The Distance Between Lost and Found (19 page)

She doesn't know what she wants to happen. But she needs it to happen now. Right now.

Jonah moves first. He closes the few inches between them. His fingers brush her cheek, curve gently around the side of her neck. He makes eye contact, and then he pulls her to him. Their lips touch.

Hallelujah flinches. And Jonah jumps away from her like she burned him.

“I—”

“Sorry. Don't know what got into me.” He mutters it at the ground.

“I—”

“Won't happen again. I promise, Hallie.”

“I can't get hurt again!” It bursts out of her, sounding like a bad line from the sappy movies she used to make Jonah watch as retaliation for all of his ridiculous action films. But it's the first thing in her head to explain the flinch, to apologize for it.

Jonah's face hardens. “You think I'm going to hurt you?”

“No, I just—”

Rachel stirs in her sleep, and they both stop breathing, caught by her movement, her yawn. But she doesn't wake.

Hallelujah turns back to Jonah. “I don't think you're going to hurt me. Not anymore. I promise. But the last guy I kissed was Luke. So now, I'm—” She inhales. It's shaky. “I'm just a little overwhelmed.”

To her surprise, Jonah cracks a small, hesitant smile. “I thought maybe it was my breath. You know, haven't brushed my teeth in four days, fish for breakfast . . .”

She mimics his light tone, grateful for it. “If the smell of your not having showered in four days didn't drive me away, your breath wasn't going to do it.”

Jonah lifts an arm. Sniffs his armpit. Grimaces. “Ouch.”

Hallelujah pats the ground beside her. Extends a hand to Jonah.

He takes it. Slides over.

They stare at the fire, follow the column of smoke up and up and up, to where it passes through the tree branches, becomes one with the clouds. A bird flies through the smoke, scattering it with its wings.

“Are we just feeling like this because we're out here, and it's scary and crazy?” Hallelujah asks. “Is it going to go away when we get home?”

“No,” Jonah says simply.

“How do you know?”

“Hallie. I told you. I've liked you for more than a year. I didn't stop when Luke—did what he did. So I'm not going to stop liking you now that we're actually talking again, and now that you like me back.” He smiles. Then, like he's realizing something, he gets very still. “Why? Is it gonna go away for you?”

“I don't know!” Hallelujah exhales in frustration. How can she be sure that feeling this—
this
—isn't just her being amazed that someone actually likes her, after everything, and that it's Jonah, and that he has for so long? And it's not like she's emotionally stable. “I mean, I'm happier right now than I've been in six months, which doesn't make any sense because I'm still hungry and my ankle hurts and we're still lost and we have no idea what to do next and the worst could happen at any minute!” She gulps. “I don't know what I'm feeling. Other than that I don't want to hurt you any more than I want you to hurt me.”

Jonah is quiet for several seconds. “I think,” he says slowly, “that you're overthinking this.”

That's not what Hallelujah expected him to say.

“First of all, thanks for not wanting to string me along. I appreciate it.” A crooked smile, with only one corner of his mouth. “Second, this is extreme for me, too. Being out here. With you. Talking like this. But isn't it good that everything's out in the open now? You said it yourself: you don't want to be that other girl anymore.”

“I don't,” Hallelujah echoes. It's the one thing she knows for sure.

“So who says the new you can't, you know . . . ?”

He doesn't finish the question, and Hallelujah mentally fills in the blanks.
Be with me. Kiss me
. Or maybe he was going to say something else entirely. Maybe that was the point. The open-endedness. If she's a new person, she can start from scratch. Rebuild atop the rubble of her old self. Remake herself in whatever image she chooses.

Is that even possible? If they go back, and Luke's the same, and her parents are the same, can she be different?

“All you can control is you,” Jonah murmurs, and it's like he's read her mind, except when she looks over at him, he's not looking at her at all. He's looking up at the sky, where dark clouds are gathering.

“R
AIN
,” J
ONAH SAYS
. “D
ANG IT
.” H
E SCRAMBLES TO HIS FEET
.

“How come you don't curse?” Hallelujah asks.

Jonah glances at her, clearly confused. “You want me to curse?”

“Well, no. But lots of people do.” She nods her head toward Rachel. “Luke and Brad curse all the time, when there aren't adults around. And I know you don't have a problem watching movies or listening to music with cursing. So how come you don't?”

“You're asking me this now?” Jonah's zipping up their bags. He tosses her hers, and she's hit with the scent of the cooked fish inside. “With
that
coming at us?” He gestures up. Hallelujah follows his point. It looks like the apocalypse. She half expects four horsemen to come riding out. “Why?” Jonah asks.

“I don't know, I just want to . . . know more about you.” She mutters the last part, suddenly embarrassed. “It was dumb. Sorry.”

“Not dumb. Nice. Just—timing. Get Rachel up.”

Hallelujah crawls over to Rachel. Gently shakes her shoulder.

“My dad's like Luke and Brad,” Jonah says, walking a circle around their camp, squinting, looking out. “Curses up a storm when we're not in church. And I don't like it. Not that I think he's gonna be smote or anything. I mean, I get that God probably doesn't like it when people use his name as a curse word. I wouldn't like it if people yelled ‘Jonah!' every time they stubbed their toe. But it's more that—” He turns to look at Hallelujah and Rachel. Walks over. “I know too many people who are one thing when they think it matters and another thing the rest of the time. And I don't want to be like that. So I don't curse at all. It's like—what you see is what you get.”

Hallelujah looks up at him. She's amazed, all over again, at this Jonah she never knew existed.

He goes on, “I'm not perfect. Obviously. You know that as well as anyone. But at least I'm not pretending to be someone I'm not.” He pokes Rachel's arm. “Rachel. Up.”

The first roll of thunder sounds overhead. It's not far off.

“No.” Rachel's voice is sleepy, thick. “I don't wanna get up.”

“There's a storm. We have to find shelter.”

Rachel opens her eyes. “A storm?” She jumps up. “We have to get moving.”

Lightning brightens the dark sky. Thunder follows. It's hard to believe that not fifteen minutes ago, the day was clear. The sky was blue.

Hallelujah realizes she can't hear any birds. She's gotten so used to their chatter in the background out here that the silence is loud and harrowing.

“Hallie, can you walk?” Jonah asks.

“Not very fast.”

“Okay. I've got you.” Jonah helps her stand. He wraps an arm around her waist, taking the weight off her bad ankle. “Let's go. When I was getting wood yesterday, I saw some rocks we can hide under. Up the hill.”

“Lead the way,” Rachel says, eyes on the sky. She looks afraid.

The rain starts: sharp, hard drops that sting Hallelujah's arms. It feels like an attack. Like they let their guard down, and now nature is back with a vengeance.

But Hallelujah breathes in deep. Limps along. Tries to think of her skin as armor. The rain can't pierce her. It can't break her. She's not the same person she was two days ago. That girl ran from rain, fell down mountainsides, scrambled in the mud, blind and gasping and scared.

This girl, this new Hallelujah, is still scared, but she watches her footing, and she holds on to Jonah and Rachel instead of pushing them away. She watches the rocks grow closer. For once, she knows where she's going.

T
HEY'RE TUCKED INTO A CROOK BETWEEN THREE LARGE
rocks, on the edge of a rhododendron thicket. One rock is on top of the other two, creating a roof that keeps the worst of the rain out. The rhododendron branches and leaves above them create a second barrier. Water drips down between the rocks, but the thin trails are nothing like the downpour outside, so they're able to stay pretty dry.

The rocks are old. The formation is old. It's not going anywhere. At least, not for a long, long time. The rainwater runs down grooves that are deep, like they've channeled many drips before. There's a thick coating of moss over the rocks, a heavy, insulating blanket of green and brown.

Rachel leans back against the cool stone and closes her eyes. “I'm going to rest a little,” she says.

“Are you feeling okay?” Hallelujah asks. “Are you warm enough?”

“I'm okay,” Rachel says without opening her eyes. “Just . . . tired.”

Hallelujah and Jonah look at each other. “Should we be worried?” Hallelujah whispers. “She's sleeping a lot. And she's still cold, and it's not that cold out right now.”

“Probably fallout from last night,” Jonah says, though he doesn't sound sure. “Her body temp was so low . . . and without extra gear and more warm food . . .”

“I can hear you,” Rachel murmurs.

“Right. Sorry.”

“It's fine. I'm glad you care.” Rachel yawns again and then is quiet. Her breathing evens out. She looks peaceful, but she also looks small and vulnerable. Her eyes are dark-circled. Her wrists, sticking out from Hallelujah's jacket sleeves, are bird bones.

Jonah turns his eyes on Hallelujah. “You could sleep too. If you want. We'll probably be here a while.”

“I'm okay.” In truth, she's exhausted. Today more than yesterday; yesterday more than the day before. But she doesn't feel like sleeping. Sitting is enough. Being quiet is enough.

Jonah shifts around in their tiny shelter to face her. He's going to say something. He'll pick up their conversation where it broke off before the storm.

“Lunchtime?”

Hallelujah feels a surge of disappointment, but she hides it behind the mask of a smile. “The restaurant's serving fish today. With a side of dandelions.”

“My favorite.”

Hallelujah portions out two tiny meals and they eat quickly, without talking. The rain drips onto their stone roof, patters on the leaves of the trees all around them, spatters on the ground. Down the hill, Hallelujah can just barely see the clearing where they spent the night. The creek is rising with the storm. Water laps at the bank, overflows in places.

The weather gets worse into the afternoon. The wind roars past their little shelter, whistling through the cracks between the stones. The rain blows in sideways, from above, from below. The sky is black.

Hallelujah huddles ever closer to Jonah. Rachel sleeps through it. Her mouth is slightly open, and she breathes in short gasps. Her eyelids twitch and flicker, like she's dreaming.

When Hallelujah touches Rachel's forehead, just to see if she feels feverish, she starts to shiver. In her sleep.

Jonah's eyes widen. “Hold her,” he says.

And so they squeeze on either side and wrap their arms around her. Hallelujah holds tight. She feels Rachel twitching, and then the shivering slows, and then Rachel is still except for her breath. Her eyes flutter open.

“Aw, I love you too,” she says. Her voice is weak, but the laugh is still there.

Jonah and Hallelujah let go at the same time. “You were shivering,” Hallelujah says. “We were trying to keep you warm.”

“Oh.” Rachel looks more serious now. “Thanks.” Her eyes well up, and she wipes at them with the backs of her hands. Angrily. “I hate this.” She almost growls it. “I hate it so much.” A deep breath. Then, in a very small voice: “Can I have my fish now?”

A crash of thunder.

Jonah hands over the last small pile of food. Rachel devours it, and doesn't speak again until she's licking her fingers. “Thanks,” she says. “For catching that and cooking it and taking care of me . . .” She pauses. “I'm such a disaster.”

“What? No!” Hallelujah is firm. “No way.”

“What have I done but get us lost and more lost? And after that, I fell down a mountain and got poison ivy and hypothermia! I'm useless. I'm worse than useless.”

“You wrapped my ankle. You knew what to do and you did it.”

“Without me getting us lost, your ankle wouldn't have gotten hurt in the first place. And I messed up taking your boot off, too.”

“Okay, this is not helping,” Jonah cuts in. “We're here now, so we have to focus on getting home. If we can just—”

The wind roars, drowning out Jonah's words. The world churns and swirls. Leaves fly.

And then a bird is blown in. It hits the stone above Hallelujah's head with a crunch and drops to the ground. It's tiny. Brown. Trembling.

It's breathing. Being pelted with rain, dazed, and scared, but breathing. Seeing it, all three of them are struck silent.

Hallelujah leans over. Gently slides one hand under the bird. It weighs next to nothing. It lets out a chirp, ruffles its feathers and moves its feet like it's trying to get away. But it doesn't try to fly. And so she carefully moves it in out of the rain.

Jonah watches. Rachel watches.

Hallelujah finds one last dandelion under her backpack. She sets it gently on the ground in front of the bird, in its line of sight.

And then she lets it be.

J
UST LIKE THAT, THE STORM IS OVER
. O
NE MINUTE, THE
world is screaming around them, dark and angry, and the next, the sun comes out. Jonah unfolds himself from his seat. “I'm going to scope out the area. See if I can find anything useful. I'll be back soon.”