Starry Eyes(70)

Just the mountain and the sun and the two of us with all this pain in the middle.

A group of hikers climbs the steps far below. They look like ants. I walk a few steps to the benches circling a short wooden rail and gaze out over the jagged scenery. I wonder if this is one of the spots at which people fall off the mountain. It certainly doesn’t seem like a place people should die. It’s far too beautiful.

I hear Lennon approaching, but I don’t turn around. I don’t know what to say. I can’t process this. I’m trying, but I’m angry and utterly heartbroken, and everything feels raw.

Is all of this my fault, for crying on Andre’s shoulder and assuming the worst about Lennon’s motivations?

Is all of this Lennon’s fault, for assuming the worst about me?

And then there’s my father. . . .

“Everything that happened in the hotel . . . ,” I finally manage, talking more to the mountains than to him. “I mean, it’s almost blackmail, what my father did to you.”

“Actually, it was. See, there was something niggling me. Why was he at that hotel checking in? It was the middle of the day. And who needs a hotel in town when they live twenty minutes away? I didn’t really think about it much after everything went to hell. Not until that package was misdelivered to my parents’ shop last week.”

My body stills, heart racing erratically. “Why?” I ask, almost a whisper. I’m not even sure I want to know.

“Because the woman in those photos . . . I realized I’d seen her before. She was in the hotel lobby, standing near the registration desk. And then I saw her again, looking out the rotating doors when your dad dragged me outside.” Lennon pauses, and then says, “When I thought about it later, I wondered if maybe he made such a big scene to distract me from seeing her.”

This is the final blow. I want to hold my hands up in surrender. I’m dead now, so you can stop shooting, please and thank you. Nothing can hurt me anymore. I’m beyond pain. I’m just numb.

I stride toward our bench and slide into my pack, hoisting it onto my shoulders.

“What are you doing?” Lennon asks.

“I need to think,” I tell him. “I just . . . need to think.”





20




* * *



And that’s exactly what I do. Alone with my thoughts, I ponder everything that’s just happened all the way up the last hundred or so steps of the mountain staircase. Wondering if I’ll ever stop being angry with my dad. Wondering if I’m angry with Lennon, too. And I’m so busy being lost in my own self-centered thoughts, it doesn’t quite register that the water is getting louder. And louder. When the steps begin curving sharply to the right, I suddenly see why.

Waterfalls. Two of them. Not the small, tranquil cascade of Mackenzie Falls. If that was a roar, this is God herself speaking. And she is fierce.

Blue water plummets off a sharp-angled cliff many stories down into raging white foam. It’s flowing so savagely, a good third of the falls are nothing but gauzy mist. I even can feel mist on my legs—and the base of the falls must be a good quarter mile or more away.

I hike the last few steps to a large lookout area on a plateau twice the size of the one below. No one’s up here. How is that possible? I spy another set of stone steps at the end of the lookout leading to the topmost point. There appears to be a trail all the way around the falls, and at the top of the falls is where several tourists are taking photos and looking through viewfinders. If I’m not mistaken, there is a tram and a couple of toilets up there. Guess most people choose to ride up there instead of climbing the world’s most dangerous steps.

I walk toward the edge of the lookout, dump my pack on a section of dry rock, and peer across the gap to watch the waterfalls.

“Emperor and Empress Falls,” Lennon says loudly from my side, ditching his pack next to mine. “They’re actually part of the same river, but that bumpy rock formation that sticks out between them is what splits the flow. Three hundred fifty feet tall.”

They are beautiful. I’m truly stunned. By the view, and by the entire conversation we just had. I wonder if I can just keep looking at the falls, just pretend it never happened until I come up with a plan— “Zorie,” he pleads from behind me. “Say something. Please.”

I have to speak louder than normal to be heard over the roar of the falls, and it sort of turns into yelling. “If you confessed everything to your parents, then my dad didn’t have anything to hold over you as leverage.” I swing around to face him, bitterness in my voice. “Why didn’t you tell me then?”

“You weren’t speaking to me.”

“Because I was under the assumption that you hated me!”

“I never hated you. I was angry that you shut me out, and I damn sure was furious about Andre. Seeing you with him in front of your locker was one of the worst days of my life—and believe me, I had a lot of bad days last year.”

“I was only with Andre because I was trying to get over you.” I’m crying now—half in anger, half in grief—and I feel as if my chest is going to explode and I’m going to fall over the edge of the lookout and die in the waterfall mist. Because not only am I thinking about what I did with Andre, but I’m also thinking about Lennon doing the same thing with Jovana Ramirez. And I don’t know which image is worse.