Wanderlove (34 page)

“But what were you doing in
Belize
?” my mom demands.

“We were so afraid you’d end up all alone in Nicaragua or El Salvador, somewhere dangerous.”

I swallow the groan rising in my throat. As it turns out, Marcy called my parents the day after I left the Vagabonds.

All they knew was that I’d gone off with some backpacker girl. Like Rowan said, they probably thought I joined a jungle cult. “It’s fine, Mom,” I insist. “There are travelers everywhere. And I’ve been with friends.”

“With friends?” The relief in her voice is obvious. “You made friends. So you haven’t been alone.”

“Of course not!”

“I
told
you,” my dad says. “Didn’t I tell you she’d be fine?”

“She disappeared in a third-world country. What was I supposed to think? Bria, I don’t understand why you didn’t contact us two weeks ago.”

“I was upset.”

There’s a silence, so long I think we’ve been disconnected.

Then my mom chuckles nervously. “Upset? About what?” I trace my finger over the wood grain of Starling’s table. I should have called my parents days ago, when I was still feeling angry. Now I just feel distracted by tomorrow’s journey—shorter than today’s, but much more intimidating. “Why didn’t you say anything when I stopped drawing?”

“Drawing? What has drawing got to do with Central America?”

“Everything.” I pull the phone from my ear to glance at the time. “Look—I’m exhausted, and I have to get up in just a few hours. I’m going to try to explain. Will you listen? For once, without interrupting to tell me what
you
think is best for me?”

I brace myself for an argument. But all my mom says is “Of course, Bria. We’re listening.”

So I tell them. The crib notes version. About Toby, and art school, and how I stopped drawing as soon as it became a struggle, and how maybe some part of me was afraid of my success, relieved by my fall, and this trip has helped me kick that side of myself in the ass. “And I still haven’t sent in my housing forms for state. Which means I’ve probably lost my spot. And I’m fine with that, really I am. I figure I’ll start out at community college, and in a couple years I can transfer. Or I’ll study art later, in some graduate program. It’s not the end of the world. . . .”

My mom interrupts me. “Bria. Have you read
any
of the emails we sent you?”

I pause, feeling ashamed. “Not really, no.”

“Your father found your forms after we dropped you off at the airport. We made some calls. It’s not too late—you can still go.”

Suddenly, my heart swells in my chest. “To art school?” I squeak.

“Not to art school. But to state.”

My heart deflates with a pinched-balloon squeal. “Oh.”

“They
do
have an art program, though. I checked.”

“You did?” I say incredulously. I mean, I already knew they had an art program, but that my mom checked? Wow.

“Is that so hard to believe? Anyway, I know it’s not the same . . .”

“But your mother and I hope you’ll consider it, Bria,” my father finishes, in that low, strain-to-hear tone he saves for truths he feels with his whole heart. “Take it from me. Even when life turns out different than what you planned, it’s always better to try and fail than to wonder what could have been.”

I’m still processing this when a rapping sound makes me jump. Starling’s knocking her flashlight on the sliding door.

“Can I come in yet?” she shouts. “It’s freezing!”

Day 20, Morning

Tikal

Happy Forever

My dad gave me my very first sketchbook when I was
three years old, after he caught me drawing on the walls of
his office. Who could blame me? Walls are so big and
white and boring. It’s no wonder people paint them bright
colors, hang paintings and tapestries, and feel suffocated in
hospitals.

Now I realize the sketchbook had to be one of his old
ones, maybe with the used pages torn out. He told me I
could draw on the floor anytime I wanted—just not on the
floor, or the walls, or the ceiling, either.

That sketchbook was like a wardrobe to a magic
kingdom. When you’re three, you don’t draw what you see—you draw upon your imagination. Nobody tells you
to stop putting wings on people, unless you have a most
unfortunate preschool teacher. You are intoxicated by your
own magic. Everyone draws as a little kid, but most people
lose it as they grow up. For any number of reasons: lack of
skill, lack of motivation, lack of encouragement.

Miraculously, somehow I hoarded that power longer
than most people—the power to draw out the brilliant
parts of the real world on paper, until art became an entire
world of its own. I think I could be happy forever,
straddling both worlds, one foot in each. Most people don’t
get that opportunity. Even if—

The shuttle bus beeps outside Starling’s window. I date my journal entry and put down my pen. It’s still dark out. I’m dressed in a tank top, my sneakers, and a pair of Starling’s drawstring pants. “Cherish them,” she said. “They’ve backpacked around the world. Now I’m passing the torch.” In the morning chill, my windbreaker has made a comeback, but thank goodness, it’s not so crispy anymore. I’ve crammed a bottle of water, my third sketchbook, and my favorite pencils in to my daypack. My overstuffed backpack leans against the door.

I go over and shove Starling’s shoulder. She groans.

“I’m leaving,” I tell her. “If this doesn’t work out, I might never see you again.”

“That’s crap,” she mumbles. “You have my number. And you always pop up somewhere.”

I pat her head. Whatever happens with Rowan—if I find him—it’s nice to know Starling and I have passed the peace pipe. The peace pants.

On the shuttle, I sit on a bench seat in back. A pair of teenage girls sit on either side of me, because they got here first and both want window seats. So for the forty-five-minute ride, I’m stuck between them, cringing beneath their squeals, ducking to avoid their excitable elbows. Nervousness is already salsa dancing in my stomach, so I distract myself by attempting to look out the windows.

The Petén jungle barricades both sides of the road. We pass a sign warning of falling rocks, which I decide not to think about. What are you supposed to do? Drive faster?

Swerve? Once we pass through a checkpoint—military fatigues, machine guns—and enter the park, I see other signs looming in the dark: jaguar crossing, coati crossing, deer crossing, even turkey crossing.

At last, we pull into a big gravel parking lot, beside dozens of
turismo
buses and minivans. I guess we’re not the only ones here to greet the sunrise. Our tour guide slides open the door to the sound of a whole chorus of cicadas, along with the sharp scent of wet soil. I see a few hotels—basic, budget places. I squeeze the straps of my daypack. Any one of them could be his.

As I climb the wooden staircase to Temple IV, which is so steep it seems more like a ladder than a staircase, the sun is already rising. Layers of gold and peach streak the stormy sky.

The entire forest seems to vibrate, whispering up and down my bare arms, making the hair stand on end. When I finally emerge atop the crown of the Two-Headed Serpent—with a boundless jungle vista spread out before me, so vast I can almost make out the curvature of the earth—the satisfaction that sweeps over me seems so tangible, it practically sparkles.

It’s the perfect moment to find Rowan. To run at each other (well, to walk briskly, since we’re more than two hundred feet in the air) and to fall (but not really) into each other’s arms.

I walk all the way around the top of the temple twice before I’m sure of it.

He’s not here.

My stomach plummets all the way to the ground.

When Starling said Rowan might be here, on top of this particular temple, it made perfect sense. It’s one of his special places. Like Sonia talked about—the places you
get,
the places that stick in your heart. One of the places Rowan said he’d take me, when we lay together in the hammock.

You’ll swear you can see the whole wide world.

I step to the edge and stare out at the faintly shifting carpet of trees, the far-off haze of mountains, trying not to cry.

The angular heads of other temples jut out from the canopy, glowing in the light of the sunrise. It’s all as epic as Rowan said. And it wrecks me that he’s not here beside me.

I’m facing east. So are the mountains I see the Maya Mountains? If I could somehow sharpen my eyesight, crank it up to telescopic Superman vision, would I be able to zoom right through the mountains to Belize City? Cross the water and revisit Laughingbird Caye? Our dock?

I back away from the edge and sit on a stone bench. I’m supposed to fly back tomorrow morning. As long as I take the night bus, I’ll make it to the airport in time.

And my trip will be over.

This whole vacation, I’ve been throwing myself headlong into some situations, holding back from others, without any framework or road map—anything to extricate myself from

Toby and my past. And maybe that’s what Rowan did, I realize, during those “meaningless” years before we met. If he kept moving from place to place, person to person, experience to experience, maybe somehow he’d stumble upon the best way to heal.

But there has to be a destination at some point, doesn’t there? Otherwise, we’re just wandering around aimlessly, endlessly.

At least I made it to the ruins. I run my hand over the stone beside me. This might be the exact place where a princess ran away with a warrior. Or a Spanish conquistador drove a sword through the heart of a high priest, before flinging him headfirst down the steps. Did that kind of thing really happen? All I know about the Mayans comes from my muddy memories of tenth-grade world history. It’s funny—I’ve been so upset with myself for not reading about destinations as they are. It never occurred to me I should also read about how they
were
. People really lived here: thousands and thousands of them. And now they’re gone. From beginning to end, they completed their lives inside this ancient city. But had they been
complete
?

I hold out my arms, trying to feel the remnants of body heat, a scrap of enduring emotion. Something touches my arm. I draw it back against my body and see the raindrop, halfway up my forearm—like a glistening dragon eye.

If it’s going to rain, I’d better get going.

So maybe I’ve messed up this Rowan thing. And it’s going to hurt for a long while. But this time, I’m not going to let that pain hold me back. Instead, I’m going to let it propel me forward in the best way. I’m going to draw and paint like never before. I’m going to tell off Reese and Olivia, and then apologize, and I’m going to make other friends too. I won’t let good things pass me by, ever again. And I’ll always,
always
hold on to what I love.

I turn around right as Rowan appears at the top of the stairs.

I can’t move. I’m a Mayan statue. I’m afraid the wind will knock me over, my stone legs locked together as I tumble onto the treetops. Because what if he doesn’t want to see me?

What if he doesn’t want to be found?

He looks my way. His eyes take a second to focus, as if he’s trying to figure out who I am.

Now or never. I take a deep breath and go to him, my hands in the pockets of Starling’s drawstring pants. I wish I weren’t wearing my Windbreaker, but it’s doing its job.

“You didn’t say goodbye,” I say, willing my voice to hold still.

He stares at me.

“And maybe that’s the way you and Starling do it,” I continue, “but not me. So . . .”

I wait for him to reply. Something like,
What are you doing
here?
Or,
Why aren’t you on your way to Guatemala City?
Or maybe,
How did you find me
? There are a million questions he could ask. Or he could just say goodbye and climb back down the temple.

But instead, he keeps looking at me, and looking and looking. And then—unexpectedly, but somehow, so fittingly—we both begin to laugh.