A knot cinches in my stomach. “Why not?”
“She blocked Henry’s number when they broke up.”
“But the phone rang.”
He looks skeptical. “How many times?”
“Once.”
Theo sighs heavily. “That’s what happens when you call a phone number that’s blocked you. It rings once and then sends you to a separate voicemail box that doesn’t send notifications.”
The knot in my stomach doubles in size. “It might have rung twice.” My voice wavers. I’d flop hard in Las Vegas.
Theo lets his head drop forward until it rests against the side of the cliff. “Do you know what this means?” His tone is resigned. He’s not blaming me, but he doesn’t need to; I’ll blame myself enough for the both of us. I’m the “you had one job” meme personified.
Of courseI know what this means.
Screwing up that phone call means I wasted our one chance to call for help. It means we’re probably not getting rescued tonight, and maybe not tomorrow. It means I have to live with bloody stitches, and “three days without water” suddenly feels a lot more relevant.
I gaze over the cliff into Theo’s eyes. “It means Victoria will finally have a legitimate reason to hate me.”
CHAPTER16
“Are you sure you don’t want to yell at me?” I ask several minutes later. I think I’d feel better if he did, because then I could defend myself. Instead, he’s been unbearably quiet since I doomed us to reenactLost.
Theo is trapped on the small rock. His many attempts to climb back up have failed, so he’s crouching with his back against the sheer cliff, staring at the horizon and most likely thinking about how badly I’ve screwed up. (“Lulu” and “Louise” aren’t interchangeable, when you think about it.)
“I’m not going to yell at you,” he says wearily.
“It might make you feel better.”
“I can’t emphasize enough how much it won’t.” He tips his head back to look at me, and his eyes remind me of smoke from a fire that’s been doused in water. It scares me more than everything else combined. “You could bodge up everything, and I don’t think I’d care.”
I’m hit with another memory: Theo and me lying together in a bed in France, him whispering that he was afraid he’d giveup on himself. His apathy feels just like that, and now I can’t breathe.
“Do you want to try grabbing my hands again?” I ask. Last time he’d tried, my stitches had started to tear. As soon as he saw the trail of blood leak down my arm, he’d let go and resigned himself to life on the rock.
“Go back to the group without me and get some help,” he says. “Don’t bring Henry. He’ll just gloat.”
“And admit that I fucked up our rescue call?” I can’t think of anything I’d rather do less. It’s not just that, though. Theo is withering before me, and the thought of leaving him out here alone, perched precariously on an eight-by-eight-inch rock, makes my stomach riot with anxiety. I can’t leave until he has some fight in his eyes.
“What did you wish for at the sunken gardens?” Theo asks suddenly. His dehydration-induced rasp makes me nervous.
“It’s embarrassing,” I warn.
“The best wishes usually are.”
I clear my throat and prepare to humiliate myself. “I wished that meeting up with you in High Park wouldn’t ruin my memories from our trip.”
He’s quiet for a painfully long time. Embarrassment threatens to burn me alive. I’m suddenly glad he’s stuck on the rock.
“Feel free to pretend I didn’t say that.”
“Can I ask some follow-up questions?”
I close my eyes and prepare for the worst. “If you must.”
“Why did you think that seeing me would ruin our memories?”
