Lex Thomas - Quaranteen

“Oh! So I figured it out!” Lucy said as she stretched her arm up the railing and behind David’s thigh.

“What?”

“What we were saying this morning… best slope in the Rockies? It’s Point Peak. Hands down.”

In a gang of snowboarders, Lucy had discovered that she and David were the only skiers. David agreed, but he squinted his eyes and faked uncertainty. Her jaw dropped.

“Oh, my God!” Lucy said. “I can’t believe you even have to think about it! I’m right. You know I’m right.”

“Maybe.”

Lucy punched David in the chest, her mouth still agape. He nearly fell backward.

“Maybe?”

David laughed, “Easy! I gotta weigh all the factors. Besides, a guy’s entitled to his opinion, isn’t he?”

“Not when you’re wrong! David, even if there’s a double black diamond like it, nothing beats that view of the mountains. Nothing.” Then her eyes went wide, suddenly inspired.

“That’s where I’m going to visit tonight.”

“Visit?”

“Yeah, right when I close my eyes to go to sleep, I pick a place or a memory, and I try to hold on to it as long as I can.” Lucy closed her eyes and moved up another step, getting

close to David. “I walk through every part of it. I look at every little detail. Until I fall asleep.”

She opened her eyes and breathed in. “It helps keep away the nightmares.”

The air between them felt hot. David’s room was only few stairs away. He had the third-floor landing all to himself, closed off from everyone by a pair of heavy blanket curtains.

Once he was behind those curtains, no one could see him. He could bring Lucy in there, and they would have total privacy to do whatever they wanted.

Will’s laugh echoed up from the stairs below. It was sharp and had a malicious edge to it.

“I should…,” David said, pointing back toward his room.

“Oh,” Lucy said, looking down. “Right.”

David didn’t look away though. He knew Will had a thing for her. But she was the hottest girl in the gang, and she wanted to flirt with him. How much could it hurt? He’d saved her life.

“I’ll see you on the slopes,” he said.

“I’ll wear something hot,” Lucy said.

She blushed right afterward, then laughed and skipped down the stairs.

David climbed the last few stairs and ducked into his room, to sit down at last and eat his meat and oranges.

Lucy couldn’t sleep. Trying to visit Point Peak in her mind had been a bust. She pictured every bit of it, every inch of her descent down the slope, but she couldn’t stop smelling the kids sleeping around her. She couldn’t ignore the hard stair against her back. No matter what she pictured, no matter how vivid, she couldn’t get there. She was stuck in the Stairs.

She wanted to crawl up those fifteen stairs to David’s curtain door, past Belinda’s snoring, past the twins’ midnight murmurings, past the wet squelches coming from Gonzalo’s two-zipped-together sleeping bags, where his four foot ten girlfriend, Sasha, was somewhere inside, doing something that should’ve been done anywhere else but there. Lucy wanted disappear into David’s room, to be wrapped in his sturdy arms, feeling him.

“Wanna get out of here?” a voice whispered.

Lucy looked to the landing below. Will stood amid the sleeping bodies that packed the floor. He stared up at her with a tilted smile. She sat up. He was up to something.

“What do you mean?” Lucy said.

“Out of the Stairs. Let’s go for a walk.”

“We can’t. David said no one leaves the Stairs in-”

“In groups of less than fifteen. I know what he said. But I’m losing my mind in here. I feel like I’m sleeping in a beehive.”

“I know the feeling,” she said.

“So come on.”

Lucy stared at him. She shouldn’t. She should stay, keep on smelling her gang mates and twiddling her thumbs.

“It’ll be a thrill,” Will said, his smile getting wider.

“Just a short walk.”

Will held out his hand to her.

She took it. He was right, it was a thrill. They moved together, totally in sync, tiptoeing between the slumber-ing bodies, down the next flight, past the lounge, past the kitchen, and down to the bottom landing, all without saying a word. Will quietly plucked a club from the armory, a broken flagpole with a big brass eagle on the end.

Leonard had fallen asleep on guard duty. For such a quiet person, he snored like an old lady. Will very carefully lifted the chain from the door. Every movement of his hand was

controlled but quick. The door popped open with a soft click.

Will looked back to Lucy with a wiggle of his eyebrow. She knew this was stupid, so stupid. But it was fun. The air in the hall was warm and gross, but it felt so good to be out of the Stairs that she didn’t care.

“Don’t worry,” Will said, “I know my way around at night.” Lucy had never been walking at night. It felt sort of naughty.

She strolled down the hall next to Will. It was odd, the halls were so quiet. Every tiny noise was amplified. Someone must have been hearing them.

“Are you just saying that to sound cool?” Lucy said.

“Nope, I’m out at night all the time.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know. Why shouldn’t I go out, if I feel like it?” Will said.

“You’re not scared?”

“Of what?” He said it so matter-of-factly, like being afraid was a waste of time and energy.

It reminded her of they day they hiked up to Devil’s Spine. It was a narrow rock bridge. On either side was a seven-hundred-foot drop to a churning river below. Lucy was scared to death, everybody was. Chazz warned them that the extreme wind conditions meant that they would have to cross it on their hands and knees, but before he could finish his instructions, Will charged out onto the bridge. Lucy’s heart stopped-she was sure he was a goner. Chazz screamed after him to stop, but he didn’t. Will ran all the way to the other side and threw his hands up in victory. She’d never witnessed anything so daring in her life, and it turned her on.

Will rounded the next corner. Before following him, Lucy glanced back to the door of the Stairs, now a hundred feet behind her. She got a stab of anxiety and hurried up next to him.

“Will… I’m not sure we should do this,” she said. “David’s rule is sounding pretty good right now,” Lucy said. She stopped walking. Will sighed.

“David doesn’t get it. He doesn’t know what it’s like for us,” Will said.

“What do you mean, for us?”

“He’ll be out of here in months. We’ve both got years to go,” Will said.

Years. She focused on the new long hallway ahead. The air was dirty. There was barely any light. The lockers were littered with dents. Each month the lockers were more dented, the walls more scrawled with cuss words. Lately, people were taking the walls apart to use the wood and drywall. The walls.

What would be left of the place by the time she got out?

“It’s fine for him to play it safe,” Will continued. “He’s almost out. But we have to adapt to living here ’cause-well, we have no choice.”

Lucy didn’t want to think about the idea that David was going to leave.

“I know what you need,” Will said. He smiled and wagged his eyebrows up and down again. It was cute. “You need to run.” Will tugged her forward. She took big breaths and big strides. It felt good watching the school fly past her so fast.

She never got to run anymore. She either stayed in the Stairs, or she walked at a regular pace inside a tight group. That was the only thing that looked good about the food drops: Those kids got to run around.

Will wasn’t kidding, he did know his way around. Some corners he barreled right around, then at others he would make her stop and he’d peek around it first. The longer they went, the more she felt fast and slippery, like no one could catch her.