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I trust Holden completely. If he says it’s safe, I believe him.
I slip his coat on. The smell of cinnamon surrounds me as I walk toward the ladder and take a deep breath. Glance up, at what looks like a very long climb.
There’s nothing wrong with being cautious. But I’ve felt a little more reckless lately.
Maybe it’s being a senior, knowing next year my life will drastically change.
Maybe it’s the way my family is fracturing and I can’t do anything about it.
Whatever the reason, I’m not sure that it’s a bad thing. Comfort zones can be as constricting as they are reassuring.
It takes me longer to climb than it took Holden, but I make it.
And the view from the topisamazing. It reminds me a little of our hike on the camping trip, seeing so much land stretching around. Dark forest stretches in one direction, the twinkling lights of the town and the university in the other.
I offer Holden his coat back but he tells me to keep it, his eyes darkening to navy the way they often do whenever he sees me wearing something of his.
We stand and stare at the view for a while before Holden’s phone begins buzzing.
“Finn is wondering where we are,” he tells me. “You ready to go?”
“Yeah,” I agree.
Holden heads down and I’m right behind him. I’m not sure he couldactuallycatch me if I lost my grip or a rung suddenly crumbled, but that’s what I tell myself the whole trip down.
We retrace the dirt path that led from downtown here, the path hard to see now that the sun is almost gone.
I can see the lights of the town through the trees. That’s what I’m focused on, when three guys suddenly appear on the path in front of us. There’s an opening to the left that leads to a clearing—almost a park, but not really—that they must have come from.
They’re high, by the smell of it, and a couple are also holding beer bottles.
Holden immediately tenses, so I do too.
“Wassup?” one asks, grinning at us.
They don’t seem unfriendly, but I’m still uneasy. I shift a little closer to Holden, my grip on his jacket tightening.
“Hey, you’re the Richmond basketball player, right?” Another guy, this one in front—the guy closest to us—waves the open beer bottle he’s holding in Holden’s direction.
Some splashes out of the rim, foam fizzing as it hits exposed soil.
“I play.” That’s all Holden says.
“And you’re a real hotshot, huh?”
“Depends on who you ask.”
“I’m asking you.”
Holden smirks, the expression a strange contrast to the tense line of his shoulders. “No one’s that lucky. Talent and skill show up somewhere along the way.”
“If I put some money on you, would that be a safe investment?”
I already figured, based on the way they’re wandering around in the woods, stoned and drunk, that these guys probably aren’t upstanding citizens or model students. But a fresh thrill of unease runs through me, trying to figure out exactly what their angle is here. Their interest in Holden is especially concerning.
“I’m one player out of five, man. Whether we win depends on a lot of factors, including the other team.”
Beer Bottle nods slowly at Holden’s answer, but there’s nothing stilted in the way his eyes dart toward me. I’m beginning to think it’s all an act—the beer bottle and the easy drawl.
