm. A big one.”
While he works on staking down, building, and waterproofing, I sit in my chair and study the sky, trying to see what he sees. To me, it just looks like clouds. There’s not a heavy or angry storm cloud in sight. Which is great because I’ve always been afraid of thunderstorms.
I had asked him if he wanted help, but he insisted he could do it all on his own.
Graham finishes with the tents, puts our bags inside—his in his, mine in mine. Then he returns to the fire, starts pulling out little foil packets, adding boiling water from his tiny stove to the fill line. The food is freeze-dried, but Graham assures me it will be good when it’s done cooking.
He watches me expectantly while I take my first bite. It’s Lillie and Ryan’s fault I’m so high-maintenance now. Before having their cooking, I probably would have loved Graham’s freeze-dried beef stroganoff.
“You can say you don’t like it,” Graham says, watching me stomach bite after bite. For the first time today, a smile tugs at the corner of his lips.
“Why would I lie?” I quip, taking another long swig of water and peering into my packet, only to find I’m not even halfway through the goop. When I glance up, Graham is watching me, and I sigh, “I don’t want you to think I’m a city girl.”
This time Graham actually laughs, and it makes something flutter in my stomach.
“You’re obviously a city girl,” he says, moving his fork around in his own foil packet as his voice slowly lowers back into its normal cadence. “And, yeah, you’re not a natural hiker. You need more cardio. And you should have brought your own bug spray. But you’re not…”
He trails off, and a flicker of the expression he wore earlier in the grotto returns. The fluttering in my stomach doesn’t stop.
“Annoying?” I try. Graham raises his eyebrows, and I give him a faux-glare. “Okay, hopeless?”
“…I was going to say vapid.” He pauses, takes a bite, chews, swallows, and drinks before seeming to remember the conversation.
“You might be from the city, but you totally appreciated the waterfall right away. I’ve been here so many times in the past several months and have been so focused on preserving it that I forgot to enjoy it.
You reminded me. Not a lot of city girls could do something like that. ”
“But,” I say, pointing my spork at him and realizing that I picked that habit up from Ryan, “city girls can do the perfect smoky eye, and that’s way harder.”
Graham doesn’t argue, but he does chuckle, which feels like more points for me in the game of impressing him. In fact, I’m feeling pretty pleased about the turn this day has taken until a whip of wind whips through our camp, rustling the tents and making the fire falter.
To my right, Graham stands, his entire body rigid.
This time, when I look in the direction he was focused on before, I see the storm.
It’s fully formed now, like an angry jellyfish with a thousand wispy tentacles, and we can see it moving through the New York countryside, heading straight in our direction. Fuck…
“Shit.” He lets out the word like punctuation. “Shit.”
Graham starts moving, packing up his stove and the other stuff from dinner.
“What are we going to do?” I ask, totally panicked. All of a sudden, the wind is really whipping.
“It’s too dangerous to stay here in the storm,” he says, gesturing up into the mountains, toward the trees and rock. “Could be landslides. Plus, lightning is more dangerous up here!”
Moving on instinct, I go for the thing that’s most important to me. From my tent, I grab my bag and wrap my hands around my camera like it’s a talisman. With it on my back, I feel better.
Graham moves toward the tents, but before he can do anything, mine lifts off the ground like something from a tornado movie, straining against the stakes for only a second before twirling off into the wind.
“Fuck, fuck—” Graham turns, his gaze meeting mine, and at that moment, rain starts to fall. It starts off as a drizzle, but it’s obvious that it’s going to start coming down hard soon.
“Get in the tent!” Graham orders, kicking dirt over the fire—though I’m not sure that’s totally necessary with the rain—and pulling open the flap to the tent.
I climb—flop, really—inside, trying to keep my boots near the opening so I don’t smear mud everywhere. I land on a sleeping bag, which softens my fall. Graham joins me, hunkering down and zipping the flap shut behind us.
“What do we do?” My heartbeat is thrumming and I have to yell to be heard over the sound of the rain hitting the tent.
Graham leaves his boots on, sitting with his knees bent and his eyes on the tent’s door. “We wait and hope like hell nothing up above decides to slide down and bury us.”