Bitter End (8 page)

I was expecting to feel myself blush. Or feel that awkward feeling. Or embarrassment. But I didn’t. I felt comfortable, lying
in the grass, looking up at Cole and the stars beyond him. Something about him felt comfortable. “Thanks,” I said, and for
the first time, I didn’t feel like I really needed to say any more.

He tossed the piece of grass to the side and plucked another one, running his fingers along it. “How come you didn’t title
your poem?” he asked me.

I rolled over onto one elbow and plucked my own piece
of grass, my belly pressing up against Cole’s knee. “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I didn’t think about it.”

“What title would you give it now?” he asked.

I thought about it. Plucked another piece of grass and rolled it into a ball between my thumb and forefinger. After a while,
I said, “Maybe I’d just call it ‘A Poem Without a Name.’ Could be kind of symbolic. Like, the relationship described in the
poem is over. It’s done. It’s no longer got a name. I don’t know. That’s cliché.” I wrinkled my nose.

“Was it about you?” he asked. “Like, a breakup or something?”

For a split second, I considered just getting it over with and telling Cole about my mom. And not the edited version, either—not
the one in which she died and is now an angel looking down at me and we’ll someday be reunited, but the real version. The
version that’s ugly and embarrassing. But the moment passed, and I shook my head.

“Nah, I just wrote it,” I said.

“I like it. You know what I would title it?” He pitched another piece of grass and leaned back on his hands, stretching his
legs out in front of him. “I would call it ‘Bitter End.’ Because maybe it’s not over, you know? Like they’re sticking it out
until…” He held up his hands, a cocky grin on his face.

“The bitter end,” I finished for him, nodding my head. I pursed my lips. “Hmmm.”

He poked me in the ribs with his finger. “What do you mean, hmmm? Come on, you have to admit that’s a pretty good title.”

“I don’t know,” I said, giggling and curling away from his finger. “How about this—if your song ever makes it big and, like,
wins a Grammy or something, I’ll let you title it.”

“Deal,” he said. “Hey, speaking of. Weren’t we gonna teach you a song tonight?”

I brightened. “Yeah!”

He stood and reached down to pull me up, and then held my hand all the way to the car, loosely, as if we’d done it a million
times before. “Get in,” he said. “I’ve got the perfect place for guitar lessons.”

We both slid into Cole’s car and he took off, pulling out of the shelter and winding through the park, past all the other
shelters, where other cars sat, dark and foggy, in the parking lots. Some of the shelters had fires smoldering in their shelter
pits, just begging for the park rangers to show up and make everyone leave. The park was supposed to close at dusk, but nobody
ever paid attention to that rule—not even the park rangers, as long as nobody ran the risk of burning the woods down.

We bumped along the lake road, past the closed swimming beach and the boat rental dock, and then pulled onto a grassy, gated
road. Cole pulled up to the gate, put his car in park, and reached down below the dash to pop the trunk.

“Here?” I asked.

He nodded. “Well, not
here
, here. In there. The spillway.” He pointed at the gate. A rusted red-and-white sign
hung from the middle of it:
DANGER: NO TRESPASSING. DROWNING RISK
.

The sign needn’t have hung there. Everybody already knew the risk of hanging out at the top of the spillway. There to drain
excess water and keep the lake from flooding during rainy periods, the spillway gates could open at any time, releasing a
rush of water down the thirty-foot concrete drop into the pool below.

Legend had it that sometime in the seventies, a drunk girl had climbed over the gate and immediately fallen to her death,
going head over heels down the steep concrete slab and drowning at the bottom. Shannin always claimed it was just urban legend,
and nobody ever seemed to know who the “drunk girl” was, only that she’d gasped and cried for help and there was nothing her
friends could do but watch from the top of the spillway and call out her name.

The only kids who crossed the spillway gate were the kids with a death wish. One wrong step and you could tumble one way down
the concrete or the other way into the lake itself. Or if a gate opened, the rush of water would take you down into the water
below whether you wanted to go or not.

And if a park ranger caught you up there, you’d be in huge trouble.

“Cole, I don’t think…” I started, but Cole had already gotten out and was banging the trunk shut, his guitar case in one hand.
He came around to my side and pulled open the door.

“Come on,” he said, holding out his other hand. When I hesitated, he bent to look me in the eye. “I’m not going to let anything
happen to you,” he said. He slid his finger down my cheek, and I got butterflies. “Besides, it hasn’t rained in weeks. The
spillway isn’t going to open up anytime soon. Worrywart.”

He winked at me, and suddenly I was overcome with a surge of boldness.
This is what life is about, right?
I told myself. Taking risks. Going for it. Not being like Dad—a husk of a person shifting this way and that in the wind,
with no real place to land. Life was about staring down a tackle. Standing at the top of the spillway. Climbing gates with
danger signs. I grabbed his hand and got out.

“Who you calling worrywart?” I teased, shutting the car door with my hip and darting to the gate. In three pulls, I was straddling
the top of it, looking down at Cole. “What’s taking you so long?” I said, and swung my leg over the top, pushing off from
the fence and letting myself fall to my feet on the other side, barely able to believe I had just climbed that gate. I brushed
my hands off and planted them on my hips. “Well?”

Cole’s face split into such a wide smile, even his dimple disappeared into a deep groove. “Here,” he said, and pushed the
guitar case to the top of the gate, where it balanced and then slowly tipped in my direction. I stretched until my hands were
around the neck, then pulled it down. Cole took the fence in two pulls and landed within inches of me, our faces so close
our noses could touch. “Let’s go,” he said, his
hand snaking over mine to take the case. I felt numb, but deep down my whole body was buzzing with adrenaline.

We high-stepped through the tall weeds, ducking under low branches in the grove of trees that separated us from the concrete
ledge at the top of the spillway. When we came out on the other side, I held my breath, both hands pressed against my stomach,
my heart pounding.

From the top, it looked as if the concrete went down forever, a straight drop into a pool of green, mossy water at its base.
At that moment, I was sure the urban legend was correct about one thing—if something went wrong, you would die and there would
be nothing anyone could do about it other than call your name and cry.

Cole stepped over a disintegrating Styrofoam cooler and planted a foot on the ledge. He noticed me frozen, half in the trees,
and chuckled. “Eyes open or closed?” he asked, raising his foot to take another step.

“Cole, I don’t think—”

“Closed?” he interrupted. “Okay, but that seems kind of dangerous.” He closed his eyes and put his raised foot down, taking
a step forward.

“Cole, don’t, you could…” He took another step, holding his arms out to his sides, the guitar case dangling over the edge
of the spillway dramatically as he walked along the ledge. My heart beat so hard it brought tears to my eyes. “Open!” I shouted.
“Open!”

He stopped and doubled over, laughing. He sat the guitar case on the ground and came back to where I was stand
ing. He held out both hands. “It’s okay,” he said. “I was looking. Come here.”

His eyes, searching deep into mine, felt like danger and safety all rolled into one. My hands shook as I pulled them from
my belly and placed them gently in his hands. He snaked them up to my elbows and gently tugged me through the grass. He walked
backward, guiding my shaking legs and unwilling feet over the discarded cooler and onto the concrete. I could barely believe
this was me, doing this.

“See?” he said softly, pulling me to the middle of the spillway. “You’re safe, Emily Dickinson.”

He let go of my arms, and we both turned to look out over the spillway. I let out the lungful of air I hadn’t realized I’d
been holding. I felt like I might throw up. But at the same time, I felt exhilarated, as if I was just now waking up. Just
now feeling alive. As if Cole had brought me back from the depressing silence I was used to living in. Here, there were no
brains being washed off anything. Here, there was just… life.

We stood there for a while, pointing out things—a hawk’s nest in a tree below us, smoke rising from one of the shelter houses—the
headlights of oncoming traffic washing over us. Finally, Cole sat down, his legs hanging over the lip of the spillway, turned,
and opened his guitar case. He shuffled backward a few inches, then patted the concrete in front of him.

“Sit down,” he said, and I did, lowering myself shakily into the U made by his legs, leaning my body back against
his and feeling the concrete, still warm from soaking up the day’s sun, underneath us.

He lowered his guitar into my lap, carefully winding the strap around my shoulders, then grabbed my hands with his and positioned
them on the strings. I could feel his breath against my ear, his biceps pulling taut against the backs of my arms, his legs
curled around mine. Slowly, he guided my hands with his, humming and naming chords into my neck.

We sat there like that for hours, the stars blazing above us—just the two of us, alone in a place that was so frightening
and wonderful.

I was so scared and so exhilarated I didn’t know where one feeling stopped and the other began. All I knew was I loved the
feeling. And I never wanted it to end.

I sprawled upside down over the couch, my legs snaking up over the pillows and my head hanging limply toward the floor. I
could feel all the blood rushing to my temples. When I talked, I sounded like I had a bad cold.

“We could whitewater raft,” I said. “Watch out, Beth!”

There was a boom, followed by a groan of frustration. Zack burst into hysterical laughter. “You totally walked right into
it,” he said, crazily punching buttons on a video game controller.

“Go ahead, laugh it up, Zackhole,” Bethany said, reverting to our seventh-grade nickname for Zack. There was another explosion,
and this time Bethany laughed, shoving Zack with her shoulder and jostling the couch so that the top of my head grazed the
floor.

Last weekend, while I’d been at the lake with Cole, Bethany and Zack had a Vacay Day at Zack’s house without me.
Somewhere between Bethany beating Zack at
Holy Rollers 5
and Zack devouring an entire plateful of chocolate chip cookies, Zack’s mom had pointed out to them that we probably wouldn’t
be doing much skiing if we were planning on going to Colorado in July.

“I can’t believe I didn’t think of that before,” Bethany said, flopping back on my couch. “I guess I just assumed that you
could ski any time of the year in the mountains.”

“No problem,” Zack said, plugging in a controller while Bethany and I picked at the tacos I’d made for tonight’s Vacay Day.
It was my turn to host, but I didn’t have the money for pizza. Not if I was going to actually get to Colorado and do anything
fun. “We’ll just go in the winter.”

“Hell-o, college,” Bethany said, pushing her glasses back up on her nose.

“Hell-o, winter break,” Zack countered, tossing her a controller.

He held a controller up at me. I shook my head, and he backed up to the couch and sat between us, holding a controller in
his lap. I’d shoved my plate of tacos on the coffee table and flipped myself upside down so my feet were by Zack’s head and
my head was by his feet. They continued to bicker while my mind drifted to Cole.

The week in the tutor lab had been way tense between the two of us, in a good way. It was tough to focus on noun and verb
placement when all I could think about, sitting across from him and staring into his eyes, was being alone with him again.
Having his arm resting against my back,
brushing up against me, coaxing out the goose bumps on my legs. Sitting on the top of the world, feeling puffs of air against
my cheek while we brushed our fingers over the guitar strings.

We were supposed to go see the
House of Horrors
movie that night, but after Bethany burst into American lit class Monday morning in full vacation panic mode, I knew there
was no way I could ditch our planning session two Saturdays in a row. I begged off my date with Cole, made tacos, and sighed
as I tried to come up with things we could do in the summer instead of ski.

“We could, uh… go on a hike in the mountains,” I said.

“Um, isn’t that the first thing we’re going to do?” Zack asked. “It’s a given. And you can hike up a mountain in December,
just so you… ha-HA! I just blew your arm off!”

“Gah!” Bethany roared, punching him in the shoulder. “Yeah, I think one hike is enough.”

“We could ride horses,” I suggested.

“You can ride a horse in Dec—dammit!”

“Take that, Zackhole!” Bethany screeched.

“Take that, Zackhole,” Zack mimicked. “Bethroom,” he said, pulling out his old elementary school nickname for her. This conversation
was only going downhill, and I started to get annoyed. I’d missed a date for this?

“Zackass!” Bethany retorted.

“What about bike riding?” I said irritably, but they kept arguing, as if I wasn’t even in the room with them.

“Cowboy Ugly!”

I tried again. “I think you can mountain-bike down Pike’s Peak.”

“Zackwad!”

“You guys,” I said, but they kept horsing around. “You guys,” I said again. Someone’s controller cord knocked a taco off the
table onto the floor by my head. “Stop it! God!” I shouted.