she just answer?
I face forward, just in time to see a fallen tree stretched out in front of me. I stomp the brake, turn my wheels sharply.
It’s not enough.
The ATV strikes the tree. I lose my grip and my body flies over the handlebars.
Chelsea
air ball
As soon as I see the tires of his ATV collide with the dead tree, I try to scream his name, but all that comes out is a wheezy squeak.
He soars through the air, his body loose, his arms and legs flopping.
“Clint!” I try again, his body continuing to climb like the sky’s a ladder. But my voice is weak—far softer, even, than the muffled sounds of distant cars on the opposite side of the woods.
Needles of fear attack the skin on my arms. I reach for him—a ridiculous gesture. Like I could ever catch him from where I am, the length of a basketball court behind him, stuck deep in a thick, gooey patch of mud I could easily have avoided if I hadn’t been so set on getting ahead of him. My voice is caught in my throat, my arms useless. I’m powerless. And Clint, poor Clint, has just been launched like ammunition in a catapult.
His body crumples when he hits the gnarly roots of a nearby tree.
I finally find my scream as I climb from my ATV and race through the soft, muddy space between my four-wheeler and his.
“Clint,” I say, afraid to touch him. Afraid not to. His eyes stare at me, wild and frightened as I crouch beside him. “Clint,” I say again, panic filling my mouth with a bitter, metallic taste.
I put my hand under his arm, attempting to help him up. But he screams when I touch him.
“Is it your shoulder?” I ask when he struggles to sit up by himself. The left side of his body looks kind of deformed—twisted. Panting, I place my fingertips against his T-shirt, feel an out-of-place bump and muscles that spasm.
“Can you move it?”
He shakes his head and groans.
“I think you dislocated it,” I say.
I look up, finding only blue spaces of sky between leaves. The way the tree trunks surround us reminds me of my team, of the way they all stared down at me when I’d fallen. The woods take on the quiet echo of the gym during those last moments.
But I don’t have time for this—for remembering, for reliving that one awful thing that happened to me once.
“Come on,” I say, standing up. “You have to help me. We’ve got to get you out of here.” I put my hands on his waist, trying to hold him steady as he puts his feet beneath him.
“My ATV’s stuck in the mud,” I tell him, “so we’ll have to use yours.” I say it like I’m sure that it’ll start, that doubt’s a stranger here.
The two of us attempt to squeeze into the seat of his ATV, which is butted up against the fallen tree. I straddle him, bringing my legs around his body. But it’s hard for me to reach the handlebars, to see the front of the four-wheeler.
“You’ve got to start this thing for me,” I say, as my foot finds the brake.
Clint turns the key. I pray with more intensity than the most devout woman on the planet, biting my lower lip and squeezing my eyes shut as he presses the start button.
I could cry when the engine coughs.
Clint barks at me about how to put the ATV in reverse. When I finally get clear of the tree, I ask, “Which way back to Pike’s? Clint? It all looks the same to me.”
“Tracks,” he growls, but I know there’s no way I can drive, grip Clint’s unsteady body, and follow the Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs that would lead us straight back to Pike’s. I try desperately to think of an alternative.
At this point, Clint’s making more noise than the engine. He tries to grip the jiggling handlebars, but grimaces when he wraps his hands around it. As I squirm to settle my backside against the seat, I feel the cold metal circle press into my thigh—oh my God, thank you, thank, you, thank you. Clint’s compass.
My fingers buzz as I wiggle them into the pocket of his shorts. He leans to the side, letting me pull the compass out to check the direction. I remember him telling me the mushrooms were north of Pike’s.
South, my brain screams up at me. We need to head south.
I keep my legs around