Former enemy?
God, I’m so confused.
Lennon squats by the fire and assembles a portable grill. Like everything else we’re carrying, it’s lightweight and compact, all the pieces fitting inside a single metal tube. When he’s finished clicking all the pieces together, it stands on four legs. He gingerly settles it over the campfire, and then sets a pan of filtered stream water atop it. Flames lick the sides of the pan.
We both watch the water heating as if it’s the most interesting thing in the world.
“Let’s think this through logically, okay?” he says.
“Yes, please.” Logical is good. Logical is safe. And I can tell by the look on his face that he’s about to use logic against me, because he knows me oh-too-well. But I’m so stressed right now, I don’t even care. I just need for things to line up in my brain.
He pushes dark hair out of his eyes and counts off a list of things on his fingers. “One, the group left us. Whether they thought through that clearly and realized what they were doing is inconsequential now. We’re stranded. Two, we can hike all day on brutal trails and hope either a bus or a nonmurderous Good Samaritan willing to pick up two hitchhiking teens can take us out of the Sierras—”
“Oh, God.”
“—or we can hike all day on easy trails and be halfway toward Condor Peak tomorrow. Three, you shouldn’t cancel your plans with Avani, because she’s a way better friend than Reagan ever was. Four, you have a perfectly capable guide who can take you where you want to go, and enough time to get there. Five, what do you have to lose?”
“Plenty.”
“Like what? You afraid Joy will forget to feed Andromeda?”
Smart-ass.
“No,” I say.
“Need to get back and press all your plaid skirts before school starts? Or maybe you’re expecting a big order of imported washi tape to be delivered and need to spend all day organizing it by color and pattern?”
“Oh, ha-ha. You’re a regular Bill Murray.”
“What, then?”
“I don’t know, that my dad would kill us both if he knew you were part of Reagan’s group. I can’t imagine what he’d do if he knew I was contemplating spending several days alone with you.”
“Good point. Alone.” He whistles softly and opens a bear canister. “We’ll have trouble keeping our hands to ourselves.”
“I didn’t mean that.” I sound like a Victorian schoolteacher, shocked by the very idea of impropriety—all Heavens to Betsy! and How dare you, sir!
“No?” he says, feigning disappointment.
Is he flirting with me? That can’t be right. I think I’m losing my mind. “N-no,” I stutter, and then say more firmly, “No.”
“Let me take you to Condor Peak. Give your dad a big middle finger. Zorie and Lennon exploring the world. Like old times.”
“Like old times,” I mumble. “Hey, Lennon?”
“Yeah?”
“We don’t really have a choice, do we? I mean, hiking to the bus stop . . . it was never an option.”
He gives me a tight smile, and then shakes his head. “It will be okay. I promise. I’ll get you to Avani in one piece. And if you change your mind, at the very least I can get you to a ranger station inside the park by tomorrow.”
The water is boiling. He carefully tilts the pan’s contents into his steel carafe before settling a mesh plunger on top. Then he sets a timer on his phone.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“French press.”
“For coffee?”
“Yep.”
“Real coffee? Not instant?”
“We’re camping, Zorie, not living in a dystopian nightmare.”
“I’ll try to remember that when I’m digging cat holes.”
He holds up two blue enamel coffee cups. “It could be worse. It could be winter.”
Or I could be stuck in the wilderness, miles away from civilization, with the boy who crushed my heart in the palm of his hand.
Oh, wait.
I am.
Part III
15
* * *
Over coffee and a couple of rehydrated gourmet breakfast pouches that Reagan left behind, Lennon breaks out his big topographic map of the area and a black metal compass that unfolds to reveal several dials, a clock, and a ruler. He makes several measurements and jots down numbers with a mechanical pencil, and it all looks complicated.
“How are you?” Lennon says, nodding toward my arm, which I’m scratching.
“A little itchy,” I confess. Last night’s bear attack and fight sent me back into Hive Overload. “I’ve got some stuff to put on it, but—”
“But what?”
“It’s that stuff from Miss Angela.”
He makes a face. “Oh, God. The miracle weed lotion that smells like a scented candle factory got hit by a bomb?”
I point at him. “That’s the stuff. And not only does it make my eyes water, I’m sort of afraid to use it out here after last night. I don’t want to attract bears.”
“Hmm,” he says. “Your worry is valid. I’ll try to think of a solution. In the meantime, here’s the route I have in mind.”
He turns his map around to show me and opens up his journal, laying it on top. Across two of the journal’s pages, he’s drawn a not-to-scale map of our planned route, complete with a few tiny symbols sketched at various stopping points. I spot a notation for a waterfall near the bottom and point.
“This is us?”
“This is us,” he confirms.
“And these tents are—”
“Camping spots. We have to pass over two chains of mountains to get to Condor Peak.”
“Rock climbing?” I say, suddenly freaked out.
“No. Patience, grasshopper. If we go this way,” he says, tracing a dotted line with his finger, “we can hike through a network of caves that passes under the mountains. The caves have four exits, and one of them is on the south side of the mountain. Once we make it through, there’s an excellent valley where we can camp tonight.”
“Hold on. Back up. Spelunking?”
“Walking through a cave is not spelunking. It’s walking.”
“In the dark.”
“We’ll have headlamps.” He holds up his phone. “I saved a PDF of a hiking book that covers backcountry trails. It says there are several big caves along these foothills, but this one is the longest. And once we get to the other side of the mountain, we’ll be able to pick up a bigger trail.”
I look at where he’s pointing on his homemade map. “I see three sets of tent symbols. Three nights?”
He nods. “To make it to Condor Peak without killing ourselves. And if you change your mind, this is the nearest ranger station. It’s on the way, and we’ll be passing by it tomorrow. Whatever happens, I won’t leave you stranded. If you’re thinking that I’ve abandoned you before—”
“I wasn’t.” I totally was.
He presses his lips together, then adds, “We can do this, I promise. As long as we follow the rules, we shouldn’t have any more bear problems. This will be safer than spending three days in civilization. You’re more likely to die in a car accident than in a national park.”
“There you go, bringing up the possibility of death,” I say drily. “I had forgotten about it, but now it’s fresh in my mind, thanks.”