Page 17 of A Summer to Save Us

T his afternoon, we’re heading to the Badlands, the rugged landscape where Kevin Costner filmed Dances with Wolves.

When River parks far from the tourist information center and starts walking, I follow as always, even though I don’t know the destination or the reason for our hike.

Before us lie jagged rocks, layered horizontally like layers of a monumental cake—mustard yellow, mocha brown, rust red, curry orange.

They jut out of the ground with nothing else nearby. Just heat, sand, and dead grass.

Although it’s late afternoon, the sun beats relentlessly on the top of my head. At some point, River takes off his shirt for the second time today and throws it over my head, laughing.

“Now you look like a Bedouin,” is all he says.

I squint through the material, glad I can no longer see the full extent of his perfection.

Thanks , I think, but I’m too spent to pull out my phone and type it, so I smile cautiously at him between the sleeves of his shirt.

Every muscle in my body still hurts from slacklining, and I know I’ll be terribly sore tomorrow.

The fact that River is now hurrying forward with long strides doesn’t make it any better.

He also seems nervous because he’s doing something with his right hand.

It looks like he’s forming some secret symbols, some kind of Morse code, and every now and then, I spot a piece of paper.

After taking forever to climb the hill along the edge of the colorful rocks, I stop, panting softly as sweat runs down my back.

I’m not used to this much activity. For a moment, I think about gym class, the only time I was truly active—mostly because I was dodging the heavy medicine balls and hockey sticks that randomly hit me.

I think Chester paid Amber and Lilian to do that, just like he paid them to lie.

Why is your hair wet again, Kansas? She showers during her lunch break; God knows why.

Maybe they turned off the water in their house .

At this moment, I don’t know how I endured it all for so long. It seems so close yet incredibly far away at the same time. I only see the old images through a filter, as if my emotions weren’t stored with them.

“Hey, Texas, are you coming?”

I glance up and see River standing a few steps away. He obviously has the stamina of a decathlete because he doesn’t seem the least bit tired. I nod weakly and start walking again, still clueless as to what we’re doing here.

At some point, when I think I’m about to topple over, he stops. “Better than Old Sheriff, right?” I hear him say from higher up.

Something about his words irritates me, but I don’t know what.

I adjust the T-shirt over my head so that I can see more.

We’re standing on the highest point in the area.

The highway is behind us, and a valley as wide as the Nile Delta opens up before us.

Grass carpets on which buffalo graze, steep mountain ridges, shadowy ravines, and rocks that rise eerily from the ground, strangely shaped as if from another world.

A lavender-blue veil floats over the mountaintops, almost as if the sky is descending to merge with the land.

“Bizarre, right? Beautiful and bizarre.”

Oh yeah, he loves that. Bizarre.

He walks a few feet further, leaving the red and yellow warning sign behind him until he reaches the break line.

He stands there, unshakable and rigid, only his hair fluttering in the wind.

He almost looks like one of the earth-colored rocks—that’s how brown his back is.

From this distance, the tattoo on his shoulder blade is legible.

Still alive for you, June .

The words are in deep dark blue, not black, and again, the letters remind me of calligraphy—playful yet accurate.

Something about the statement bothers me. Maybe it’s the fact that there’s a girl who obviously means a lot to him, who he lives for.

Why do I care? I have no claim on him simply because he said he had to save me. Perhaps it wasn’t even me, but a photo he was looking at. Maybe I merely imagined he was looking at me. Somehow, I don’t believe that.

Carefully, so as not to startle any rattlesnakes, I walk up to the warning sign.

Only now do I see how crumbly the edge of the rock is, as if it had been worn down by heat and wind and could break away at any second.

From where I’m standing, I can’t see how deep it goes down.

There could be another ledge further below or nothing at all—a free fall.

My heart suddenly beats faster. I continue slowly but stop three feet from the edge. Fast-moving fair-weather clouds cast oversized shadows across the vast countryside. River’s next step would be hundreds of feet down into nowhere. My stomach drops. He must be crazy.

Let’s go! Turn back. Now! I want to scream at him and drag him back. At any second, the rock could simply break and take him with it.

“Come on, Delaware!” he says without turning around, so quietly, like the words could make the edge crumble.

I’m staring at the Still alive for you, June when he turns.

“Hey.” His eyes shimmer in the light of the lavender-blue sky, and all my thoughts blur.

His expression is questioning, but everything here is a question.

And maybe it’s the raw, wistful “ Hey” that makes me take the final step to the edge.

As if controlled remotely, I pull the T-shirt off my head and wrap it around my neck like a scarf.

I’m as crazy as he is!

That’s what connects us, but maybe it’s also wistfulness—a longing for something that neither of us can have. For me, it’s words; for River... I don’t know.

I stand next to him and peer downward, my heart pounding.

My legs grow shaky, which is probably due to the involuntary flight reflex.

What if the rock breaks and we fall into the abyss?

The thought makes me dizzy. The ground seems to recede into the distance.

Yesterday, I wanted to jump. Yesterday, I thought it was the only way out.

But then along came River. River, who I would blindly follow anywhere because he saved me at Old Sheriff.

“Where do you think we go when we die?”

The question shouldn’t surprise me up here, but it does.

Trembling, I take out my phone. No idea.

To a better place . In my case, what would be better would be security.

Safety. A warm sea full of wonderful, magical words.

I recall the words of Rumi: Because I can’t sleep, I make music at night .

I think that sounds tender, but I don’t know why.

I type, I think it’s different for everyone. Maybe there is also music, poetry, and a lot of glitter.

“Glitter?” River laughs harshly. “Maybe there’s nothing there, Tucks.

Maybe there is everything. And maybe everything is nothing and opposites dissolve.

Then death becomes life.” He looks at me for a long time before raising his hand and ruffling my hair—a gesture full of gentleness.

“Glitter! Tucks, you’re crazy!” he says so lovingly.

If this stupid rock is going to give way, I hope it happens now.

The top of my head burns under his touch, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

For a few breaths, I want to hug him and jump at the same time.

It’s like everything from the outside world is pouring into me, making me even dizzier.

“Do you have to throw something down again?”

I shake my head, but he’s already reaching for my arm, and for a split second, it feels like he’s clinging to it like a branch over a ravine.

F-L-Y. You saved me . His words.

And you? I type. Do you have something to throw down?

He lets go of me and reads the words, then he looks down, and for a terrible moment, I think he’s just going to fall forward. But he merely extends his right hand to me. Inside is a black-and-white origami crane, safely tucked in his fingers.

I stare at the tiny work of art, spellbound. He folded this while we climbed up! One-handed. The crane seems to stares back with its little head—or at least that’s how it seems to me.

“For you. To let fly.” River smiles, but his eyes remain indifferent.

I think about his words, which have been bothering me all day.

I did something bad. Sometimes I really hate myself .

I can’t imagine someone like him doing something terrible.

Never. Not River. And why does he hate himself? Because of what he did?

Thanks! I type. I tentatively take the origami bird and look at the precise folds in the paper. Perfect. There are even eyebrows on the right wing and some letters on the left.

I hold the bird into the wind with one hand.

Fly! I think, but I’d like to hold on to it because River folded it for me.

Reluctantly, I let go and the crane spirals away, its wings bloody because I apparently abused my hand again without noticing.

River must have seen it, too, because he gives me a strange look, and we both watch the crane.

At first, it soars skyward in a gust, then it glides downward, and I lose sight of it.

River and I stand on the cliff in silence.

For a moment, I completely forget about the danger.

I feel both heavy and light, like these rough rocks and the violet-blue sky.

Contradictory. Charged, as if shocked by a defibrillator.

Something in my stomach vibrates like a tuning fork, and the hum radiates out into the world and back.

If I died now, I think that would be okay.

I take a deep breath, and suddenly it feels like I’d forgotten how to for months. Forgotten how to take a breath.

After we spend half the day in the Badlands, we end up at a motel near Rapid City. Since we’re in a tourist area, the motel is not a simple gray box but a pretty one-story log building made of dark wood.