The Distance Between Lost and Found (16 page)

“We have to get her warm. You lie on one side and I'll lie on the other.”

Hallelujah crawls over, ankle throbs and stomach pangs forgotten. She curls around Rachel's front side, hugging her. Jonah hugs Rachel from behind. Their eyes meet over Rachel's tucked-in head.

“Now what?” Hallelujah whispers as Rachel twitches in her arms.

“We wait,” Jonah says, voice hollow. “We wait for her to stop.”

I
T FEELS LIKE HOURS, BUT IT CAN
'
T BE
. I
T CAN
'
T BE MORE
than a few minutes.

Rachel slowly stops shivering. Her breathing calms. Her skin warms.

They lie there, listening to the fire pop and crack just inches from their heads, and Hallelujah can't shake the feeling of disaster narrowly averted. She feels breathless, weak, exhausted, and she wasn't even the one who went cold.

She
is
cold, now that the sun has set. Especially the parts of her not facing the fire, not holding Rachel. But clearly what she's feeling is a fraction of what Rachel just experienced.

Rachel mutters something into Hallelujah's chest.

Hallelujah pulls away a little. “Are you okay? What can we get you? Jonah, should we—”

“I expected,” Rachel says, voice hoarse, “to get hit by lightning. Not to freeze.”

It takes Hallelujah's panicked brain a few seconds to catch on. Lightning. Because of the God stuff. Right. Rachel's making a joke. Good sign.

But Jonah's not laughing. “Dang it, Rachel,” he hiss-yells, “you had to get in the creek earlier, in your frickin' underwear, never mind that it's not exactly August out here, never mind that people die of exposure all the time; you
had
to—”

“I'm sorry.” Now Rachel sounds small. And miserable.

“And you!” Jonah turns to Hallelujah. “You're smarter than that! You could've got hypothermia too, and you said it yourself—there's a million reasons we should be dead right now, and you two being stupid is one of 'em!”

“I'm sorry,” Rachel repeats. She's shaking again, but now it's because she's started crying. Tears sideways down her face, into the dirt. “I'm sorry, okay?”

“We both are.” Hallelujah looks into Jonah's eyes. She sees his fear fully for the first time. He's as scared as she is. He's just better at hiding it.

“I'm sorry too,” he says. He squeezes his eyes closed, like his head hurts.

“You can let go of me now,” Rachel says, sniffling. “I think I'm okay.”

“We shouldn't. Not yet,” Jonah answers. “You need to keep warm. We all do.”

“Oh.” Rachel is quiet for a second. “Talk to me, Hal. Tell me what happened to you. What really happened. Distract me from my own problems. Please.”

Hallelujah twists her head to look up. The moon is shining white overhead. It looks like if she could just climb to the highest tree branch, she could touch it.

She thinks about everything the three of them have shared over the past few days. She thinks about how the walls she built up around herself have been crumbling. She thinks about being honest. Truly honest. What that means. How it would feel. And she knows she's ready. It's time.

“Okay,” she says. “Here goes.”

She sees Jonah's arms tense. When she glances at him, he meets her gaze head-on. But he doesn't say anything to stop her.

“All through freshman year,” she begins, feeling absurdly like an epic storyteller, wanting to invoke the muse to make sure she gets the words out right, “I had a serious crush on Luke Willis. My friend Dani and I could talk for hours about how great he was. Don't get me wrong, I knew he was kind of a jerk. But he was really cute, and he could be completely charming when he wanted to be—still is, when it helps him get what he wants—and I guess I thought that side of him was stronger than the jerk part. I hoped it was. And freshman year he was pretty much instantly popular, and I was . . . not. Plus, he's your friend”—she meets Jonah's eyes—“so he had that going for him.

“Spring of freshman year, he was dating this girl Jen, from school, but they broke up over the summer. He went out with a couple other girls from church after that, but he was single when we went on our youth group retreat to Gatlinburg in October. On Saturday night, everyone tenth grade and up got some free time without all the chaperones tagging along. A bunch of us rode the ski-lift thing up the mountain to see the view. On the way back down, Luke asked me to ride with him. I couldn't believe it, but of course I said yes.”

Hallelujah remembers every detail of that ride: the crisp autumn breeze as they started down the mountain, how their chair rocked whenever they moved their dangling legs, the way being up so high made even a tourist trap like Gatlinburg look like a magical village from a fairy tale.

“It was the most romantic thing that had ever happened to me,” she says. “I know that sounds dumb, but it's true. I'd been on a few dates, but nothing that even came
close
to being that romantic. I looked over at Luke and he was just looking at me, smiling. And when I shivered a little, he put his arm around me. It was perfect. And so when he kissed me, I kissed him back.”

She's imagined telling this story so many times. Every detail. Every feeling. She tried, right after it happened. With her parents. With Sarah. But she never got it all the way out. Her words went wrong.

Now, with Jonah, Rachel, the night creatures, the trees, and the moon and stars listening, she knows she'll finish it.

“We kissed for—I don't know, it felt like a while, but it must've been just a few minutes. The ride isn't that long. When we got to the bottom, everyone was waiting.”

“Jonah, you were there?” Rachel cuts in.

“Yeah. I was there.”

Hallelujah waits to see if he'll say anything more. When he doesn't, she goes on, “Luke got off the ski lift first and held out his hand to help me. And then he put his arm around my waist while we walked back to the hotel.”

She remembers how his arm felt, keeping her by his side. And how she'd felt knowing that the cutest, most popular guy in the youth group had chosen her. She'd felt excited. Proud. Special. She remembers not being able to stop smiling.

“We had some time before curfew, so a bunch of us went up to Luke's room to hang out. Your room too, I guess,” Hallelujah adds belatedly, talking to Jonah. “And Brad's.” The three musketeers, together as always. “We stayed there until the chaperones told us it was time for bed.” Hallelujah remembers not wanting to go. Not wanting the night to end. “As I was leaving, Luke whispered in my ear, ‘Come back and kiss me good night.' I started to kiss him right then, but he stopped me and said, ‘Later.' And when I opened my mouth to ask when, how, he cut me off: ‘After the first bed check. Say you forgot something. Improvise.' And I nodded, and then he let me go.”

Hallelujah remembers the excruciating stretch of time in her own room, waiting for the chaperones to make the rounds and count heads. Her heart racing as she changed into the yoga pants and tank top she slept in, so the adults wouldn't be suspicious. Checking her hair and applying lip gloss and hoping she looked calmer than she felt.

She'd never snuck out before. She couldn't believe she was about to try. She couldn't wait.

“When the chaperones left us, I told my roommates I'd forgotten my phone in Luke's room. And they totally teased me about sneaking off to see him, but I just kept saying I'd be right back.” She'd said it blushing. Grinning. And not only because of Luke. She liked the other girls' questions. She liked that they'd seen her kissing Luke, that they guessed what she was up to.

She looks back at her bright-eyed excitement, at her eagerness to take risks, to be the center of attention for once, and she wants to smack herself.

“I had to promise to tell my roommates everything to get them to let me leave.” She'd known she was wasting precious minutes before the final chaperone check, when they were all expected to be in bed with the lights out. “I ran down the hallway. I knocked on Luke's door. And when he opened it, he said, ‘Nice outfit,' kind of laughing, and pulled me inside. He sat me down on the bed. He sat next to me. He told me,” she says to Jonah, “he asked you and Brad to leave for a while. Because I was coming over.”

“That's what he said,” Jonah confirms, his voice so low she can barely hear it.

“And then we were kissing. A lot. It wasn't as—as perfect as the ski lift.” The fluorescent lights were too bright. The air conditioner in the window was making a weird clunking noise. The comforter on the bed was scratchy. And after Luke's comment about her outfit, her decision to show up in her pajamas felt completely wrong. “Still, I got caught up in it. Then he put his hand up the back of my shirt.” His fingers were cold. His touch gave her goosebumps. “I was trying to decide if I was okay with that when he—he stuck his other hand down the waistband of my pants. That's when I told him to slow down.” She'd scooted away from him on the bed. Fast. She'd repeated it:
We have to slow down
.

“Luke was like, ‘Come on. We don't have time for this.' He gave me this . . . look.” A look that made her feel so immature. Like she was overreacting. Like she was about to miss her chance with him. “He said, ‘You came here for a reason. Right?' And I said—I said—” Hallelujah cringes. “I said, ‘To kiss you good night?' And he laughed. And he patted the bed next to him, and said, all suave, ‘So kiss me.' I moved back toward him, and we kissed, and then he slid his hand right back up under my shirt and unhooked my bra. One-handed.” She smiles now, even though the memory isn't funny. “I can't even do that half the time. I guess he'd had a lot of practice.”

She'd wrapped her arms around her body, a quick reflex action. She'd stood. She'd caught sight of a person she didn't recognize in the smudged mirror on the back of the closet door: a flushed, disheveled girl, hair tangled, tank top twisted up to show her bare stomach, one bra strap falling off her shoulder. She'd stared at her reflection. And she'd felt like an idiot. And she'd felt ashamed.

“I wanted to go in the bathroom to get myself together before going back to my room, but Luke grabbed my wrist. He asked me if I was seriously going to leave him hanging. I told him to let me go, and I tried to pull away, but he was holding me so tight. He said, ‘You're not leaving here until you give me a real good night.' He yanked me toward him, and I fell and landed against him on the bed, and—”

That's when the panic had kicked in. The sudden realization that Luke had the upper hand, that he was bigger and stronger and that this, to him, seemed like no big deal.

“And then what?” Rachel asks, voice hushed.

Hallelujah breathes in deep. “And then the door opened.”

Rachel gasps.

“Brad came in first, saying something about getting caught in the hall. Jonah was next. Then Rich and his wife, Jill. And my first thought was,
I'm safe now. It's okay
. It took a few seconds of everyone staring for me to realize what it looked like. Me, a complete mess, in my pajamas, my tank top all stretched out, my bra falling off—on Luke's bed. I was pretty much lying on him. And then I couldn't move. It was like I was frozen.

“Luke pushed me away, hard. He said, ‘Hallie, I told you. No way.' He said it so loud, and he was making this face like I was—like I was so pitiful. Like he was so far out of my league. Like he felt sorry for me. Before I could think of a single thing to say, Jill grabbed my arm, stood me up, and marched me out the door.”

In Rich and Jill's room, the lectures had started. Hallelujah doesn't remember the exact words, aside from
Unacceptable
, over and over, and
We're going to have to call your parents
. She does remember the looks of disapproval and disappointment. And feeling so overwhelmed at what had just happened, so numb. And spending the night on the adults' fold-out sofa.

She'd lain there, unable to sleep. Watching a slideshow of broken images. The romantic ski-lift ride. The magical view. Their first kisses, so perfect. The security of Luke's arm around her. The rush of sneaking to his room. And then the
too much
that came after. The sound of the door opening. Eyes focused on her.

“At breakfast the next morning, I had to sit at the chaperones' table. I wasn't supposed to talk to anyone. And everyone was staring. Whispering. Luke had already started telling people that I'd snuck over to his room, in my pajamas, and thrown myself at him. He was even saying I'd tried to give him my bra as a souvenir.”

“Gross,” Rachel murmurs.

“By the time I found out about the rumors, the whole thing was just so . . . big. Out of control. I didn't know how to defend myself. What to say. Because so many people saw me and Luke kissing on the ski lift. And because I
did
sneak out. My roommates knew it. Jonah and Brad knew it. Never mind getting ‘caught in the act.'” Hallelujah makes quote fingers around that part. “Anyway, after breakfast, my parents showed up.”

Cue what was without question the most uncomfortable car ride of Hallelujah's entire life. Her parents so upset. Trying to get her to tell them the truth. Unable to get past the fact that she was caught in Luke's room. And then, silence. Their unhappiness radiating. It had filled their small sedan, until Hallelujah felt like she might suffocate.

“When the rest of the youth group got home, we had a big meeting.” Her parents. Luke's parents: the preacher and his wife. Rich and Jill and a few other church leaders. Some eyewitnesses, including Jonah and Brad, to confirm she'd been with Luke. Behaving inappropriately. “Luke said that he was surprised when I showed up at his room. That he hadn't meant to give me the wrong idea. That he would never have taken it beyond just kissing. And he looked so genuine. So trustworthy. So sorry about what had happened. He almost convinced
me
that I'd misread his signals.” Hallelujah pauses. “The whole time, I kept my mouth shut. I wish I hadn't. But I was still so humiliated. And I felt guilty. I made out with him. I liked it. And no one made me go to his room.”