He’s relentless with all of his exploration, and I’m making weird groaning noises that are halfway embarrassing. But I just can’t stop. And now I’m struggling to get my mouth back on his skin, any skin I can reach, and my arms are around him, pulling him closer, and I’ve found my way back to his mouth, and GOD, IT’S GOOD.
How could I have forgotten?
Did he get better at this? Did I?
Because my God.
Waterfall mist covers my legs, and my knees are giving out. My bones don’t work anymore. It’s as if he’s pressed some sort of secret on switch, and I’m at the mercy of my body—which likes his body quite a lot and desperately wants to drop to the ground and let Lennon have his wicked way with me, right here in front of God’s Voice. I absolutely would, too. In this moment, I’m a trollop. An unrepentant floozy. I’m a raging wildfire of feelings and sensations, and I can’t put them out.
Oh, wow. I seriously can’t breathe. I think I need to learn how to pace my trollop-y ways. Or at least learn how to breathe through my nostrils while kissing.
I try to steady myself, and that’s when the voices in my head start whispering. He abandoned you. He hurt you.
The sound of approaching hikers intensifies my uneasy feelings.
I pull away from Lennon.
He pulls me back.
“People coming,” I warn.
“Zorie,” Lennon says, his hand roaming down my back. “I want to try again. I don’t want to be enemies. Or friends. I want . . . everything. You and me. I don’t care about your father anymore. I will fight for us, if that’s what it takes. We’ll figure something out together. Tell me you want that too.”
And for a moment, I almost give in and agree, but then one of the hikers laughs—they are way closer than I expected—and it fractures the moment, a proverbial bucket of icy water over all our shared warmth. And with a jolt of clarity, I remember Lennon saying a lot of the same sentiments to me before homecoming, when we decided to take the Great Experiment public.
Can we be together again?
Do I want to?
Has what he’s revealed changed how I feel about last fall?
Why can’t I make an easy decision?
And finally: What is wrong with me?
“I need to think about things,” I tell him.
The anguish on his face is unmistakable.
He closes his eyes and then blinks rapidly, gathering himself. Then he nods and steps back, putting distance between us.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I just . . . It’s a lot at once, and . . .”
And I can’t function like a normal human being.
He nods. “I know. I understand.”
“Lennon—”
The approaching hikers surge onto our plateau. It’s a group of college-aged boys. Their laughter scatters my thoughts and puts an invisible wall between Lennon and me.
“Come on. Let’s get out of here,” he says, gesturing toward our backpacks. All the emotion disappears from his voice and posture, and he’s back to being unreadable.
I want to scream. I want to beg him to come back. I want to be alone so that I can think through every detail of what just happened. I want to stop thinking.
But I can’t do any of those things, so we return to the trail in silence, both of us deep in thought . . . never closer, never further apart.
21
* * *
After leaving the falls, we hike Emerald Trail the rest of the afternoon, communicating only when necessary, and occasionally delving into safe subjects. The national park system. The weather. We maintain a polite distance from each other, as if we’re just two acquaintances, sharing the trail. As if we didn’t just kiss each other’s faces off. As if my entire world hasn’t flipped onto its back like some stranded, flailing turtle.
Though we pass quite a few hikers, when we get to the end of the trail in the early evening, I’m startled to see not only a ranger station, but also an entire campground bustling with people. A road. Cars. The scent of meat cooking on grills. Music playing in someone’s RV.
“Camp Silver,” Lennon informs me. “The trailhead is here. You need reservations to hike Silver Trail at this time of year. They try to keep the number of people on it at a certain level, so it’s not elbow to elbow.”
“It looks pretty elbow to elbow now,” I say, scanning the campground.
“Everyone wants to walk where Ansel Adams took photos,” he says. “The trail goes up to the Crown, which overlooks the whole park.”
I think I’ve heard about that. It sounds familiar, so it must be a big tourist draw.
“There are campgrounds along the way for people who like a few modern conveniences, but this is probably the biggest one,” Lennon says. “And here’s the ranger station I told you about.”
The station is a small, dark brown log cabin on the edge of the campground. Outside the door stands a board of printed notices—announcements about the weather, the status of each campsite, and which trails are closed. There’s even a warning about a mountain lion in the area, several missing people, and another about a small, twin-engine plane that’s crashed in the mountains. Hikers are to stay clear of the wreckage until the park can arrange to have it transported.
“What in the world?” I murmur, reading the flyers. I’m not sure which notice is worse.
Lennon doesn’t seem worried about the mountain lion, because he taps on the plane-crash announcement and whistles softly. “I’ve heard about stuff like this. The entire Sierra Nevada mountain chain is a graveyard for lost planes. It’s called the Nevada Triangle.”
“Like the Bermuda Triangle?”
“Just like that. From Fresno to Las Vegas—basically, a big dead zone over the California-Nevada border where planes go down or disappear entirely.” The drama in his voice increases. “Some say it’s a combination of rapidly changing weather, strong winds, and hidden peaks. But the whole mountain chain has this spooky Area 51 mythos. More than two thousand planes have gone down here since 1960. Some just fell off the radar, never found.”
“Whoa,” I say, suitably impressed.
His lips pull into a gentle curve—just for a moment. Then he sobers up and goes quiet.
“So, this Silver Trail . . . ,” I ask, trying to recall his map. “Is that where we’d be going to get to Condor Peak?”
He shakes his head. “We don’t have hiking reservations, and it’s headed south. We’d need to go west from here. There’s a smaller trail through the backcountry. I’ve been on it before, so no surprises like the caves yesterday.”
“I see.”
He gestures toward the ranger station. “Unless you’ve decided to go home.”
Have I? I’ve been thinking about that decision the entire afternoon. Along with everything that he told me about homecoming. And about the kiss.
Definitely thinking about the kiss.
I could continue on. (But what if we end up fighting?)
I could call for a ride home. (But what if I regret not staying?)
The energy between us feels heightened, strained, and slightly awkward. But Lennon is patient, not pushing me to decide, and for that, I’m grateful. He glances at his phone. “Still no service. There should be a phone inside the station.”
“I should call my mom, at least,” I say. “Just to let her know I’m alive.”
His gaze intensifies. He’s studying my face, trying to figure out what I’m going to do. If I knew that, I’d just tell him.