Page 48 of Wandering Wild
Not entirely, at least.
And I need to find a way to explain that to her.
It won’t change what befell her mom, and she may not even believe me, but I need her to know the truth about the night of Summer’s birthday. No—Iwanther to know the truth. But I can’t do that with Bentley’s cameras rolling, since it’s not only my truth to share, and I won’t risk the rest of the world hearing it. Charlie, however... she needs to know. And maybe, just maybe, she’ll stop hating me once she understands.
I’m not sure if that’s possible, though, considering I can’t stop hating myself.
Just not for the reasons she might think.
Memories play across my mind as I toss and turn for hours, the pouring rain offering a perfect soundtrack to my stormy thoughts. I recall Summer’s birthday dinner and how the arrival of so many others turned our quiet evening into a boisterous party, something that Summer despised. But she’d been gone from LA for so long that she felt bad turning anyone away, so she—and we—put up with the added company. Maddox alone managed to sneak off before things became too wild. But his reason for doing so?—
My thoughts are interrupted when I hear a rustling sound from Charlie’s direction, and I listen hard as she rises from her makeshift bed. I realize with some surprise that the rain has stopped—I have no idea when that happened—and there’s a faint golden light bathing the cave as the rising sun breaks through the dispersing clouds.
Charlie yawns quietly as she stretches and stumbles outside, and my pulse kicks up speed knowing this is the perfect time to catch her alone. Hawke and Bentley are slowly beginning to stir, so now might be the only chance I have to speak to her without my words being caught on film.
I give her a few minutes of privacy before I hurry out of the cave, shielding my eyes against the early-morning sun. It’s amazing how clear the sky is after the deluge we had, even if there are more heavy-looking clouds looming in the distance.
Glancing left and right, I consider which way Charlie may have gone, then decide she would have headed where the trees are the thickest. I venture after her, trying to take in the view over the mountain, but fog covers the valley beneath us, making it impossible to see how far up we made it before seeking refuge. I feel safer knowing there’s no sheer cliff nearby, which means no imminent need to climb up or rappel down anything. Maybe Hawke will give us a reprieve today, given how soaked everything is around us.
The ground beneath me squelches as I move deeper into the trees, calling Charlie’s name so as to not catch her in a compromising position. When she appears, her face is both surprised and guarded.
“Is everything... all right?” she asks hesitantly.
I wonder if she’s hoping I’ll ignore what she revealed about her mom so she doesn’t have to think about it, and so nothing between us changes. At any other time, I would follow her lead and respect her wishes, but this is too important for me to let it lie.
Despite my resolve, the words get stuck in my throat when I try to speak them, so instead I say, “I wanted to check on you. After—After last night.”
If anything, that raises her defenses more, and I curse myself for not just speaking my mind.
“I’m fine,” she says coolly, crossing her arms and peering down the steep slope of the mountain. It’s still impossible to see anything beyond the heavy fog. “If you’re worried about what I said and how it made you look?—”
“No, no.” I raise my palms. “That’s not what I—” I shut my mouth and run a hand through my hair, knowing I need to just get it over with. “There’s something I want to tell you while the cameras aren’t on us. Something about my DUI.”
She steps back automatically, mud sloshing under her boots. I can hear running water nearby, falling somewhere off the mountain, and some distant part of my mind recognizes that as odd, given that I can’t see the source. But I think nothing of it, my focus entirely on Charlie.
“I don’t want to hear about it,” she says, her voice hard. “I’m sure you have a million excuses, and a million more from your PR team, but nothing you say can make me overlook what you did.”
I shake my head and step toward her, stopping only when she takes another step away, since I don’t want either of us to end up too close to where the mountain angles sharply downward.
“I’m not expecting you to overlook it. I just want you to understand why I did it.”
She laughs bitterly. “You really think that will do you any favors?”
I move forward quickly, taking her hands in mine before she can retreat again. “Please, Charlie. Let me explain. If you don’t like what I have to say, you can keep on hating me. I just—I want you to know the full story. That’s all I ask.”
Something about my begging reaches her, and she tilts her head to the side, her violet eyes holding mine. I have her attention now, and since this is the only opening she may ever give me, I take a deep, steadying breath, and say, “The night of my DUI, when I was at Summer’s birthday, I?—”
“There you two are.”
Damn it.
I close my eyes and clench my jaw at Hawke’s interruption, my opportunity lost. Charlie tugs at my hands, so I release her and turn toward the survivalist, noting that, like us, he’s fully dressed, though he also has a rope slung around his shoulders and his hunting knife at his belt. Bentley is yawning beside him, holding one of the larger, handheld cameras and aiming it in our direction.
I try to catch Charlie’s gaze, hoping she can read the frustration in my expression, along with the promise that I’ll find a way to explain everything when we’re alone. But she shows no reaction; if anything, she looks like she has to work even harder to hide how much she loathes me. All the progress I made with her over the last two days has vanished—we might as well be right back where we started.
“It looks like there’s more rain coming, so we should take advantage of this break in the weather while we can,” Hawke says, closing the distance between us. “I also think we should—” He stops suddenly and glances down at the ground, frowning at the mud. “Can anyone else hear that?”
All I can hear is the squelching of Bentley’s boots as he moves closer, along with the earlier sound of rushing water, only louder now. It’s almost as if it’s flowing directly under our feet, but that can’t be right. I assume there must be a runoff somewhere nearby, a creek that’s turned into a waterfall or?—
