“Maybe.” I pressed my thumb and forefinger to my closed eyelids, hoping the discomfort on my eyeballs would prevent anything from leaking out.
The silence between us stretched on. I listened to his breathing like I used to do some nights when neither of us wanted to hang up, but we had nothing left to say. Even now, we’d both rather endure the silence than disconnect.
“Have fun at the Grand Canyon,” Seth said at last. He sounded tired. Probably tired of playing games, though that wasn’t my intention. I wasn’t trying to jerk him around. We both wanted things the other couldn’t give. “Send me a postcard. Or maybe answer my texts once in a while so I know you’re okay. I’ll be thinking about you. And missing you.” He paused, and I waited, wanting to hear those words from him. He didn’t disappoint me.
“I love you, Hiroku.”
My chest tightened and my eyeballs hurt from the pressure I was applying. I nodded. He’d given me my daily affirmation. “I love you, too.”
We got a late start the next morning because we wanted to have a hot breakfast before hitting the road. Also, I wasn’t a crack-of-dawn type person unless I had to be up for school. On the drive, Mai’s stomach was upset, so we kept stopping so she could relieve herself. I took over driving for a while because she felt so ill. I had my driver’s license, so it wasn’t illegal, but I hadn’t had much practice, so it was all a little surreal to me at first. Luckily the highway was pretty desolate, and there wasn’t much in the way of road signs or signaling. Mai napped in the passenger seat. Neil crooned about his cinnamon girl. And I lost myself in the desert landscape and all of the miles I was putting between Seth and me.
We arrived at the park just before sunset. Mai had had a sports drink and a granola bar and was feeling a little better. I parked at an overlook, and we got out to take a look at this supposedlyGrandCanyon.
It stole my breath away.
“Wow,” Mai said.
“Yeah.”
“Wow,” she said again.
“Yeah.”
Pictures of the Grand Canyon actuallydon’tdo it justice. I know that for a fact because I took a ton of them while we were there. It was one of those rare occasions when the hype didn’t come close to the actual experience. I struggled to find words to describe it without relying on the old tried and true clichés: “majestic” and “awe-inspiring.” But if I had to pick one, I would say in moments like that, gazing down upon that impossibly wide and impossibly deep rift in the earth was like seeing the hand of God. And I wasn’t even religious.
We stood there for a while on the South Rim of the canyon and watched the setting sun paint the rock walls different shades of reds and oranges, then pinks. And when the shadows seeped in, the canyon went from violet to indigo to black. Even in the dark, you could feel the great expanse of nothingness. The biggest, blackest hole I’d ever experienced.
“That was incredible,” Mai whispered. We were lying side by side on the flattened surface of a boulder. The first winking stars were coming out. I reached for her hand and squeezed. It was a moment.
We were supposed to camp in the park for the next couple of days, but I convinced Mai that we should hike down to the Colorado River and see for ourselves, the source of this wonder. Mai was nervous about that—neither of us having been exposed to particularly outdoorsy activities in our youth—but after some discussion with the park rangers, we were able to convince Mai that it was safe enough. I offered to carry the tentandthe food to make her pack less heavy. Neither of us had hiking boots, but our tennis shoes would do the job. We set off at noon, ducked into a cave to escape a rainstorm, and made it to our campsite halfway down the ravine around nightfall. Mai was pooped, so I set up the tent, and she opened our can of baked beans. We didn’t have a stove or the patience to make a fire, so we ate them right out of the can.Like real cowboys, I teased her. As we were nestling down into our sleeping bags, Mai asked me if I’d suggested this impromptu backpacking trip to get out of talking about Seth.
“Of course not,” I lied.
“Mmmm,” she said, unconvinced.
The next morning we rose with the sun. It was impossible to sleep through the light shining into our tent. Our water was getting low, so I poured the rest of mine into Mai’s decanter and replenished my own bottle with a trickle of clear water winding its way down the sloping canyon floor. I told Mai I’d drink it first to see if it was bad. She told me that was the dumbest idea she’d ever heard, since it would take longer than a few hours for symptoms of giardia to show up. I told her I liked living on the edge.
In our rush to begin the hike, we’d forgotten to pack sunscreen or Band-Aids, so by the afternoon, we were both sunburned and blistered. Our backs and shoulders were sore as well from our rag-tag backpacks, but even despite our aches and pains, we both realized what an awesome adventure this was.
We made it to the Colorado River just as the sun was beginning to set. It was like the biggest flow of chocolate milk you’ve ever seen, moving so fast that it made a huge-ass log look like a paper straw being sucked downriver.
“You know people actually kayak in this thing,” Mai said. “I read about it one of the brochures.”
“That’s insane,” I said. I wanted to try it.
She nodded. “That’s what I thought.”
We made camp on a sandy patch of level ground. We’d passed one couple on the way down who was on their way out, but other than that, we hadn’t seen a single soul. We figured that was why they called it Hermit trail. Mai called our dad because we were finally able to get service. I started a fire. Mai didn’t tell Dad we’d gone off on a backpacking excursion, just that we were doing day hikes around the canyon.
While she talked to our parents, I checked my own phone. I’d texted Seth a few pictures of the canyon, including one with my face in the frame. Seth texted me back a picture of Heineken beer cans stacked like a Christmas tree and him, Mitchell and Caleb wearing what appeared to be an elderly woman’s clothing, captioned with,feliz navidad.It was so random that I cracked up laughing. I glanced up to see Mai had finished talking to our mom and dad. Her shiny beetle black eyes stared at me, all-seeing and all-knowing.
“How did you guys meet?” she asked, perhaps thinking that by starting at the beginning we might somehow wind our way to the end.
I’d held out for four days now, not talking about the thing. Mai had been more than patient, and she’d followed me down into the depths of this great gaping maw on my spiritual journey. I’d tried and failed to figure this thing out on my own—my complicated bond with Seth and my compulsion to be with him all the time. I needed to talk to someone about it, and Mai was a good listener.
“We met on the basketball courts,” I told her while busying myself with keeping the fire going by slowly adding larger pieces of wood, careful not to smother the flame.
“Did you know who he was?”
