Chapter Twenty-Three #3
A little while later, they’re back on the road, after a quick breakfast of drive-through breakfast sandwiches and orange juice.
Ten o’clock passes, and then eleven. Zach stares at Parker’s phone, feeling panicked and confused.
Has his mom not noticed he’s gone? Had she gone straight to bed without checking his room?
There’s no update from Paige either. What if the Reids called the police?
Could he go to jail for running away? Is this actually considered kidnapping?
Their soft, hopeful fantasy life from the night before continues to dissolve in the cold light of day.
Zach wants to ask Parker to tell him more about their fake dog, their fake jobs, their fake life together at Acadia, but he can’t muster up the words.
Parker keeps both hands on the wheel as he drives this time, his knuckles white.
They both stay silent, lost in their thoughts, as the Garmin GPS on the dashboard reads out directions to Acadia.
As they get closer, Parker’s phone loses cell service, which at least makes it impossible for Zach to keep neurotically checking for messages from Paige or Bea or Isaac.
They pull into the visitor’s center in the afternoon, the winter sun high in the sky.
Acadia spreads out around them. This realization is the only thing that drags Zach out of his carousel of thoughts.
He’s here. They’re here, together. It takes a moment for Zach’s brain to catch up with his body, and when it does, he grips the dashboard.
“We actually made it,” Zach says in disbelief, staring at the little wooden porch at the front of the visitor’s center.
“Fuck!” Parker shouts suddenly, making Zach’s skin jump. “We forgot your passport. Your stamp!”
The reaction is so sweet that Zach barely resists leaning across the car and kissing Parker senseless. “It’s so totally fine,” Zach says, gripping Parker’s hand instead. “Really. We’ll—we’ll come back again someday. Okay?”
Instead of going inside, they head back onto the road, driving further into Acadia National Park.
It opens up around them, something that Zach has only ever seen in pictures.
Everything seems so much bigger here—despite the blanket of cold and snow, there’s still some green peeking out.
The sky stretches out overhead, more enormous than Zach has ever seen it. He’s here. He made it.
Alive. So weirdly, strangely alive.
In the back of his head, Zach can hear the rattle of the train; he can feel the hot breeze as it zipped by him, close enough to blow his hair back off his forehead. His muscles tense up, imagining for a moment what it would have been like if he’d stayed on those tracks.
It wouldn’t be this.
As much as Zach desperately wants to go back in time and undo everything those emails caused, he wouldn’t be here, right now, without them.
The inevitably of this trajectory burrows into Zach’s thumping heart.
Without the note, without the train, without the emails, without all of that, he never would have met Parker.
They never would have started talking. Parker would never have found him at the carnival, and Bea would never have come up to talk to them, and the five of them would never have had that twinkling night at the fairgrounds.
And without all of that, the five of them would never have become interwoven in each other’s lives.
And Zach would never have realized how good being alive can be.
Parker pulls off onto the first trailhead they find.
The sign in the parking lot reads Beech Mountain and Zach recognizes the name from his books.
They walk through the trees slowly and quietly, side by side, bracing against the sharp winter breeze.
It’s the opposite of Saratoga. Two bookends to their relationship—one trip at the beginning, the other at the possible end.
There’s no way to know what’s happening back home, but maybe that’s for the best. Zach doesn’t want to know their fate until he pulls back into his driveway. Out here, they’re still together, and everything else is background noise. Out here, it’s easier to pretend.
The trail takes them up through the forest, the trees falling away the higher they go, the ground becoming rockier. Zach’s seen so much of this place in photos and seeing it now, here, with Parker—it’s beyond compare.
They approach a huge fire tower, and Zach takes Parker’s hand, squeezing.
They climb up to take in the sprawling, midwinter view.
Zach points out different parts of the park: “Acadia Mountain is over there,” he says, pointing with his nondominant hand so he doesn’t have to let go of Parker’s. “And all of this is Echo Lake.”
They don’t move on for a while. They stand gripping the railing of the fire tower, watching the way the water and ice and snow chop wildly against the nearby shore. Zach’s nose gets cold and pink from where the wind whistles frostily against his face.
“You know…” Parker says slowly, breaking the silence.
He’s staring straight ahead, not looking at Zach, but his voice is serious and sharp.
Zach stiffens to attention. “I didn’t think I stood a chance with you.
I didn’t even think a universe existed where you liked me—until, you know, you were kissing me. ”
He laughs, ducking his chin. The wind whips his long hair back off his face. “Maybe all those self-help books my mom keeps buying are right, you know? Like, manifestation or something. Maybe they’re onto something. ’Cause how is my life so shitty for so fucking long, and then you show up and…”
Parker grips the railing tight. He furrows his brow, and his words get faster, like he’s trying to get them all out before he loses his nerve.
“And I liked you. I really liked you. Enough that I wasn’t so sure about killing myself anymore.
But you were my friend, and… and that was enough.
It felt like enough.” He pauses, wipes at his nose with his baggy sleeve.