“Did everyone leave already?” I ask.
“Jayden’s in the bathroom,” he says.
“And I’m in the hallway,” Makayla calls out, poking her head around the corner into the room. She frowns at me quizzically. “Sid, how are you getting home?”
“Uhhh ...can I get a ride?” If Mom and Shar are already home and see me get dropped off by Jayden and Makayla, they’ll never suspect I wasn’t studying.
“Totally!” She smiles.
I follow her into the hallway and slip my shoes back on. We turn to Forrest, who waves at us awkwardly.
“See you in class,” he says, and we echo it, standing there in a moment of silence. Jayden appears, zipping up his jacket, and then we’re hustling out the door while Forrest holds Simba back. The twins’ mom is waiting for us in their sedan.
I look back before I reach the car, just in time to see the golden glow of the hallway and the side of Forrest’s face before the door shuts. His mom never came out to say hi, and I never heard a sound from his little sister. Where werethey? Is he home alone? It must be weird, being all by yourself in a giant house.
In the back seat of the car, I pull up our text thread. I want to say something, but everything I think of sounds too earnest, so I find a funny video in my likes and send that instead.
Thanks again for hosting,I add.
A moment later, a reply pops up.No problem. Simba’s helping me clean up the food.And a photo of Simba with very guilty eyes, a slice of cheese hanging out of his mouth. I laugh.
“What’s up?” Jayden asks from the front seat as Makayla looks over beside me.
“Oh, uh, just a meme,” I say. I don’t know why, but I don’t want to tell them I’m texting Forrest. They’ll probably think it’s weird that I’m suddenly so friendly with someone I hated not that long ago. And I don’t want anything to make this weird.
The next day, dad is on time to pick me up for our hike. When I slide into the passenger seat, he pulls me into a tight hug with one arm, and I hug him back.
“Perfect day for it, huh?” he says as I buckle my seat belt. It’s almost Halloween, but the weather hasn’t quite turned to unending rain just yet; instead, it’s cool and sunny today, just a hint of crispness in the air, the leaves on the maples around our house starting to turn.
I nod, and he smiles before turning to the Breathalyzer. A moment later, he puts the key in the ignition and the car starts. “Had just enough whiskey not to tip it off,” he says with a wink.
I can tell he’s joking—I got a DUI and didn’t talk to my kid all summer, ha ha ha!—but it’s not that funny. I know Dad, though, and it’s better if I react like it is, so I summon a smile, and that seems to satisfy him.
“You wanna pick the music today?” he asks, slapping the dashboard as we pull away. I settle my backpack on the floor between my feet and dig my phone out of my jacket pocket, plugging it into the car stereo. I skip past all the pop girlies and finally land on Paramore, something both of us can enjoy listening to.
“Man, I haven’t heard this one in a minute,” he says as the first song comes on. “What a classic. Your mom used to listen to this album all the time. It came out a few years after you were born.”
I can see the year in my music app, but I just nod. I remember being in the back seat of the car as Mom drove me to and from elementary school, how she’d smile at me in the rearview mirror as she sang along. This album tastes like chocolate milk, feels like a seat belt strapped across my body. Even though it’s a rock album, to me it’s a moment of calm before the chaos of going to school and coming home. I hope it’s a good omen for today, something to keep us anchored.
The trail Dad picked starts out near one of the visitor centers. The place is busy, but as we climb, the groups of tourists and other hikers fade away. Concrete under my boots turns to dirt, rocks, and twigs as we snake up a ridge. Dad takes the lead and sets a slow pace, which is fine with me, because I’m not the speediest hiker either.
The trail is quiet except for birdcalls and the occasional piercing whistle of a marmot. I scan the rocks around us,hoping to see one, and am rewarded by the sight of a small, furry, beaver-like creature standing upright to stare at me from a nearby outcropping. He screams and disappears, and Dad and I both burst out laughing.
As the path gets steeper, my breathing gets heavier. Physical exertion isn’t really my thing. My thighs are already burning and I’m sweating despite the chillier temperature at this elevation, so I stop to take off my jacket and stuff it in my pack. A few minutes later, the trail slacks off, and we emerge from the tree line into a meadow.
“Would you look at that,” Dad murmurs as we stop, staring across the meadow in front of us. It rolls away like a soft green carpet, and across from us is Mount Rainier, no longer a distant vision on the horizon. Even far away, she’s got the gravitational pull of a planet, but now we’re close enough to see the surface, and the view is breathtaking. She’s cloaked in snow across the broad, rolling curve of the peak, and swathes of white blanket her sides, broken by spines and valleys of dark gray rock that slope downward from the sky to the earth. I can see a waterfall pouring over one of them, tiny in the distance, continuing its path down a glacier toward the basin.
Dad hands me a granola bar, and we stand there together eating our snacks, gazing at the mountain. I gulp some water from my water bottle without taking my eyes off her; I want to memorize this moment, this image, this feeling. Dad motions me forward, phone in hand, and takes a few photos of me smiling with the mountain behind me. Then hecomes forward so we can take selfies, and I lean into him, both of our faces beaming on his screen.
I pull out my phone and snap a few of my own pictures, wishing I could send them to my friends, and to Forrest too. There’s no reception up here, so I don’t know if he’s texted me this morning. Maybe I’ll have messages waiting for me when we get back to civilization.
After a few more minutes, we turn away, cutting through the meadow. The mountain looms in my peripheral vision, pulling my gaze back to it again and again. I wish I could live in this meadow. Up here, my thoughts are clear the way they are in the garage with Shar. It feels, for a moment, like my brain is my friend instead of my enemy.
“How’s the Queer Alliance thing coming along?” Dad asks.
I blink. He remembered. “Um, it’s OK?”
“You mentioned you were sharing the presidency with someone. Started with an F?”
