Page 40 of A Summer to Save Us

I t’s incredible how many new questions one sentence can raise. Who did he make this promise to? This June? Is she his girlfriend or his sister? What girls should he not have, and for what reasons? Does this have anything to do with his promise?

I wanted to ask him so much more, but he just says, “Not now, Tucks,” and gives me a winning smile so that I can’t even be mad at him.

Now, I’m standing here with a blindfold on because the Craters of the Moon are supposed to be a surprise for me, leaving me feeling helpless and vulnerable.

Unfortunately, I’m thinking about Ben Adams, the escaped prisoner, and how I’m a mute hostage who doesn’t know that she is one is actually perfect—for whatever.

And maybe the place River called hell is also a prison, and these “friends” are his accomplices—or even family. Maybe River is his code name.

Basically, there’s nothing I haven’t considered about River.

When I heard on the radio while I was shopping the other day that Asher Blackwell was no longer in the hospital, I even thought for a moment that River was the famous Demons ’N Saints singer and that the girls he wasn’t supposed to have were his groupies.

Maybe he has a contagious sexually transmitted disease.

However, this idea also has something absolutely absurd about it.

Neither Ben Adams nor Asher Blackwell would want to attract the public attention.

Especially not Taylor Harden from the Desperados.

“We’re almost there.” River leads me over an uneven surface, and something crunches under my flip-flops like burnt coals. Otherwise, I don’t hear anything; it’s quiet like a church.

When River stops, I stand completely disoriented for a few breaths. I feel the heat on the top of my head and around me. It burns like the Saharan sun.

“Okay. I’ll take off your blindfold now.” He gently unties the knots, and I impatiently yank the cloth off my head.

I squint several times against the blazing sunlight until I can make out the dark lava desert.

There are endless fields of basalt-black stones around us, and jagged shapes rise upward in the fields.

The cooled lava has formed into all sorts of solidified formations, rolling hills, and strange towers like something out of a bizarre science fiction film.

I think of Mr. Spock and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and feel terrible that I haven’t been able to write to him in so long.

He would definitely love this place—like River.

For a moment, I feel far away from the world, like I did back on Old Sheriff, but this time, I’m not alone. It’s like River and I have landed on another planet together.

“The heat here comes from the lava. The dark stones store and reflect the sun’s rays more than any other environment,” River explains as if he has rehearsed it.

Minnesota has cow pastures and farms in the summer and nothing but snow in the winter. On the way here, the landscape consisted of grassy steppes and forests. I’ve never been to a place like this before.

“The Pioneer Mountains are over there,” River says, and I follow his outstretched arm with my eyes and see mountains with snow-covered peaks, standing out clearly from this black-brown wasteland.

“You think this landscape is dead, but if you look closely, you find life in every square foot.” He sounds solemn, and I realize something deep must connect him to this place.

Maybe a memory. His gaze vaguely looks at the landscape in front of us as I spot tiny wildflowers with delicate purple blossoms between the lava.

In the distance, gnarled trees nestle against the dark land, almost tenderly, as if they wanted to cover this strange stretch of land with their branches.

“Now turn!”

I do as he says, and my breath catches in my throat—not because of the untouched beauty of nature but because of the contrast. In front of me, a mountain rises out of nowhere, a titan, and it is bare and pitch black. This deep black makes the sky around it glow surreally blue.

“This is the Inferno Cone, a cinder cone.”

I blink a few times because the image in front of me is so strange. And somehow, there’s only one thing I want to do, but River beats me to it.

“Race you to the top!” he shouts and runs off.

And now, as he runs toward this black colossus, I stand still, as if I belong to these solidified lava formations.

I watch him run and run. His dark shirt blends into the surroundings, and his hair shines like bright fire.

It shines a thousand times brighter than the sky, and suddenly it seems as imaginary as the landscape.

Too beautiful, too strange, too perfect.

For a tiny fraction of a second, I question my sanity.

Am I mentally ill, and there’s no River? Maybe I’m imagining it.

But then, halfway through, he turns and raises both arms. He calls out something I can’t make out since he’s too far away. Maybe he’s not calling, and I’m just imagining it.

He may also have said, Come and jump with me! Dying is easier together!

When he turns again and continues running, my heart beats faster. Suddenly, my feet carry me on their own. I hear the crunch of my footsteps, my breathing, and the silence. The sky above me feels like a cloth that gives me wings.

River, wait! I want to shout, and I distinctly feel the words hitting my inner barrier. Clearer and sharper, as if they could break through the blockage. Wait! Wait!

I’m suddenly afraid. Maybe there’s a chasm at the end of the hill, a chasm I can’t see from here but that he knows about.

Maybe that’s why he wanted to come here.

He doesn’t want to wait any longer after the incident at the motel, or maybe something has spontaneously erupted in him—like his anger yesterday. A panicked reaction I couldn’t foresee.

Wait! Please!

I can hardly breathe anymore. River is farther away than it looks from below. He can still be seen, but he appears tiny.

He’s reached the top.

I force myself to run faster when I realize he’s looking at me and has stopped.

A wave of relief floods my veins. He’s waiting for me; he won’t jump alone. Still, some of the fear remains like a shadow in my mind.

As I crest the hill, he strolls onward, his hands buried deep in his pockets. The wind hits me like a giant puffed out its cheeks. It blows River’s hair, and I want to reach out and tell him how scared I was for him, but I don’t think he would understand.

“I’ve been here before,” he says when I am within earshot. “It was a while ago.”

As long ago as your promise , I think automatically.

His gaze sweeps over the plain below us, where the strange land shimmers. “I was seventeen then, like you are now.” I stroll next to him as he continues on. “I know you were afraid of me...the other night when I freaked out. To be honest, I don’t even know where to start...”

I pull the silver book with the gold pen out of my pocket. Best at the beginning.

River tenderly ruffles my hair, which is tousled by the wind. “You don’t say, Tucks.”

I just smile, still feeling the touch long after he has pulled his hand away.

“By the way, that book makes you look like a journalist.” He laughs and inhales deeply. “So, the beginning.” He looks at me for a moment. “The beginning of us or the beginning of me?”

Whichever you’d rather tell.

He briefly presses his lips together. “I’m on the run. I’m not only running from my friends but also from my parents. Especially my father.”

What’s wrong with him? I write. River once said his parents hated him, but I never thought his problem was family-related.

“He wants to have me declared insane... yeah, I think that’s his plan.” He looks again at the land surging around the hill like a dark sea, seemingly trapped in the past.

His words leave me stunned. I can’t think of a single reason for this. Okay, maybe he drinks too much, and sometimes he sleeps too long or doesn’t sleep at all, but he always knows what he’s doing. Almost always.

Why?

I don’t even need to show him the question because he’ll keep talking anyway.

“It’s complicated with my father.” He turns away from the view and walks along the edge of the hill, but even as the grade gently slopes down, I no longer worry about him jumping.

“Tucks, I don’t know much about your family, but I come from a family that values power.

My father is a doctor, and my mother has done nothing in her life other than organizing dinner parties and charities.

Nothing but charity events, for god’s sake.

” He laughs briefly, but it sounds hollow.

“She doesn’t do it for the needy but to look good.

She’s like those exaggerated women in soap operas.

Bloody Marys in the morning, martinis in the evening, and in between, superpower cocktails with zero calories and exercising until you drop.

She’s a caricature.” He shakes his head.

“My parents are cold. Perfection is all they know, Tucks. I don’t remember any situation where they hugged me. ”

He tries to appear indifferent, but his tension tells a different story.

“Somehow, I never belonged in their world. I was always different.” Now he looks at me. “I think you know what I mean.”

I nod with a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. Oh, yeah .