Life on the Level (23 page)

“It’s already done, Hutch.”

Hutch doesn’t seem to want to let my hand go as we approach our camp. The look he gives me scares me a little bit, because no one has ever looked at me like that. It’s like he’s afraid I’ll float away if he doesn’t hold on. To be honest, I’m afraid I’ll do just that.

• • •

Back at camp, everything is back to normal, if a little damp. The fire’s going again, and I’m told there will be trout for dinner.

I sleep for most of the day, which is going to throw off my internal clock completely. I dream of water closing over my head, Maddie’s dilated pupils, and Hutch screaming my name. Even though there’s no way I could remember this, I see him hitting my chest, and when I sit up I gasp for air like I’m right back underwater.

“What are you doing here?” I ask Julie. She’s unzipping the door of my tent.

She has a bag of beef jerky and water for me. “Simmons told me to bring this to you. Everyone’s out looking for more dry firewood.”

I rub the grogginess out of my eyes and take the bag. I chew a piece of jerky while Julie sits there gnawing on her thumb.

“So, what was it like?” she asks.

“Drowning?” I shrug. “Like falling asleep in really cold water.”

“No,” she snorts. “What was kissing Hutch like?”

I nearly choke on my jerky. Choking on food is a far less badass way to go than drowning in Flathead Lake. Still, I’m trying to figure out if Julie followed Hutch and me. Did she really see us kiss? Or does she mean…

“I wouldn’t call CPR a kiss.”

She makes a sour face, like she ate a handful of Warheads and is refusing to spit them out. “A mouth on a mouth is a kiss. I should throw myself into the lake, if that’s what it takes.”

“Don’t be stupid,” I snap. “You can’t hurt yourself just to get a boy’s attention. This isn’t right, Julie. You’re fixating on someone you just can’t have.”

It’s like telling a baby she can’t have ice cream for dinner. She pouts and sucks her teeth.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, River. You know, everything was fine with Hutch before you came along. Now all he does is try to make sure you aren’t jumping off cliffs, and taking care of you because of your stupid accidents. Who’s the one doing stupid things to get a guy’s attention now? I was supposed to be the one in that kayak, not
you
. That was supposed to be my kiss, not
yours
.”

I grind my teeth as a suspicion forms. I dig my finger into her chest. “Listen to me, Julie. If you pull a stunt like that again, I’ll make sure Helen throws you out faster than you can say ‘my name is Julie and I’m a psychopath.’ Do you understand me?”

Julie’s eyes go wide with fright. She scrambles to her feet. That was probably a really stupid thing to do. Still, it makes me wonder. I run out to the kayak—in all the excitement, it was left right where it was pulled up onto the sand. My uninflated life vest is still on the ground. I pull the cord, and nothing happens—it’s been tampered with.

I’m in a foul mood for the rest of the day. Simmons gives me one of his extra sweaters, from the Seattle Seahawks, which draws the ire of some of the California people. My clothes are still hanging out to dry, and I look at my Mets sweatshirt with loving and longing eyes.

Julie keeps her distance, though I admit I have a newfound fear of her. A girl who would tamper with her own life vest to get rescued by the man of her dreams is some next-level shit. I won’t have a quiet moment with Hutch soon, so I have to keep this information to myself for now.

I could rat her out right here and now, but I grew up seeing what people did to rats. Even though I’m no longer in some dive bar with Queens’ worst barflies and bookmakers, old habits die hard. Besides, information is a powerful thing. That’s true from here all the way to New York.

Because we’re still a rehab center, we spend the night’s campfire like it’s an extra-special, extra-big group session. Hutch is more brooding than I’ve ever seen him before. His dark eyes watch the crackling flames like he’s trying to figure out how to hold them in his hands. It’s the same way he looks at me.

Simmons is the one who gets the group going tonight. He’s got an adorable outdoorsy look that really works for him. It’s like the legit version of all those guys in Williamsburg who wear plaid and have beards and want to look like loggers.

“All right everyone,” he says in his slightly nervous voice. He doesn’t have the same coolness as Hutch, or Ransom’s fatherly tone. I think this works for him. “We’ve had a really intense day, what with the rain and River’s accident. How’re you holding up?”

“Like a whole new girl,” I say.

“Did your life flash before your eyes?” Jermania asks.

“Did you see the Flathead Lake monster?” one of the younger campers wants to know.

I smile at the ground, then can’t help but look at Hutch. “Actually, for a moment, I did think I was being pulled under by some hideous sea creature or long-lost dinosaur. It turns out that it was just Hutch, trying to pull me out of the water. I wasn’t really thinking straight or I would have panicked less.”

Julie looks miserable as I tell my story, but I refuse to feel sorry for her. She could have gotten herself killed. She could have gotten me killed, if Hutch had been slower, or the current had been stronger. I shudder, and hold my hands out to the flames.

“That’s what I wanted to touch on,” Simmons says. “One of the things that we come face-to-face with during rehabilitation is fear. Fear of life beyond the program. Fear of facing addiction. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the past, or dying, or of ourselves. When I was in my teens, I thought of myself as an adrenaline junkie. I didn’t fear anything. I thought I was invincible. Except my high was racing. Rollercoasters, all kinds of skateboarding. I sought out things to get my blood pumping until I felt invincible. It wasn’t until my first car accident that I realized I had to slow down. I remember a long period of the darkest sleep. This feeling that something was pressing down on my chest. That was my coma. I didn’t wake up for three weeks. I was lucky, I guess. Unlike the kids driving drunk who crashed into me.

“I started to realize that even though I thought I had everything under control—my life, my high, my speed—I wasn’t ready for what was coming out of the next lane. And if you take away the fast cars, that’s just life. You never know what’s going to crash into you or miss you by a hair’s breadth. Even though I’m not looking for that rush anymore, I think about it all the time. That feeling doesn’t go away.”

There’s a lot of nodding going around the campfire. For a moment I think of Hutch and myself as two cars speeding on a long, dark road. What if I go one way and he goes another and we never see each other again? What if turning into each other means a head-on collision? What if this relationship is doomed no matter what we want?

Did I just call it a relationship?

“What about all of you?” Simmons asks, prodding the fire. The wood hisses and pops. Cinders and ash rise up in the cool air. “When was the last time you faced your fear?”

Jermania raises her hand and stands. She wipes the back of her jeans, then shoves her hands into her back pockets and shrugs. “Hey everyone. I’m Jermania and I’m… an alcoholic… and previously anorexic. I don’t really know the last time that I wasn’t afraid, you know? I was adopted when I was ten. Before that, I was in an orphanage in Utah.

“Anyway, I was always afraid of the dark, because I didn’t really like silence and I
hated
being alone. There’s something inside my head that terrifies me. I can’t really figure out what it is. Sometimes I feel like my life is just one long stretch of fear of the people around me, the words they say, the way men and women look at me. And the only way I can drown it is by drinking myself into a stupor.”

Simmons shuts his eyes. “How do you feel when you’re sober?”

“I feel weird. Like my life is an out-of-body experience. I’m just trying to get used to my body the way it is now.”

I listen to all of their words. It’s strange, but I don’t really miss alcohol. I mean, I like the idea of it now that it’s cold. But there are other ways to warm up. There’s the fire, and then there’s Hutch. I wonder if I’m just trading one vice for another.

“I had a near-death experience,” Randy says. He cracks his long, knobby fingers. “I wanted to see how many times I could jack off in a single day, and I dehydrated myself so much that I passed out.”

There’s a round of
ewwwws.

“I think you’re derailing the conversation,” Simmons tells Randy.

“I’m just doing what you’ve all been saying to do this whole time. Telling you my feelings. What about Mr. TKO over here? Come on, Hutch. Counselors have to share, too. You guys are like our role models.”

Hutch stands. The fire casts his shadow to the tops of the trees. He’s the king of the woods. He’s fierce and bold, and I catch myself drooling a bit as he rests one of his legs on the log, stretching his jeans over that fine ass.

“I’ve never had a near-death experience,” he says. “But I’ve lost a few people. I never had a good relationship with my father. I thought the day he died would be just an ordinary day. No one was more surprised than I was when I heard the news and broke down. It was like part of me was gone. Well, because part of me
was
gone, and there was nothing I could do to get it back or make amends or figure out if I could have done something, anything, to get it back. Then I lost my mother to liver failure. I loved my mother more than anything, but I was never quite convinced that she loved me back.”

The way he says that brings a chill to my bones. What I wouldn’t give to jump right over this fire and pull Hutch into my arms and tell him that he’s not alone. That maybe I’m falling in love with him with every single moment. That there is someone here for him.

“A few months ago, I lost a friend. I was the one who found her. I think the worst part was knowing that I was a few feet away. That maybe her life could have been saved if I had checked on her sooner, if anyone had checked on her sooner. I’d say that my biggest fear is letting people down.”

“Damn,” Randy says. “I’m sorry, man.”

They go around the circle some more. Julie talks about her bulimia and use of pain medications. The thing that brought her to HCRC was her mother finding her in a pool of her own vomit after nearly overdosing.

Listening to all these close calls makes me want to retreat into my tent. But Simmons won’t allow everyone to go to sleep with such dark thoughts, so he brings out his guitar. He’s great at fingerpicking, which doesn’t go unnoticed by Jillian. Simmons and Hutch switch back and forth. Hutch is all classic rock and Van Morrison. Simmons is ‘90s alternative. We finish the night with a terribly off-key rendition of Wonderwall. I mean, we have to scare the bears away somehow.

During all of this, I feel happiness flooding my body down to my toes. I feel my eyes flutter as the campfire dies, and everyone scurries away into their tents. Hutch, Jillian, Simmons, and I linger conspiratorially. When the fire is put out and the only light is the sliver of moon in the expansive midnight sky, we split up into couples.

Before I can even fully zip up the tent, Hutch’s massive hands close around my waist. He pulls me against his chest and onto his lap. I’ve always thought of myself as pretty tall, or at least taller than most girls. Hutch is the only man that’s ever made me feel petite. I sit across his lap and relax into the easiness of being with him.

Since we’re not allowed to talk (it’s so painful not to), or use any lights at all lest we create a shadow puppet show, we sink into a different kind of intimacy. We let our hands do the talking and exploring for us. I lean back onto the bedroll, pulling him on top of me. He lines up our noses and brushes his lips across mine. It’s like being brushed across the skin with the softest feather. His hands find their way under my shirt. After stripping down, I had to put my underwear out to dry as well. It’s a little weird being in Simmons’s clothes, but it’s all part of our charade.

He squeezes my breast with one hand and brushes my hair back with the other. When he stops, I can hear the rustle of the wind in the trees and the hooting of owls. I can hear the whistles and snores of sleeping campers. If Jillian and Simmons are getting it on, I can’t hear that at all.

I lift up my head to pull Hutch back to me. I fear he’s too hung up on my almost drowning. I want to show him that I’m perfectly okay. I want to show him how much I appreciate him. Sex has always been something fun. Something to do. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been in love because I don’t think I ever truly have. I’m not exactly a romantic, but I think love is a one-shot thing. How do I know if I’m falling in love with Hutch if I’ve never felt this way for a guy before?

It feels like I’m burning from the inside out. It feels like all of my hard edges are melting and chipping away, revealing a girl I didn’t know I could be. A good, sweet girl who doesn’t party and doesn’t drink or gamble. A girl who sucks at nature things, but loves getting lost in the wild of the trees. A girl who isn’t afraid of being someone new.

Hutch and I already had sex once.

This is different. This is hunger. Reckless hunger, grasping for heat and naked skin. As my eyes adjust to the dark, I trace the lines of his face. I kiss his lashes, and he edges the waistband of my sweatpants down and his sure fingers find my wetness. He inserts them, and I press my head back as he sides his fingers deeper and deeper in. I raise my legs and kick his boxers down with my heels. His erection presses hotly between us.

I feel restless and I wriggle against him, impatient to get him inside me. He lowers his lips to mine and I can tell he’s smiling. He whispers the tiniest “Shhh.” My blood is pulsing in my throat, my ears, and my center. He’s a match, striking against me, setting both of us aflame.

I grab him by the neck and keep his lips pressed to mine. He reaches for something under the pillow. I hear the foil of a condom tear. I part my legs, press my hand on the firm muscle of his ass, and in one jab he’s inside me.