The Distance Between Lost and Found (14 page)

They walk until they reach a creek with a small clearing on one side. In unspoken agreement, they set their things down. They each eat a third of an energy bar and some dandelions. Since it hasn't rained yet today and they're all sweating from their downhill hike, they fill their water bottles with creek water. Hallelujah tries not to think about germs and parasites. She's too thirsty.

No one says anything about rescue. About the color orange.

All the same, Hallelujah feels a familiar sense of shame settling over her. This is her fault. She led them on a wild goose chase. She made everyone more tired, took them from their hilltop vantage point, for nothing.

Jonah stands up, puts a hand on her shoulder, and says, “We needed water and more food anyway.”

It doesn't help.

“I'll be right back. Need to get wood for a fire. And, uh, use the bathroom.” Jonah takes a few steps, then adds, “Put your foot up, Hallie.”

“Okay,” Hallelujah says. But she doesn't move.

She looks at the canopy of branches overhead. The trees go up and up and up. Through the crisscrossing limbs, she can see clouds blowing across the sky. She looks down at the creek. The trees are reflected in the water.

“I'm going to take a bath.”

Hallelujah spins to stare at Rachel, startled. “Here?”

“Yup.”

“Why?”

Rachel doesn't look at her. Her voice is glass, close to shattering. “Because I'm in a very bad mood, Hal. And I'm trying really hard not to take it out on anyone. I'm scared and I'm exhausted and I'm starving and my legs feel like they're on fire and I look like I have leprosy and—and—it will help to be clean. Clean-ish.” She pauses. “Plus, maybe it'll stop the itching.”

“Oh,” Hallelujah says. She feels very small. Her internal voice repeats,
Your fault, your fault, your fault
. “But . . . the water's really cold.”

“The sun is out. I'll live.”

Hallelujah gestures at her ankle. The swimsuit. “Do you need this?”

“Nah.” Rachel shakes off her jacket. She peels off her tank top. Then, to Hallelujah's astonishment, she slips out of her shorts. Rachel's standing there in her bra and underwear and hiking boots like it's the most natural thing in the world. She leans forward, fiddling with her bootlaces. “I guess I should leave these on?”

Hallelujah blinks. “Probably. Yeah. I would. Don't want to cut your feet.”

“Okay.” Rachel straightens up. She looks at Hallelujah properly for the first time since they realized there were no rescuers. She's quiet for a second. Then she says, “You should join me. You could use a bath too. I'm not being mean. I think it'll help.” She nods decisively. “You're coming in. You brought a swimsuit, right?”

“Okay,” Hallelujah murmurs, not sure why she's saying okay other than that it does sound really good to rinse the mud and grime off and run water through her frizzed-out hair.

“Do you need help changing?”

“Just help me up. And turn your back.”

Hallelujah digs her black one-piece and swim shorts out of her bag. She lets Rachel pull her to standing. She hops over to the nearest tree and manages to wriggle, slowly, out of her clothes and into her swimsuit and shorts, leaning on the trunk for balance. When she's dressed, she feels like she ran a marathon.

With a sigh, she calls out, “Okay . . . I'm ready!”

Rachel comes over. She helps Hallelujah wade into the creek, toward a shallow pool near the bank. When the icy water hits their feet, fills their hiking boots, reaches their calves, it's a shock. Hallelujah gasps, and Rachel lets out a stream of curses. But they keep moving. Rachel lowers Hallelujah down to a flat rock that's poking up from the creek. Hallelujah balances herself and stretches her legs out, letting her injured ankle float on the surface of the water. She dips her raw hands in the creek. The poison-ivy itch is replaced by a pleasant numbness.

“Not bad, right?” Rachel says. She scoops up a handful of water and starts rinsing her arms. When the water hits her skin, she curses again, gleefully this time.

That's when Jonah comes running out of the woods. “Are you okay?” he yells. “I heard cursing and I thought—” He breaks off, eyes widening at Rachel in her underwear and Hallelujah in her swimsuit and shorts. His eyes skim Rachel's body, but linger on Hallelujah's. Their eyes meet. Hallelujah squirms, feeling exposed. She crosses her arms in front of her chest.

“We wanted to clean up a little,” Rachel says. “Want to join us?”

“Oh.” Jonah seems frozen in place. Rooted. His eyes are still on Hallelujah. “Uh,” he says. “No. Not now. I'm, uh, I have to, um . . .”

Hallelujah desperately wants her clothes back on. But she would have to hobble past Jonah in her swimsuit in order to get to her clothes. Why is he looking at her like that? Why won't he look away?

“Okay there, J?” Rachel asks. There's a laugh in her voice.

And Jonah visibly shakes himself out of whatever spell was keeping him still and tongue-tied. His shoulders drop about two inches. He loosens his death grip on his backpack. “I, uh, found some dandelions. For dinner.”

“Dandelions. Joy.” Rachel pours a handful of water over her head. She runs her fingers through her wet hair. Then she turns her attention to her muddy, blistered legs.

“Don't eat 'em if you don't want to,” Jonah says, defensive. “I'll finish getting the fire ready, so when you two lunatics are done with your ice baths, you can warm up.” He walks back into the woods the way he came.

Hallelujah watches him go. Then she realizes that she's done absolutely no washing up. And she's only getting colder. So she leans back and dunks her head into the running water. Every hair on her body stands on end. She's awake. She's alive. And in a few minutes, she'll be as clean as she's likely to get out here.

Rachel splashes her. “See?” she asks. “Better, right?”

Hallelujah nods. “Your lips are a little blue, though.”

“It's the new fashion.” Rachel strikes a pouty model pose, but loses her balance. She wobbles and sits down in the creek with a shriek. Almost immediately, she starts shivering. Violently. “Cold. Out. Now,” she says through chattering teeth.

“Yes.” Hallelujah's feet and ankles have gone numb. Her hands have also moved beyond the nice non-itch into can't-feel-them-at-all territory. She quickly pours water over her legs, wiping them down. She dips in one arm at a time. Splashes her face. When she can't take it any longer, she says, “Okay.”

“Okay,” Rachel says. She hooks her shoulder under Hallelujah's arm, helps her to stand. They wade carefully out of the creek. On the bank, Rachel is small and dripping and shivering. Her bra and underwear are soaked through, translucent and sagging. “Don't suppose you have a towel?” she gasps.

“No, sorry. Use your jacket?” Hallelujah sits on her own jacket, reaches for her dry T-shirt, and starts patting herself down.

For a few moments, they're quiet. Then Rachel curses, soft and vehement.

“What?” Hallelujah asks.

“I can't put my clothes back on. My underwear's all wet.”

Hallelujah thinks for a second. “Take off your bra, put on my long-sleeved shirt,” she says. “We can lay your stuff out to dry.”

“Thanks, Hal.” Rachel starts to unhook her bra and Hallelujah turns around quickly. Behind her, Rachel laughs. “Sorry. Not trying to flash you or anything. I'm turned around now. So you can change too.”

Hallelujah slides her tank top on, slipping out of the swimsuit underneath, changing back into her bra. The dry shirt feels like heaven.

“I'm done,” Rachel says.

“I'm not.” Hallelujah pulls off her boots and unties the pink swimsuit bandage. She sets that and her wet socks out to dry. Then, checking to see that Jonah is nowhere in sight, she peels off her swim gear. She lies flat on her back to carefully pull her underwear and jeans up over her legs. Her injured ankle hasn't yet passed from numb back into hurting, but she doesn't want to speed up the process by putting weight on it. She finishes by sliding off of her jacket and wrapping herself up in it. She pulls on her extra socks.

When she's dressed, she turns around to find Rachel flat on her back, soaking up sunlight. She looks peaceful.

And so Hallelujah joins her.

J
ONAH RETURNS TO FIND THEM LIKE THAT
.

“Feel better?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Hallelujah answers, opening her eyes. “Kind of.”

“I'd be awesome if I could just get warm,” Rachel mutters. She sits up, wrapping her arms around her knees. She makes a loud
Brrr!
noise. “Okay, so I was thinking. We've been out here for three days and I don't know anything about you. Either of you. Other than where you're from and that you're both mad at Luke. And all you know about me is that my parents suck, and are divorced, and that I'm handling it badly. So now's a good time for Twenty Questions.”

“I have to build a fire,” Jonah says.

“You can build and talk at the same time,” Rachel answers. “I'll go first. Hal, what's your favorite color?”

“Purple,” Hallelujah says.

“Mine's pink. Now you get to ask one of us a question.”

“Wait—don't you want to know what my favorite color is?” Jonah sounds fake-hurt. “Who made up these rules?”

“Fine,” Rachel says. “Jonah, what's your favorite color?”

“Blue,” Jonah says, and Hallelujah has a vision of him from fifth grade: the month when he tried to wear a different blue shirt every day. No repeats.

“Predictable,” Rachel scoffs. “But now we know. Your turn.”

“Okay.” Jonah frowns. “Favorite . . . subject in school. Mine's history.”

“English,” Hallelujah answers. Once, she would've said choir. Before.

“Biology,” Rachel says. “But I already told you about wanting to do physical therapy, so you're not really learning anything new there.”

“Is that why you were making fun of me earlier?” Jonah asks. “About the blood thing?”

“I was making fun of you because you're this big, strong guy who can build fires and carry Hal on your back, but you're afraid of a bruise.” Rachel laughs. “Nothing to do with me wanting to join the medical profession. Okay. Favorite . . . sport.”

“None,” Hallelujah says immediately. “Sorry.”

“Soccer.” Jonah grins. “I want to play in college. I'm hoping for a scholarship.”

“He's really good,” Hallelujah tells Rachel. “And he runs track.”

They talk like this, about everything and nothing, for a while. They go in circles: favorite ice cream flavor leads to favorite food overall leads to worst school cafeteria meals leads back to academics and extracurriculars and hobbies. It isn't until the conversation shifts to friends that Hallelujah falls silent. She doesn't have friends anymore. And she doesn't know what Jonah is going to say. If he'll mention everything they used to share.

“We would just, you know, go to the mall and movies and the football games every Friday and the parties after the games,” Rachel is saying, arms wrapped around her middle. “Stupid stuff. Normal stuff. But then my mom decided to move and we were gone, like, two weeks later and now all I want is that stupid stuff back. I want to have people to do nothing with. You know?”

“Yeah.” Jonah nods. “But you don't seem like you have a lot of trouble making friends.”

“I mean, I talk to people, sure,” Rachel says, “but it's hard. Everyone has their in-jokes and their cliques. I'm still new at school, and I knew my other friends forever. We text and call each other, but I can't exactly go to the mall and try on clothes with my phone. Or I can, but it's not the same.”

“I guess not,” Jonah says.

Hallelujah thinks about her version of “stupid stuff”—the things she used to do with Sarah and Dani and Lynn. They'd see movies and go to the mall too. And to that local bookstore that opened up the summer before ninth grade. The four of them spent hours hanging out there, drinking coffee until they were practically vibrating. It drove Hallelujah's mom crazy. But she always said, when she came to pick Hallelujah up,
If this is the worst thing you're doing, I guess I'm lucky
.

And then there were the parties Dani and Lynn had started throwing in the spring of ninth grade. Parties Hallelujah's parents would never have approved of, if they knew what was really going on. Never mind that Hallelujah didn't drink, wasn't dating anyone, felt like she was only at those parties because she'd known Dani and Lynn forever. Her parents would have seen them as step one toward—well, what eventually happened with Luke. Or what they think happened. What they were told happened.

She was already kind of disappointing her parents—on a small scale, behind their backs—for months before she became a Disappointment. But they still shouldn't have believed the worst of her.

She realizes Jonah is talking. “Most of my friends are from sports. Now I just do soccer and track, but in middle school I did baseball, too. And Brad and Luke and I helped start a church dodgeball league a couple years ago. Youth group kids and their parents. Remember, Hallie?”

She nods. Her dad had played. She'd watched from the sidelines, handed out Gatorades. The memory of herself jumping up and down and cheering when their team scored—it feels off, now. Like she's picturing someone else.

“We weren't great, but we kicked First Presbyterian's butt.” Jonah laughs. “So anyway, other than being in choir at school, I guess I'm a jock all the way through.”

“A sensitive, musical jock.” Rachel smiles mischievously. “Those are hard to find, outside of the movies.”

Jonah grins, shaking his head. “I'm not that musical. Hallie's a way better singer. Back when we were—” He stops short, looking over at her. Like he's deciding how to fill in the blank. “When we used to hang out,” he finishes, “Hallie was into music like no one I'd ever met. And when I heard her sing . . .” He whistles.