On my way out, I pause at the door, looking back at the bed.
Sam is curled on her side with one arm tucked under her pillow, her lighter hair making the smattering of freckles on her nose stand out more than they did before. With the freckles and her face soft with sleep, she looks so much younger. She could be fourteen, thirteen, that same girl in the fluffy black dress and combat boots who cared enough about the new kid to step in and speak up when I was about to get my ass kicked.
She’s always been a good person. I’m not surprised that she’s reached a crossroads with her own conscience now that the time to act is so close. I just hope she understands that I meant what I said last night. I’m not going to judge her, either way. If she wants to walk, I’ll walk. And if she needs vengeance, I’ll help her take it. I would take it for her if she would let me, but she’s always been one to fight her own battles, even when she was a little girl standing up to bullies twice her size.
My heart turns over, my chest aching with love so fierce it feels like it might tear me apart.
I’m tempted to cross to the bed and kiss her awake, just to hear her say goodbye, but instead I shut the door and start toward the mess hall. She needs rest if she’s going to look all the hard questions in the face and find answers and I have to get food in my belly and my tired ass ready for work.
As I cross the hard-packed ground, the air around me is filling with the sounds of the compound coming to life. But gently, the people and animals and the sounds of both starting their days in harmony with each other. This is a special place, so unspoiled that I can’t help wishing Sam and I were here just to enjoy the peace.
This is a place where Nature rules and though she isn’t always kind, she at least gives you a fighting chance. Nature doesn’t believe in inequality. The weaker animals have superior numbers and adaptations to protect them, and the stronger animals have to fight to survive every bit as much as the creatures they prey upon. There’s harmony in that and in the way these people have carved out an existence from the jungle without disturbing the natural order.
It’s easy to find your center here, and by the time I’ve had coffee and eggs with rice, I’m looking forward to a day outside in the sun, enjoying the simple things.
But I should have known better than to drop my guard.
It’s a small world, especially this corner of it, and no red-blooded American frat boy can resist the call of an Extreme Zip Line. Still, when I jump out of Paola’s jeep at the visitor center to find the entire Sigma Beta Epsilon frat sprawled across the benches outside the office and spilling down the front steps, I can’t believe my shit luck.
But there they are—J.D., Jeremy, and Todd, who is already hitting on a pretty, way-too-young-for-him blond girl in a black tank top. He’s wearing a faded orange tee shirt and that smug look that makes me want to punch him in the mouth a few hundred times.
My gut screams for me to get out of here, but I can’t. If I play sick, Paola won’t be able to get anyone else here in time to help her lead the tour.
Besides, Todd has already spotted me.
As I climb the steps behind Paola to grab the manifest and make sure the waivers have all been signed, I can feel his eyes on me. There’s no question now. He recognizes me—either from the pool or the pictures on Sam’s phone. If it’s the first, I can play it off and say that I have friends at the resort who let me come use the pool on my days off.
But if it’s the second…
I force a smile for Paola as she makes a joke about the amount of testosterone on the tour today—aside from the girl Todd is flirting with, who’s here with her parents and younger brother, there are only two other women—but inside I’m making plans.
There are fifteen different zip lines and the platforms in the middle of the tour are over two hundred feet in the air. We’re strapped in at all times—either to a platform or the zip line—but if someone were to accidentally become detached, stumble, and take a fall off one of those bigger platforms, it would be deadly. It’s happened before at other zip lines. That’s why everyone on these tours is required to sign a waiver acknowledging that they won’t hold the company responsible if they’re seriously injured or even killed.