Life on the Level (10 page)

We walk and walk, and the hill gets steeper. My heart races from trying to get up this hill and reliving this story. Why am I even telling him this voluntarily?

“Did you find her?”

I nod. “She wasn’t hard to find. She still lived in our old apartment. Buzzed me right in. I guess she thought I was someone else, because there she was, my mother. I didn’t recognize her at first. She just looked so… worn. It was like the life had been drained right out of her and there was just bad skin and bones left. But still, there she was, doing lines off her glass table. And you know what she said to me? Do you
know
what she said to
me
?”

When I turn to look at him, he’s already watching me. “What?”

“‘At least you didn’t get your father’s nose.’ Can you fucking believe that? ‘Hi Mom, haven’t seen you in almost a decade. I’m your fucking spitting image.’

“You know, I would love to look like my dad. That way every time I look in the mirror I could look at someone who loved me.”

He tries to grab my hand. I pull away. I feel like I’m getting strangled by the past. Hutch whispers my name. The compassion on his voice might just break me.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m not good at being touchy and emotional at the same time. And don’t tell me it’s okay.”

We walk quietly. In this incline we can see the others again. Julie stops and waits for us to catch up, but she’s too shy to rejoin us. It’s just as well, because I don’t want to be around anyone else. I don’t like people seeing me this way.

I bite the inside of my lip until it’s raw and bleeds a little bit. Hutch hands me a water bottle.

“I wasn’t going to tell you it’s okay,” he says.

“You weren’t?”

He shakes his head. “That’s just something to say when you don’t know what else to say. The other alternative is ‘it could be worse,’ but what if this is as bad as it gets? What I was going to say was, I know how you feel.”

I finish half the water bottle in one gulp, then pour a little bit over my head. I hand it back to Hutch, and the first thing he does is drink from it. Look at that, he wants my germs.

“Let me guess,” I say. “Broken home. Juvenile delinquent brother, alcoholic father. You went to shrink college to help people.”

He laughs, then returns the empty bottle to the backpack. “Close. My brother was a juvenile delinquent, but the judge felt bad for him because he, unfortunately, knew my mom. My brother got himself straight, and now he’s a fire fighter up in Washington. It’s very impressive if you like tattoos and surliness, I guess. We see each other during Christmas. My dad wasn’t the alcoholic. My mom was.”

“Sorry.”

“And you’re right. I was going to join the Marines after high school. Then I changed my mind. I always think about how my life would’ve been different if I’d changed a single thing about it.”

“Which part?” I realize I’ve slowed way down. My little toe is rubbing right against my boot. I can feel blisters forming on the bottoms of my feet. Still, this is all the time I get to spend with Hutch without it looking like we’re on a date. When the breeze picks up and we’re in a patch of thick trees, the heat isn’t so bad.

“What if I stayed home? I was tired of seeing my mother destroy herself. It felt like no matter what I did it, no matter how much I told her that I loved her, that my brother needed her, it didn’t matter. She was so young when she had us. My dad was her first everything. Some hearts stay broken and no amount of love will fix ‘em.”

We walk in silence. I no longer hear the others ahead of us, but I don’t care about keeping up. I want to reach out to him and tell him that I understand how it hurts. I know what it’s like to watch one parent wither away after being left. My dad just did it in a different way. Because words aren’t enough, and okay, because I’ve wanted to do this since I walked away from him, I reach out and grab his hand. He seems shocked. He looks down at our hands, and I wonder if he thinks this is wrong even though it feels perfect. He holds on tighter. I never want to let go. He shines that smile at me, and nothing around me—not the trees or sun or sky—is this beautiful.

Fuck, I’m in trouble.

I squeeze, and let go. “So you think if you stayed home instead of going to college, things would have turned out differently?”

“I know in my heart that they wouldn’t have. The unknown has too many variables. What if I did stay, and she kept drinking the way she did? What if I kicked out every boyfriend she brought home? What if she still ended up the same? What if… I flew back while she was still alive?”

“Hutch—”

He walks a little bit faster. He scoffs at himself. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t say things like that to you.”

I have to run-walk for a few seconds to catch up to him. He has stupidly long strides.

“Hey wait up.” I grab him by the back of his shirt and force him to stop. “You spend every day listening to other people’s troubles. It’s okay to speak about your own. Besides, if anyone is going to understand mommy and daddy issues, it’s me.”

He lets go of a long breath and turns his body completely toward me. His deep brown eyes hold mine for a long time. He looks at my lips. I look at his. I want nothing more than to kiss him. I bet—
I know
—he wants to kiss me back. I recognize the struggle that crosses behind his eyes, wrinkling his forehead; I recognize the frustration that makes his body stiffen.

Would it be so bad if I kissed him quickly? I could say I tripped and got up on my tiptoes and landed on his face. His lips were the perfect cushions. I could kiss him and then turn around and bolt, but I can’t really run in these boots anymore.

Then, I notice an animal standing between the trees. I jump away and put my arms up defensively. What do I think I’m going to do? Karate chop a deer?

“Easy,” Hutch whispers, putting his hands on my shoulders. “It’s just a doe.”

I straighten to see the creature. I’ve never seen one close up before. The closest I’ve ever gotten to a doe is Bambi’s mom in the cartoon. This doe is the most delicate creature I’ve ever seen. Her neck is long, with the softest-looking fur. I freeze, and she freezes. Her head twitches this way and that, turning big brown eyes on me. Like she’s the one inspecting me. Like I’m the one who should be marveled at.

“Wow,” I sigh. I reach out my hand to touch her, but she’s spooked and darts away into the thicket of trees. “Did you see that?”

My face hurts from smiling. I hold my arms out to the trees, feeling like the queen of the forest. I decide I like hiking, despite the sweat and blisters. I spin myself in place as stray leaves fall in the wind around us. One gets lodged in the mess of my blonde curls.

I stop right in front of Hutch. He’s laughing at me. He frees a red leaf from my hair, holds it by the stem, and twirls it between his fingers. He holds it out to me, like he’s presenting me with a rose. I take it, letting our fingers touch.

This is wrong. I know this is wrong. He knows this is wrong. That’s why he doesn’t want to be
my
counselor. But somehow, I’ve kept looking for excuses to be near him. Hear his voice. Touch his skin. Bask in the way he looks at me.

“You’re incredible, River Thomas.”

I laugh, then lick my canine. “Tell me something I don’t already know.”

I break away from him and walk up the trail. I feel a new surge of energy. Eventually, we catch up to everyone else at the top of a hill. Hutch hands out granola bars and water bottles.

I’m out of breath and I’m pretty sure my whole face is red, but I feel alive.

Helen smiles at me. Her hair is in a tight bun at the top of her head. I can’t see her eyes behind those sports sunglasses. “You good?”

I nod, breathing heavily. I turn to the valley that drops below this cliff. As I stand closer to the edge, my heart is in my throat.
Maybe things will be okay,
I think as the wind sweeps across the treetops, the rushing river, and then envelops me. I feel like I could scream and everything below would hear me. I spread my arms wide open, smiling against the wind. I’ve never felt this before, as if the wind will pick me up and I could
fly.

“River!”

I don’t feel myself falling until his arms are around me, pulling me back onto solid ground. My head spins. My heart races. I’m on the ground, in Hutch’s arm. The grass tickles my skin. I laugh and start to sit up, but he doesn’t return my smile. His eyes are wide. His lips are a taut line. He runs a trembling hand through his hair, then stands.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“What were you thinking?”

“I—”

The other patients and Helen have gathered around us. I look at the spot where we just stood. I see the way they look at me—wary, curious, judgmental. I don’t understand what the big deal is. Then I realize—

They all thought I was going to jump.

I sit on the floor outside Helen’s office while Helen, Hutch, and Ransom talk about me. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but there’s a lot of going back and forth. Is Hutch telling them the things we talked about during our walk?

I add another reason to the list of reasons why Hutch and I are a bad idea. Actually, it’s the same reason, just amended. That he’s a counselor is the main reason, and no matter how much I’m attracted to him, and no matter how much he’s attracted to me, he has to be a counselor first.

I replay the way he shouted my name, the way he jumped for me, and the look on his face afterwards.

“Trouble?” Taylor asks, walking down the hall, his keys jingling from his belt loop.

“No, it’s just cooler down here,” I mutter.

He keeps walking, but his laugh echoes back to me. Others walk back and forth, too. Julie gives me her tightlipped, shy smile. She holds one sleeve of her sweater in her hand and waves. Vilma throws me a stick of gum and nods, Fran at her side. Maddie stops, rocking back and forth on her heels.

“What happened?”

I cross my arms over my chest. Is it even worth defending myself? Would I come off any better if I said, “I just felt like I could fly!”

What if I stepped too far? What if Hutch was a foot out of reach? What if he hadn’t been paying attention to me? No one else seemed to notice me slipping but him. He was right there, watching me.

“I shouldn’t be allowed in nature,” I tell her. Then to change the subject I ask, “What are you doing tonight?”

She looks taken aback. “What do you mean? Like, dinner? Want me to save you a seat?”

I shake my head. “I’m okay.”

I’m saved when the office door opens. Helen stands there. “River, come here, please.”

I let out a long sigh, and give Maddie a wave goodbye.

• • •

Helen’s office has a deep green rug and wallpaper the color of birch wood. There are diplomas and more taxidermy displayed high up on the walls. There’s also the faint smell of cigar. I notice the ashtray, and a fancy pen, the kind that’s heavy and engraved.

Hutch sits to the right. His arms are crossed over his chest and he’s staring at a hole in the wall. Ransom leans against the wall. I wish they would stop looking as if I were threatening to jump from the Empire State building.

“River,” Helen says. She’s got that concerned adult voice. I suddenly have a flashback of sitting in the Principal’s office every other month.
Riv-er. We have to talk about your grades. Riv-er, do you realize what you’re doing to yourself? Riv-er, are you really going to bring down your friends with you? Riv-er, I can’t keep giving you more chances.

“Guys,” I say, holding up my hands. “I wasn’t trying to jump. I
didn’t
try to jump!”

“Can you go over what happened again?” Helen looks from Steven to Hutch. “Chris?”

For a moment, I forgot Hutch’s first name. He’s become something completely different in my mind.

He looks flushed and concerned. He won’t look me in the eye. “River was standing too close to the ledge. When I saw her tilting forward, I reached out and grabbed her.”

“Because the wind was blowing hard,” I say through gritted teeth. “I was just doing the thing you all told me to do in the first place! Now you’re treating me like a criminal!”

“That’s not fair,” Ransom says. “We’re concerned when any of the patients engage in harmful behavior.”

I get up, my seat scraping behind me. “Then cross my name off the fucking hiking list.”

“River!” Helen says. “This is serious. This is your life.”

“Really? This whole time I thought I was living someone else’s life. Look, I’m a lot of things, but I’m not suicidal. Yeah, apparently I suck at hiking, but if I fell off that cliff, it would have been because I’m a fucking idiot, not because I want to kill myself. If I wanted to die, I would have tried a long time ago.”

They're all the wrong things to say, but my blood is boiling. I get up and don’t wait for them to speak. I slam the door on the way out. I go right out the front door, where the receptionist gives me a peppy “hello!” My response is a growl. It’s not her fault. Why am I doing this? I run my hands through my hair and hold on. How can I be surrounded by wide open space and feel like the walls are closing in?

I weave through the parking lot, then remember I don’t have my keys. I keep walking straight into the small patch of woods in the area. I find a huge rock and sit with my head between my knees. I take deep, long breaths. Then, I lie back and watch the sky change colors. When I close my eyes, I can picture the valley. I really did love it. I really did feel like I could fly.

I wasn’t trying to jump. What if they don’t believe me? What if, after my outburst, they decide to send me away?

I snap up at the sound of crunching twigs. In the amber sunset, the doe looks like her fur is made of fire. She lowers her head and eats the greens around the tree. Her long, pink tongue pushes leaves into her mouth. I was wrong. She isn’t delicate. She’s unafraid. She gets closer still. This time, when I reach out my hand, she licks it.

“Next time, I’ll bring you an apple or something. Or is that only for horses?”

The doe nudges my hand, then, realizing it’s not going to produce anything edible, walks back into the trees.