Page 31 of Him
“Right?”
I’ve probably climbed this hill every summer for the last nine years. When we were fourteen, it was fun to scare each other by sitting way out on the ledge. When we were seventeen, we probably came all the way up here without really seeing it. Wes and I would have been arguing about hockey. Or football. Or some dumbass movie. We climbed because that was the activity on the day’s itinerary.
It had startled me this past year to realize everything I did from here on out I did for myself. College graduation is the end of the road map. It’s all uncharted territory from this point, and I’m the one in the driver’s seat.
The distant clouds turn orange-pink while I watch. My friend sits beside me, lost in his own thoughts. “We’re going to lose the light,” he says eventually.
“We still have time.” Another beat of silence goes by before I ask, “What are you thinking about, anyway?”
He chuckles. “Freshman year of college. What a dick I was to everyone.”
“Yeah?” I’m surprised Wes is going all introspective like me. I would have thought he was sitting there trying to figure out the best way to prank Pat and blame it on the kids.
“Yeah. Rough year. Lots of hazing.”
I sneak a look at him for the first time since we sat down. “Same here. Those seniors were psycho, seriously. Never seen anything like it.” I clear my throat. “That fall I kept thinking, Wes is not going to believe this shit when I tell him…” I let the sentence die. That was probably too harsh. If we’re friends again, I shouldn’t let my anger bubble back to the surface.
He makes an irritated sound in the back of his throat. “Sorry.”
“I know,” I say quickly.
“But I spent that first semester just praying those assholes didn’t figure out I liked dick. And since I wasn’t so comfortable with that idea myself…” He sighs. “I wasn’t very good company that year, anyway.”
Something goes a little wrong in my stomach at the idea of Wes being scared. My whole life I’d thought of him as fearless. Nobody is. Intellectually I know that. But even the other night when he’d told me he had struggled with being gay. I don’t think I really got it.
“That sucks,” I say softly.
He shrugs. “Didn’t kill me. Just made me work twice as hard. Maybe I wouldn’t have ended up as a first liner if those jackasses hadn’t put the fear of God into me every fucking day.”
“That’s looking on the bright side.”
“Canning, we’re going to lose the daylight,” he reminds me.
He’s right. The sky has already faded to a soft purple in some places. I hastily stand up. “Let’s go, then.”
It’s counterintuitive, but on a steep hike the way down is much harder than the way up. Every step threatens to sweep your feet out from under you. We don’t speak at all during our descent. We’re too busy concentrating on where to place each foot and which branches will make a steadying hand-hold.
The dark is coming on fast. We’re almost there when the path becomes truly difficult to see. I can hear Wes’s footfalls behind me, and the skittering sound of the pebbles he displaces with each step. I’d bet cash money that Wes is in the zone like I am right now, thinking only of the task at hand. When the body is busy, the mind shuts up for a while.
It’s almost totally dark, but I know we’re just yards from the trailhead. That’s when I hear Wes stumble. There’s a grunt and the sound of feet sliding on dirt. My heart catches as I hear him go down a few paces behind me. “Fuck,” he grumbles.
I turn around and find him splayed out on the ground. Shit. I’ve dragged Toronto’s new forward up a fucking mountain in the dark. If he’s sprained something, it’s all on me. “You okay?” Feeling sick, I make my way uphill again to where he is.
“Yeah,” he says, but that’s not proof. A hockey player always says that, even when it’s not true. But then Wes sits up from the shadows.
I stick out a hand and he closes his fingers around it and squeezes. The pressure of his grasp calms me down. With a tug from me he’s on his feet again, and the warmth of his hand leaves mine. But I don’t turn around and head down yet. “Seriously, did you twist anything?”
The shadow of Wes shifts his weight from one foot to the other and back again. “Nope. Banged my knee on a rock. But it’s nothing.” He scrapes his hands together to dust them off.
Letting out a breath I don’t even know I’m holding, I turn around and pick my way even more slowly down the hill.
Wes’s car waits for us in the dark. I hop into the passenger seat, relieved that my hike hasn’t injured anyone. The dome light shows me a smiling Wes, but there’s dirt on his shirt. I reach over and brush it off, undoing the damage.
He gives me a wink. “You copping a feel?” Laughing at his own joke, he cranks the engine. “Where are we headed?”
“Anyplace. Your pick.”
Wes turns the car around and heads back to the main road. “We passed a bar before this turnoff. Lou’s, or something. You ever been there?”
