White Ivy(105)

“Rest how?” said Roux.

They wove their way down the narrow path between the boulders, gripping their shoes in the slim crevices where the snow was frozen.

“Rest knowing I’ve reached the top,” said Ivy. She could feel the heat of Roux’s irritation warming her back as his sharp voice echoed between the large stones.

“Ivy. There. Is. No. Top. We’re all in this hellhole together. What you’re looking for—that peace?—it doesn’t exist.”

They dropped onto the two-foot-wide ledge on the side of the mountain, the cliffside boulders blocking out the sky. The temperature here was even colder than the open expanse above. In identical gestures—a step forward, necks stretching outward—they stared down at the narrow gulf. The motion made Ivy so dizzy that she quickly leaned back against the wall to steady her quaking legs. She had a fear of heights. How absurd, considering. Her arms shook beside her body.

“It looks man-made, doesn’t it?”

“Divine nature,” said Roux. “What is it?”

“Frozen sediment, I guess. The overhang from where we had lunch protects it from the weather. It’s sort of this secret hole I discovered once.”

“How’d you find it?”

“An ex-boyfriend—he fancied himself a woodsman. He slipped on the rock above us and luckily there was this platform here.”

Roux whistled. “Lucky dude. If you fell down from here, there’s no way to climb back up.”

“And no one would ever find you either,” Ivy whispered. “This isn’t close to any of the other hiking trails.” She looked at the thin sliver of dirt two hundred meters down at the bottom of the conical valley. The walls were smooth and silver and covered in ice. Sharp spires made intricate shapes, like frozen snowflakes, their jagged points rising toward a sky they would never reach.

“I don’t understand,” she cried suddenly, spinning to face Roux with anguished eyes, “why you love me. We’d be miserable together. We’d fight constantly. You’d cheat on me. I’d steal from you. We’d be horrible parents. We’d die some horrible, pointless death. You said people don’t change. That’s who we are together.” If he had painted one version of their future, she was painting its underbelly. She was begging him to see, to agree with her, because she could think of no other way to save them both. Yet even through her anguish, a tiny voice continued to jeer at her own theatrics: you know you don’t mean a single word, you’re just trying to get out of a tight spot, same as always, you feel nothing, you’re a selfish monster…

“You’re just scared,” Roux said hoarsely. “When I was a kid, I thought I could control my destiny. Do whatever I wanted once I had some money. But now I think our lives were decided for us a long time ago. Everything that’s happened so far, the way we met again—doesn’t it feel inevitable?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know anything anymore!” Ivy shook her head violently and began to cry, a hiccupping, choking cry, but for once there was no shame in it. The vastness of the mountain, the oppressive silence, the whistling of the wind made everything feel as though it were happening from very far away, as if she were watching herself from an airplane window, thousands of feet off the ground. She was simultaneously in the airplane and on that ledge, both the participant and the observer of her small life.

But she did know! It was her life! Who cared if it was small or insignificant, it was hers!

Roux was petting the back of her head, which was resting on his chest, murmuring words of comfort. She could feel the vibrations from his voice going straight into her bones; the sensation calmed her. As quickly as they came, her tears receded; her mind went to that quiet place. Lives are like rivers. Eventually they go where they must.

She looked up. He cupped her face with one hand. Wiped her eyes with his thumb. Roux—!

“If you stand at the edge,” she said, “close your eyes, and shout your wish—maybe it’ll come true.”

“I doubt it,” he said.

“Here, I’ll go first.” She inched out steadily.

“Careful.”

She took another step forward… her toes had reached the edge of the ledge. One step farther and she’d fall.

Ivy opened her mouth. She shouted the first thing that came to mind. “I wish I was an angel!” Her voice bounced off the walls, boomeranging back toward her: annnggelll-ggelll-lll.

She heard Roux’s laughter behind her, mixing with the echo. “That one’s going to take a miracle,” he said.

“Your turn.” She stepped back and pressed her back against the safe surface of the cliff. Her heart was pounding so hard she felt she was being swallowed by its rushing beat. But her mind was absolutely clear.

Roux stepped forward. He looked down at the gulf. Time slowed.

“Wait—Roux.”

He turned around. “What?”

“I never thanked you.”

“For what?”

“For loving me.”

She would remember his smile in that second for the rest of her life. There was a loud rushing in her ears—Roux turned away to face the divide, his eyes fluttered closed (how she would miss those gray-blue eyes!), his body teetered on the ledge—

“I wish—”