Kyle could get over it, look how he’d gotten over Melody already.
I knew I couldn’t.
When Kyle snorted himself awake, half an hour later, my mind was made up.
Protect me protect me protect me.
He looked over the top of the raft, his eyes so wide and earnest that I knew he was asking me a silent question.
I looked back at him, hurting so much more than I should be, and gave him my silent reply.
He looked down, and coughed.
We hadn’t said a word, and yet we both knew it was over. Over before it really began. It was the only way really – unless I was a masochist.
I clambered back into the raft and we wordlessly paddled ourselves out into the steady swell of the river. I stared and stared at the back of his head as we floated past beautiful view followed by beautiful view, and tried to swallow down the tears that were wedged in my throat.
No reason to cry, Amber. Nothing has been lost. You’re just being smart. Less hurt now to avoid more hurt later.
It’s weird how the inside of your head can ruin such stunning exterior moments of your life. As we passed the Yosemite Falls, my head didn’t take it all in and think, Wow, this is so awesome, be humbled, Amber, be humbled. Nope, it was whirring and churning about Kyle, about my mum, about me. Introspection, self-loathing, thinking, whinging, upset, all the time time time. I may as well have been looking at the view from Bognor Regis train station.
The river got quieter, smoother, even the views calmed down a bit. I could tell we’d been through the golden bit of the raft tour. We still didn’t talk. Not even when I got us stuck under another bridge. Not when we came to the end of the rafting zone of the river, greeted by tanned topless boys who waved and helped us drag the raft up onto the beach. Not when we waited for the shuttle bus to return us to the top of the river again.
Kyle kept looking at me, like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t.
“Wanna go see Yosemite Falls one last time?” he asked, finally.
I nodded.
We walked to the wild-flower meadow I’d seen when we first drove into the park. It seemed so long ago. So much had happened since sunrise.
“It really is pretty.” My words sounded empty and forced.
“Yep.” So did his.
“Can we get any closer?”
“Yeah, there’s a trail.”
The “trail” was a walkway made of wooden platforms and rammed full of people. The entire world appeared to be there to have their photo taken. We had to dodge and weave like we were on the London Underground in rush hour.
“Why is it so busy?” I asked, as we waited for a couple to finish taking photos of each other so we didn’t walk in front of their shot. They thanked us and we walked past.
“It’s American law that the national parks are for the people, they belong to us, they can’t limit how many people come in,” Kyle explained. “Good idea in theory. In reality it means they’re all too busy to enjoy properly.”
I could hear the thrash of the waterfall. A few more metres and a right-hand turn and we were right at the bottom of it. The water hit the rocks, spraying everyone on the cute viewing bridge with water.
I leaned over the railing, closing my eyes so I could feel the spray hit my face better. It felt good on the heat of my skin. There were no rainbows here though…
“That’s interesting,” I said. “That America sort of protects them, and then ruins them like that.”
“Amber?”
I opened my eyes. “Yes?”
“Why are we talking like we’re at a bad dinner party?”
I turned my head, and he looked so pained. He gripped the railings so hard he had white bumps on his fists.
“We are?” I played dumb.
“We really are. You just walked past an entire group of cheerleaders on tour, all wearing matching hot pants with sexy nicknames monogrammed across their butt cheeks and you didn’t launch into a rant.”
“There was?”
How did I not see that? That definitely would’ve annoyed me!
“Yep. They got off a coach. They’re right behind us on the trail. They were taking so many selfies we overtook them.”
I tried to smile. “I thought Melody and her friends were in LA?”
“Stop changing the subject.”
“I’m not…”
“You are. Look…” He ran his hands over his face. “I know I’ve messed up, okay? I shouldn’t have kissed you…”
He shouldn’t?!
“… It wasn’t fair of me to just maul you like that. I just thought it was…mutual…”
It IS mutual! But…
“But it’s been so much fun just to be your friend these last few weeks. I would be majorly bummed if I messed that up. So, can we just forget this morning ever happened?”
I could never forget that morning had ever happened – the mist, the rainbows, the way Kyle’s mouth tasted, the way a big frozen part of me melted when we kissed again, a part of me that had frozen right back up the moment I’d wrecked it all with my overthinking.
“Amber, please? Can you just talk to me? You’re never not talking!”
I whipped around. “Hey!”
We both smiled.
“Yay, I got words out of you.”
“I…”
I opened my mouth to explain my thinking. All I wanted to do was just grab him and bury myself into him and say, I really like you, and even though I don’t know you very well, I think I want to be with you, but you’re a fucking Prom King and you live in America and I fly away in less than a month and your heart will heal but mine really really won’t.
But he held out his hand to stop me.
“You don’t have to say anything, or explain anything. Can we just go back to how it was? Like, six hours ago?”
It couldn’t, both of us knew that. But when has denial ever been ignored as a very useful coping mechanism?
“In that case,” I said, smiling, “can we go find these cheerleaders? I want to take photos to show Lottie and Evie.”
Just as I said it, they appeared over the slope. We watched as they all bent over to spell a word that was formed by the letters sewn onto their bums – posing so long, as all of them wanted a photo taken on their phone, that they caused a queue for the waterfall.
I laughed so hard, Kyle had to hold me up. Then I told him all about Female Chauvinist Pigs, and he listened and smiled and didn’t touch me. We drove out of the park and went for dinner at this cute youth hostel up in the mountains called the Yosemite Bug, and he didn’t touch me. And we drove out into the night, talking, but not touching, until eventually we pulled up at some dubious-looking motel and collapsed into separate beds, not touching.
There was no touching.
SITUATIONS THAT ARE DESTINED TO FAIL:
Prom Kings
+
Psychoanalysis
+
Long car journeys
Twenty-two
Kyle was already up when I woke.
Fully dressed. Reading another biography.
Why do boys look so sexy when they read? Somebody should really tell them that. I blinked a few times, the dank motel room coming into focus as my sleepy mind awoke to where I was, what had happened.
Kyle looked up from his book. “Morning, camper.”
I rolled over onto my front, so my full-of-sleep face wasn’t on show.
“Morning. How long you been up?”
“Not too long. You snore, you know?”
“I do?” The thought was so horrifying I actually covered my mouth. I’d never slept in the same room as a boy before. I hadn’t even really slept in the same room as many girls. The Spinster Club didn’t have sleepovers as Evie found them too difficult and Lottie and I didn’t want her to feel left out.
“Ha, only kidding.” He smiled, and I thought how nice it was, to be smiled at like that, by a boy, in your own room, after waking up together.