But by midday, my energy wanes. Not even filthy thoughts can sustain me. I’m sore and tired, and I just want to drop on the ground and sleep. “I need to stop,” I tell Lennon.
He glances at me, brows knitting together. “You all right?”
“Just tired.”
“Me too, actually. Come here,” he says, gesturing for me to come closer. “I want to check on your hives.”
“You just want to gawk at my deformity,” I tell him as he lifts the hem of my shirt to reveal a sliver of my stomach. The skin there is speckled with raised, pink bumps, but the bigger wheals are breaking up. “So sexy, right?”
“The sexiest,” Lennon agrees, running the backs of his fingers over the puffy welts. “Itchy?”
“I’m not sure. It’s hard to concentrate on feeling bad when you’re feeling me up.”
His lips curl at the corners. “Are you saying I’ve got magic hands, like Jesus?”
“Are you saying I’m a leper?”
He tugs the edge of my shirt back into place. “Totally. That’s exactly what I’m saying. Please stay away from me and definitely don’t kiss me.”
“Got it.”
“That was supposed to be reverse psychology.”
“I know. I was just realizing something.”
“Oh? What, pray tell?”
“You’re the only person besides Joy who isn’t afraid to touch my hives.”
“They aren’t contagious. And if you think a few splotches on your skin are going to stop me from touching you with my magic healing hands after what we did last night, think again.”
“Good. I mean, uh . . .”
“It was pretty good, wasn’t it?” he says.
Am I blushing? My ears feel hot. And a few other parts of my body.
We never did a lot of flirting last fall. It wasn’t like this. We were friends in the daytime, make-out partners by night, and we managed both the secrecy of our relationship and this strange new world we were exploring together by keeping things separate.
Now there’s a different energy. A thrilling kind of tension.
I know I’m not the only one feeling this new energy between us. I’ve caught him sneaking glances at me out of the corner of his eyes, as if he’s trying to measure me. Study me. It’s exciting and maddening, and I feel as if I might have a heart attack if something doesn’t give soon.
There’s that smile again. “Anyhoo, your hives look a shit-ton better than last night, but you don’t need to overtax your body.”
“Is that your scientific opinion, Dr. Mackenzie?” Okay, maybe I have a little more energy for filthy thoughts. Definitely willing to overtax my body if he’s going to help.
“Gordon told me they had to airlift a guy out of here with hives last summer.”
“Gordon?” It takes my brain a second to crawl out of the gutter and realize it’s the Jamaican man from the camp last night.
“We chatted this morning.”
“Look at you, being all non-antisocial.”
Lennon rolls his eyes humorously and continues. “Gordon said that apparently this hiker, he’d never even had hives before, or not in a big way. But he was mildly allergic to peanuts, and even though he could have them in small quantities from time to time, he ate a bunch of candy with nuts while climbing. And that, combined with exhaustion . . . His throat swelled up so much, he lost consciousness.”
Angioedema. That’s when your face swells up like a balloon. A lot of people with chronic hives have it. Luckily, I’ve managed to avoid it.
And I hear what Lennon’s saying, but I’m more concerned about the source of the airlift story. “You told Gordon about my hives?”
“He camps here a lot, and I was just trying to find out if he knew what kind of grass was on that hill. It’s velvet grass and oxeye daisies, by the way.”
“Ooh, yeah. That oxeye daisy weed is on my no-fly list. High-risk allergen.”
He gives me a look that says there you go.
“And I’m sorry about that idiot hiker who decided to gorge on Snickers bars while climbing, but I’m not allergic to nuts,” I say. “I mean, God. Can you imagine a world without peanuts?”
Lennon’s mouth twists humorously. “The horror. You may not be allergic to peanuts, but look at all the other stuff that sets you off.” He ticks off a list on his fingers. “Stress, daisies, shrimp that Sunny cooks—”
“Bad shrimp,” I murmur cheerfully.
“Bad shrimp,” he repeats in Sunny’s voice. “Oh, and there was mean old Mr. McCrory’s dog. Remember? He licked your hand and five minutes later . . .”
“That was just bizarre. I’m not allergic to Andromeda’s kisses. How was I supposed to know his hellhound’s saliva was poison?”
“Maybe it had been chomping on daisies.”
“Or shrimp.”
“You’re an anomaly, Zorie Everhart.”
“I am nothing if not an original.”
“Well, OG, let’s feed your hive-ridden body some lunch, so we can get through this canyon before the storm hits.”
After finding a good place to sit, we eat a quick meal out of our bear canisters, and when we hit the trail again, my body isn’t hurting like it was earlier. Either the break helped, or the extra meds, or maybe I’m just getting used to hiking. Whatever the case, I’m able to get into a comfortable groove. Just one foot in front of the next, watching my surroundings, and breathing.
Clear head, steady steps. Moving forward.
We take a second break in the afternoon, and that’s when I start to feel the change in the air. A different scent. Sweet, almost. It’s sharp and fresh, and it’s carried on winds that are picking up.
Lennon looks toward the sky. “See those? Cumulus clouds. They’ll start stacking up to make cloud towers. That’s when the rain’s coming.”
“Uh-oh.”
He checks the GPS on his phone. “We’re almost out of the—ah, crap. Phone died. Let me see yours.”
I dig out my phone, but the battery’s dead too. Crap. I can’t text my mom. Surely she’ll understand and chalk it up to no cell service.
He stares at the black screen for a long moment before handing it back. “Doesn’t matter. I know where we are. We’ll be out of the canyon in a half hour or less. Are you okay to keep walking?”
“If it means not getting wet, then hell yeah. Let’s march.”
We walk briskly for several minutes, but the winds are really whipping through the canyon now. Enough to blow my hair in my face. Lennon keeps looking up. I think it’s getting darker. I’m sort of wishing I had asked him for more information about the storm. This isn’t like me at all, but I’d been concentrating on the knowledge that we needed to get through the canyon without being eaten alive by mosquitoes. I didn’t think about what would happen after. And this storm isn’t going to give us a pass for winning. Like: You guys made it through? Great job! I won’t rain on you.
What do we do when it rains?
“Am I good, or am I freaking fantastic?” he says, several paces ahead of me.
When I catch up to him, cresting a hill, I see what he’s seeing.
A shady forest filled with giant trees.
23
* * *
The canyon’s arms open up and deliver us straight into it, the river arrowing down the center.