“Your mom really wanted to see this… and a hundred other things. I just never made the time to take her,” he said finally with a defeated sigh.
“Dad.”
“You should check on your mom,” he said gruffly. “Why don’t you wait here until they catch up?”
I started to protest. After all, what the heck was the point of a family excursion if all we were doing was excusing ourselves from each other’s presence? Without wasting another moment, though, Dad began plodding uphill like a travel-worn pilgrim who’d been walking for such a long time, he’d given up hope of seeing whatever he’d come to find. His resignation was way worse than his anger.
Laughter—rich, joyous, and just shy of hysterical—signaled that the women were nearing. It was almost unfathomable that just hours ago, a chunk of mountain had sheared off, and we’d been screaming in fear.
“Sexy to the end, girls!” Grace cackled. Spying me, she added, “Right, Shana?”
The rain fell harder. Even with the thick foliage that arched overhead, drops of rain penetrated the canopy. But not a drop seeped through my military-grade barrier of rain gear. That was no less a miracle than Mom’s cheeks flushed as pink as the stubborn orchids blooming around us. No less a miracle than the women’s laughter.
What could I do but laugh helplessly, too? Laugh at my ludicrous mud-spattered rain gear and agree, “Oh, yeah, we are sexy to the end.”
Chapter Fifteen
All along the Inca Trail, we’d stood in awe at the stark beauty of ancient ruins. The barest suggestion of stone buildings could stop us. Yet it was the first sight of the sickly green Trekkers’ Hostel that made me tear up, and not because the eyesore of modern architecture was long overdue for a date with a bulldozer. I wasn’t the only one grateful for this last official campsite before Machu Picchu.
“Thank you, Lord!” cried Grace, so ecstatic I was a little worried she was going to kiss the building. But she only leaned her forehead against the concrete walls. “Thank you!”
The backpackers inside squeezed tighter to accommodate us. If they hadn’t, we would have been stranded out in the rain, huddling and shivering through the night. Everyone insisted that Stesha and Grace take two of the beds. Dad muttered a single halfhearted warning about bedbugs, too worn out to do much more. (And yes, for the record, bedbugs can thrive at high altitude.)
I couldn’t sleep. Every little sound made me think that we were being hit with another mudslide. Sick of feeling this claustrophobic panic, I crept around my sleeping parents to head outside, which made no sense at all. I was no safer out in the open. Plus, the ground was sopping wet, but at least it had stopped raining. The air smelled cleaner than anything I’d ever experienced, even while hiking in the Cascades back home.
A crunch of footsteps crept up behind me. Stupid, why had I ventured alone into the dark? I spun around to face Quattro, my cry strangled to a quiet gurgle.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, holding out his hands to steady me.
At his touch, I felt scared for an entirely different reason: I was fighting the inevitable. Tell myself that all I wanted was to be focused on my photography. Tell myself that I wanted to be relationship-free. Tell myself that I was done with commitment and expectations and compromises. But here I was, wanting Quattro to want me right back. It was so hard not to know where I stood with him, firm ground or mudslide zone. But now I knew I had to know.
“I didn’t know you were here,” I said in a low voice. Dude, do you like me, or what?
“We had our tents. So we thought we’d let everybody else stay inside,” he answered. “You couldn’t sleep either?”
“No,” I whispered, and told him sheepishly, “I keep imagining being buried under mud. Lame, huh?”
“Not even.”
Moonlight bathed us through a parting of clouds. I was good at the chase, even better at the breakup. No depth required. And I knew how our story would go unless I made a decision: Boy ruins Girl’s photo shoot. Boy chases Girl on the Inca Trail. Girl loses Boy because she’s too much of a coward to ask him one question: How do you feel about me?
For crying out loud, this was a guy who’d searched for me when disaster struck. What was I waiting for? Just grab his hand. That’d be a start.
Naturally, this had to be the one moment on the entire trip when my palms went slick with cold sweat. Naturally. So much for my plan to go all bold. But it was Quattro who cocked his head over at the small grouping of tents. I nodded. I was more than a little relieved and nervous to spend time with him. We found a log to sit on. For a long minute, Quattro didn’t say a word. I didn’t either.
Finally, I asked, “What were you doing out here?”
“Thinking about my mom,” he said simply. “I just haven’t had any time with everything going on. In a weird way, she would have loved all this.”
“What? The mudslide?”
“Well, not that, but the story she’d tell about it later. She always had a way of making our lives sound a lot more interesting.” He paused, testing different words in his head. “No, more meaningful.”
“What would she say about this?”
“You never know when it’ll be your time. So live it all—not live without regrets. She’d say that was stupid and selfish. But live so you never regret anything you do, any decision you make.”
His face tightened as if he was remembering something painful. I knew I was. Funny how a single word can trigger memories better left for dead. Selfish. The zombie memory of my last conversation with Dom reanimated and staggered to its feet. I could hear Dom’s chilly voice as if he towered over me, all righteous anger the night we broke up.
It was mid-August, and Dom had invited me to a party at his rental house, where beer flowed as easily as stories about summer travels and internships from hell. The night was hot, one of those rare heat spells in Seattle, and I was so relieved that our relationship was back on track. All was forgiven! I had taken special pains with my sexy and sophisticated older-woman disguise: delicately perfumed, hair styled in a messy topknot, the designer sunglasses from Dom perched on top of my head, white skirt with towering wedge heels. And I was drunk, just one sloppy kiss away from saying, “Fine, Dom, tonight.” Why not give in? What the hell was I saving myself for when I knew I was in love with him?
“Half the guys here are staring at you,” Dom said with a smile that verged on smug. He changed out my beer for a glass of red wine, leaning in close to tell me, “You’ll like this. A Montepulciano. When we go to Italy…” It didn’t matter how he finished that thought, not with that self-assured “You’ll like this,” not with that exotic “Montepulciano,” and definitely not with the delicious clincher: “When we go to Italy.” What more proof did I need that Dom thought of us as the It Couple? And even better, the kind of couple who lived my kind of future: adventure and travel. Just as I leaned into him, just as I tilted my head up at him and pursed my lips in the way that drove him crazy, he was wrenched out of my arms.
My brother Max loomed in my vision. Unlike everyone else at this business school party, he had completed his MBA and was about to relocate to San Francisco. That’s why I didn’t expect him to show up. He started shoving Dom, not caring that the party had gone graveyard silent or that everyone was staring at him, at us. I didn’t realize then that it would be the last time I could ever consider Dom and me an “us.”
“Do you even know how old she is?” Max demanded, his face right up in Dom’s.
“Stop,” I protested, not knowing whether I was begging Max to keep from hitting Dom or from revealing my secret.
“She’s a sophomore.” Shove. “In high school.”
Dom’s accusatory expression landed on me. More than pointless, I knew my words would only make things worse, but still I corrected Max softly: “Junior.”
Dom glanced around the living room, his face flushed bright red with embarrassment. A minute or two later, I was running after him to the street. His shame bec
ame rage. His face twisted as he yelled at me, “You could have ruined my life!”
“I’m sorry!”
“Don’t you think you should have told me you were underage?”
“Dom, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Dom glared at me with poison and contempt and regret. He spat, “Selfish. That’s exactly what you are! God, I wish I had never met you.”
And then there was Max, leading me to his car. He didn’t have to convince me to go with him.
“What were you thinking?” he demanded once we were locked inside. I scanned the street for Dom, but he’d already disappeared. “Shana, what the hell were you thinking?”
“You don’t know him,” I protested, still searching in the darkness for my dream guy.
“You don’t either.”
“What?” Quattro asked me now, even as my pulse was jumping from the memory of that breakup. But there was something new—not anxiety, but relief. I was truly free from Dom.
Where could I even start? I shook my head. “You?”
Quattro shrugged, which made two of us hiding secrets from each other. The silence sprouted with a thousand questions. But as I studied him, the need for conversation vanished. Instead, there was just one question: What were we going to do? The moment stretched. I knew what I wanted to do. I drew nearer to him. My lips parted in a sultry way that had slayed dozens of guys before him. Just as I knew he would, Quattro shifted toward me, cupped his hands gently around my face.
Here was the kiss that I had fantasized about for longer than I cared to admit.
Now. Yes. Finally.
And yet…
No red-alert sirens blared in my head. No early-warning system to assert my independence. No emergency ejection procedure to launch me on my toes and propel me back to the safety of the hostel.
All was quiet and still with the exception of a soft but emphatic no.
Gently but firmly, I pulled away.
Once upon a time, the hurt and baffled expression I saw on Quattro’s face would have made me stop and sink into a kiss out of sheer guilt, but now… no.
I’d already blinded myself once to the cold truth that Dom hadn’t returned my feelings, not really. I wasn’t about to repeat that mistake again. And frankly, I wanted more than great banter and delicious kissing.
“We’re both on moratoriums,” I said, and scooted from him so I was out of temptation’s way. There was no denying the thrumming desire to drag him over to me. On top of me… I cleared my throat. This time, I was going to be absolutely clear. “And I don’t do hookups, I don’t do booty calls, and I definitely am not a friend who provides benefits.”
“Okay,” he said slowly.
The fact was: If I didn’t want our story to end the way all my so-called relationships had, I was going to have to tell him the truth. The whole truth about me.
“About a year ago, I went out with an older guy.” My fingers entwined into a tight hard shell, the same way I had sheltered myself since Dom. “He was in business school.” I sighed deeply. “I wasn’t exactly up front that I was still in high school.”
“That probably didn’t go over well.”
“That’s an understatement.” Even that revelation was an artificially sweetened version of the truth. If what Mom said was true about needing to see a person react in crisis, I needed to see Quattro in crisis, in my crisis. I needed to show him my most ugly shame. If he couldn’t deal with the truth, if he thought less of me, I’d rather know now. “I was almost sixteen; he was twenty-two.”
“Whoa.”
“You know, I told myself that the age difference didn’t matter. I mean, my mom’s five years older than Dad. But in high school it makes all the difference. I didn’t sleep with him,” I said bluntly, “but if I had…”
“Statutory rape. Wow.”
“Yeah. It really was naïve and selfish,” I said flatly.
“Yeah, it was.”
I wasn’t prepared for how much the truth confirmed by someone else could sting. Even if Grace was right, and Dom had known, I had kept my age a secret because I knew deep down that we were wrong.
“But look,” Quattro added more gently, “love makes a person crazy. I mean, look at my dad. He would have done anything, broken any law, if it meant keeping my mom alive. He’s been like the living dead since she died.” He actually looked disgusted, but it was hard to tell whether that revulsion was directed at me or his father. “But you’re right. I can’t do this. Not now.”
“Why? Because you’re on a moratorium? What’s up with that anyway?”
“Actually, no, not because of that. Or not entirely,” he said. “I don’t know. But this isn’t about you. I mean, you… your photography, the way you look at things.” He shrugged, gazing at me with respect. “This is all me. The timing is all wrong, and I don’t think I can—” He broke off whatever he was going to admit, then ended brusquely, “You should get some sleep.”
I blinked at Quattro, stunned by the familiarity of these words. It was as if I were being visited by the ghosts of breakups past. All the guys I had let down with almost the same script, except now I was on the receiving end. Even though I wanted to run from him, I forced myself to nod—okay, then—and walk away slowly, head high. I forced myself not to glance back at Quattro and his ironclad secrets. I forced myself to stand for a second in the pearly moonlight and to imprint in my memory what it felt like to know that I had survived revealing the truth about me.
Chapter Sixteen
A few hours of sleep later, Stesha woke our group. Yesterday, we had agreed to salvage the last of our trek. At the very least we were going to see the first rays of sunlight illuminate Machu Picchu. Who cared that it meant we had to get up at three in the morning? Who cared that the chance of a break in the clouds was about one percent? Who cared how many tourist photos had already memorialized one of the most famous sunrise vistas? I planned to take exactly one of those photos myself, cliché or not, Ms. Associate Dean of Admissions at Cornish College. I patted my back pocket to make sure that Quattro’s camera was still there.
Quattro.
I flushed at the memory of last night, squeamish about running into him this morning. Through the rain-speckled windows, I spied him helping his dad dismantle their tent. They obviously were on the same time line we were. As if he felt me, Quattro glanced my way. I ducked down, face flaming.
“What’re you doing?” Mom asked, yawning widely.
Humiliation à la Quattro. It’s my new specialty.
Dad sat up, grimaced. I could hear his spine crack when he stretched. “Man,” he said, “I’m getting old. That other group might have the right idea.” The leaderless tour group that had joined ours yesterday had made the executive decision last night to sleep in this morning, opting out of our early morning trek. I personally chalked it up to the aftershocks of being abandoned. After all, it didn’t much matter if it was guide, fiancé, or boyfriend (past, present, or imagined) who took off; being the one left behind was exhausting.
As I tugged on my hiking boots, I wondered whether Quattro remembered our silly bet: to be the first at the Sun Gate. Then again, maybe he wouldn’t so much as brush a single fingertip against that portal to Machu Picchu if he happened to reach it before me. Given last night’s conversation, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he sprinted right past it.
The memory of his “it’s not you, it’s me” words made me blush. But once we reached the town of Machu Picchu Pueblo and were safe on the train back to Cusco, I’d never see Quattro again. At least that’s what I told myself, even as a faint and annoying strain of “It’s a Small World” taunted me in my head.
“So,” Mom said casually as we walked out the door together, “late last night, we found out that the rest of your friend’s group decided to take their chances on the trail back to Cusco.”
“My friend?” I asked, even as little warning bells started to chime in my mind. Alarmed, I stared at her, forgetting all about hiding from a certain bo
y. “What are you talking about?”
“Quattro and his dad are joining us the rest of the way. Wasn’t it nice of him to give your dad his headlamp?”
“What?” My gaze landed on Quattro hefting his backpack on. Hastily, before we could make awkward eye contact, I whipped back around to Mom. “Why?”
“I just told you. The Andean Trekkers decided to head back to Cusco on the trail. They’d heard rumors that the train tracks have been flooded.”
“When was all this decided?”
“You must have been in the bathroom,” Stesha answered for Mom before I could protest further. She fluffed her hair. Those efforts literally fell flat. The spunk had gone out of her deflated curls. I knew how they felt. “And your boy’s joining us.”
I hissed at Stesha, hoping to shut down this conversation, “He’s not my boy.”
“You mean, not yet.” Although Stesha lowered her voice, her eyes kept darting over to Quattro. Poor spy skills must have run in her family. She was no better at covert operations than Reb. “I think once he’s done working through some big grief, he’ll be begging to be your boy. Give him time. You’re both worth the wait.”
Five minutes later, our group was ready to go. Mom was so busy chatting with Grace about the Wednesday Walkers that she stepped in front of me to keep their conversation going. I didn’t protest until I realized that Quattro had staked out the spot at the very back of our group.
Dude, really?
After being Mr. Fast and Furious of the Inca Trail, now, today, he suddenly decided to plod behind everyone? Really? With Quattro just feet behind me, I felt self-conscious, and not only because I was highly aware that he had an unobstructed view of my rain-gear-clad, shapeless glory. Hadn’t the guy ever heard of giving a girl space after the Talk? Guiltily, I thought about all the Talks I’d delivered by text. How could I have been so blasé about breakups? I really had been the Genghis Khan of boys’ hearts, and the knowledge of my callousness stung.