Until the Day I Die(46)

I creep closer. The flap of her tent is unzipped, giving me a perfect view inside. A perfect view of Lach and Deirdre, naked on top of her sleeping bag, legs twined together. Their bodies grind in unison.

I gasp audibly, but they don’t hear me. I know I should leave, stop intruding on this private moment, but I can’t seem to move. It’s the sounds they’re making. Their breathing quickening together, their inhaling and exhaling in dramatic, drawn-out moans. The sound of it shoots arrows through my gut. I used to make sounds like that when Perry touched me. When he held me. Kissed my neck. Explored my body with his hands and mouth.

I miss him so much. I miss him so much it’s a physical pain.

All of a sudden, Deirdre cries out—a series of soft yelps—and I’m finally shaken from my trance. I retreat to my tent and stumble back inside, zipping myself back into my sleeping bag. But I don’t go back to sleep, not for hours.





25

ERIN

In the morning, I wake to the smell of coffee brewing. When I approach the crackling campfire, I see I’m the only one up besides Lach, who’s kicked back in his lawn chair again. I sit on a log near him, and he offers me a protein bar, but no coffee. He whistles while he slurps from his own steaming mug.

“Sleep well?” he asks.

“Yes, thanks.”

He grins at me. “Never a better night’s sleep than one under the stars.”

“Agree to disagree,” I say.

Just then his phone dings. He points at the coffeepot before answering. “Off-limits.”

I nod—miffed that we don’t even get a small cup of coffee to ease us into the day—and he saunters a couple of yards away, talking in French on his cell. I only catch a few words. Rivière . . . attendez . . . volcan. Wait at the river? What’s that supposed to mean? And volcan? Volcano, maybe? I have no idea.

Deirdre doesn’t make an appearance until later that morning and doesn’t make mention of anything that happened last night. She does, however, look fresh and dewy and pretty. Like she’s slept twelve hours in a king-size bed at the Ritz-Carlton. Lach takes the three of us on a hike to a meadow, where he teaches us how to build a fire and construct one-man shelters at the tree line. He props himself against a towering tree laden with green bananas to watch us toil away but is generous enough with the water and granola bars. I catch him gazing at Deirdre a couple of times, but what the hell? Maybe it’s not a bad thing that he’s hot for her. Maybe their hookups will make the going easier for all of us.

That night, after we return to camp and eat, Lach sends us off in different directions to find a place to meditate. I suspect that he and Deirdre take advantage of the opportunity to indulge in another tent rendezvous. Which I’m not judging, okay, but I do hope there’s more to her plan than just getting laid. I hope she actually does have a plan. I’m not trying to be petty here, or misogynistic, but if she’s going to get the royal treatment for screwing the guide, she should really leverage that to see that her teammates benefit as well.

On day three—Monday, I remind myself, thinking if I keep the days straight in my head, I’m somehow better off—we embark on another hike. This one is to a waterfall farther inland than we’ve ventured thus far. It’s a long way. And on the way, Deirdre and Jessalyn pull ahead, leaving Lach and me walking together. I decide to strike up a conversation.

“My husband would’ve loved this. He was an avid hiker. Loved camping too. We used to take our daughter every summer down to this lake. Beautiful place. Not as exotic as this. But still, peaceful.”

Lach doesn’t reply to any of my random, vaguely disconnected statements, just glances briefly at me. But if I can get this guy talking, maybe I can forge some kind of partnership. And a partnership—an alliance—can end up being really beneficial. Beneficial, how? I have no idea.

“He died, in a car accident on the way to meet us at the lake,” I continue. “Which is why I’m here. I haven’t been able to deal with it. Been working night and day like that would fix things. Really messed up some of my relationships because of it.”

I let the silence settle.

“I lost my son a couple of years ago,” he finally volunteers. “He didn’t die. I mean, his mother took him away. Disappeared. Went underground with him. The kid was five.”

“That’s awful. You haven’t seen your son in two years?”

He shakes his head. “I asked my dad to find him. But I don’t think he really tried.”

“Pretty shitty of him, no offense.”

“He never liked her, my girlfriend. Nobody in my family did.” He points to the scar slashing his eyebrow. “I did this the night she took him. Put my face through a glass door.”

I’m quiet for a moment. “Yes,” I finally say. It’s the only way I can think to reply.

Yes, sometimes loving someone is more than we can bear.

Yes, hurting yourself is sometimes the only way to survive.

Yes, there are scars.

We walk in silence a while longer, the tropical birds chee-ing around us. The proverbial dam breeched, Lach chats nonstop. He tells me about the species—Jacquot, bobolink, grackle—as well as the names of the trees—tamarind, kapok, strangler fig.

“Now would be the perfect time to quote a poem,” I say. “I have a million of them in my head. But none with the right words.”