Chapter 13
Alec
When Finn and I were twelve, we went to summer camp together and decided we could build a boat out of spare lumber we found lying around and zip ties we stole from the counselors’ supply shed.
Finn christened it The Gengar, after his favorite Pokémon and the game we spent half the summer playing on our Game Boys under the oak tree in my backyard.
The boat didn’t make it more than ten feet off the shore of Lake Shasta before half of it started to sink, but we didn’t care.
We climbed aboard anyway and paddled in crooked circles, soaked to the bone, shouting over each other like two pirates mid-mutiny.
When the rest of camp woke up, they found us fifty feet offshore, laughing so hard our ribs ached. We got stuck with kitchen duty for the rest of the week.
Every time Clementine laughs, it reminds me of that day.
Except now, I’m not twelve.
And the girl in front of me isn’t Finn.
“We’re coming up on a class one,” I warn. “Remember, it’s small waves, no drop, but keep your center of gravity low.”
“Copy that,” she answers.
We’ve been on the river for half an hour. The first fifteen, I drilled her on the basics. Paddle strokes, grip, body posture. I even flipped on purpose so she could practice escaping the spray skirt.
Today’s run is light. Class 1 and 2 rapids, ending with a short Class 3. Nothing dangerous, but enough push to punish sloppy paddling.
Tandem kayaking’s all about rhythm and trust.
The Class 4 water in the Wild Trails qualifier won’t forgive nerves, so Clem needs to find her pace now.
The river threads through steep cliffs and dense spruce, steel-gray water churning around jagged boulders.
Mist rises from the surface, softening the edges of trees and rocks, while thick clouds hang overhead, pierced by shards of sunlight that set branches and early autumn leaves ablaze with gold.
The current twists and narrows, restless and merciless, beautiful in its power.
The bow dips as the first wave swells beneath us. She squeals but steadies herself before I can bark a correction. Good girl. We cut through the next wave, spray slapping sideways, the boat jolting under us.
We hold.
“Alec, did you see me?” She twists around, and her paddle smacks into mine. “This isn’t that hard at all.”
“Hey! Rule number one?”
“Always look where you’re going.” She parrots it perfectly. “Forward, I know. I just wanted to see if you were having as much fun as me.”
“This isn’t for fun.”
“Right, I forgot, no fun.” She digs her paddle back in. “Even though this is the most fun I’ve had since I got back to town.”
“Pick up the pace,” I shout and check my watch.
Air temp: 59. Water temp: 54. Wind: five knots.
Shades of orange in Clementine’s hair: nine.
Not that I’m counting.
“Back straight, elbows low,” I direct.
“Got it.”
“Don’t strangle the paddle.”
She corrects, and the boat cuts cleaner. I let her set the rhythm. Her wild laughter tears across the water and lodges in my chest. Reluctantly, a part of me answers, betraying itself with a thrill I hadn’t expected. Not the kind of reckless fun I had with Finn, racing until our shoulders gave out.
With her, it’s different. She’s infectious.
It’s been a long damn time since I let myself pay this much attention to someone.
Shove it down.
I drove to Anchorage last night for this kayak. Called in a favor through an old sponsor and had it overnighted. Most teams already cleared the shelves of anything decent. Wild Trails has 350 teams registered. Only 100 make it through qualifiers.
We have to be one of them.
“Let’s try an eddy turn,” I call. “See that pocket behind the boulder? That’s an eddy. Calm water. We’ll angle in, pivot one-eighty, and stop.”
“Stop?”
“In a Class 4, you’ll beg for them. They’re pit stops.”
“Okay. Which way do we rotate?”
“Left.”
The rapid surges. Water slaps the hull, drowning half the kayak before spitting us back up. Clementine doesn’t flinch. She leans forward, shoulders tight, arms driving. She doesn’t cower, she attacks.
“Left!” I bark.
She plants her paddle. On the wrong side.
“Other left!”
“Sorry!” she yells back, scrambling to fix it. Her spine flexes, muscles pulling tight beneath her life jacket, paddle striking the hull before she corrects. The kayak jerks, spins clumsily, then settles as the eddy takes us, bow swinging upstream.
On one side, a cliff leans over the river, a low branch reaching out as if to grab us. On the other side, a smooth boulder rises from the roaring current. My lungs finally let go.
“That wasn’t terrible.”
“Tell me that was badass!”
It was. She was.
“You did good.”
“Oh, come on.” She groans, dramatic as hell. “Say it. Say I was a badass.”
I roll my eyes, but she reaches her paddle back toward me, nearly smacking me in the head.
“Hey!” I bark.
“Praise me or I won’t improve,” she fires back, like she knows she’s winning this argument.
“You were a badass.”
We angle back into the river. The current smooths, but we don’t. I call, she answers, and our rhythm clicks, like the boat itself finally trusts us.
“Rapids. That’s a Class 2, right?”
“Good eye.” I’d seen them twenty yards back, but it matters that she did too.
“See?” she says. “You’re not just a teacher. You’re a student.”
I grunt. “I know how to kayak.”
“No, a student of the Compliment Clementine course.”
If she only knew how fast I’d ace that.
“Be ready. This stretch may turn fast.”
We angle into the drop. Whitewater closes in, the world shrinking to froth and roar. Clementine’s laugh bursts through it. Silver water catches the sun on her shoulders, glittering like she’s made for this.
We round the bend, and my stomach caves. Branches choke the channel. A fresh beaver dam, stacked high and solid. Shit. I should’ve scouted this stretch. On Treaddit, some stranger swore the colony was on the east fork. Like an idiot, I trusted them.
With her life.
“Dam ahead!” I roar, scanning for an eddy. “Hard left! Paddle!”
“What?!” Her voice is absorbed by the current.
“We need to stop! Pull out!” I bury my blade. She mirrors me. The river laughs, hauls us into its fists, and drags us straight for the wall.
One thought burns through everything: Keep her safe.
“Brace your core! Paddle up!”
The bow smashes a log sideways, and the kayak lurches skyward. The cold air is a razor in my throat. For one impossible heartbeat we’re flying, twenty miles an hour, five feet high, Evel Knievel without the guarantee of landing.
The kayak tilts, and the world inverts. I try to flip us back over, but it’s useless. The last thing I hear is her scream, and then it’s gone as we are engulfed by the rapids moving under us.
The river is all teeth. Whitewater gnashing, the current pulling my body in a dozen directions. The impact knocks the breath from me, the spray skirt holding me in like a trap. My vision is all foam. I kick and twist, but the kayak keeps moving.
I open my eyes.
Where is she?
The bow is empty. My pulse rips through me. She must’ve gotten free like we practiced, which means she should be at the surface, waiting for me.
I claw out of the spray skirt, exploding upward. Air slams into my lungs, but she isn’t here. It’s just foam and churn and a hundred places for her to vanish. Her life jacket should have pulled her up. Fear slips through my mind, but I ignore it.
I need to find her.
“Clementine!” I yell and yell until my throat goes raw.
A flash of red hair whips once above the water before the current drags her under. My heart caves as I wrench off my life jacket and dive.
The river claws at me, clamping down like it wants me too, but I fight, arms slamming water aside. Mud and grit cover my teeth. I don’t care. All I care about is chasing that streak of red.
There.
Her shoulder bobs upward. Her shirt is snagged on a branch of a fallen tree. Her body thrashes.
Adrenaline courses through me.
I claw at the fabric until it tears under my fists. My hand clamps her waist as I tug us upward, lungs screaming.
We break the surface. She coughs, sputtering.
She’s alive.
“Kick.” I yell over the river, which seems to rush faster around us, yanking us downstream. I haul her toward me like my arms were built for this one purpose.
I spot the bank and swim like my life isn’t mine anymore.
I haul her to shore, stumbling, half dragging, half clutching, until we are standing on the muddy bank. She collapses against me, coughing river water into me. Her braid slaps my jaw, heavy and dripping.
“Jesus, Clem—” My voice comes out shredded. I cradle her face, tilting her chin up, my thumb brushing her throat until I feel her pulse.
Fast. Steady. Alive.
Her lashes flicker. Her eyes open and lock on mine.
“I’m sorry,” I rasp.
But instead of fear on her face, she looks…happy? She’s smiling, staring at the kayak bobbing on the surface now two hundred meters downriver.
“I got out of the spray skirt on the first try! Like we practiced.” She squeezes my forearm, heaving in breaths between laughs.
My skin buzzes with adrenaline—I tell myself it’s adrenaline, nothing else. But adrenaline doesn’t usually make my temples throb with guilt.
I stare at her. She’s okay. More than okay…she’s proud of herself?
Meanwhile, I’m still choking on the terror of what almost was.
I should let go.
But I can’t.
I crush her against me again and hold on like the river might still steal her if I loosen even an inch. Her heart thunders against mine before she wriggles free, dropping onto the muddy bank.
“I shouldn’t have taken us this way.”
She tilts her head, still grinning. “Didn’t you say nature’s unpredictable? That you can’t account for everything?”
“You’re really okay?”
It’s only been two damn days, and I’ve already put her in danger, first with the bear and now the rapids.
“My ass hurts from that landing, but yeah, I’m good.” She winks. “I promise I’ll be in perfect working order for painting your kitchen tomorrow.”
Her levity is confusing. Maybe I should laugh with her, but I can’t manage to move past the tension in my bones.
How the hell am I supposed to manage another six weeks of keeping her safe?
“Are you okay?” she asks.
“I need a second.” I inhale and press my thumb against the first black band circling my forearm, tracing the ink I’ve added for people I’ve lost to the mountains.
If I lost her…
I cinch my eyes together, refusing to finish the thought.
“If it’s about the kayak smashing, maybe I can help get us a new one,” she says.
“I don’t care about the damn kayak.” I press harder over the ink, as if I could rewrite what’s beneath it.
Her thigh brushes mine, and my insides thrash. My lungs are cracked bells.
Of course she notices. Her hand finds my wrist, her finger skimming the ink. “What are these for?”
Water crashes along the rocks, but her voice cuts through it. I could lie. Should lie. But lies feel heavier than truth.
“They’re people,” I say. “Everyone I’ve lost.”
Her delicate nails circle the first ring. The heat of her skin brushing mine steadies the storm inside me. “Who is this?”
“This one—” I let my gaze linger on the curve of her damp forearm.
“Nikkolo Silva. Cerro Torre, Chile. He used to fold origami out of anything he found. Leaves, scraps of paper, even a Hershey’s wrapper once.
Laughed so hard in storms the tent rattled.
” I swallow, the memory still fresh. “He was the first.”
She traces another line.
Gael.
Xavier.
Solène. Eight names. Eight silences carved into my skin. The thought pounds so violently I almost say it out loud.
Her palm spreads warm across my back, thumb moving in quiet circles like she’s stitching me back together. I hate that it works. Hate that I’m breathing again because of her.
“That’s a lot,” she whispers.
“It is.”
She hesitates, then asks, “Are any of them for Finn?”
Her question is soft.
Harmless to her. To me, it’s dynamite.
My whole body seizes. Finn doesn’t live in ink. He lives in every ridge we clawed up, in the jokes we yelled across storms, in silence that didn’t crush but carried. If I ever had to put him on my skin—fuck—I wouldn’t stop.
I’d carve him over every inch until I disappeared.
Or I’d climb into the mountain’s mouth and not come back down.
Because how do you live without your other half?
You don’t.
But I can’t say that. Not to her. Maybe not to myself.
“No,” I force out.
Her lips part. “If I did anything out there that made you think I was going to hurt myself, I’m sor—”
“Don’t.” I stand so fast the ground tilts. “You don’t have to be sorry.”
The river roars loud enough to rattle my ribs, but it’s not the water that’s making my hands shake. My palms are wet. My vision tunnels. Every part of me is screaming the same thing: She could’ve been one of them.
It’s irrational.
So fucking unlike me.
I don’t panic. I don’t fear. I don’t feel this much.
And now I don’t know what to do with it. These messy, overwhelming feelings don’t fit inside the man I’ve built. They don’t fit in the pack I carry. They spill over the edges, heavy and unmanageable.
I should’ve known better. Shouldn’t have signed up for this. I pushed her too hard today, and now I have to deal with the fucking consequences.
Why am I reacting like this? Why is she inside my head when I’ve spent years teaching myself how not to let anyone live there?
So, I do the only thing I know how. I stack the walls higher. Layer them thick. Pretend I’m stone again.
Because if I add another band to my arm, it won’t mark me. It will end me.