Rapid Falls(68)

We got to the main road, and Anna turned her head toward me as she lowered the volume.

“Did you have a good night?” she asked. I could tell the pills were really hitting her now. Her smile looked messy.

“Best ever,” I said, pretending to hug Jesse’s arm.

“Until my graduation.” Anna smirked. She always needed to one-up me. She always wanted what I had.

The sky was lightening. I congratulated myself for getting us away in time. Once the darkness lifted, I wouldn’t be able to hide what I had done to Jesse. The night felt like it had lasted a lifetime; I needed only a few minutes more, and then nothing that I did would matter. We would all be lost to a legend of Rapid Falls. It was romantic, in a way. I unwrapped myself from Jesse’s stiffening body as the truck hummed on the smooth pavement.

The town was deserted; we were the only vehicle on the road as we passed the ice-cream stand and the lake where we went swimming in the summer. We sailed past the turn to our old elementary school and the police station. Anna was beginning to weave across the road’s dividing yellow line as we approached the river. There was a small joint between the pavement of the road and the concrete surface of the bridge, and the truck bumped slightly as the wheels rolled over it. Anna looked at me and smiled again.

“Almost home,” she said. She waited for a response. I could have told her that it was dangerous to take your eyes off the wheel. She was driving faster than she should, and she had only one hand resting lightly on the top of the steering wheel. She was too out of it to see my left hand reaching for the bottom of it. I jerked it hard to the right, as hard as I could. Then I waited for the shock of the water.





CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

September 2016

Anna and I don’t talk much on the way to the falls. As I drive, it almost feels as if nothing has changed in the last twenty years. Anna breaks the silence. “I’m glad you asked me up here. I think—”

She stops talking and I don’t prompt her. Unspoken words fill the car with expectation, as if the next thing she says will make everything right. But I know it won’t. It’s too late for that. She looks at me helplessly, and for an instant, her face looks young again. Scared. Fragile. Hurt. “I have a lot to say to you.”

I nod as I make the turn into the parking lot for the waterfall. I haven’t been up here for decades. The last time, I was with Wade, asking him for something he was more than willing to give but probably shouldn’t have been. I should call him. He was a good friend to me, better than he ever knew. We pull into a parking spot. I’m discouraged to see at least half a dozen vehicles. A family is standing by a new chain-link fence that’s been built at the edge of the cliff, and a few couples are sitting down at the picnic tables. I get out of the car quickly and start walking down the trail. As I expected, Anna scrambles to follow.

“Let’s go past the lookout,” I say. Tourists never go that far. The warning signs scare them. Most people don’t want to go past the point where the guardrail ends. Anna inhales sharply, like someone preparing themselves to do something they don’t want to do.

“Sure.” She brushes past me, jostling my arm as she goes by. We pass the picnickers. A few nod in greeting, and I return the friendly gesture. Anna doesn’t respond. Her hands are wedged deep in her pockets; her forehead is creased with a frown.

“They seem happy,” I say. I’m surprised to hear the note of envy in my voice.

“They’re not from around here,” Anna says. I laugh, but Anna doesn’t. It wasn’t a joke. We kick rocks as we shuffle along the path, stopping briefly at the designated lookout. There are a few people taking photos, positioning themselves with the majestic roar of water behind them as a backdrop. We walk gingerly through their photo shoot, earning a small hello from the father and a distracted nod from the mother. The kids ignore us.

The path veers away from the cliff’s edge, and we fall into silence as the woods close around us. It’s cooler in here, and the light is refracted by the fingers of the cedar trees. I’ve always liked walking in the woods. I have been surrounded by pavement and concrete for so long that I forgot how peaceful the forest can be. I let Anna get ahead as the trail turns back toward the falls. This part is why the signs were posted. The trail is just inches from the fifty-foot drop to the river and its rocky bank. Anna slows and I match her pace. It’s pretty here, more so because every step matters.

“There’s a spot up ahead where we can sit down,” she says. I nod, trying not to remember when the two of us were here with Jesse, when Anna was finishing her film-school application, but it’s too late. I clench my fists hard and release them, trying to dissolve the bubbling anger that is flowing through my body. Anna and Jesse had been laughing at me the whole time. I thought Jesse had invited Anna out of pity, but it was me who wasn’t welcome. He had already chosen her. We follow the trail for another few minutes until the waterfall rushing out of the rocks is clearly visible again and the trail ends. We can hear the pounding of the water, hurtling down relentlessly, its journey determined by the inevitable force of gravity. The trees crowd the edge of the cliff here, and we stop and stand inches from the edge. It’s the best view of Rapid Falls you can get. And the most dangerous. I can never look at Rapid Falls without remembering the dark world underneath the surface of the water downstream. Jesse’s grave. The place where I’d thought Anna and I would die. As our car had fallen into the water, I hadn’t known if either of us would make it out. I hadn’t cared. I’d never expected to get out of the water that morning. I had no idea that my instincts would take over. I still don’t know why I swam so hard to save myself. And her.