Page 32

Luck must be on my side for once because I successfully manage to avoid Kiara as we go about the business of getting dressed and ready.

I dive behind tents and trees to dodge her soft, inquisitive eyes.

After our almost kisses, I don’t trust myself alone with her, don’t trust that my willpower will win out over my wanton heart.

Half an hour later, after drinking Tayla’s valiant attempt at brewing coffee, I’m not sure my teeth are any cleaner than they were when I woke up.

But the brown sugar oatmeal was good, especially with the diced apple, and spiced with a motley of cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove.

Tomorrow is my turn to make oatmeal, and I have nuts and chocolate chips, plus Evan’s promised me some of their dried cherries as a mix-in.

Now camp is all packed up, we’ve made our way back to the path, and Radhika is again intently studying her guidebook as though she’ll be able to crack the secret code that no other hiker ever has.

Her ambition to be the best, the most knowledgeable person in any given room was why I first admired her, but it’s also why she was easy to get over.

She and Tayla are driven in a way I’m not and never have been.

A couple of hours later, we come to a fork in the trail, and on the right is a row of trash and recycling containers with cleverly designed handles so animals can’t get into them. Kiara and Keiffer get to work offloading our collected trash, including the cans he’d brought without thinking.

On the left of the fork is a massive board with a map of the Blue Ridge Mountains, plus notices of which areas are off-limits due to increased bear activity, storm damage, and ongoing trail maintenance.

It’s ridiculous, but I catch myself scanning the map for a clue to the wishing well, even though I know full well it’s hardly going to be marked.

With a little laugh, I return to perusing the board.

There are directions to the nearest ranger’s station, which is nowhere close, and reminders not to feed the wildlife.

Next to that is a sign, yellowed with age, warning hikers to watch out for thieves.

In scratchy ballpoint, someone’s sketched the fork in the road then drawn a big X over the trail on the right.

Underneath they’ve scribbled Avoid! Our camp got completely cleaned out. Even took our half-finished soda!!!

“That’s kind of funny,” says Evan, pointing to the note. They wrinkle their nose, making their tiny diamond nose stud pop against their brown skin. “I mean, who drinks someone else’s gross old soda?”

“Same person who eats someone else’s chips?

” I point to another set of handwriting that says Don’t worry, only trash bandits out here!

accompanied by a crude but frankly adorable drawing of a raccoon pawing at a bag of potato chips.

Remembering his fondness for Pringles, I joke, “Hey, you think Keiffer could be the culprit?”

“Ha ha,” he says, squirting some sanitizer on his hands after lowering the container lid. Evan, having skipped Tayla’s somewhat burned coffee, laughs and takes a sip of tea from their thermos and passes it to Keiffer when he holds out a hand for a drink.

“Hey,” Kiara says, sidling up to me. Her hand grazes mine, and she gives me a secret smile.

I try not to be obvious that I’m putting distance between us when I put my leg up on a rock and pretend to tighten my laces.

“Careful,” she says when I wobble a little.

She braces her hand against my pack to counter the weight.

I swear I can feel the heat of her hand through the fabric and the rest of my backpack’s contents.

“You’re carrying a lot,” she says with a soft laugh.

“Don’t want to fall on your back like a turtle. ”

I laugh, too, and it’s without doubt the single most insincere sound I’ve heard in my life. “Yeah, thanks.”

She shoots me a weird look. “You good?”

“Yep!” Good. I am trying to be good. If I tell myself this often enough, maybe I’ll believe it. “Hey, Radhika, find any answers in that book yet?”

“If not, give someone else a shot,” says Tayla. She winces, adjusting her backpack straps around her shoulders and torso. “We’re all just standing around slowly sinking into the earth.”

“Need me to take some of the weight?” Keiffer offers.

Tayla gives him a genuine smile. “You’re the best, but no. It’s mine to carry. I’m no weakling.”

“T,” says Kiara in a tone that suggests they’ve had a conversation about this before.

“It’s not weakness to accept help. Right, Nova?

” The pressure of her hand increases, or maybe it just feels like it does when she’s standing this close, heat radiating off her.

A line of sweat gathers in the band of my bra.

“Kiara, maybe you should offer to take something of Nova’s,” says Evan.

When Kiara turns to look at me with a question in her eyes, Evan forms a heart with their hands then points to me and grins meaningfully. I give a swift, abortive shake of my head. I adore Evan, and they have many wonderful qualities, but subtlety is not one of them.

“Not necessary,” I say quickly. My cheeks feel as hot as stewed tomatoes.

Keiffer pulls his mouth to the side, forming a wordless Yikes .

Tayla narrows her eyes at Evan, which only makes them laugh, unbothered.

“ Shhh! It would help if you’d all be quiet for two seconds,” says Radhika, forehead pinched with irritation and concentration.

“Everyone, be quiet,” Keiffer says, folding his arms across his chest and doing his best stern impression. “Let her do her thing.”

“Thanks, baby.” She squints at the page, flips back and forth a bit, and sucks her teeth, all while we watch.

I’m starting to think I should have read up myself before we left.

Surely, on one of the bookshelves scattered around the house, I would have found Dad’s marked-up copy of The Way of the Wish .

I can see him dangled over our lumpy, sagging couch with a red pen in hand, muttering and tsking under his breath as he reads.

Mom calls us to dinner, serving pan-seared trout to join the mustardy bacon green beans and colorful sliced heirloom tomato salad on our plates.

It’s our favorite family meal, and child-me is especially proud of how I ripped up all the fragrant basil and sprinkled it over the tomatoes.

In my memory, I can still smell the sweet herbs on my warm palms. Hear the irritated huffs from my father, the way he turned the timeworn pages like each one had personally offended him.

Jules, come on! It’s getting cold!

His voice, distracted, saying, I’m so close to the end of the chapter, Rhea! One more minute!

Is it even his voice? Or just some generic masculine conglomeration that lives in my head?

Missing my dad is so fucking inconvenient.

I can’t even enjoy the memories that fade a little more every year without feeling ambushed.

Like any number of random things—a delicate leaf fluttering down to land at my feet, a squirrel chittering angrily from the treetops, the guttural croak of a bullfrog before it dives into the stream—these scenes from my childhood catch me unawares.

Which makes me sad, then angry, and then incandescent with directionless fury.

Because while my head might pretend that seven years is long enough to not feel grief slicing into me at all angles, the body remembers.

There is no magical amount of time in which I will stop missing him.

For Mom, maybe she’s told herself that seven years is the right time to move forward.

I can forgive her, but I’ll never be able to forgive myself.

One more minute! I hear him call.

I would trade years of my life to have that one extra minute where I could run after him that night he left to go into the Longing Woods to find Shane.

One minute would be enough to throw my arms around his middle, to tell him I didn’t mean what I said.

To tell him to come home safe. That I loved him.

I will forever be haunted that I didn’t.

I need to be good now. Good like my dad. Not bad like me.

“?‘According to legend, in order to find the path to the wishing well, all one has to do is follow the signs of wonderment,’?” Radhika reads out, sighing.

Keiffer purses his lips. “I’m assuming wonderment is not typically found on the clearly marked path.”

We all follow his gaze to the overgrown trails veering off the packed dirt beneath our boots where hundreds, if not thousands, of people have already trekked.

Evan clears their throat. “?‘Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and I—I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.’?” They wait a beat, letting the words sink in before adding, “Robert Frost.”

I smile. “Nice.” They beam back.

Kiara walks a few steps ahead, peering into the undergrowth.

It’s a tangle of untamed shrubs, gnarled roots, grasping vines.

The trees stretch on and on and on in the eerie infinite, an endless gray-green murk where if you stare too long, you can’t unsee it for several seconds even after you swivel your gaze.

Tayla startles. “Did you see—”

“See what?” Radhika hurriedly shuts the book, using her thumb to mark the page.

“I…never mind. It was probably nothing.”

“Probably nothing or definitely nothing?” muses Evan.

Keiffer’s jaw tenses. It’s obvious where his worry lies.

“Fellowship of the Fling, day two. Yippee,” Radhika says flatly.

“We’ve been staring at the same scenery for the last half hour,” huffs Tayla. “My eyes are playing tricks on me, that’s all.”

“Even so, new safety rule: none of us should go anywhere alone,” I declare. “Not even to pee.” At everyone’s solemn nods, I say, “Good. Buddy system it is.”