The hike up through the woods to the campsite was even longer this time than it had been sixteen years ago. Nick was certain that his calves were going to liquidate. He could feel every muscle in his legs, like they were turning to iron or something. He groaned and dropped onto a log near the campsite, pulling off his sneakers and glancing around. He'd done well denying his aging over the years, but today he was acutely aware that he was not in his twenties anymore.
Bree looked up from the ground where she'd sat, too. "Your shoes smell," she complained.
"Manly men stink," Nick explained flatly. "Only chick-men don't."
Bree rolled her eyes.
"Carter!" yelled Pat from across the clearing, "We need your height."
Nick groaned.
"Go on, manly man," she teased as Nick shoved his foot back into his sneaker and stuggled to his feet. His back cracked as he stood and he groaned again. Bree giggled. "Gettin' old?"
"Bite your tongue," Nick responded before loping off toward where Pat was waiting impatiently with a half-erected tent.
Bree leaned back against the log that Nick had been sitting at, staring up between the branches at the sky that peeked through the pine's reaching arms. The patches of blue were like glimpses of a world far beyond her own, where the earthy smell filled her nose and discarded orange pine needles poked her palms and the small of her back. She breathed deeply the scent and allowed her mind to wander.
She pictured her father there, where she was, doing the same thing.
Bree wandered back to the edge of the water and sat on a rock there. From where she sat, she could see the edge of the waterfall that she'd seen from the road with Nick days before when they'd first visited Lost Paddle, and that nutter bridge that stretched across the gorge.
Suddenly, the funniest feeling came over Bree, and she knew - just knew - that she was sitting directly where her father had once sat. She wasn't sure how she knew or what it was about the rock that made the connection in her mind, but she could just feel his presence there. She closed her eyes.
"It's not fair," she found herself whispering under her breath.
Life is never fair.
The words echoed in her head, but they felt so real - like they'd been spoken aloud. She opened her eyes and looked around at the woods. A few paces away, across the clearing, Nick was helping to assemble tents, and Pat was about to blow her whistle at him. The trees were filtering greenish light from the sky, and the water was rushing along beside her. There was no way anyone had been close enough to say it that she would hear.
She looked at the water.
Bree pictured her father there, looking at that same water, sitting on that same rock, and she wondered why. Why, if he knew that he was dying, would he choose to go out on a trip instead of trying to fight for life?
Because I wanted to die living, that echoing mind-voice whispered in her head, not live dying.
Bree felt like her throat might explode. She rubbed the skin there and watched the white caps of the water rushing by her as she let the words mull into her mind, sink into her brain, permeate her heart.
And I want you to die living, too. That's why you're here... Isn't it?
It was later that evening, and Nick had gotten the tents assembled under Pat's regime. Bree had been strangely quiet throughout the rest of the afternoon before she crawled away into her tent. Nick glanced at his watch and snuck away from the crowd around the fire that Pat had built up over the evening, and pulled out his cell phone. He needed to call his probation officer and update him about where he was at.
Holding the phone aloft, Nick wandered through the clearing and the immediately surrounding woods, trying to obtain a couple bars of service, but the reception stayed elusive. He started gnawing on his lower lip. He had to make this phone call. He didn't really have a choice or he'd end up in deep crap.
Nick tried dialing, but the call was lost instantly.
"Damn it," he muttered.
Nick came up behind Pat and nudged her shoulder gently. "Do you know where the best spot to get reception out here is?" he asked.
Pat shook her head, "No reception out here at all, actually," she responded.
Nick's face paled. "You're shittin' me right?"
"No," Pat said slowly, in a very deliberate tone of voice, "I am most certainly not shitting you."
Nick crawled away, his stomach churning. He looked at his cellphone. "Aw hell," he groaned, staring at the brilliantly lit screen once he'd gotten several paces away from Pat and the other adventurers. "What's with this damn beach and cell phone trouble?" Last time, he'd chucked his phone across the river because Kevin had called over and over and over again. "Figures Kev could get through, but I can't call my damn probation officer."
He wondered what happened when you didn't call a probation officer. Do you go to jail? He didn't want to be like that Disney channel chick back in the day. He wasn't not calling on purpose. He wondered if there was a forgiveness policy or if it was automatically to the slammer you went if you missed a call.
He had a very, very bad feeling that the tolerance level on this was somewhat low.
It wouldn't be completely not-in-the-tradition of this trip for Nick to get arrested, after all.
