ARC: Essence (16 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

After a few hours of training, I managed to take a few steps before slipping. The falling wasn’t even that bad, either, because I quickly learned to leap to the ground the second I felt my balance faltering.

Not that I’d be given that luxury at Taft Point, but Ryder told me I shouldn’t spend so much time focusing on the end goal. “In order to slackline successfully, you need to be in the here and now, you know?” he’d said, lighting a cigarette and leaning against a nearby boulder.

I did my best, and the sense of accomplishment I felt at the end of the day was enough to swell my body with a bubbly feeling of effervescence. Ryder must have sensed it, because he swooped in for a kiss when I bent to put back on my shoes. “Looked good up there, Red. I’m proud of you.”

I tried to hide the pleased feeling I felt welling inside me. I also tried to hide the way these funny, spontaneous kisses were flustering me so much. “Ryder, I only walked four steps today. Hardly Taft Point–worthy.”

“Yeah, but it’s your first day. Some people never even get that far.”

We left the slackline and began walking toward Trey and Adrian. They were busy repacking their gear, but Trey called, “Nice job, Red! Best new girl I’ve seen in a long time.”

I felt myself blushing again, both at his compliment and at the fact he’d called me by Ryder’s nickname.

Adrian seemed equally impressed. “You got good form,” he said. Mimicking my arm movements, he added, “Gotta let the tension move through you a little more, though. Let your arms go completely loose, like tentacles.”

“I will. Thank you.”

He picked up the rope coiled at his feet. “Got a good one, Ryder. Gotta hang on to her.”

“I think I will.” Ryder smiled and wrapped his arm around my waist. “So, you assholes better stay away from her, OK?”

Since my orientation lessons with Kadence were officially concluded – and I didn’t really know what to say to her or Javi anyway – I purposefully avoided our meditation sessions and spent almost the entire next two weeks practicing my slacklining at Church Bowl instead.

Ryder came with me sometimes, and Trey or Adrian usually joined in, too. They popped up on the slackline and demonstrated turns and twists and even funny crouching moves where they bent on one knee and offered a prayer to whatever higher power may or may not have been looking out for us.

Jett and Cody even became regular fixtures after the first few days. Jett disapproved of the whole idea, but she mostly just hugged me and told me she’d remember this when I finally came around and decided slackliners were idiots, too. Cody took a much more pragmatic approach, and he often brought snacks and offered to give me boosts whenever Ryder wasn’t around.

By Friday, I didn’t need boosts at all. I was also consistently walking from one tree to the other, and I could almost make it halfway back without falling. By Thursday of the next week, I was making it to the tree and back more times than I wasn’t.

I also settled into a comfortable routine with the entire group, and it wasn’t unusual for Trey or even Adrian to seek me out in the dinner line and crash to a seat next to me. They were all calling me Red now, and they’d started taking bets on how soon I would be overtaking them on the slackline.

Kadence and Javi didn’t seem as impressed. I had barely talked to them since Shayla’s crossing-over celebration, but they often locked eyes with me in the dining hall. Even when I was in the midst of laughing and joking with my new friends, I still felt coldness ache in my chest at the sight of them.

They seemed to be busy, too. Ryder told me one afternoon that Kadence had begun spreading the word that she didn’t appreciate the way Rex had handled Shayla’s accident. She said it was reckless, and she encouraged everyone to ignore Rex’s call for increased risks.

This sent tiny ripples coursing through the Community. It also rankled many people – none more than Rex, Daniel and Ryder.

“So what,” Ryder said late one evening, “she thinks we should just forget why we’re here in the first place? Maybe start smoothing our auras and trying to stay neutral?”

It was my one-month Yosemite anniversary, and Ryder, Jett, Cody, Trey, Adrian and I had decided to celebrate by camping, drinking moonshine and relaxing around a fire near a place called Squaw Caves.

It was my first time drinking since my moonbows incident, and my enthusiasm was mellowed slightly by my memories of the horrible hangover I’d felt the next day. I decided to drink much slower this time, and the liquid’s burning taste was nearly intolerable as I chased it with my water bottle.

“Kadence is just trying to slander us,” he continued. “Has had it out for us, ever since she got here.”

“Kadence doesn’t have it out for you,” Jett insisted, flicking a piece of bark into the fire. “She’s just different than you. She misses her friend.”

“She’s a stiff,” Adrian sneered. “She just wants to cause trouble.”

“A stiff?” It was my voice, and the sound of it surprised me.

“It’s the word we use for people who don’t believe in pushing their heart rates to the limit,” Trey explained. “They always seem to undermine Rex’s research.”

“But they’ve never outright questioned it before, so this is big, even for them,” Ryder said. “Stiffs like Kadence have always said they think my old man’s research is inflammatory. Think he should just let the Essence theory go and forget about Cedar entirely. But my old man isn’t like that, you know? Cedar
wronged
him, and he wronged him in a major way. He won’t be able to rest until he frees every single Centrist. We shouldn’t, either.”

I picked at a stray thread on my blanket. “But Kadence wears a heart rate monitor. Everyone does. So she can’t disapprove of what he’s doing too much, right?”

“Well, yeah, she knows who gave her a home,” Trey said. “But she doesn’t push herself like the rest of us. None of the stiffs do.”

Ryder seemed to suddenly come to. “You know what?” he said. “This is bullshit. Sitting here bitching about Kadence won’t help anything, and I’m sure this whole thing with Shayla will blow over soon, anyway.” He made eye contact with me and smiled. “I think we should all just concentrate on making Red’s one-month anniversary a special one. That’s the reason we’re all out here, right?”

As everyone murmured their agreement, he pulled a clear plastic bag from his backpack. “By the way, I have a surprise for you guys.”

“Shut up,” Jett said, reaching for the small white pills. “Where’d you get MDMA?”

“Fresno. Last supply run. My old man got some to help me keep my readings high. Sure he wouldn’t mind if I shared the love with you.”

He began passing pills to everyone, and I took mine without question. Rolling it in my hands, I said, “MDMA?”

Jett grinned and held the pill between her teeth. “Used to be used in this stuff called ecstasy. Crazy popular before the Great Quake, but – surprise! – Centrists think it’s dangerous.”

“What does it do to you?”

“Acts kinda like moonshine, but way better.” Jett chewed her pill and swallowed. “It releases all these great hormones in your brain, and it just makes you… happy.”

I frowned. “I’m not going to act stupid if I take this, am I? I’m not going to forget everything again?”

“No.” Ryder laughed. “No memory loss, and no puking, either. Trust me, Red, you’re gonna love it.”

I popped the pill, and the group followed with an enthusiastic round of applause. Their laughter made that cozy sense of belonging swell inside me again.

“Thanks, guys,” I said, wiping my mouth. “What are we supposed to do next?”

Trey grinned and popped to a standing position. “May take a while for the pill to kick in. In the meantime, hide-and-seek, count of fifty? Campfire’s home base, and I’m it. Let’s get moving.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about, so I sat there stupefied until he began counting down from fifty. Instantly, everyone scattered.

I would have remained sitting there dumbfounded if Jett hadn’t grabbed my hand and squealed, “Come with me, Autumn. I’ll show you how to play.”

We made it through a few rounds of hide-and-seek before everyone started to feel the MDMA’s effects. When they did, the game petered out, and Trey began playing his guitar while the rest of us lounged around the campfire.

I didn’t feel like laughing or dancing with everyone quite yet, and my head drummed as I stared at the ground between my feet. I felt like puking again, and I probably would have if Ryder hadn’t appeared by my side.

His pupils were dilated so wide, his irises seemed almost black, and his hand was warm as he massaged the space between my shoulder blades. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You feel nauseous sometimes at first, but the feeling will pass. Just relax, OK? Concentrate on my hand on your back, and you’ll feel better soon.”

I nodded. When I closed my eyes, the nausea lessened. In its place I felt an antsy creep of anticipation. A tingling sensation started at the top of my head and began filtering its way down through my limbs.

My skin began to feel magnetic, and the warmth of Ryder’s hand began spreading in warm waves down my back. It was startling – that feeling of melting that spread like butter through my spine. When I opened my eyes, I felt my entire world swelling.

Ryder smiled beside me, and I could tell by the look in his eyes that he knew exactly how I felt. “Better, right?”

I couldn’t even answer. My heart was churning, and my insides were suddenly so charged that I couldn’t put my thoughts into words. My heart had oozed into liquid, and the purring feeling of contentment that was humming inside me made anything but smiling impossible.

“Knew you’d like it.”

I nodded. We sat in silence for a few minutes, and then the planes of Ryder’s face became so beautiful that I had trouble concentrating on anything else. I wanted to touch his skin – to feel those sloping cheekbones and full, wide lips – so I extended my hands and cupped his face between them. He closed his eyes, and the meeting of our skin was so intense that I felt the warmth of his cheeks and the coolness of my palms blurring together into one.

The strains of Trey’s guitar and the echoes of laughter began infusing my insides, and the sound melted through my entire body until I felt myself buzzing with happiness. I was here. In the middle of the woods. In the middle of this beautiful night, and I was connected to so many amazing people that it was suddenly hard to tell where they ended and where I began.

Adrian picked up a drum, and the harmony of the two instruments began singing through me. From far away, the sound reminded me of a heartbeat.

Or
was
it a heartbeat? My heartbeat? Ryder’s heartbeat? The heartbeat of our mothers while we were in their wombs, or the heartbeat of this place – this moss-covered place called Squaw Caves that called us together and sheltered us beside a campfire?

Jett and Cody became entwined as Trey hung his head over his guitar and Adrian played the drums at his side. Jett grabbed my hand, and then we were dancing.

We were drawn into the beat, and suddenly I realized how equal we all were. Here in this forest, with all of our Essences and auras swelling, with the music slamming into us and passing through us. I realized with certainty that neutrality wasn’t the thing that kept us centered; it was this. It was the music that filled us and the friendships that sustained us. It was the joining of our hands and the singing of our souls – because we were here together, in this bubble, and we were alive.

I suddenly felt so energized that I wanted to run, so I said, “Hide-and-seek again. Please?”

The music faded, and then we were all smiling as Adrian held up his hands and said, “OK, my turn. Count of fifty.”

Ryder and I tore off into the trees together, but I couldn’t keep quiet long enough for us to find a hiding place. All I wanted to do was learn every single thing about him, so we slipped away from the game and climbed to the very top of the boulders – to a flat stretch of rock that opened to the sky and to a moon so beautiful, I could almost feel it shimmering on my skin.

Then we were facing each other, cross-legged on the granite, and Ryder’s hands were dancing like waves against my shoulders. I was glowing, and I was lost in the depths of his eyes – in the shifting black vastness of his pupils. I could see into his soul, and I swore his soul was pulling me into him. Like we were one soul in two bodies.

His face was changing now, shifting a little at the edges, but I realized it didn’t matter what we looked like, anyway. All that mattered was what we looked like on the inside. And his insides were beautiful. Just like his outsides.

I wanted to touch him again. This time, my hands found their way to his chest, and he pulled me toward him. The feeling was explosive, like two fireworks colliding in midair.

I realized there was no place I’d rather be. I was kissing Ryder on top of a boulder, and my heart was churning like a train inside my chest. His hands were cupping my shoulders, and then they were inside my shirt. He was crouched on top of me, and his pants were unbuttoned and mine were unbuttoned, too.

I’m not sure exactly how things happened next, but I know the stars were glimmering like diamonds in the velvet sky behind Ryder’s head. I know the Milky Way danced through the heavens, and I know every single thing about that moment just felt right.