Cross Country Hearts by Suzanne August

Thirteen

“She’s a city girl!”

One hour later, I’m ushered into a cramped car even smaller than my own. An hour after that, I’m standing fifteen minutes into a forest trail, equipped with a backpack, a water bottle, and insect repellant.

“Man, you gotta stop wearing those black shirts.”

Considering Ren’s comment, Lila picks at Jasper’s black fabric. “Always the non-stylist teenage boy, aren’t you?”

Jasper frowns and slaps Lila’s hand away. “There’s nothing wrong with this shirt.”

“Except that you always wear black,” Thomas points out. “Doesn’t he always wear black, June?”

“Huh?” I tear my attention from the canyon and move it to the group. Lila is still trying to pick at Jasper’s shirt. He’s scowling, trying to dodge her. “Oh, uh… yeah. I haven’t seen him wear a color since we left Boston.”

Lila points to her chest. “I’ve tried giving him suggestions, but he never listens to me.”

With Jasper and Lila standing side by side, I notice how much they contrast each other. Jasper is all bleached hair and dark colors, which is even starker against Lila. Her blonde hair peeks out against the palettes of cotton pink and sky blue. The scarf tied around her neck is a rainbow of flowing and twisting colors, and that doesn’t even get into her bright clothing. She’s outstanding, and Jasper is a shadow compared to her presence.

But I can’t pay attention to them fighting about how Jasper is always wearing black. Instead, the canyon before me consumes all my attention. I don’t even have to look over to hear the rushing, crashing noises of an angry river. At least, it sounds angry.

“June? Earth to June.”

“Call her Judith.”

“Huh? Judith?”

“Yeah, that’s her real name.”

I snap my gaze back to Jasper, seething. “My name is June.”

Jasper holds up his hands, palms out. “Sorry. Your given name is Judith.”

I catch Thomas bobbing his head at me. It’s a nod to our earlier conversation. I turn to him, but Lila’s speaking to me again, and I realize she’s been trying to catch my attention for a while.

“S-sorry,” I stammer. “I’m sorry. What is it?”

Lila puts her hands on her hips, but if anything, she only looks amused. “Well, I was going to tell you Jasper is departing from us now, and we’ll meet up with him later, but now I’m asking if you’re okay.”

“Oh. Yeah, I’m okay. I mean—” I shake my head. “No, it’s just… I’m sorry, but when you said zip-lining, what did you mean? And hold on—” I cut my gaze to Jasper. “Where are you going?”

Jasper grins. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so nervous.”

That only irritates me.

Lila rolls her eyes. “He’s going the long way to Sandy Place. I don’t know if he’s mentioned it to you, but he’s terrified of heights.”

“Right,” I say slowly. “How, uh… high above the ground is this so-called zip-line?”

“It’s not that high,” Ren says. “Jasper is just a coward.”

“I am not,” Jasper says, and I hear the indignant tone. “You can ask June. I went—”

Lila waves a hand at him. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Get out of here already. I want to get there by noon!”

Jasper shoots her a glare but closes his mouth without continuing. I’m about to say it myself about how Jasper went on a roller coaster yesterday, but I hold back. What is it? Why can’t I come to Jasper’s defense or say something nice about him? I’m conflicted. There are no more intense waves of dislike towards him, but the urge to share the defeat of his fear with his friends unsettles me.

Melanie would not like where my thoughts are headed, and when I think this, I wonder why I should care what she thinks.

“Well,” Jasper says. He gives a mock salute. “See you guys in an hour.”

The three friends return the mock salute, making for an amusing show of goodbyes, but I’m still too distracted to wave Jasper off. He disappears into the trees in the opposite direction where we trekked before we stopped to talk, and I’m still staring down the canyon. It’s at least twenty feet before you hit the water.

And I realize Jasper abandoned me, leaving me behind with his three friends I’ve only known for twelve hours—eight of which I was asleep for.

Beside me, Thomas adjusts a strap on his backpack. His friendly smile, which seems to always be there and is a small tip upwards on each corner of his mouth, is directed at me. “Don’t let the height scare you.”

Lila starts moving forward before I reply. The rest of us are forced to follow, and while I linger a few paces, I still hear her when she calls over her shoulder, “I still can’t believe you’ve never gone zip-lining!”

Ren, the closest to me, calls back, “She’s a city girl!”

I don’t know why, especially because I’ve never been ashamed of being from the city, but I blush. Then I trip on a root. Thomas catches my arm and steadies me, but to make it all worse—when I look back to the roots, I realize I’ve tripped on nothing. My blush deepens to a beet red.

Thomas releases my arm. “Nothing to be ashamed of, you know.”

I glance at him and try to feign ignorance. “Huh?”

“It’s okay if you’ve never been much of an outdoors person.”

“I am an outdoors person.”

He just looks at me.

My face is so red now I can’t even look at him. “I used to go camping all the time when I was little. My dad used to take my sister and me.” Of course, once my father was gone by the time I was ten years old, no one else in my family liked camping enough to ever take me.

“Why don’t you anymore?”

“What?” I almost stumble again. “My dad isn’t around anymore. My mom hates camping.”

Thankfully, Thomas doesn’t ask for any more clarifications about my father, but he does say, “Well, I guess we’re about to see how much of an outdoors person you really are then.”

“Don’t worry!” Lila calls, back from where she is several feet ahead of us. “This will be fun.”

~.*.~

It’s not going to be fun. I know that because now, ten minutes after Thomas promised me this was going to be the time of my life, I stand in front of a zip-line that’s definitely not what the name suggests.

There is no way I’m getting on that cable. At my look, they inform me that it’s the same kind of cable that’s used for all zip-lines and that it’s perfectly safe. They have some hooks they’re going to use, but it’s far from the harness and clips that make an actual, real zip-line safe.

“It’s okay, June,” Lila says brightly. “We’ve been doing this for years.”

Ren pipes up. “We’ve been on this hundreds of times.”

I wonder how none of them have died yet. I don’t care that the cable attaches to an ancient—though I’ll admit healthy and sturdy looking—tree with thick roots running deep through the ground. That doesn’t reassure me. The rope hovers over the river, which at the most is a twenty-foot drop. Although the canyon is wide enough that the decline isn’t too steep, there’s nothing to slow you down. The cable attaches to another tree rooted in a sandy clearing at the bottom of the other side.

If someone freaks out, how are they supposed to slow down?

“It’s not as scary as it seems,” Lila says now. She’s rummaging through her backpack. “You’re supposed to let go in the middle of the canyon, so you land in the water, but if you don’t, there’s plenty of time to land on the grass on the other side. No one’s ever gotten hurt.”

And then, she pulls out a bent pipe and a clip, which she slides onto the middle of the pipe. That’s what she’s going to use for the zip-line?

I should’ve gone with Jasper. These people are crazy.

“It’s not dangerous.” Thomas pats my shoulder, which does nothing for me. “If you get scared to jump, you might scrape your knees in the grass on the other side. It’ll be nothing.”

“Nothing,” I echo. And wait—if I don’t jump off?

Ren must see the wild look in my eyes. “Just watch one of us do it! It’s so cool.”

“Um…” Nothing about this seems cool. Or fun.

Lila motions for me to hand over my backpack, which I do. And then she pulls out yet another bent pipe and clip. I should’ve paid more attention to what she packed in her purple bag before she let me borrow it because there’s no way I’m going to use that pipe.

She holds it out to me. “I’ll go first. It’s simple. You just let go and jump into the river.

“Hold on.” I put my hands out in front of me, shaking them and refusing the pipe. “You want me to let go?”

“Look.” Ren moves to stand at the edge of the cliff and points to the sandy clearing below us, under the other side of the canyon. It’s like a small, secluded beach the river doesn’t engulf. “It’s a calm patch of the river for about a mile, almost like a pool. It’s deep too, so you’re not going to break anything jumping in. You’re not going to get swept away by an undercurrent, either.”

“You can swim to the other side once you’re in,” Thomas adds. “It’s nice down there. People have left things at Sandy Place. Chairs to sit in, a barbecue. If you look, you can see a hole in the cliff where people stash things for general use.

Oh great, it’s a place where the lunatics congregate.

“I’ll go first,” Lila repeats. She’s started to watch me closely, speaking slowly, almost like she doesn’t want to scare off a wild animal. “Watch how I do it, and once I’m on the other side, I’ll yell up for you to go. I’ll tell you when to let go.”

“No,” I say immediately. Oh no. No, no. “I’m sorry. We can’t do this. This is so dangerous!”

“It’s fine,” Thomas says. “We’ve been doing this for years.”

“If you’re worried about the rope, we buy a new one every few years,” Ren responds, nonchalant.

Lila frowns. “I thought you’d want to try it. You said you would.”

“I don’t know…” I say, eyeing the river and doubting their reassurances that this is perfectly safe.

“Jasper will be down there soon,” Ren points out like that’s supposed to persuade me. “He’ll be waiting for us.”

I feel the sudden urge to burst into tears. Why did Jasper leave me alone with his friends? They’re three people I’ve never even heard of until twenty-four hours ago. They’re strangers. The anxiety floods in my stomach, seeping up and squeezing my chest. It’s almost panic.

“June.” Suddenly, Thomas is standing in front of me, blocking out Lila and Ren entirely from view. He waits until my gaze meets his own. “It’s okay. It’s safe.”

I don’t immediately respond, and when I don’t, Thomas speaks again, his tone gentle and soft. “Jasper told us this was a spontaneous road trip, but what’s the point if you won’t be spontaneous now?”

My hands clench. “Are you trying to goad me?”

He doesn’t answer that. “Watch Lila do it. Then decide.”

I press my lips together and don’t answer. What else can I do? Lila can jump to her death if she wants to. I don’t know her. She can do what she likes.

Thomas steps back, and when he does, Lila comes back into full view. She’s grinning at me. “All right! Watch closely, June. This is going to be amazing.”

She’s acting as if I said yes to this when I didn’t. If anything, the annoyance fights off the anxiousness coiling in my stomach. Despite that, I watch Lila closely. I almost feel like I should remember her as best as I can before she jumps to her death.

Lila zips up her backpack and drops it to the ground beside her, handing off my pipe and clip to Ren because I obviously wasn’t going to take it.

She smiles in my direction one more time before attaching her clip to the cable. Lila pulls back and down with the pipe briefly—to make sure the rope is secure, perhaps—and then, without any warning or any other preparation, she’s gone.

I’m afraid to watch. Thomas’s hand lands on my shoulder, and it’s the only thing keeping me from tearing my gaze away. I think I hear her scream—no, it’s laughter. She flies down the cable, and in seconds she’s halfway down. I guess she won’t have enough time to jump and that she’s going too fast. Then she lets go of her pipe.

She falls so fast, letting go and dropping like a dead weight, that it takes me a moment to process. She crashes into the water feet first.

“I don’t see her,” I say frantically. “Where is she?”

“Relax,” Thomas says. “She’s fine.”

And he’s right. Lila resurfaces. She brings her hands up to push away hair from her face. She swims to the other side of the canyon, crawling onto the beach they call Sandy Place. She stands once the ground meets her feet and yells up at us, waving her hands. I can’t see it, but I know she must be smiling.

“How deep is it?” I ask.

“Probably twenty feet,” Ren responds. “I’m not exactly sure.”

I swallow.

“Your turn,” Thomas says. “Think you can do it?”

“No.”

“Are you going to do it anyway?”

I give him a sharp look. “I don’t have a change of clothes. No one told me to bring any.”

I only wear shorts and a tank top. It’s not a big deal if they get wet, but still.

Ren actually laughs. “Have you looked inside your backpack? Lila put in some of her sister’s clothes. There’s also a bathing suit. Sorry. Should’ve told you to put it on earlier.”

I’m incredulous, to say the least, and I wonder what Jasper has told them about me, besides that I’m a city girl. Do they think I’m some spoiled, thinks-she-knows-everything girl like Jasper thinks I am?

I’m overthinking this. I know I am, but I don’t want to prove them right. I don’t want them to think they know me. I glance at the cable. My hands tighten around my backpack straps.

“I’ll help you with your pipe and clip,” Ren says.

“I didn’t say I was going to do it.”

Ren shrugs.

I peer at Thomas, but he’s not even paying attention to me anymore. He’s walked over to the edge and is watching Lila.

I take a deep breath. I will the anxiousness to stay away and take another breath. Okay, I think. I slide my bag over my shoulders and drop it to the ground. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

Thomas turns, wearing a small smile. Ren raises a triumphant fist. “Great!”

He helps me with the pipe and clip. As he watches to make sure I do it right, I secure the clip to the pipe and the cable. My nerves rattle, but I will them back and try to tell myself that the cable is strong. Didn’t Ren say earlier that they change it every few years? Still, images of me losing my grip too early or too late flash before me.

“Has… has anyone ever gotten hurt?”

“Not one of us,” Ren says gleefully.

Thomas’s grin grows, but it’s less encouraging and more impish than I would like. “Don’t worry too much. You really can’t fall too early or late. There aren’t any shallow parts on this side, and on the other side, you’re too low to the ground to fall too far and break something.”

“It’s a blast,” Ren adds. “Don’t overthink it. Just let go when Lila tells you to.”

“Trust,” Thomas adds. “That’s the key.”

Then, probably because she’s impatient, we hear Lila yell, “I’m ready!”

I take another deep breath and then pull down on the cable with the pipe, testing it as Lila did. I can do this. I can prove to Jasper’s friends that they’re wrong about me. I’m spontaneous. I’m not a spoiled city girl.

“Okay,” I say, but even I don’t believe what I hear. “I’m ready.”

Ren gives me a few more pointers and suggestions. “Hold on tightly. Don’t worry about missing Lila’s signal. She’s just gonna scream it, and when you hear her, let go. That’s it—let go.”

“You never asked me if I could swim.”

His head jerks up. “You can’t swim?”

“Of course, I can swim!”

“It’s her nerves,” Thomas says behind us, and I hear the laughter in his voice. It annoys me into keeping my mouth shut.

Ren steps back. “When you’re ready, June.”

When I’m ready.

I grip the pipe in both hands and crouch as low and far back as the cable will allow. I suddenly know, without a doubt, that I can’t overthink this. I have to do it. I have to do it now.

No more thoughts—I push off.

It’s fast. Too fast. I glide down the cable. It’s a speed that hurdles me to the other side of the canyon. I almost let go out of fear, but I’m too scared to let my hands slip. I can’t scream. My heart pounds furiously against my chest. My feet dangle below me. The water looms, cascading closer in view instead of away. I’ll crash into it. I’ll crash into land. I’ll break bones.

Then—screaming. I hear a high pitch, wild scream. I think it’s me. It’s not. It’s Lila.

I let go.

I crash into cold water, forgetting to hold my breath. Kicking out at the water, I feel something akin to fear pounding through my blood and squeezing just below my chest. I bring my arms down hard, kicking out again, and more controlled this time. I propel myself upwards.

It’s too far up. I think the surface will never come. But despite slow passing seconds, my head breaks free, and I take a gulping breath of air. I hear laughter somewhere near me and laughter somewhere further away and higher. When I open my eyes, Lila’s standing in the water, waist-deep. Her grin is so wide I see all her teeth from where I am, yards away.

“Swim over!” she yells.

I push my hair away from my eyes and crane my neck to peer up at Ren and Thomas. They wave at me. I paddle the water, taking deep, fast breaths. I recognize that what I thought was fear pounding in my veins when I crashed into the water wasn’t fear at all. It was adrenalin.

And as the adrenalin fades away, I think about how amazing that was.