Devin scarfs down her mush of half-heated raspberry cobbler, lovingly spooned into a dry tortilla for structure. Ten days into their journey, most of her trail meals are monstrous combinations of other meals. Nothing tastes good, but this far down the trail, food is food.
She’s spent the last few days keeping her head above water. No more fighting, no more pushing back. No more reacting to every word Sheridan speaks. And to her credit, in three long days of hiking down valleys, up ridges, along small creeks, Sheridan hasn’t spoken to her once. Hasn’t even looked at her.
It feels strangely cold.
Against all odds, it’s Ollie that keeps her sane. Devin starts each day sitting at his side, trading bits of breakfast, talking about life in Portland. Ollie tells her about his father’s temper, the recent real estate failures that left him bitter, his grandmother’s terminal uterine cancer, his friends at school. At night, they talk about what they’ll do when they get home. She promises to visit the sneaker store downtown that Ollie dreams of shopping at. Ollie promises to help her find a Burgerville close to wherever she ends up. They find footing in the future and, to Devin’s surprise, it helps her through the bullshit present.
Today, when Devin watches Ollie, he doesn’t watch her back. His eyes land on Hannah as they hike. His eyes land on Hannah more than he realizes, Devin thinks. She can’t blame him. Hannah is the kind of girl Devin’s eyes would’ve found back home, too. Pretty in that conventional, senior-photos-in-a-field-of-wheat way. Her dark bob is shaggy now, wide eyes darker than night, lending a natural kindness to her face. She has an inoffensive laugh and a soft, rosy smile. It feels nice to be around Hannah, and Devin doubts Ollie’s had someone make him feel nice in a long time.
Devin gets it. She really does.
She motions vaguely in Hannah’s direction as they climb. “What’s your deal with Miss Jesus, by the way?”
“What?”
“You guys talk all the time. More than you talk to me.”
“Oh.” Ollie tries to hide it, but his cheeks flush. “She didn’t have a lot of people back home. I think she just likes having company.”
“Huh.”
“Her dad’s pretty horrible. I get worried.” Ollie slows, letting the rest of the group pass so that he and Devin linger at the back. Almost too quiet to hear, he says, “I think he’s really messed with her head. Like, even out here, the only thing she’s scared of is him being disappointed in her. She thinks … I don’t know, if she finishes this program, he’ll go back to thinking she’s perfect. Which I doubt.”
Devin’s eyes shift from Hannah to Sheridan. She doesn’t want to admit it, but what Ollie’s saying now is just a softer version of what Sheridan said before their fight.
After a few hours, the trees thin, giving way to a sun-soaked riverbank. Liv claps, bringing the group to a stop. The trees are sparser here, spread out enough to expose hills of gold grass and the angled peaks of snow-capped mountains on all sides.
“Congratulations to the first ever REVIVE Teen Rehabilitation Journey,” Liv says, beaming. “You’ve just reached your first milestone.”
Both Liv and Ethan grin ear-to-ear. They stand with their backs to the river, the bright sunlight splitting through the gaps in the trees, turning their REVIVE gear the color of fresh limes. The river isn’t terribly wide, but it’s fast. Pockets of white water break the surface, bucking from slick-backed boulders that jut from the riverbed. If this weren’t a waking nightmare and Devin wasn’t a prisoner here, she might love a day at the river. But the coaches are inventive, and she’s sure they’ll find a way to ruin even this.
“Milestones are a key piece of this program, guys,” Ethan says. “This first one means you’re now one-fifth of the way through. In ten days, we’ve seen you start the process of detaching from the things that scared and hurt you back home. You’ve started opening up to us and to each other. Both Liv and I are so proud of you.”
Liv nods.
Devin glances sidelong at Ollie, who rolls his eyes.
“So,” Ethan says, “today’s milestone is all about trusting each other. The river you’re looking at moves very quickly and, once you start floating downstream, it can be very difficult to swim to shore. Just like in real life, you’ll need to lean on your community to get to the other side.”
“We’ve brought some supplies for you,” Liv continues, always more focused on logistics than emotion. “We want you to take as long as you need to discuss your strategy for getting across. Then, as a team, you’ll gear up and get to the other side. Make sense?”
Silently, the group nods.
“Right.” Liv smiles. “Then let’s rock ’n’ roll.”
Aidan is the first to dig into the supplies. They’re given a small, green duffel bag with a handful of harnesses, a bundle of rope, and zip-up suits to keep them from getting wet. No wood or tools for building anything. No hook that might allow them to swing across. Devin stares at the supplies and waits for a solution to form that doesn’t involve them being fully submerged, but she comes up empty.
She quickly pulls the bundle of rope from the bag, uncoiling it along the forest floor. She’s sure there’s something missing. The river is too fast to safely swim across, but the gear they have doesn’t seem to solve that problem. Hannah pulls out one of the waterproof suits, holding it up to her chest to size it. Ollie inspects what’s laid out, worrying at his lower lip.
Leaning against a nearby tree, apparently uninterested in getting across the river, is Sheridan.
Devin stands and shuffles to Ollie’s side, eyes trained on the unspooled rope in front of them. She wants to ask Sheridan to at least pretend to participate, but Sheridan’s left her alone the last three days. As hard as it is, Devin forces herself to return the favor.
“You think it’s long enough to get across?”
Ollie pauses.
“Like, do you think it would reach the other side?” Devin says, motioning across the water. “If someone was holding it on this side.”
Ollie’s gaze runs the length of the rope. “Maybe? But how would we—”
“What if we made it a rope swing?” Aidan says, jumping to his feet. “We could swing everyone over. One at a time.”
Devin considers. She walks to the nearest tree, grasping one of its low-hanging branches. When she tugs down, the branch bends easily until it splinters apart, wetting the palm of her hand. She fixes Aidan with a small frown. “I don’t think it’ll hold.”
“They gave us harnesses,” Hannah says. She looks at the coaches. “They must want us to attach ourselves to the rope?”
The coaches exchange a glance, but offer no answer.
Next to Devin, Ollie bends down and takes a handful of rope. He tugs it once, twice, and his eyes find the water. To the coaches, he says, “Clarifying question—are we getting you guys across, too?”
Liv looks at Ethan and nods. “Yep. We’ll follow whatever plan you guys come up with.”
Ollie nudges Devin’s arm, rope splayed across his palms. “It might not work, but I think we could just swim across?”
Devin blinks. “Swim?”
“If we had one really good swimmer take the rope across, then harnessed each person to the rope and fed them across—”
“—like a chain,” Devin finishes. She eyes the water, lips flattened to a thin line. It feels too easy. “You think it could work?”
They walk to the water’s edge, Aidan and Hannah behind them. Devin’s eyes find a leaf on the water, following it quickly downstream until a flick of water pulls it under. She tries to imagine swimming fast enough to beat that current.
“Whoever went first would also need to be strong enough to drag the second person across by themselves,” Hannah says, arms folded over her chest. “So the first person should be the strongest, and the second person should be the lightest?”
Without a word, they all turn to Sheridan.
She looks up when the conversation falls silent. Devin’s hands ball into fists at her sides. Looking at Sheridan’s bony elbows jutting from under the hem of her too-big sleeves, there’s no denying who would be easiest to pull across.
“It would be you second, Sheridan,” Aidan says, matter of fact. “Does that work for you?”
“Depends on who’s first.”
Sheridan’s eyes slide to Devin.
Devin already knows. She knew it the moment they said the first swimmer would have to be someone strong. Even though she’s short, she’s got square shoulders and enough muscle to fill out the sleeves of her T-shirt. Aidan, Sheridan, and Hannah are all scrawny, and the river would swallow them whole. Even Ollie is a wisp of a boy. There’s no point considering any of them.
“Fine,” Devin says to the question no one is brave enough to ask. She turns to Ollie. “Walk me through the plan.”
Sheridan clears her throat. “That doesn’t work for me.”
“It’ll have to unless you wanna drown,” Devin scoffs.
Sheridan holds her stare for a long time before rolling her eyes.
They each climb into a wet suit and harness—even Sheridan, to Devin’s surprise—and shuffle into a crossing order. Devin stands at the front, eyes on the water, and Sheridan, Ollie, Aidan, Hannah, Ethan, and Liv line up behind her. Like a human paper chain, they connect the length of rope to each harness down the line. Devin tries to swallow the nausea because, as much as she trusts Ollie, this feels too simple.
Suited up, Devin stands at the water’s edge. Ollie touches her shoulder, but he doesn’t speak. They watch the coaches’ faces, waiting for them to give any sign that this is dangerous, but Ethan and Liv seem more or less confident in the plan. Devin tries to convince herself that, if this plan was a suicide mission, they’d at least say something.
“Okay,” Devin says. She pops her neck. “I’m gonna start, I guess. Just … don’t let me drown.”
With that, Devin wades into the water.
Immediately, she’s struck by the cold of it. The water slips quickly over the plastic of her wet suit, colder than it has any right to be. It snatches the breath straight from her lungs, freezing her limbs in place. For a moment, she can’t move. She feels the heat of everyone’s stares behind her and bites the inside of her cheek. She won’t look weak. Especially not in front of …
It doesn’t matter. She closes her eyes and pushes herself into the current.
On impact, she loses her breath again. She slaps at the water to keep her head up. Sun glares into her eyes and she loses sight of the shore. The tug of the rope at her waist keeps her from soaring downstream, but it doesn’t slow the push of the water at her chest.
“We’ve got you, Devin!” Ethan’s muffled voice calls from behind her. “Keep swimming!”
Water beats against Devin’s face, each strike colder than the last. She ducks her head down, draws her arms back, and starts kicking like she’s an Olympian. The river floods her mouth when she turns to breathe, forcing her to spit every few seconds. She kicks until her muscles burn and her waterlogged nose stings and the air is razor-sharp in her lungs. She kicks until her elbow crashes into something soft. Something sandy.
Devin claps her hand over a rock, hauling herself from the water. She drags herself to the dirt and flops to her back, gasping for air.
She hears Ollie’s cheers first.
Devin rolls to her knees and spits the rest of the water she inhaled in the dirt. She wasn’t as good a swimmer as she remembered, but apparently it was enough to hit the other shore. The trees sway softly behind her and the sun is warm at her back. It’s quiet here.
It feels too quiet.
Devin turns to the woods behind her. The space between trees is deep and dark, expanding before her. However far they’ve hiked to get here, she imagines the woods in front of her stretch impossibly longer. Something rustles in the brush.
These woods are different.
The rest of the group, save Sheridan, cheers as Devin jogs up the waterline. She stops once she’s level with the others. The river leaves her sopping wet, shedding puddles in her wake. She wipes at her forehead, one eye shut to squint away the sunlight. When her breathing quiets, she motions across the water. “Okay. Send her over.”
Sheridan is hard to make out, but Devin doesn’t see her mouth move. No sassy comments, no insults. She wades into the water without a fight. Another surprise.
Immediately, Devin feels the tug at her waist. She grips the rope, shifting her feet for traction. It should be easy to pull Sheridan across. Even soaking wet, Devin is sure anyone could pull Sheridan on their own.
She hovers in the water a little until her eyes find Devin’s. They’re the same color as the river, clear and blue-gray, wide with fear. Whatever issues they might have, it doesn’t matter now. Devin grits her teeth and pulls.
To her credit, Sheridan gives a few weak kicks to propel herself along. But most of her progress comes from Devin. The rope chafes in Devin’s palms and she’s sure, when this is over, she’ll be nursing blisters for days.
And while she pulls, her unease deepens.
She pulls and she’s sure there’s someone behind her. She pulls again and looks, but there’s no one there. Across the water, the rest of the group cheers and Devin pulls one final time. When Sheridan reaches the rocks at the shore, she scrambles out of the water like a soaked cat, patting at her wet suit like she can slap the water away.
Devin knows a nice person would help Sheridan to her feet, but she doesn’t. She pulled her across; that’ll have to be enough.
“Thanks,” Sheridan mutters sarcastically. Her lavender hair is dark as a bruise when it’s wet, stuck to her neck and back. She coughs up a bit of water and wipes her mouth. Flatly, she says, “Knew I could count on you.”
Devin scoffs. “Sure.”
Sheridan moves to Devin’s side and grips the rope, shockingly quiet. Across the water, Ollie readies himself to wade in. He’s quick to push himself from the shore, drifting into the current. Devin nods at him and tugs at the rope, but at her side, Sheridan stumbles. Devin clamps her hands over Sheridan’s, squeezing to secure the rope. Ollie’s chin bobs into the water, but he quickly starts swimming.
“Shit,” Sheridan mutters. “Was I this hard to pull?”
Devin says nothing. She might’ve helped pull Sheridan to safety, but that doesn’t mean their silence has to end. She moves her hands from Sheridan’s and wipes them on her pants before grabbing the rope again, this time without physical contact.
“I’m surprised you didn’t just let me drown,” Sheridan muses.
“It was tempting,” Devin says, despite herself.
Sheridan says nothing, but when she turns to face the water again, Devin is sure she sees a flash of a smile.
Devin locks eyes on Ollie. She cups her hand around her mouth and calls, “Pull yourself along the rope. You don’t even have to swim. We’ve got you.”
Ollie nods. He grabs the rope and begins pulling himself along, bobbing in the water like a caught fish reeling to shore. Devin’s muscles burn and her chest tightens, but she keeps pulling. When Ollie finally reaches the center of the river, Sheridan stumbles and the rope goes slack. Devin digs her heels into the soil and grips the rope harder.
“Don’t let go,” Devin hisses.
“I didn’t mean to,” Sheridan snaps. “Calm down.”
Devin rolls her eyes and goes back to pulling. Across the water, the rest of the group holds their end of the rope, slowly feeding Ollie across. Hannah shouts something to Ollie that seems to bolster him. Devin closes her eyes, sucking in the scent of pines and fresh water. Once Ollie crosses, it’ll be easier to pull the others.
Behind her, Devin hears it again. The vacuum of sound so close it tickles her neck. It’s the piercing, hot feeling of eyes on her. She turns to face the thick wall of trees, but there’s nothing there. She watches branches shuffle against each other, but the sound of them doesn’t register. It’s almost … too soundless. Devin grips the rope harder, but her palms are slick with sweat. Something in the trees can see her. She’s positive.
In the brief moment that Devin’s focus slips, Sheridan stumbles again.
This time, she loses her footing, plummeting to the dirt with a thump. The rope attached to her harness drags her along the shore while, in the water, Ollie sinks. Devin clutches the rope hard, scrambling to keep Ollie from drifting away.
Sheridan clamors for her harness. In a moment that stretches for hours, Sheridan pinches the buckle holding the rope to her harness and releases it. She thuds to the ground and the sudden force of it rips the rope—and Ollie—from Devin’s grasp.
Devin doesn’t have time to think about Sheridan. She bursts into a sprint, chasing Ollie as he dips over and over under the water’s surface. Across the river, she hears Ethan call out, Shit. The other group scrambles to keep a grip on Ollie’s rope, but he slides quickly out of their control, too. Hannah’s hands are clamped around the rope and she pulls with all her strength, but her heels scoot into the water inch-by-inch. In a moment, Ollie will be taking the rest of the group with him.
On Devin’s side, the rope slithers down the shore. Devin bounds after it, eyes trained on Ollie as blips of his screams break the surface of the water. Just swim, Ollie, Devin thinks, but with the speed of the water he doesn’t stand a chance. Devin runs harder. She skips over a particularly round boulder, sucks in a breath, and she jumps into the water.
At first, it’s relief that floods her. Relief that she doesn’t have to run anymore, relief that she’s finally moving fast enough to catch up. She dunks under the surface and rights herself, swimming toward Ollie. Her hand closes around the rope at his waist. She kicks hard, pulling the rope with her until she can secure it to her own belt.
When she emerges again, the wind chaps her wet cheeks. They’re moving fast. Miraculously, Ollie’s head is still above water. His sharp inhales wheeze loud enough to be heard over the rapids.
“I can’t breathe,” he chokes.
“Just keep kicking,” Devin shouts. “I got you.”
She dips back into the water and wraps both of her arms around Ollie’s waist before she starts kicking, too, angling them toward the shore. If the other group still has a grip on their end of the rope, Devin prays they haven’t fallen in behind them. Her lungs burn and her head spins, but with a final burst of energy, she kicks and kicks until the heel of her hand collides with the shore.
They collapse together, spitting up water and dirt, gasping for air. Somewhere across the river, someone asks if Ollie is breathing and Devin doesn’t have the strength to answer. She pushes herself to her hands and knees, and her relief is replaced by something faster and hotter.
Rage.
Sheridan’s footsteps patter down the shore like she thinks she can salvage the situation. Like she thinks she can be helpful in any capacity. Like she didn’t cause this.
Devin stands, flicking water from her arms, and turns to Sheridan.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she demands.
Behind her, Ollie spits up another mouthful of water with an awful retch. Sheridan looks from Devin to Ollie and her expression hardens. “The fuck is wrong with me? Maybe you should direct that at the literal adults who made us do this.”
Devin scoffs. “They didn’t unhook themselves. You did.”
When Devin takes a step forward, she expects Sheridan to flinch. But Sheridan only folds her arms over her chest, sunlight bright in her eyes. “Calm down and use your brain for three seconds, dumbass.”
In a single step, Devin closes the space between them, grabbing Sheridan’s shirt with her fists. She drags Sheridan closer until their faces are only inches apart. Sheridan gasps, but it isn’t fear that floods her eyes. Her stare is half-lidded. Almost curious.
It’s disgusting.
“Why’d you unhook yourself?”
Sheridan searches her face a moment. “I was gonna drown, too.”
“I wouldn’t have let you.”
Sheridan moves her hand to grab Devin’s fist, prying an inch more space between them. “Yeah, I’m so convinced you have my best interests at heart.”
“You’re so…”
Devin searches for the right word, but there’s nothing that describes the cloying, awful, humiliating feeling she gets when Sheridan looks at her. There’s nothing she can say, no way to get out from under it.
Sheridan smiles. “You gonna hit me again? No one to stop you.”
Devin’s breath comes out ragged. There’s something maddening about the immovability of Sheridan. The unrelenting apathy. She should care that Ollie almost died. She should care when she hurts people, when she puts them in danger, when things are her fault. Sheridan’s long, light lashes flutter. Her eyes land briefly on Devin’s lips before trailing back to her eyes.
“Devin,” Ollie croaks, finally sitting up. “Don’t. It’s not—”
“Everything okay over there?” Ethan calls from across the water.
Devin should drop it, but she’s back in the bad headspace again. She’s staring into Sheridan’s clear blue eyes and cruel smirk and forcing herself to be the bigger person. She’s in the parking lot at school, clenching her fist on the way to Danielle’s car. The wind is cold on her wet skin, even under the white-hot sun. Sheridan’s breath is hot on her face. Between the strangeness of the riverbank and the nausea churning in her gut, Devin is sure she’s losing her mind. Her hands shake in the fabric of Sheridan’s shirt.
She unclenches her fists and Sheridan stumbles back.
“Look at that,” Sheridan drawls, smoothing out her shirt. “They say therapy doesn’t make you better.”
It’s all Devin can do not to change her mind and toss Sheridan in the water.
“You’re disgusting,” Devin snarls. “I don’t get how you … you literally don’t care that he almost died? That doesn’t make you feel bad?”
Sheridan looks at Ollie. “He’s not dead.”
Devin casts a sharp glance across the water, spotting both coaches with their hands on their hips, eyes trained on the fight. The rise and fall of her chest is electric. She clenches her jaw, eyes sliding back to Sheridan. “Next time, I hope it’s you who goes under. It’d make things easier for the rest of us.”
Sheridan’s eyes widen. It’s almost too small to notice, but Devin notices it. More than she notices the shifting of the branches or fumbling of the leaves down the shore, she notices the slight shift in Sheridan’s face. For just a moment, Sheridan felt something. She hurt.
Devin clenches her fists and turns to Ollie. “You okay?”
Ollie spits up more water, then takes Devin’s hand. Once he’s standing, he doubles over, hands on his bony knees. His usually sandy hair is black and heavy with water, sticking to his cheeks and neck. When he finally speaks, it’s a croak. “What kind of superhuman are you?”
“Being able to swim isn’t a superpower,” Devin says. “This whole thing is more embarrassing for you, I think.”
Ollie looks up and his smile softens. “Thank you.”
After a few minutes pass, they reassemble and pull the rest of the group across, Ollie and Devin doing the bulk of the work while Sheridan mopes behind them. Miraculously, the others make it without a problem, and with everyone across the river, they hike deeper into the woods. As hard as she tries, Devin can’t shake the feeling that something is different now. That something changed between morning and night. The woods are deeper and darker, quieter in a way that makes Devin ill.
They may have crossed their first milestone, but for the first time since they arrived, Devin is sure they’re in real danger.