Trusting You and Other Lies

  I didn’t know why—his face and voice were the same as they always were—but I got the impression that this was a sensitive topic for him. One that a person would rather have run naked through a maze of cacti than talk about.

  Of course that only made me want to talk about it that much more. Callum seemed like both the guy who could have had no secrets and one who could have had a million.

  “So yeah, there’s more to being driven than going to college….” He nodded in response, like the topic was closed. Not even. “But do you want to go?”

  He exhaled. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know.” I gave him a look. “Most people know. They might not know if they’ll have the right grades or get the right amount of financial aid or if they’ll get the right scores on the SAT, but most high school juniors know if they at least want to try to go to college or if there’s no way in hell.”

  He fired off a shrug. “Well, I guess you just met one of the rare few who doesn’t know what he wants to do yet, so would you mind dropping it? Talking circles around it with you isn’t going to help me make my mind up any faster.”

  I turned around and while I was giving the rafters another inspection, I added, “Well, I want to go to college.”

  “And this is supposed to make me think I should want to go, too?”

  This time I was able to tell this was his way of being funny. Progress. If only in snail scoots. “No, it’s my way of telling you something personal about me.”

  “Good for you,” he said.

  “Which is generally reciprocated by the other person,” I continued like he hadn’t said anything at all.

  “Which won’t be reciprocated by this person.” He pasted on a grin and lifted a brow. “So you can feel free to share all you want, but just because you showed me yours doesn’t mean I’ll show you mine.”

  I dipped my hand in the water and flicked some water at him. “You’re twisted, you know that?”

  “Oh, I know that. Thanks for the confirmation, though.” His fake grin started to shift into something almost genuine as he wiped the water off his face.

  I was ready to splash him again when he sat up straighter. “Okay, everyone,” he announced to the raft. “We’re about to hit the last stretch of whitewater before the take-out spot, and we’ve saved the best for last.”

  That was when we came around the bend in the river and I could see what he was talking about. Up ahead, the river seemed to go from this glassy dark blue to frothy white. It was definitely the “whitest” of the whitewater we’d rafted today, and it had me and the rest of the rafters clutching our paddles a little tighter.

  From Naomi’s raft, I heard Harry give off an excited yelp. Beside him, Mom looked more like they were marching toward the gallows.

  “Just remember to paddle, stay calm, and listen to what I’m saying, and this will be one hell of a ride,” Callum instructed.

  When I glanced at him, I caught the faintest glimmer of excitement in his eyes. He winked and gave me a nod of encouragement because I could only imagine what I must have looked like right then. “It’ll be okay. Take it down a few hundred notches there.”

  I bobbed my head, but I don’t think he really got it. I wasn’t freaking out because I was worried about myself, but because Harry and my mom were drifting down this river, too, along with the six rafters in our boat I was responsible for. All of a sudden, I got this sense that I was a little kid tasked with saving the world from certain destruction. Who was I to think I could do this? Who was I to be pretending I knew what I was doing and could be responsible for the lives of others when most days I felt like I was barely scraping by being responsible for myself?

  “Okay, everyone!” He had to shout now since the whitewater was so loud. The water looked almost like big soap bubbles breaking around the rocks, so that was what I was going to imagine: a bubble bath. A nice, relaxing bubble bath that—

  The instant we hit the first section of rapids and the nose of the raft thrust down right before bursting up again, nice and relaxing were the farthest things from my mind.

  “Paddle!” Callum yelled as spray broke around us. Why were the other rafters laughing? Why were they hooting and hollering like they were riding Space Mountain? Why were they smiling and leaning forward like they were eagerly anticipating what was coming next?

  Leaning forward? No leaning forward. That was a definite way to get one thrown from the raft. I knew I needed to keep paddling with the others, but I needed to remind all of them to stay low and balanced in their places, because clearly they’d forgotten and Captain Adrenaline back there was too busy steering the raft to make sure we didn’t bash into the maze of boulders jutting up from the river.

  “Marylynn!” I shouted at the woman right in front of me. Maybe if I could get her attention, she could pass the message to Mike in front of her and he could pass it on to Cole beside him, so on and so forth. And yeah, I had memorized the first and last names of everyone on our individual raft, along with their blood types and allergies. You know, just in case.

  Marylynn didn’t hear me, not that that was a big surprise. I could barely hear myself screaming.

  I chanced a look over at Naomi’s raft, and, like Callum, she was navigating the river with the same calm and ease he was. Why were these people so chill when we were skipping like a stone down a river? Were they the crazy ones, or was I for not acting like this was the best thing ever?

  Harry was squealing with delight, moving his little arms so fast that his paddle was a blur. Beside him, Mom looked like they were about to walk the plank. So I wasn’t totally alone in my panic. Mom and I were feeling the same thing. Not that I was so sure how I felt about that…Mom and me on the same page? Not exactly the life story I was hoping to write.

  “Marylynn!” I cried again, this time so loud it hurt my throat. Still, nothing.

  If I didn’t get these lunatics to sit back, they were all going to fly out of this thing. Keeping the paddle in my hands and managing to still move it mostly in time with everyone else, I slid up closer behind her, crawling on my knees in quick, tiny slides.

  I was so close I could have reached up and tapped her on the arm, but I wanted to get just a bit closer.

  “Phoenix! Heads up!” I heard his shout, and I even listened, but I was about one second too late for putting my head up to see what was coming. The raft took a serious dip right before taking an even more serious pop back up, successfully managing to trampoline me right up…and out of the raft.

  I hit the water and went under, the icy-cold river issuing me a serious reality check.

  The current clawed at me, pulling me under at the same time it seemed like it was trying to pull me apart. I froze. For one awful moment, my whole body went frozen, my brain suffering the same condition.

  It wasn’t until my head broke through the surface—thank god, goddess, and whatever else for life jackets—that I came back and my fight-or-flight response powered on full charge. My arms and legs went into action, whipping around, left and right, up and down, as the frothy white water surged around me.

  I couldn’t see the rafts. Not at first. It wasn’t until I got spun around by a current that I saw them. They were a little ways behind me and it looked like everyone was yelling something at me. Other than the roar of the river, I couldn’t hear anything, not even my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

  It was just long enough for me to make out Harry and my mom, both still safely in their rafts, before the current thrust me around again. My body raced through the water in whatever way and direction the river wanted me to go. It didn’t matter how hard I fought to head toward the shore or how much I tried to fight—I was stuck.

  When I swept past a boulder jutting out in the middle of the river, I tried to grab on to it, but the river was too strong. It bounced me against the boulder as it swept me out again.

  This was where I hit panic mode, totally consumed by adrenaline. I was going to die. This was it. The river was goi
ng to suck me under, and I’d spend eternity in some underwater grave. Harry. All I could think about was what this would do to him, watching his sister drown right in front of him at summer camp. Talk about leaving some serious scars.

  The river swept me around again, and this time there was one raft that had pulled in front of the others—the same one I’d just somersaulted out of. It was only a few seconds before the current twisted me around, but it was long enough to catch a glimpse of Callum. Unlike the looks on the other rafters’ faces, his wasn’t tipping the worried scale. Instead, he was giving me a look that was easy to read, probably because I’d seen it aimed at me a handful of times already. The one that said, What in the hell are you doing?

  It took being thrown against a rock wall—literally—for me to get it. He was gaping at me like I should have known what to do because I did know what to do.

  Don’t fight it, just go with the flow.

  His words chimed in my head, repeating over and over until I was finally able to calm down a hot second.

  My arms stopped flailing around, and my legs stopped kicking against the current. I forced my whole body to relax, took in a deep breath, and let the river do its thing.

  Immediately, it stopped feeling like the current was trying to suck me under or that the waves crashing around me were trying to split me open. Instead of feeling like I was fighting for my life, it felt more like I was having the ride of my life.

  All too soon, the whitewater came to an abrupt end, spitting me into a calm stretch of the river. I waved at the rafts to let everyone know I was okay before making my way to the sandy patch of beach Callum had pointed to before the rafts turned in that direction.

  It was amazing how easy it was to swim in the calmer water. I could still feel the slight pull of the current tugging at my legs, but it was easy to fight it. Even though my muscles felt cramped and sore, I made it to the shore before the rafts.

  I plopped down onto a warm patch of sand and thought about catching my breath. I didn’t get a chance before I got tackled from the side by one ten-year-old whose strength had apparently doubled since we’d come to camp.

  “Oh my gosh, Phoenix, that was crazy. Are you okay?” Harry’s arms tightened around me like a boa constrictor. “I was freaking out.”

  Harry had managed to knock me over so half my face was planted in the sand. I wrestled an arm free and wrapped it around him. “Ease up there, Hercules. Contrary to popular belief, I’m not made of solid steel.”

  His arms loosened. A little. “Sorry. I was just so worried. If something happened to you…”

  I gave him a hard squeeze. One that made him grunt. “I’m okay, really.”

  His response to that was hugging me harder. This time it was me who huffed a sharp grunt. What had this place been feeding this kid? “Hey, Harry?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can you let me up now? I’m going numb.”

  He shot back, pulling me up with him. Sure enough, I could feel a thick layer of sand sticking to half my face. “Sorry about that.”

  “Don’t sweat it. It’s nice to know that someone would miss me if I kicked the bucket.” I mussed his already-messy hair and tried wiping the sand from my face. At least I was exfoliating my skin.

  “Phoenix Elizabeth Ainsworth.” Mom came up behind Harry, arms crossed, but she was biting at her lip anxiously. “What happened back there?”

  Harry plopped down on the sand beside me and slung his arm around my neck. Apparently, he wasn’t letting me out of arm’s reach anytime soon.

  “I fell in,” I answered her with a shrug.

  “More like you cartwheeled in,” Harry added with a grin. Now that he knew I was safe, he could make jokes. Maybe I should have played the in-shock card a little longer.

  Mom was still chewing on her lip. “Why did you fall in?”

  Translation: Nobody else fell in, so why did you?

  “I was trying to get a rafter’s attention. I guess the river kind of took me by surprise.”

  “Harrison tried to jump in to help you.” Even though Harry and I had clearly moved on from the incident, Mom had not.

  “Only after you tried to jump in first,” Harry piped up with a defensive look on his face.

  Say what? I blinked up at my mom. “You were going to jump in and save me?”

  She lifted a shoulder. “I was going to try.”

  “You were really going to jump in after me?” I finally noticed how different Mom looked. Her hair was drenched and pasted to one half of her face. Her mascara was streaked and running down her cheeks. Her life jacket dripped buckets. Her linen pants and blouse were so wet they were sticking to her. My mom was a mess. A total, undeniable mess…and she’d tried leaping into a raging river to come help me.

  It was a weird mix of emotions I felt then, foreign things that swirled in my stomach and messed with my head.

  She reached out and patted my leg. “You’re my daughter. I’d walk through fire for you, so of course I’d jump into some silly little river to save you.”

  I was still in a state of parental-concern shock when Callum made his way toward me. After helping the rafters out and herding them to the beach. After securing the rafts up onshore. After doing a count of everyone to make sure we hadn’t lost anyone. And after making sure the sack lunches were handed out and everyone got their veggie or BLT sandwiches.

  I had to practically force Harry and Mom to go grab their lunches after trying to convince them that I was fine—no permanent physical or mental injuries. They’d finally wandered off, promising to bring me a sack lunch.

  I had barely recovered from what my mom had just said before Callum crouched down in front of me. He wasn’t quite, but he was almost smirking at me.

  “Nice swim?” he asked, keeping a straight face.

  “Nice of you to leap in and save me,” I replied as he unzipped a small red nylon bag in his hands. “Lead Counselor.”

  My attempt at guilt-tripping him was clearly failing. Instead of looking guilty, he smiled. “Let’s say I had jumped in to ‘save’ you. How do you think that would have gone down?”

  I paused, wondering where he was taking this. “Heroically?”

  His smile spread as he tore open what looked like an alcohol wipe. Was that a first aid kit he was holding? What did he need one of those for? It wasn’t until he starting wiping at my shins with the pad, which stung something fierce, before I realized I was bleeding. In more than one place. Those damn river rocks had drawn some serious blood.

  “Heroic wouldn’t be my term for it,” he said.

  “What would be your term for it?” I curled my fists into the sand, bracing myself, as he tore open another alcohol wipe for the other shin.

  “Stupid,” he said bluntly.

  “So you’re saying my heroic is your stupid?”

  He didn’t pause. “Pretty much, yeah.”

  “I was just thrown from a raft and the river decided to play a game of pinball with my body. Everyone else has been coming up and asking if I’m okay or giving me a nice pat on the back. Why are you lecturing me on what is and isn’t heroic?”

  Callum dropped the bloody alcohol wipe into the same small plastic bag as the other one and then grabbed a tube of antiseptic ointment. “Because we all need someone in our lives who shoots straight instead of shoveling bullshit, right?”

  “I’m not sure I want to answer that.”

  “Why not? Because the truth is harsh or because you’re one of those girls who prefer the bullshitters?” His tone wasn’t argumentative, just casual—sincere, even.

  “I’m not sure I want to answer that, either.” I braced myself as he started smearing gobs of ointment onto each of the cuts running down my shins, but this didn’t sting. It actually felt pretty good, especially with how gentle he was being every time he touched me.

  “Let’s say I had jumped in after you.” He paused to rip open one of those giant beige bandages. “What do you think would have happened to the rest of
the rafters in our boat? What would have happened to them when their guide bailed?” He waited a few seconds to let that set in before moving on. “Let’s say I dived in for you and somehow managed to catch up to you. What was I supposed to do to help? I couldn’t shove you back into a raft. I couldn’t swim you to shore. You saw what happens when you try swimming sideways in the middle of a section of whitewater.” After placing the bandage over one of the bigger cuts on my left shin, he glanced up at me. His hair was wet and hanging over his forehead and eyes, but I didn’t miss the raised brow hiding behind his hair. “I guess I could have held your hand and said something sappy, like Don’t worry, I’m here with you, or something encouraging, like We’ll do this together, or something macho, like I’ll save you, but it doesn’t matter because I couldn’t have left that raft in the first place.” He tore open another bandage and carefully smoothed it over the next cut on my shin. “But I promise that when and if you really need my help and I’m around to give it, I’ve got you covered.”

  He was probably just saying that to be nice, but it made me shift in the sand. He didn’t sound like he was just saying it. He didn’t look like it, either.

  “I fell in once, too. My first summer here with my mom and brother.” He glanced up to make sure I was still with him.

  I tipped my head to the side. “You, outdoorsman extraordinaire, fell out of the raft and into the river? Say it isn’t so.”

  “Oh, it’s so.”

  “What happened?” I asked, trying not to notice the way his fingers felt grazing my skin or the way the warmth from them seemed to make its way inside and pool in my stomach.

  “My brother shoved me in. That’s how I got this.” He traced his thumb down the crooked scar at his temple. “I face-planted into the side of one of those boulders back there.”

  Callum zipped his first aid kit up and sat down on the sand across from me. “I was a kid that summer I fell into the river. You thought you were panicked? You should have seen me.” He shook his head as he looked at the river. “I’d only learned how to swim the summer before that and wasn’t exactly comfortable in the water yet. Especially that kind of water. I didn’t remember what the counselor had taught us about falling in or anything. I just eventually ran out of steam. That’s my claim to fame—I beat the river by accidentally going with the flow.”