Page 62 of The Ripple Effect

“—Fisher.”

He crosses his arms. “We don’t need to talk about Fisher.”

“Yes we do.”

“I don’twantto talk about Fisher.”

“You’re soaked, Lyle. Get changed.”

“I gave all my clothes to Jasvinder. This is what I’ve got.” His eyes smolder, a spark among the green.

“Get into bed at least,” I say, retreating into safe grumpiness. “If you get hypothermia, I’ll have to do all the chores.”

“Isthatthe only reason you care if I’m cold?” Lyle swipes a washcloth-sized travel towel across his arms and chest, his back muscles popping and flexing in synchrony.

I roll over to face the wall and definitely do not imagine what’s happening behind my back. “Of course not! God, what iswrongwith you?”

“Nothing.”

“Something,” I argue. “You’d think you were—Oh my god. You’re angry. You’reangry. Today sucked, and you hated it. Right?” It’s inappropriate to be this excited about negative emotions, but this is Lyle. It’s a banner day.

“Yes,” he groans, to the sound of his shorts hitting the floor. “They were so rude. Onpurpose. I just wanted to live my life. Is Fisher going to be shitty about me leaving until the end of time? Will it ever, ever stop?”

I wait for the sound of legs sliding into his sleeping bag, then roll over. He’s rubbing the space between his eyebrows with two blunt fingers. “I try so hard to believe people are good. I give them so many benefits of the doubt. But I’m running out of kindness for him, Stellar. What is he doing to me? Who am I turning into?” He breathes in for four seconds, out for eight, eyes scrunched shut.

Me. He’s afraid he’s turning intome, and I don’t love how that makes me feel. If I’ve been angry, it’s because I had a damn good reason. The times I got angry were the times Icared.

“It’s not a moral failing to be angry, Lyle. Sometimes it’s a sign that something’s wrong. Like the fact that we ran into Fisher’s group at the Stones on Thursday, then Slip & Slide today. I think he’s trying to rip us off.” Saying it gives me emotional vertigo, like my hospital-induced paranoia has finally gotten the better of me, and also like I’ve already waited too long to speak up. If I allowed the warning signs of trouble to slip past me again, I couldn’t bear it.

Lyle rumbles in disagreement. “Those are popular places for whitewater beginners. I’m not happy with Fisher, but I’m not convinced this is more than a coincidence.”

“Butsomething’shappening. I swear he was waiting for us at the put-in spot. What if he wants to see our original stuff and build on it for his research?”

“They could have been briefing or playing games, like us. And they went down first. They didn’t see what we did,” Lyle notes, letting the last of the air out of my argument.

This feeling is so familiar—the sense that something’swrong, but it’s too small to pursue. The worst thing about finding out how badly my Grey Tusk General colleagues had stuck it to me was knowing I’d ignored my internal warning bells. What was one more night shift, or one fewer weekend off, in any given month?It all evens out over time. Stop counting, Dr. Byrd, my colleagues said, using “Doctor” to meanThis is beneath you.

In retrospect, Iwantednot to know. It was easy: I considered the magnitude of everything I had, and how lucky I was to have it, and decided my worries were tiny by comparison.

But it’s the small thefts that get past you, not the big ones. You can lose everything one carton of milk at a time and not notice until it’s all gone.

“So what do we do if we see him again? Call Sharon, maybe?”

“I don’t think Sharon could help,” Lyle says, anger seeming to leave his slumping shoulders. “We just need to keep doing what we’re doing. That’s how we keep the Love Boat alive.”

I know he’s not trying to placate me. He’d never take advantage. But I can’t block out the echo ofStop counting, Dr. Byrd.

“Come over?” he asks after a quiet minute, sidling his sleeping bag to the edge of his cot and patting the vacated space. “We don’t have to do anything. But we should talk about what happened at the trailer, yeah? And I don’t know about you, but my day sucked. I was looking forward to spooning this girl I know. I think we’ve done pretty much everything but that, come to think of it.”

“All right, all right, you don’t have to lay it on so thick,” I say, swinging my legs to the floor so I can hop across the gap without getting out of my sleeping bag. “And we’ve spooned.”

“Have we?”

No sooner have I perched my butt on his cot than he puts one thick forearm across my waist and flips me to the little spoon position. The press of my spine against his stomach andchest feels insanely good, like the wildest comfort fantasy I ever conjured on long nights at work, dreaming of somewhere dark and enveloping where no one could page me.

I curve into him, wanting more. “We have. You were sleeping.” I was the big spoon that time. I laid my forehead against his back, closed my eyes, and concentrated on feeling every place my skin touched his, thighs to chest to fingertips, until his breathing fell into a rhythm so deep and slow and hypnotizing I knew I had to leave before I fell asleep myself.

“I wasn’t,” he says, lips soft against the sensitive spot below my ear. “Not at first.”

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