Played

But it was true.

“I’ll shut up now,” I said.

Riley nodded and looked away. Instead of making stupid small talk, we listened to the rain.

13

Riley

Sam was seriously starting to freak me out. Why did he say such things? I knew he was a little odd—well, I really didn’t know that to be a hard fact, but I had heard that he acted strangely.

Scratch that.

More like it was what I’d observed.

Sam often sat by himself in the cafeteria. I knew this because I sat alone sometimes, too. And when you sit alone, pretending to study the math book beside your sandwich or doodle in the corners of your notebook, your eyes tend to scan the whole room beneath your eyelashes. My attention was usually drawn to other loners like me. There weren’t many of us but, if we wanted to, we could have started a club.

The one thing that stood out about Sam was that he didn’t mind being alone. He wore his aloneness like a badge, challenging anyone to mock him. No one ever dared to look at him funny or anything. It was sort of a mutual unspoken understanding, which I suppose you could negotiate when you were well over six feet tall and, maybe, two hundred pounds. Even the biggest senior boys kept their distance from Sam. One time I’d sketched his face in my notebook because I liked the way his expression never seemed to change and yet it said everything.

And now he sat behind me, his arms wrapped around my shoulders like we snuggled all the time. Like we were best friends. And he’d said that I could be pretty. What kind of boy says something like that after insulting you a half-dozen times? None that I knew—not that I knew many.

But Sam Tracy was indeed a strange boy. He wasn’t like my brother’s friends, and it wasn’t just because he was Gila or Native or Native American or whatever he called himself, either. He was just different from all the boys I knew. He didn’t say much, and when he did he didn’t waste time with too many words.

We sat staring out at the rain for what seemed like an eternity, grateful for our little patch of dryness and the heat radiating from our bodies. Then my stomach grumbled.

Weakening, I peeled back the wrapper to our only food source. I wasn’t ready to eat pinecones. “What some?” I pointed my granola bar at him.

He shook his head. “Nah. You eat it.”

“We can share.” I pulled back the paper and broke the bar in two.

Sam lifted his hand. “Better not eat it all at once.”

“Seriously?” My voice got higher. “You seriously think we’ll be here that long for it to matter?”

He looked up at the tree, considering my question. “Maybe.”

So I halved the half and stuffed the other half back in the wrapper. “For later,” I said.

Sam took his piece and chewed it slowly, his lips making a perfect circle, which looked really strange on him.

I did the same, trying to savor each morsel like he did. I closed my eyes and tasted the tiny bit of chocolate, a sliver of almond, a breath of dried cranberry and then crunchy honey and oats. It was probably the first time I had ever truly tasted a granola bar, despite inhaling at least two after every dance practice for the last two years. “Not bad,” I said when I allowed myself to swallow the last bite.

“I would rather have had your macaroni and cheese.” There was a smile in Sam’s voice.

“Beggars can’t be choosers.”

“True,” he said.

“Now for the water. Pretend it’s champagne.”

“Have you ever tasted champagne?”

“No,” I said, popping open the cap. “This is pretend.”

“Then I’ll pretend it’s a chocolate shake.”

“Yum. Even better.” I passed the bottle to Sam. “You first.”

First he raised his hand, motioning for me to take it, but I insisted. “Just a sip,” he said, finally tipping the bottle to his lips. And a thimbleful was all he took. Barely enough for a bird. “Now, you.”

I took the bottle and it took all my willpower to drink just a sip. I could have swallowed a gallon. “I guess if we get desperate we can suck the water off leaves, right?”

“I hope we don’t have to.”

Lightning flashed all around us and the mountain lit up like a birthday cake. A few seconds later, the sky cracked open even louder than before and I jumped. “This storm is freaky,” I said, my knees curling into Sam. “And it feels like it’s getting colder.” He pulled me closer.

“We’ve got to do something to pass the time,” Sam said. “Or we’re really going to go nuts.”

“Damn straight,” I said, almost leaping into his lap when the lightning cracked again.

“See? You’re not as perfect as you think. You even curse.”

“Who said I was perfect?”

“No one needs to.”

“You don’t really know me.”

“I know enough.”

“Humph,” I said, slightly taken aback. “Well, since you’ve got me all figured out, tell me something about you.” I paused, just as lightning filled the sky again, turning everything all silvery-gray. Like a camera flash. “Tell me something no one else knows.”

“No,” Sam said quickly.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to.”

“What’s it matter? We’re not going anywhere for a while. You said so yourself. And besides that crazy elk, we’re the only ones out here.” Rain splattered above us, droplets bouncing from one branch to another, one pine needle to another. It was as if we sat below a giant fountain, each raindrop trying desperately to reach our hiding spot. “I’ll give you the rest of the granola bar if you do.” My eyebrows wiggled.

“Forget it.”

“You’re no fun.”

“Wait. I thought I was complicated?”

“Touché.” I sighed and looked away.

I counted raindrops when the storm quieted for a few seconds. During one stretch, I almost reached one hundred. But the rain always returned to pound around us like an encore. The sky soon became so dark that we didn’t even get a sunset.

Sam’s shoulders began to shiver. I hadn’t thought he ever got cold, but he was wearing only a T-shirt. At least I had a sweatshirt.

This wasn’t good.

“Okay,” I said, mostly to keep our minds off the growing cold and our grumbling stomachs. “If you won’t go first. I will.” I bit the inside of my lip to keep my teeth from chattering, because if they started again I wasn’t certain they’d stop.

“What are you talking about now?”

“I’m going to tell you something personal,” I said. “And you have to promise never to tell a soul. Can I trust you?” I looked up at him, just as the sky flashed another bolt of lightning, squiggly white lines stretching in every direction. “Promise?”

Sam surprised me by nodding. Or maybe he was shivering again. Whatever it was, I decided to tell him. What if we never made it off this mountain? What if we froze together tonight in each other’s arms? What did I have to lose?

I took a deep breath to steady myself and said, “I let my best friend use BOTOX on my forehead on Friday night. That’s why I’m wearing this stupid baseball cap.”

Dead silence.

Sam’s chest began to shake—but not from shivering. From laughter. It was the dry-heave, raspy kind, like he was having difficulty catching his breath. It started slowly and then built to a splitting crescendo.

“Thanks,” I said, between his chest heaves. “Thanks a lot. Glad you find it hilarious.”

His laughter turned into a coughing fit when he tried to speak. He raised his hand, begging me to wait. Sam’s laughter finally subsided until all we could hear were raindrops again.

“Why would you do that, Riley?” He reached for the brim of my baseball cap but I slapped his hand, which only got him chuckling again.

“I’m gullible. I was bored. I don’t know. My best friend, Drew, talked me into it. I blame her.”

“Does your forehead hurt?”

“I don’t know. I can’t feel it.”

Sam started another laughing fit and I just shook my head at him, biting back my own smile.

When he finally quieted, I challenged him. “Okay, now it’s your turn to play. You’ve got to tell me something juicy, something really personal. And I swear to god I’ll keep bugging you till you do. I could bug you all night. I swear, I will.” I looked out beneath the branches into nothing but infinite blackness. “We’re not going anywhere, so make it a good one.”

14

Sam

“I’m not playing.”

I was defiant. I even forgot how chilled I’d become for a few seconds. There was no way I was playing Riley’s stupid game.

It was such a girl thing. Why did girls always feel compelled to share personal embarrassing stuff? And BOTOX? Are you kidding me? Why would a pretty girl do something like that? Girls confused me.

“Please?” she begged.

“No.”

“Chicken!”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe you’ll play?” She tugged on the collar of my T-shirt, hard.

“Never.”

“Then I’ll have to guess.”

In the growing darkness, I heard her lips smack. It was obvious that she was giving this way too much thought. I could practically hear the wheels spinning in her head. Or maybe that was just her teeth chattering.

“Still cold?” I said to change the subject.

“I’m freezing,” she said, just as a gust of wind blew through the tree, knocking icy raindrops off the branches. “This is miserable.” We shivered in each other’s arms.

“Your sweatshirt is wet.”

“So’s your T-shirt.”

We hugged tighter. We breathed heavily for warmth. We rubbed skin where we could reach. We didn’t have a choice. And while it didn’t seem so bad in the dark, now that we couldn’t see each other’s eyes, the situation was clearly going from bad to really, really freaking bad. Ugly words raced through my head—hypothermia and pneumonia, for starters.

“Riley.”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way—” I paused for courage “—but there’s something we need to do. Now.”

“You’ve changed your mind about playing?” Her voice turned giddy, even as her teeth resumed chattering. I hoped she wasn’t starting to crack. I’d read about such things in life-or-death situations. Some people turned crazy as a survival mechanism.

My eyes rolled. “No. I’m not talking about playing your game. Be serious.”

“What, then?”

“We have to take our clothes off.”

Her body stiffened against mine.

“We’re soaking wet,” I added by way of explanation. “We could freeze to death if we don’t take them off.”

“We could freeze to death with them on.”

“True.” I nodded, trying to play to her reasonable side. “But we should at least...consider it. For body heat.”

“Get naked?” she whispered.

“Get naked.”

But then her shoulders softened beneath my hands. “Yeah, I was thinking about how to handle the wet clothes, too.”

“This is survival,” I stammered a little. “Nothing else.”

“Agreed,” she said. “Survival.” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than me. “What about underwear?”

“I guess...I guess we can leave those on.”

“Okay,” she said. It sounded like she was trying to work up her nerve.

At least it’s dark, I wanted to assure her, but that sounded like something a creepy guy would say. “I’ll go first—”

Riley caught my arm in the dark, interrupting me. “Let’s do it together.”

“Okay. On the count of three.” I counted slowly. “One...”

“Two,” Riley said with me.

“Three.”

With only a couple of inches between us, we stripped out of our wet shirts. Blindly, we fumbled and felt for a branch beside us to hang them in the hopes that they might dry, knocking arms at the same time.

“Sorry,” we said at the same time when our elbows crashed against each other. I winced when hers caught my funny bone.

I doubted that our shirts would dry even a little in the damp night air. Removing our pants was harder. I had to help Riley pull off hers, one slightly soggy leg at a time. When her jeans pulled over her injured leg, she moaned.

“Sorry,” I whispered.

She garbled something back that sounded like “sleigh” but it was probably “it’s okay.”

After helping her, I unzipped my jeans and then shimmied them down and stripped them off my bent legs without kicking her in the face.

Beside me, Riley shivered even more and I wondered if stripping was the right idea, especially as rain continued to fall. If there had been a more awful night, weather-wise, I hadn’t experienced it. This was like a bad horror movie.

As we sat across from each other in our underwear, shivering in the dark, lightning lit up our hiding space. In the flash, I looked at Riley, and she looked back at me. In that instant I saw everything. She was so white she glowed. Her arms crossed to hide her chest. Most of all, I saw that she was as terrified as I was, and for that reason alone I could not look away.

“There’s no reason to be embarrassed, Riley. Or scared. I’m as scared as you are.” I had to push off to the side of my brain that I had never been with a girl before, naked. Not like this, so close we were practically sharing the same heartbeat. I wondered if I should tell her that? Would it put her at ease?

Instead, when it turned dark again, I reached for her shoulder. “Come here.”

A few seconds later, as if she’d needed time to consider it, she crawled to me on her knees. She sat between my legs, facing me. I wrapped my arms around her and she wrapped her arms around me, at least as much as she could. We were chest-to-chest, skin touching skin. I tried not to think about the softness of her skin or the sweet scent of her hair. Instead, I counted backward from one hundred and forced myself to focus on survival. Staying alive. Global warming. Global cooling, more like.

I rubbed her arms, her back. “Better?” My voice cracked.

Her head nodded beneath my chin, fast. Nervous. I could hear each swallow. “You?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Much.”

Her body froze again and so did mine.

“It’s not like that, Riley. I promise.”

“Okay,” she said, but her voice was still uneasy.

“Let’s lie down.”

She stiffened again in my arms but I pushed her backward, gently. I cradled her head by my right shoulder and then curled the rest of my body over hers, doing my best not to crush her. Her warm breath heated my neck as we lay on the ground. “Are you okay?”

“Uh-huh,” she squeaked.

“Am I hurting you?”

“Uh-uh.” Another soft squeak.

“You’re lying.”

She didn’t answer.

I shifted a few inches, as much as I could in the cocoon that we’d made for ourselves. Pine needles poked every inch of my skin. Despite the branches for our makeshift bed, the ground was still rock-hard. I closed my eyes and did my best to relax. Did my best to picture being warm. I pictured a bright sun and a hot, sizzling desert—anything but the soft body beneath me. After a few silent, agonizing minutes, I said, “I know this sounds gross but it would be better if we burrowed underneath the pine needles.”

Her hands squeezed my arms. “What about bugs? And spiders? I really hate spiders.”

“It’s too cold for them,” I lied. We’d probably wake up covered in ant bites, but at least we wouldn’t freeze to death.

“Okay,” she said with so much trust in her voice that I felt equal parts good and bad—good for keeping us warm but bad for telling lies. Suddenly I felt very responsible for this girl in my arms. Riley trusted me. She believed me. I did not want to disappoint her.

We burrowed like animals, digging beneath the branches, covering ourselves in a blanket of mostly dry pine needles and moss. Then we lay back again, Riley curled into my chest and one of my legs curled around Riley. After a while, our breathing slowed, and there was warmth.

The warmth turned into heat. Blessed heat. Body heat as thick as a blanket. Our shivering stopped and my breathing matched Riley’s, breath for breath. I felt her heartbeat against my chest.

I looked up at the sky, breathing easier, but still trying to keep my mind focused on anything but the fact that I was holding a mostly naked girl in my arms and willing the rest of my body not to react. Rain still pattered against the trees and a few drops reached us, but a couple of stars poked through the clouds with the promise that the storm was breaking. Finally.

“Riley?” My voice sounded loud.

“Yeah?” she whispered.

“I’ll play.”

She gasped. Her chin rose to touch mine and I couldn’t help but smile. “You’ll tell me something personal?” She sounded doubtful at first. “Really, really personal?”

“Yeah, why not?” I paused to swallow. “But you’ve got to swear you won’t tell anyone. Not a soul.”

“I absolutely promise.” Her breath hitched.

“Okay,” I said. “I trust you.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” I said again, hesitating all over again. Why had I opened my big mouth?

“You can tell me, Sam,” she said with conviction. “I won’t tell anybody.”

I sighed. Then I took a deep breath. Then another for some nerve. Another patch of black sky cleared above us. More stars twinkled through the tops of swaying treetops. I looked down at Riley and could see the vague curve of her chin, her nose, even the whites of her eyes twinkling in the starlight. She waited for me to speak, barely breathing.

“Sam?” she prodded, lifting herself over my chest. “You’re killing me. What. Is. It?”

My secret dislodged like a boulder from the top of a cliff. There was no taking it back. “I’m in love with your brother’s girlfriend,” I blurted.

Riley gasped again but for a split second I didn’t care.

It felt good to be rid of it.

So I proceeded to tell Riley everything.

15

Riley

Say. What? I raised myself higher on my elbow, knocking the top of my head against Sam’s chin.

Okay, I was expecting Sam to fess up to hot-wiring a car or maybe even cheating on a final exam but lusting after my brother’s girlfriend, Fred Oday? No. Way. Was he crazy? Fred and Ryan were inseparable. He’d have a better chance dating Lady Gaga.

“You’re in love with Fred Oday.” I didn’t say it like a question.

“Yep.”

“For how long?”

“For forever.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Since we were in grade school.”

“No way.”

“Way.”

“What do you love about her? I mean, aside from the obvious.” Fred was brilliant. She was also beautiful in an unconventional way. She was kind of like the exotic foreign exchange student who intrigued everyone without really trying. Throw in the fact that she could beat the butts off most of the guys on the varsity golf team and she became A-list material. I couldn’t blame my brother for loving her, too.

“Everything,” Sam said with a sigh.

He wasn’t making it easy. “You need to be more specific.”

“She’s pretty.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“And she’s smart,” he added.

“Well, duh.”

Sam laughed. “That’s not good enough for you?”

“No,” I said. “There must be something else, something you’re not telling me....”

I felt him inhale deeply beside me. Then he said, “We want the same things.”

“You play golf, too?”

“No,” Sam said. “It has nothing to do with golf.”

“Then, what?”

Sam paused. “It’s where we’re from....”

“Because you’re both Gila?”

“No. Yes. I mean, no. We both have had to work so hard. We understand each other. It’s just that we both want...more. More for ourselves. More for our people.”

“More, what?”

“It’s kind of hard to explain, Riley.” Another heavy sigh. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me. We’ve got time.”

His hand dropped against my back. “There’s not enough time to explain to you what I mean. You don’t live it. You wouldn’t get it. Trust me.”

“I’m smarter than you think, you know.”

“I never said you were dumb.”

“No, you said I was thorough. Remember? This is me, living up to my nickname. I need more detail. Now tell me.”

Sam chuckled, but it was the kind of nervous chuckle where I knew he wasn’t going to share anything more. His legs began to twitch as if they were covered in ants. Very un-Sam-Tracy-like. And, honestly? I was shocked he’d even told me what he had. In a weird way, I felt kind of privileged. Sam didn’t strike me as the kind of boy who went around sharing his secrets.

“Tell me more about her, Sam. Tell me more about what you love about her?”

“I haven’t said enough?”

“Not even close.”

He snickered. “Okay, then. Well, she laughs at my bad jokes. She’s kind to people. She’s patient—more patient than I’ll ever be. And she’s determined.” He paused. “I think I love that most of all.”

After a silent moment, I said, “You know that getting her is impossible, don’t you?” I leaned back down from my elbow.

Sam didn’t answer.

“Ryan and Fred are so in love that it’s...it’s almost sickening.”

Sam chuckled. “I know.”

“I think they’re considering getting surgically sewn together.”

Sam’s chest shook against mine.

“And then I hear that they’re going to share the same brain.”

“Stop it, Riley,” Sam said, laughing harder.

“I’m just telling you. You’re asking for the tragically impossible.”

“I didn’t say that I wanted to go out with her. I just told you that I loved her. That’s my really, really personal thing that you said you wanted to hear. That’s all.”

“Yes, well. That’s...sad,” I said, forgetting for the moment that, except for the parts covered by my underwear, my naked skin was touching Sam Tracy, a boy who was in love with my brother’s girlfriend. How twisted was that?

“That’s the way it is,” Sam said. “You can’t have everything.”

“At least you understand.”

“More than you know.” He sighed, and for a few seconds that turned into minutes, we said nothing and just listened to the rain drip-dropping through the branches that sheltered us.

My eyelids grew heavy as my body stayed warm against Sam’s, even as I kept playing Sam’s secret in my mind. I couldn’t picture it—Fred and Sam? My brother without Fred? To say that it was impossible would be an understatement. There are some people who go together, like dark chocolate and sea salt. Would Sam really have a chance with Fred?

Despite his love for Fred, right now I was glad that we were together. If I had to get stranded in a forest and Jake Gyllenhaal wasn’t available, I was glad I was with Sam Tracy. In fact, forget Jake. I’d definitely choose Sam. He’d scaled down a mountain for me. He hadn’t left me alone. He was keeping me warm. He was keeping me alive. And he’d told me his deepest, darkest secret.

“Let’s try to get some sleep,” Sam said. “We’ll need our strength for tomorrow if we plan to hike out of here.”

I yawned. “You don’t want to talk anymore?” I needed to do something to get my mind off what could be crawling around and over the pine needles and dirt that were doing a decent job of keeping the cold away. Just as Sam had said they would. “No more secrets?”

“That wasn’t juicy enough for you?”

“Good point.”

“I’m tired.” Sam yawned.

I sighed. “Okay, you win. I’ll shut up.”

So I rested my head on Sam’s smooth chest, listening as his breathing slowed. Somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted. That’s when I realized it had stopped raining. There was still a tiny rumble of thunder, but it sounded miles away.

“Sam?” I whispered. I wanted to tell him that the rain had finally stopped, the storm had passed, but he didn’t answer.

And then I began to dream crazy dreams.

16

Sam

Wrapped around Riley, I didn’t sleep a solitary second the entire night, but she did.

Riley talked in her sleep, too. She said nothing that I could understand, but at least it helped the night to pass. It was like trying to figure out Latin or something. One time she even giggled. Martin and Peter were never going to believe this. They were going to give me grief for being Mr. Gentleman. “Why didn’t you at least kiss her,” Martin would probably say. “Or at least brush her breast while your hand was in the general area?”