The shouts are growing louder.
Now I’m pulling River along behind me. At some point, the lake flows into a small river that lies calmly as if there was no current. I glance around. Darkness hangs in the forest, a black cloth of silk and velvet. The moonlight only falls across the tops of the trees, whose sprawling branches stretch like dark arms over the water.
Without waiting for River’s approval, I wade into the water.We’ll cross here, I tell him. He nods, puts his phone and my bag in his backpack, and holds it over his head with both hands.
“Let’s hope it’s not too deep.”
I feel my way across the slippery bottom, and after a few steps, the water is up to my ribcage. The cold makes my lungs shrink, and it’s difficult to breathe. I start shaking. I’d like to turn around immediately, but then we’d run straight into the arms of River’s pursuers. When I take the next step, I can’t find any footing. I start swimming, and the icy water turns into a claw that drags me down in my wet clothes.
River grabs my arm with one hand and holds the backpack on his head with the other.
As I climb out of the water, soaking wet and still shaking, I long for my bed and the warm blankets for the first time since I left home.
We cut through the countryside, following one branch of the river after another, fighting our way through creepers and reeds. Once, the backpack even gets a little wet. I just hope our cell phones stayed dry.
“I don’t think that was a lake earlier—just a wide part of Snake River,” River says at some point as we climb out of anarm of the river, completely out of breath. Wisps of fog hang in the midnight-blue labyrinth of water and forest. I just nod, exhausted and cold. He digs a bottle out of his backpack, and I drink without thinking about it.
As he puts the bottle away, shouts come from a completely unexpected direction. They’re in front of us, and they’re close—about three hundred feet away.
“Shit,” River mutters. We look at each other. Simultaneously, we hurry toward the tall reeds along the bank and startle a swan, which flutters noisily. I didn’t realize how much racket something like that could make.
“Never mess with one of those,” River whispers to me, pushing the backpack into my hand so he can use both hands to clear a path for us through the reeds. I wade after him, straightening the stems so the others don’t discover the path. Since there is a tree jutting into the water next to us, I hang the backpack on a branch so that it dangles above the water but is still hidden by the reeds.
We crouch in the cold water, listening. The voices are sometimes close, sometimes distant, seemingly coming from every direction. On one hand, I want to know more, but on the other, I’m afraid. They must be good friends if they won’t abandon him, I think, but the cold is making me dizzy.
I lose track of time. My teeth chatter, and at one point, I press my hands against my lower jaw to stop the involuntary reflex. At that moment, someone moves through the brush. “Riv? Is that you?”
River looks at me as mesmerizingly as he did in the supermarket.
Say something, I think.Tell me about River. And in the next moment:Keep running. Don’t say anything!
“You know what happened back then! Don’t make the same mistake again.”
The steps move away. “River?”
My heart beats as hard as a blacksmith’s hammer in my chest. Everything below my hips is numb. What mistake should River not repeat? Is it one with a girl? What did he do?
Something bad.
Never. Not him.
I have no idea how long we remain in the icy water, but when River gives the signal that we can return to solid ground, I want to cry with relief. I feel like someone froze me while I was fully conscious. Everything is numb, and my legs give way on the shore. River sits next to me and looks at me worriedly. “Get some rest, Tucks,” he says softly, pushing my wet hair back. I’m shaking like a leaf, but I pick myself up and shake my head. I don’t want to hear from the others anymore. We have to get out of here.
I don’t know how long we’ve been wandering in these wet clothes or what time it is. At some point, I trip over my frozen feet, fall, and don’t get up. River peers down at me, deep circles under his eyes, which I can see in the moonlight that falls in individual streams of light through the tree canopy. Without a word, he sits next to me and fishes a few clothes out of the soaked backpack. He gently pushes them into my hand, and I pull the wet clothes off, happy to finally be rid of them and able to rest. Luckily, the jeans and sweater he gave me remained mostly dry.
I decide not to take off the wet bra until I have the sweater. I’m about to slip into it when I notice River’s expression. He’s already changed and is staring at me, wide-eyed, shock and horror reflected on his face.
Only then do I realize I’m sitting in a strip of moonlight that falls across my upper body, highlighting the countless bruises. They’ve turned from blue and purple to a yellowish-green.
I immediately cross my arms over my chest, which, of course, doesn’t do any good since he’s already seen everything. Obviously, he knows the bruises must be older and can’t be from slacklining; I haven’t fallen that badly.
I feel dizzy and frozen at the same time. I haven’t put the sweater on yet and just hold it awkwardly in my hand.
Now he knows—knows I’m weak. The eternal victim. The familiar feeling of shame rises within me, and I look away into the darkness.
“Tucks,” he says softly, his voice like a caress. I can’t look at him. My hands dig into the sweater as I try to think of nice words, but I can’t think of any.
“Tucks, look at me, please.”
