Alex Morel - Survive

“Down and up again,” I say.

“Yes,” he says. “On the upside, no cliffs to climb.”

“And the weather, let’s be thankful for that.”

“That’s the spirit, Solis. Yes, the weather is almost a balmy zero degrees today.”

You couldn’t really see it from where we stood, but somewhere off in the distance, the sun must be shining brightly behind the mountains. We are still under a canopy of tall trees, but the air is warmer. I do feel hopeful.

“I’m guessing it’ll take us the day to get down and another day to get back up. Once there, if the weather holds, we’ll try to start a fire.”

“What will we eat?” I ask.

He looks at me strangely, and then he says, “I’m more worried about what we’ll talk about. We can go without food for days; plus we’ve still got some candy. We’ve got water, too. But after our conversation last night, I fear there’s nothing left to confess.”

“Really, that’s your fear? Running out of confessions?”

“I’m afraid so.”

He looks around at our stuff and he starts feeling his jacket and checking his pockets.

“What are you looking for?”

He looks at his bag and my things.

He’s starting to panic me, so I ask again. “What’s missing?”

“My book,” he finally says.

“Your book, it’s in there,” I say, pointing at the sleeping bag on his back.

There’s a long pause between us and he’s looking at me, reading my body language. I’m covered head to toe in jackets, sunglasses, gloves, and a hat, so I can’t imagine there’s much to read.

“Did you read the letter?” he snaps.

“No,” I say. It is reflexive, but I immediately regret lying.

“Really?” he says skeptically.

“I started it. I’m sorry.”

“Right. You didn’t inhale all the way either,” he says with a smirk. “Why do you lie so much? Why would you read something so personal without asking?”

“What? I wasn’t thinking. It was before I knew you. I mean, knew you like I know you now.”

“Never mind, Solis, let’s go.”

The hike down into the valley is difficult. It is also silent. Whatever passed between us the night before has evaporated, and hardass Paul has reappeared again, but this time there’s anger in his voice. I read his letter, and now he resents my very presence on this mountain.

“Keep up,” he shouts sharply every couple of minutes.

His pace is fast and purposely punishing. Plus, I’m stiff from yesterday. I don’t hear any playfulness-even compassion-in his voice. On the cliff yesterday, even when he was brutally tough on me, his voice always had a sense of kindness, or at least I’d thought it did. But now I just feel something different emanating from him: a seething, righteous anger. He hates me. It appears reading his brother’s letter was an unforgivable offense. And I agree with him.

There’s only one benefit to all of this, which is that my head is so singularly focused on Paul and his mood that I’m actually ignoring the deep hunger in my stomach, the blisters on my feet, and the weakness in my legs.

“Look there,” I say.

Paul stops. He turns to me.

“What?”

“There, on the tree? Somebody carved a triangle into the tree with a knife. That’s a sign, right?”

He turns quickly and stares for a second at the tree and the triangle. Despite his efforts to hide it, a big grin spreads across his face.

“Holy shit,” Paul shouts. “We’ve got a trail!”

He turns to throw his arms around me, but then he catches himself midway, remembering his anger.

His hands fall to his sides and his smile fades.

“It might mean something. It might not.”

I nod. He’s right, and anyway, even this great stroke of luck can’t turn his heart back toward me. I feel a sob in my throat, but I will not show him how he is hurting me. I just mouth, “Right.”

“We’ll follow the trail down a bit,” he says. “But it’s heading in the wrong direction if we want to cross the bridge. It might be easier walking, but it’s going to take us to the bottom of the valley. That’s a death march. We’d never make it back up.”

I regain my composure and take a deep breath as if I’m contemplating the landscape with him, but I’m honestly just checking the emotions roiling through my body. I am, I remind myself, coming off my meds. I might be supersensitive right now and attributing thoughts and feelings to him that are completely products of my own anxiety. And then I hear the Old Doctor: Push the voices aside, Jane; stop the second-guessing. Do what’s in front of you and focus on your true voice.

“I think there’s a reason people have set a marker here,” I say to him. “I think there’s a reason we’re seeing this.”

“Like God sent it to us.” Paul smiles condescendingly. “Lot of good that did us on the plane.”

“We’re still here, aren’t we?”

“Thanks to what-random seat placement? I certainly wasn’t the one praying or only you’d be here,” Paul says. I hate when he’s right and logical.

“Nobody knows anything, Paul.”

“Here’s what I know,” Paul says in a low, angry growl, like he’s letting out a decade of anger at the world, but at me because I’m the closest one to him. “God isn’t here. And he wasn’t in that plane. He wasn’t there when my mom or Will died or your dad whacked himself. He wasn’t there for Margaret or the captain or the others. And let’s say he was here, what made us so special? We’re a suicidal and an atheist, right? Why save us? Here’s the only truth I can be certain of right now: There’s a cold, icy world on the top of this mountain. Fall, you die; eat snow, you die; if you’re not found, you die. Those are the facts and God isn’t going to swoop in and change that. And just because there’s a triangle on a tree, carved by who knows who and who knows when, doesn’t mean it is going to lead us out of here. In fact, it could lead us down there to our deaths or back around from where we just came. Sometimes signs are just signs; sometimes they lead you in the wrong direction.”

There’s a long silence between us. I hate him for giving voice to a deep-seated doubt about the world that has lived inside me since the day my father offed himself. Relentless. Cold. Brutal. Doubt has no antidote, except maybe on days when you climb a mountain.

“I get it, Paul. My father’s dead and your brother’s dead, and nothing is changing that.” I stand there, directly in front of him. I don’t know where those words came from, but there they are, settling in the space between us, a swirl of words instead of snow. And then I add, “I’m wrong about a lot, and God knows I’m not a poster child for mental health, but I know a few things. Pain isn’t good, but it isn’t bad either. Hiding it, nurturing it-that’s what’s bad. That’s what I’ve been doing for years. And it’s toxic, rotting me from the inside out. But it’s rotting you too. You can’t hide from your father and use your brother’s and mother’s death as an excuse to do it.”

Rage fires his eyes for a moment and I fear for myself for just a second. I’ve gone too far. But the truth in it is pure. I can’t deny it.

“Just because you stole and read my brother’s letter doesn’t mean I fucking want to talk with you about it.”

“Have you asked yourself why you kept leaving that ‘fucking’ book out beside me?”

“Oh, is that the kind of thing you learned from your shrink?” He practically spits.

There’s a quiet between us that’s deep and still. He turns away and looks at the carved sign again. His body shakes with anger, but he doesn’t say anything else. Don’t say anything, Jane. I put my hand on his shoulder, but he shrugs me off immediately. Stand down, Jane.