Behind the Falls Page 20

  “No…I just…no,” I fumble the words. “I’m just, ugh. I’ll be fine. You can start the movie if you want.”

  “Noah, I don’t want to watch a movie if you need me,” and the sympathy in his voice makes me feel like crying harder. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed but you’ve become one of my favorite people. You’re one of my best friends. If you need me, I’m here.”

  “But why?” I ask and I can’t help but smile a little through the tears because Max is pretty amazing and being one of his favorite people makes me feel a little better about myself, even if he doesn’t really know the REAL me. “I mean, haven’t you figured it out by now that what everyone thinks is a shiny new toy is just a balsa wood airplane with a rubber band engine?” Max laughs at this and my body shakes with his.

  “Jesus, No, we need to work on your self-esteem. Besides, I used to love those balsa wood airplanes when I was a kid.”

  “Well then I’m a paper airplane and I’m a little torn,” I say. Max gives me another little squeeze. “Put the movie back on would ya?” This time Max doesn’t argue. He restarts the movie and the crows attack some school kids and I continue to cry silently but Max is there to give my shoulders a reassuring squeeze every now and then and eventually I fall asleep.

  “Noah?” whispered in my ear. I’m not sure if I’m almost awake and really hearing or if I’m asleep and dreaming. It doesn’t matter. If I’m not asleep then I’m not fully awake either and I can’t respond anyway. I can’t even tell if the whispered voice is male or female, Mom or Dad. My bangs are smoothed back and it must be Mom then. Soft lips place a brief kiss on my cheek then press another to my temple, lingering there. I sigh and snuggle deeper into the blankets. I’m not ready to wake up just yet.

  It seems like I must have been asleep for quite a while when I hear voices again. “Just let him sleep,” Lydia’s voice.

  “If you’re sure it’s no trouble? It’s just that he has so much trouble sleeping sometimes. I’d hate to wake him,” Mom’s voice. I feel like I could rouse myself enough to stumble out of bed but I would much rather fall completely asleep again so I let myself relax.

  “I’ll get him up early enough tomorrow to swing by your house to get ready for school,” this time it’s Max’s voice that I hear. They all sound like they’re speaking from another room or maybe I’m dreaming. The little bit of consciousness I’ve been unwillingly clinging to evaporates and I’m almost asleep again as the voices recede. I’m pretty sure I fall asleep but then I feel another soft kiss on the cheek before oblivion returns.

  When I wake up Friday morning I’m utterly baffled. I can tell I’m not in my own bed even before I open my eyes. I can also tell I slept in my clothes. I am well-rested though. I feel more relaxed than I have in a while. I slowly open my eyes to Max’s room and then I remember falling asleep here last night. I vaguely remember Lydia telling my mom to just let me sleep. I must have been really out of it.

  My cheeks warm with embarrassment when I remember crying on Max’s shoulder last night. I was a bit embarrassed at the time but not as much as I am right now. Last night it had seemed natural and a huge relief to just cry on his shoulder like that but in the light of a new day I feel like an idiot. I’m wondering if I can escape the house without Max or the rest of the family noticing my departure.

  “Hey, sleepyhead, breakfast is ready,” Max walks into the room and my hopes of a secret escape are crushed.

  “What time is it?” I mumble. I somehow ended up in the bed, completely covered unlike the last time I woke up in Max’s room rolled up in blankets like a human burrito. I sit up and rub sleep out of my eyes. Max is already dressed and ready for school. He looks tired. I feel guilty for taking his bed.

  “It’s early. You have plenty of time to eat and then I’ll take you home to get ready for school.” I nod and stretch and slowly make my way out of bed. I don’t know what it is about Max’s bed but I sleep better here than I have in my own bed since we moved to Lansing.

  “It’s only a half day today, right?” I ask as I follow Max upstairs. I seem to remember something about a half day for some kind of teachers’ meetings today. I can’t wait to get home and go back to bed. Now that I’ve had a really good night’s sleep for once I’m greedy and want more.

  “Yeah, dismissal after fifth period instead of lunch,” Max says as we enter the kitchen. Mark is already at the table finishing up some waffles which I can tell by the waffle iron on the counter are not Eggos. Lydia is bustling around the kitchen while Matty talks to himself and Sammi is just as cranky in the morning as Tabitha.

  After eating so much at breakfast that I don’t think I’ll be able to walk, I’m driven to my house by Max so I can take a quick shower, change and grab my books. Mom and Dad are having breakfast when I get there.

  “Everything okay?” Mom asks as I peek in the kitchen to say hi before dashing out again.

  “Yeah, great,” I say. “Thanks for letting me sleep. I probably wouldn’t have been able to fall back to sleep if you woke me up last night.” Mom smiles and messes up the hair I just combed.

  “It’s not like I didn’t try but you were simply not waking up,” she continues to mess with my hair as she looks at me. “This is really getting long, Noah. How about I make an appointment to get it cut this weekend?”

  “Not gonna happen,” I grin as I push her hand away and give her a quick kiss. I’m in a surprisingly good mood this morning. I think it was the great sleep I had last night. “I think I like it this way.” My hair grows fast and not having been cut since before we moved it’s almost as long as Max’s now. I like the bangs especially. It’s easy to hide behind my hair when I just don’t feel up to eye contact, which is most of the time.

  “I miss seeing your eyes,” Mom argues. “People will think I’m a bad mother. Ollie, tell him he needs a haircut,” she continues her argument by bringing Dad into it. He tries to hide a grin as he studies my hair. I comb the bangs to the side with my fingers so he can see my eyes.

  “Oh I don’t know, Elizabeth. I was a bit of a rebel at his age. Mine was longer than that. Let the boy grow his hair. If he was a bad kid that didn’t get straight A’s you might have an argument.” That’s two against one. I like when Dad sides with me. I smile and kiss Mom goodbye before heading off to school with Max.

  “Are you busy right after school?” Max asks as he drives us there in Lydia’s car. I shrug.

  “Am I ever busy?” I respond.

  “Well, yeah sometimes you are. You have whatever it is you do on Wednesdays. So look, if you’re not busy I really want to take you someplace after school.” It bothers me that Max remembers I’m never free after school on a Wednesday even if it’s only one Wednesday a month now. It’s just something I’d rather he didn’t think about.

  “I was just planning on homework. Sherrie wants me to go to some club with a group of her friends on Saturday. I haven’t really decided yet but I figured I’d stay in tonight and get that done so it’s not lingering until Sunday.” Could I sound like more of a dork? Who stays in on a Friday night to do homework? “Where are we going?” I ask. Homework can wait.

  “I can’t really explain it,” Max says. “It’s a place you have to see. Do you trust me?”

  “After kidnapping me and taking me to an amusement park last month, do you really want an honest answer?”

  “But I was right about that, admit it,” he cajoles.

  “Yes, I trust you,” I say as we pull into the school parking lot. The smile Max sends my way before getting out of the car is worth the fear of any surprise he might have in store.

  It may be an early dismissal but the day drags. I usually hate surprises but I meant it when I said I trust Max and even though I have no idea what he has planned I’m sure it will be worth it. There’s nothing much of note in Lansing so I wonder if we’re going out of town. I text my mom to let her know that I’ll be with Max and I have no idea when I’ll be getting home but I will keep my phone turned on and
with me at all times. It turns out that she dragged Dad out of the house to some farmers market or some such place in Lancaster and they might not be home before dinner anyway. Farmers market? They don’t sell gluten free tofu crap there do they?

  “I’ll meet you at your locker,” Max says as the bell rings to dismiss us from Chemistry, the last class of the day. We walk from class together as far as my locker then he continues on to his. I notice Tabitha zero in on him as soon as she sees him. Things have continued to be a little tense with Tabitha. I’m glad Max drove us to school today so I don’t really have to deal with her.

  “So are you going tomorrow or not?” Sherrie asks as she approaches her locker. I consider for a moment. I really don’t want to go. I know I should try more things that scare me and I know I should try harder to cultivate out of school friendships with people other than Max but the thought of going with a group of kids I barely know to a club in another town seems like too much for me. Sherrie is looking at me expectantly.

  “I don’t know…”I start to say but the expectant look is replaced quickly with one of such disappointment that I continue with, “why not? I don’t know why not. What time?” Sherrie beams and grabs my arm.

  “I’ll pick you up at eight. It’s going to be so much fun, Noah! You’re going to love this club and you know everyone else that’s going from lunch and class. I’ll call you to finalize details.” She gives me a quick kiss on the cheek before bouncing down the hall. Now THAT I didn’t expect. I’m looking after her as Max approaches from the other side.

  “I told you she’s interested,” he observes as I take out my coat and stuff the books I need into my back pack.

  “It’s not like that. She’s just getting a group together to go to some club tomorrow,” I say as I slam my locker. Max puts a hand on my shoulder and gives me a teasing shake as we walk down the hall.

  “The group is to make her feel more comfortable. She’s not comfortable asking you out but she realizes you’re too shy to ask her,” he informs me. Really?

  “No, we’re just friends, really,” I say. “You think?” I’m not used to any of this. I should probably defer to Max’s experience and knowledge in the field of dating.

  “Noah, if there’s one thing I’m good at it’s people…” Max begins but I interrupt.

  “You’re good at everything,” I argue. He shrugs then smiles.

  “Okay, so one of those things I’m good at is people and she likes you.” I’m tired of this line of conversation. I don’t want to think about the possibility of Sherrie liking me. What if tomorrow is a date and what if it’s a dud like my date with Holly and then I lose one of my few friends?

  “So how far is this place we’re going?” I ask to change the subject.

  “We’re actually halfway there already,” Max says around a piece of licorice. Where exactly does he stash that stuff?

  “Halfway there?” I wonder out loud. What could be in boring Lansing that I don’t know about? Max won’t say anything else about where we’re going. He sings along to the songs he’s playing through the car stereo from his phone and won’t give any explanation. He slows the car in an area that’s a bit more than halfway from the school to town. One side of the road is all fields but the other side has some trees and a small, dirt lane that I never saw until Max slowed down and put on his blinker. He pulls down the lane, driving over the dead leaves that litter it and I’m intrigued. Eventually we get to a gate across the lane and Max pulls the car over as far as he can before parking and shutting off the engine.

  “From here we walk,” he says and gets out of the car. I stay seated for a moment until I’m really sure he means it and then I too get out of the car.

  “You’re not taking me out to the woods to kill me and hide the body are you?” I laugh. “Have I taught you too much about horror films?” Max chuckles but he still doesn’t explain himself.

  We walk around the gate and continue down the lane for quite some time. Eventually it turns and when I look behind us I can’t see the car. After another few minutes of walking the lane ends at a small building.

  “What is this?” I wonder out loud. I’ve been visiting Lansing my entire life and I never knew this existed.

  “It’s a nature preserve,” Max tells me. “There are maps for trails and educational information available when the office is open,” he says as he nods to the building, “but it’s not open right now and we don’t need that anyway.”

  The lane we followed into the woods turns into a trail with an intersection ahead. Max takes one fork in the trail and the trees become denser. We walk in comfortable silence for a while. I can hear water running and birds calling as well as the sounds of small animals in the brush that I can’t see. Our feet crunch in the dead leaves. Max actually catches a falling leaf in his hand as we walk.

  “Dead children of the trees,” he muses as he lets it go and I get the feeling that he didn’t even mean to say it out loud. He does that a lot, says random thoughts out loud. I think it’s where a lot of his song lyrics come from. I won’t be surprised if I find this thought written on his wall.

  Max leads us off the path and I get a little nervous. How hard would it be to get lost? I’m thinking not very. The path was somewhat smooth but now that we’re off the path there are roots and rocks and all kinds of obstacles to navigate. I’m wearing loafers and struggling compared to Max who is wearing a pair of boots.

  “Uh, how big are these woods? Shouldn’t we stick to the path?” I’m already picturing us getting lost and starving to death and eaten by wildlife. Max trudges on undaunted.

  “You said you trusted me, right?” he says. He turns to encourage me just as I stumble over a rock. He grabs my hand to keep me from falling and tugs a little to help me over a rise. When we come over the other side I see the source of the water sounds. There’s a stream directly in front of us.

  “No way we can get lost following the water,” he says and I feel a little more at ease.

  “So where are we going exactly? Did you just feel like taking a walk in the nature preserve today or something?”

  “I told you. It’s a place you just have to see.” Normally I hate surprises but he’s really piqued my curiosity. I follow along enjoying the day, the sounds of nature, water to my right, the sun that comes through the trees that have barely any leaves left on them and just spending time with Max. I feel like a completely different person than the mess I was last night. I feel happy, content and at ease.

  After quite a bit of walking we come to a lake. I don’t know where the stream begins but it empties into this lake. I can hear louder sounds of running water now. It sounds like rapids. Max looks at me and smiles probably the brightest smile I’ve ever seen from him.

  “Almost there,” he says and takes my arm to pull me along faster. We follow the edge of the lake and it’s a fairly large body of water. It’s almost impossible to notice the curve while we’re walking but I could see it when we were back by the stream. When we finally get to the far end of the lake I see a falls. That was the louder sound of water that I heard, the cacophony made by the water going over the falls. We’re standing on a sort of ledge looking down at the falls and from here I can’t see where it actually ends.

  “Just a little further,” Max says. I don’t see any makeshift path or even any way to continue. We have the ledge in front of us and thick trees to the right of us. “This way,” Max says and goes over the edge of the ledge.

  My heart leaps into my throat. I don’t see him. Holy shit did he just fall? Oh God, help is way too far away from where we are now. I have no idea what to do!

  “Noah? Come on,” Max calls. I step to the edge of the ledge and grab a sapling for balance as I look over and there is Max on an outcropping of rock at least fifteen feet below me. “Just slide down,” he instructs. I don’t have any intentions of sliding down there. How the Hell did he get down there without breaking his neck? It’s a straight drop. I shake my head.

  “Come
back up here,” I call. “I’m not going down there.” Max shakes his head.

  “Can’t!” he calls back to me. We have to yell over the sound of the falls. “It’s too steep. Just bend your legs and slide. You won’t go over. I’ll catch you.” This is more frightening than the roller coasters. There are no straps and safety harnesses here and if one of us gets hurt the other will never get him out of here to help.

  “Noah, TRUST me!” Max calls. I don’t want to do this. I do NOT want to do this. I take a deep breath, squat down as low as I can and slide down the incline.

  As I slide I realize it doesn’t exactly go straight down but the speed with which I slip through the loose dirt and leaves still freaks me out. I land with a distinct lack of grace pretty much on my ass on the rock outcropping that Max stands on. From the ledge this rock looked too small to hold us but now that I’m here I realize there was a good fifteen feet before I would have plunged over the edge.

  I get up and brush off my pants then make my way to the edge. Down below, at least thirty feet below, is the bottom of the falls. The water is white with fury as it hits the many rocks at the bottom. I’m not afraid of heights but I do shudder to think I could have ended up down there. I look to my left and can see that, after pooling a bit at the bottom the water continues in a stream through the woods. I look back up at the ledge we came from. The incline is way too steep to climb back up it. There’s no way off this ledge.

  “Max, how do we get back?” I worry, looking at Max then up at the ledge again.

  “Don’t worry about that. We’re almost there,” he says.