“I’ve got a park bus schedule in here somewhere,” he says, rummaging through a pile of papers stuck between the pages of his journal. “It’s from last year, but I doubt much has changed.”
As he’s looking for it, something catches my eye in his journal, and I stick my fingers on the corner of the page to stop him from flipping. “What’s this?”
“Ugh, don’t look,” he says, covering it with his hand.
“Why?”
“Because it’s embarrassing.”
“Well, now I’m going to just forget it,” I tease, tugging his fingertips. “Show me.”
He groans, but releases the page. I peer over his arm and see drawings of people. They look like anime characters, a bit stylized, with simple, clean lines and big eyes. It takes me a moment to realize they’re all girls. The same girl. Repeated over and over, from different viewpoints. Sitting at a desk, bent over schoolwork. Eating at a picnic table. Reading on the stairs. Drinking coffee at a café. They’re mostly drawn from behind her, so there’s only a partial view of her face, but . . .
But . . .
She has dark, curly hair and glasses, and she’s wearing plaid.
I slowly turn the page to find more drawings. The same girl, drawn dozens of times. Each one is dated in Lennon’s careful, neat handwriting. They go back to last fall. Last spring. Early this summer.
The newest one is from last week. The girl is standing on a balcony, looking down with a telescope.
The drawings are flattering. The drawings are sad. The drawings are filled with longing. Lennon’s heart on the page.
Tenderness and pain rise to my throat. It’s a bittersweet pain, one that’s tarnished by how awful this year has been for both of us. I tried so hard and for so long to push all my feelings for him away, to tamp them down into a tiny box and hide it somewhere dark in my mind. I did everything I could to forget.
And Lennon did all he could to remember.
Tears drop off my cheek onto the page, splattering. I try to wipe it away with my finger, but the ink bleeds.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “They’re beautiful and I ruined them.”
He shuts the journal and tugs me closer to swipe tears from my cheek with his thumb. “It’s okay,” he murmurs, kissing my eyelids. “I don’t need them anymore. I have you.”
* * *
The next day, I beg him for one more day in our sequoia cathedral. We’ll have plenty of time to get to the star party’s final night, which is the best time to see the meteor shower anyway. Our phones are dead, so I can’t tell Avani to expect us a day late, but what does it matter? She’ll still be there. And likely she’ll be so busy enjoying the star party, she won’t even notice. The only thing I see as a potential problem is Mom, because I did promise I’d text when I arrived at the star party. But I also told her we’d be getting there late tonight, and what difference would one day make? Besides, I’m hiking, not taking a scheduled bus. Surely, she’ll understand that this isn’t an exact science. I can call her from Avani’s phone the minute we get to Condor Peak tomorrow.
I argue all of this to Lennon, but frankly, I didn’t need to convince him. He is completely agreeable, and we stay put.
The storm has passed, so we spend the day doing practical things. Washing mud out of our clothes in the river. Collecting firewood and putting it in the sun to dry. Finding my glasses. We also spend it doing impractical things. Bathing in the river together. (Less bathing, more touching.) Reading the manga book Lennon brought in his backpack. (Less reading, more touching.) Taking a nap. (Less sleeping, more sex that nearly permanently blinds Lennon when a tent pole snaps.)
My hives are still there, but I’m not clawing at my arms as much. Partly because I’m keeping up with medicating, and partly because I caved and let Lennon slather me in Miss Angela’s stinky sativa salve. I don’t think I’ve ever been so relaxed—sexlaxation, Lennon dubs it, and says he’ll make a fortune marketing it as a cure for allergies and stress.
But all good things must come to an end, and when we run out of condoms, we know it’s time to go.
Goodbye, sex camp.
As we’re packing everything up, I check to make sure my camera is still working, and it strikes me that I haven’t taken one single photo on this trip. It’s not just that. I haven’t obsessively checked my messages or my social media feeds. I don’t know what’s trending, and I haven’t posted anything. I can’t check views or likes or favorites or reblogs. And I have no idea what’s going on in the news.
“We disconnected,” I tell Lennon.
“I know. Isn’t it great?”
It actually is. Maybe I wouldn’t want to do it forever, but I didn’t die, either.
We’ve waited as long as we can, leaving well after lunch. My pack feels heavier, somehow, even though there’s exactly the same amount of things inside. I think it’s as reluctant to leave as I am.
But it’s time to go.
We walk through a string of meadows all afternoon and have dinner near a lake that’s one of the largest alpine bodies of water in the state. We’re well above five thousand feet, so the water’s too cold for swimming, but it’s a calming view. Not as calming as sexlaxation, I point out. Lennon triple-checks: We’re definitely out of condoms.
When we’re back on the trail again, my mind starts wheeling. We haven’t discussed what we’re going to do about my father when we get back home. Or anything about the future. I don’t want to think about it. I want to stay here. This is impossible, and I know it, but when I start thinking about what awaits us—parents, school, the so-called friends who abandoned us, the looming threat of my dad’s affair . . . all of this creates doubt in my head. Doubt, worry,
