The Distance from Me to You (18 page)

McKenna smiled and he kissed her. She started to pull away, like she wanted to say something, but he held her tighter, kissed her more. If she said anything,
he
might say something that he couldn't take back. It had been on the edge of his brain these past few days. These past few weeks. But the words always got stuck somewhere between his head and his mouth. He pulled off her hat, kissing her neck while he untangled her braid. She shivered a little.

A great horned owl hooted, startlingly close by, followed by a flap of wings.

Sam unzipped McKenna's jacket and she pulled it off. The ground was hard, with roots traveling just under the surface in bumpy clusters, but what did they care?

“Sam,” McKenna said, her body shuddering. She could be so tough and then transform, not into something weak, or even fragile, but just something so light—a butterfly, a gust of air.
How could she be so convincing in terms of her fearlessness, and then be so light and
still
so convincing? The combination impressed him, and more than that it caused a rush of emotion. His mouth was right at her ear, it would be so easy to say it, to whisper or scream it. Would she believe him, if he said it now, in a moment like this?

He pulled back, placing a hand on either side of her face. He could see it, the expression, proof that maybe she wasn't so unscareable after all. On the verge, this brave girl. And he didn't want her to say it first. He had a responsibility to protect her, to be as brave as or braver than her.

“Don't,” he said when he saw she was about to say something. “I love you. I love you, Mack.”

“I love you, too, Sam.”

Above, another strong flutter of wings, the owl swooping down, fearless and right at home through invisible tunnels of air.

• • •

Next morning McKenna's lashes stuck together slightly, the light already apparent through the canvas of the tent. She could see her breath in the early-morning air, condensation gathering on the red ceiling. The scent of pine and juniper when she breathed in. Fall came a little later here in the South, and the changing of the leaves wasn't raging and rampant as in her hometown. But still there was color, and a mulchy smell. Sam's arm lay heavy across her rib cage. She barely had to turn her head to kiss him, his sleep almost too deep for his breath, or her kiss, to register.

Everything had changed last night. They were on new footing. These past weeks, she had done very little thinking—about the past or the future. Now, in this stillness before Sam woke, she wondered what would have happened if Courtney hadn't gotten back together with Jay. They still may have met Sam. Probably they would have become friends with him, bumping into him once in a while, and ultimately passing him since Sam would have had to stop more without McKenna, and he would have
wanted
to stop more often. She and Courtney would have talked about how hot he was, no doubt, which for Courtney would have been a reason to have a crush on him, and for McKenna would have been a reason to avoid him. But that would have been the extent of it.

Brendan probably still would have broken up with her, there was no reason for that to change. But what if he hadn't? Would she have pulled off her clothes that night by the campfire? Would she have let things progress, or stayed faithful? The thought of staying faithful to Brendan now seemed ridiculous.

She put her arms around Sam a little tighter, thinking of how he'd grown up with such a cruel father and a mother he wouldn't talk about, except to repeat her stories. She shook him awake.

“What?” he said, starting. His sleep had been so deep, she wasn't sure he knew where he was.

“I love you,” she said right away, not wanting to risk his forgetting.

He didn't say anything, just took a deep waking breath, closing his eyes, then opening them again when he exhaled. Stretching a little. They were both always creaky in the morning, all those miles walked and then sleeping on the ground.

“Sam,” she said. Her voice sounded more worried than she would have liked. “I don't want you to forget. I love you.”

He laughed a little and looked up at her. Grabbed the hair at the back of her neck. It was still loose, still tangled, from last night.

“I remember,” he said, and pulled her down toward him, kissing her before she could say anything else.

• • •

Hours later, at midday, they stood in front of an AT shelter that had a plaque with information about the Nunnehi. McKenna was surprised. Part of her had assumed Sam was making these stories up. But there it was, etched in metal, a description of the friendly spirit people:
THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE ANY
WHERE
.

“Like me,” Sam said. His voice was completely cheerful, but for some reason McKenna felt a little pang of wistfulness, thinking of Sam like that:
a person who lived anywhere.
Like at any minute he might go
poof
into the air, off to a new location.

“Come on,” Sam said. “Let's go look for that waterfall.”

McKenna pointed to the plaque. “It doesn't say anything about a waterfall.”

“Of course not. It's not for tourists. It's for natives. Like us.”

“But you know spirit people aren't real, Sam. So the waterfall's probably not real.”

She threw off her pack and sat on top of it. She was hungry and tired. Her shoulders hurt. She liked the idea of being a native—in the past few months, the AT had come to feel like home as much as her own bedroom back in Abelard. But she didn't feel nearly native enough to leave the safety of the trail, the cut path tended by all those devoted volunteers, the careful blazes appearing so regularly and comfortingly on the trees.

Sam handed her a bagful of pecans he'd collected. But the idea of smashing the shells to pick out the tiny flakes of nut exhausted her. She'd rather just eat one of her stale PowerBars. She wished he didn't feel like he had to prove himself, providing for her.

“Thanks,” she said.

“So what do you think? We could use a little adventure.”

McKenna moved her leg aside and unzipped the front pocket of her pack, pulling out the PowerBar. She ripped it apart and offered half to Sam. He shook his head. She bit into the stale chocolate, wondering how they could have felt so close last night and this morning. Now, suddenly, they were of two completely separate minds. She'd already told him she didn't want to go off the trail.

“Honestly,” McKenna said, “I feel like this is adventure enough.”

“What? Me and you?”

“No. What do you mean by that?”

“You know,” Sam said. “Boy from the wrong side of the tracks.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Am I?”

A towhee—the bird that drove him nuts—let go with its monotonous two-note cry. McKenna, still warm in her chest from last night, felt like maybe
she
was going crazy.

Where the hell was this coming from? Why was he being so antsy and weird?

She put aside the PowerBar and picked up a rock, banged it on top of the bag of pecans. Maybe if she ate his offering, he'd stop freaking out, go back to being himself, or better yet, his new self—the one who'd appeared last night. The one who not only loved her but said so.

She opened the bag and dug her fingernails into the wreckage, pulling out pieces of broken pecans. Sam was looking at the plaque again. She tried to think about his possible reasons for wanting to go off the trail. Like the fact that he didn't have a place to go once they got to Georgia, whereas she had a family and a job she couldn't wait to get to, and then college. Maybe for Sam, saying
I love you
felt dangerous. Whereas McKenna had said
I love you
a billion times in her life. She said it on a daily basis. Not just to Brendan—which, in retrospect, she might not have meant—but to her parents, to Lucy, to her friends, to Buddy.

“Hey,” she said. “I wonder where Hank went. We haven't seen him since—”

“Do you really care where that mangy hound is? Or are you just trying to change the subject?”

The thing was, he didn't sound angry. He didn't look upset. He looked cocky and calm and without a care in the world. His voice was lighthearted, like her not wanting to go off the trail was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. In other words, he had somehow morphed back into the very first Sam she'd met, way back in New Hampshire, entertaining a gaggle of college girls with his good looks and horror stories.

McKenna was not so good at concealing her feelings. Maybe because, unlike Sam, she actually
had
feelings.

“I just wondered about Hank,” she said, “because yes, I do care about him. You know? Caring?”

“I know about caring,” Sam said. Again, that smile, like everything she said was completely hilarious.

“Sam,” she said, hating the cracking, plaintive sound of her voice. “It's like you're not listening to me.”

“I'm listening,” he said. “I hear you. Loud and clear. Stay on the trail. Follow the blazes. Arrive in Georgia at sixteen hundred hours. Forward march.”

“What do you know?” McKenna said, sounding fiercer than she'd meant to.

The barest flicker of surprise crossed Sam's face and then that smile was back. It had been a while since he'd shaved, blond stubble gathering thickly along his jaw and cheeks. A sexy and infuriating smile. McKenna wished she had something other than the PowerBar or pecans to throw at him. She was mad, but not mad enough to toss away food, even if it was just smashed-up nuts that she didn't want. So she took a step
toward Sam and pushed him. He stumbled back a little, eyes widening but the smile not budging. Then he righted himself, using McKenna's shoulders for leverage.

“Calm down, Mack,” he said, pulling her toward him and holding her face against his chest. “It's not a big deal,” Sam went on. “I want to see the waterfall. You don't. So you don't have to come. You go on. I'll catch up.”

She looked up at him, her chin dragging against the scratchy wool of his black-and-red coat. “What do you mean, ‘catch up'? You're going without me?”

Last night he loved her, and now he was going to desert her again? He looked down at her, brushing the hair off her forehead like they weren't arguing, like none of this meant anything to him. As much as she still felt the impulse to push him away, she also wanted to cling to him, not beg exactly, just ask him to please stay with her.
Please.
For the first time ever, she sympathized with Courtney, staying behind with Jay. It seemed like the worst thing in the world, the idea of being apart from Sam, no matter how mad she felt.

They pulled apart, both reaching for their packs, and started walking. Nothing had been decided, not aloud anyway, but McKenna could tell from Sam's cocky stride that it wasn't that he didn't care if she followed him. It was that he was sure she
would
follow him. Not for a minute did Sam think she wouldn't go exactly where he went, just like every other girl he'd ever met. So far McKenna had resisted asking him about other girls. Now, walking behind him, her face scrunched into a frown as
she let herself wonder: How many had there been, exactly? And what had he said to them? Had he told them
I love you
?

The frown softened. McKenna knew, the way you sometimes just did, that even if Sam had said it to someone else, he hadn't meant it, not the way he had with her. Last night, what he'd said—what he'd felt—that had been something new. Which was probably why he was acting this way.

Maybe, McKenna thought, I should just give in. Go off the trail with him. Sam had opened himself up to something new. Maybe she should, too.

They walked for a while, Sam checking the trail for breaks in the trees, like everything had already been decided. She thought about him taking off while she walked on, sticking to the trail, counting on those spirit people to bring Sam back to her. Or else going with him, counting on them to bring both of them safely back to the trail.

Had it come to this? So in love with a boy that she'd trust in ghosts to keep her safe?

Sam reached an arbitrary point where he had obviously decided he could smash off the trail and find that waterfall. He stopped and grabbed hold of McKenna's arm, pulling her toward him.

“Don't worry, Mack,” he said. He kissed her. “I'll catch up to you in a few days.”

She stood, incredulous, watching as he walked through a pair of loblolly pine trees, listening as his feet cracked over roots and leaves. He'd really left her. She couldn't believe it. In
fact, she
didn't
believe it. This was just his way of manipulating her, of making her give in to him by going off the trail to follow him. He was banking on the knowledge that she wouldn't be able to stand hiking alone again, or the thought of him getting lost, or worst of all: the thought of never seeing him again. Well, maybe she'd call his bluff. Maybe she'd keep walking on the trail, and see how soon
he
broke down and followed
her
.

Just as she was about to desert the spot and head on her way, a rusty voice called to her from farther up the trail. “Hey. You there.”

McKenna turned and gasped. There stood a man, wiry and wizened, with a wide-brimmed straw hat, a long tangle of a white beard, and an even longer tangle of white hair falling crazily over his shoulders. Dark eyes staring at her through layers of wrinkles, but with a smart glimmer.

He could have been anywhere between sixty and a thousand years old. He had a frame pack like Sam's, but instead of bulging with a tent and sleeping bag, it looked practically empty. In his left hand he gripped a gnarled but beautiful old walking stick.

Then from under his collar came a tiny, colorful parrot. A quaker parrot, staring at her quizzically. Any doubt washed away. Here he was in the flesh, Walden, the legend of the trail, frowning at her sternly. Not in a murderous way. More like a grandfatherly way. Remembering Sam's story, McKenna almost laughed out loud.