Starry Eyes

If my hives were bad before, they’re going to rage now. I forage around in my pack for antihistamines and take two, swallowing them dry with no water. Exhaling a ragged breath, I lie back on my sleeping bag and stare into nothing. The ground is hard and cold beneath me, and I can feel a sharp rock poking into my hip.

The fight tumbles around in my mind, and I’m wounded all over again by everything that just happened. And then there’s my dad. Does everyone in Melita Hills know about him? Are Mom and I the only ones who’ve been in the dark? Jesus. How stupid are we? An empty pang stabs my chest, and I wish Mom were here now, so I could talk to her. Or maybe so she could talk to me.

Wind rustles the side of my tent as I take off my glasses and wiggle into my sleeping bag. Everything inside here smells strongly synthetic, like nylon and plastic. Maybe I have it zipped up too tightly. Should I open a vent flap? What if the bear comes back and smells me in here, like he smelled Brett’s cookies?

I decide that it doesn’t matter. I’m suddenly overwhelmingly tired. No sleep last night. Getting up early. All that hiking. The antihistamines. I feel myself teetering on the edge of sleep, and after a while, I stop fighting. I just let it take me under.

* * *

When I wake, the inside of the tent is pale gray and chilly. My fingers and nose are Popsicles, and when I try to move, I realize I fell asleep in my clothes. I also never did anything about that rock beneath the tent, and now my hip feels as if I’ve broken something.

On top of all that, I had weird dreams about Lennon. Very screwed up, very erotic dreams. He was killing that bear, and dear God, why is my brain so messed up? It must have something to do with Brett’s comment last night about Lennon carrying a torch for me. Which is stupid, because Lennon’s not carrying any sort of torch for me. And how could he be, really, because I’m the one with the unrequited feelings. I’m the torch carrier. Lennon left me.

I’d like nothing more than to stay cocooned in my sleeping bag and go back to sleep so that I can maybe redo those dreams in a different, nonerotic direction. But I sit up to check my hives—present, but under control—and soon realize I have to pee. Badly. There’s room enough for me to get into a crouching position, but I can’t really stand in here, so after rummaging through my pack for supplies and a pair of glasses, I crawl my way across the sleeping bag and unzip my way to freedom.

All is quiet. It’s gray outside, but a marigold light shines through the eastern trees. Everything is damp, and the subtle scent of pine fills my nostrils when I walk. I’ve never been more awake in my life. I’m on edge, thinking of the bear, eyes flicking to every bird call, every rustling leaf. I don’t see anyone. No bear, no people. Just the flattened husk of Brett’s destroyed tent next to Reagan’s.

After a trek into the forest to relieve my aching bladder, I trudge back to the base camp and spot movement across the river. Anxiety over last night’s fight seizes me, and I dread seeing Reagan or Brett. It takes me several panicked heartbeats to clear away the antihistamine fog and recognize Lennon in a black hoodie. He’s crossing the rocks from the opposite bank, a hatchet holstered to his hip and an armful of firewood. When he spots me, he lifts his head briefly, and I’m surprised how relieved I feel to see him.

Don’t think about the erotic bear dreams.

He’s headed for the granite shelter area, and I catch up with him there. He dumps the pile of gathered firewood near the pit. When his back is to me, my eyes roam the denim vest he’s wearing over his hoodie. It’s studded with horror-movie patches and enamel pins shaped like tombstones and severed body parts. Some things never change.

“Hey,” I say. “Guess we’re the only people up, huh?”

“Yes and no.” He squats near the pit to arrange tinder in the center, bark and dead leaves.

“What do you mean, yes and no?”

“Are you hungover?” he asks, squinting. “You sound slow.”

“Antihistamines.”

“Ah. Hard drugs. Are your hives acting up?”

“Sort of. What do you mean, yes and no?” I repeat, looking around the camp.

He sighs. “Over there, on the bear canisters.”

They’re stacked in a row near the boulders we were using for seats, along with some camp cookware. Then I spot a strip of toilet paper sitting under a rock. Something’s been written on it, a message in what appears to be eyeliner. It’s Reagan’s handwriting. I remove the rock and read the note:

Find your own way home.

14

* * *

I reread Reagan’s note again and again, but it’s still not making sense. Did they . . . ? I mean, are we . . . ?

“They left us,” Lennon finally says.

“All of them?”

“All of them.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. “Where did they go?”

He carefully arranges sticks in the shape of a teepee around the pile of tinder. “Back to the glamping compound.”

“They told you that?”

“Reagan and Brett had a fight after you went to your tent last night.” Lennon keeps his eyes glued to his task, but his body posture looks . . . uncomfortable. “Long story short, he said this trip was too much drama for him. Reagan agreed. They decided to go back home.”

Is this a joke? It must be. Right?

Gingerly, he props up larger branches over the sticks. “Reagan was going to leave last night, which was nuts. Kendrick and I had to convince her to stay until there was light to hike, and that we’d go back together. Earlier this morning, I thought I heard noise, but it wasn’t loud, so I fell back asleep. By the time I’d woken up again and gotten dressed, they were gone.”

He’s serious. This isn’t a joke.

I feel dizzy, so I sit on a boulder. “They left us? Summer and Kendrick too?”

“The last thing Kendrick and I talked about last night before I turned in was trying to estimate how much it would cost to hire a car at the glamping compound to drive him and Summer to his parents’ vacation home in Napa Valley.” He brushes off his hands and digs a lighter out of his jeans pocket. “But I didn’t think they’d just take off like that.”

“Without us?”

“Brett left me a note on the inside of that pack of cookies the bear ate. He basically said it was best we all parted ways to avoid further drama, and that he knew I could find my way back. Then I found the other note Reagan wrote outside your tent.”

Find your own way home.

He gestures toward the riverbank. “They left Brett’s destroyed tent and a bunch of the supplies. Guess Reagan is officially over camping. Nice of her to just leave a huge mess behind for us to clean up.”

“How long have they been gone? Can we catch up to them?” Why is he just calmly building a fire?

“Zorie,” he says, “if what I heard the first time I woke was the sound of them leaving, then they’ve been gone a couple hours. We’ll never catch up.”

“You could have woken me! We could have hustled!”

“I’ve only been awake for fifteen or twenty minutes. Don’t you get it? It was too late an hour ago. By the time we hike to the parking lot . . .”

They’ll have driven away already.

Okay. No need to panic. Just think. Make a new plan. What do we do now? It took us four hours to hike here from the parking lot. Another hour or so to drive back to the glamping compound, where we could catch a taxi or bus home. But we don’t have a car. “How long a hike on foot is it from the parking lot back to the glamping compound?”