Chapter 2 - A Revealing Hike
First period was Chemistry. I was actually pretty good at Chemistry, but I wasn’t nearly as good as Chandler. Besides Faedra, Chandler was my next best friend. He was a brainiac. You might be wondering why a brainiac like Chandler would want to be friends with a regular-old super-not like me. Well, let’s just say he was a bit socially awkward. Okay, he was a lot socially awkward.
I noticed him sitting by himself on the first day of school back in eighth grade, so I went and asked if I could sit with him. I mean, I assumed he was a super-not like me. Skinny, a foot shorter than anyone else in the room, and wearing coke-bottle glasses. We started talking, and it turned out he’s a cool guy underneath all the super-smart geekiness. We’d been friends ever since. Needless to say, our Chemistry projects rocked!
Brainiacs had advanced classes for most of their subjects, but they were required to take at least one ‘social normalization elective’ per term to help them learn to socialize with non-brainiacs. That meant they had to take a normal course, like the rest of us. Otherwise, they’d tend to lose the ability to communicate with mere mortals about normal things like relationships, sports, and pretty much anything else that didn’t involve nuclear physics or some form of higher math. Luckily for me, Chandler chose to take science as his social normalization elective.
One year, for the science project competition, we made a rocket using only items available at the local hardware store, plus a go-pro camera, that actually made it into sub-orbit. Yes, sir, first place in the state competition for that one. He’d already received a four-year scholarship to MIT that was waiting for him after he graduated.
“Hey, Chandler,” I said as I sat down at our lab table. “What’s our lab on today?”
“How to make wood alcohol through distillation,” he replied. “I took the liberty of setting up the apparatus. Make sure to keep the temperature of the water at precisely 78.3 degrees Celsius. That’s the optimum temperature for the distillation process.”
I scanned the lab instruction sheet the teacher had placed on our desks and didn’t see the temperature mentioned anywhere. “Did he write that temperature on the board somewhere? ‘Cause I don’t see it.”
“No.”
“Okay, wise-guy, did you look that up on your phone?”
He looked at me with a quizzical look on his face.
“The temperature... how do you know it should be 78.3 degrees Celsius?” I prod.
“Science Journal, issue 57... I learned that in fourth grade.”
“Really, super-geek?” Chandler was totally out of touch with how smart (and geeky) he actually was.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. Saves me five minutes trying to find that information on the internet. Hey, we still on for the afternoon hike?”
“Yeah, sure,” he replied. “I wore my hiking shoes, so I don’t even need to go home first.” He stuck a skinny leg out from under the table to brandish one of his shoes, and wiggled it.
“Cool.”
Hiking was a shared passion for Chandler and me. We both loved the stunning views from the tops of the mountains near where we lived, and it gave us both a chance to escape from the sometimes suffocating world we lived in. Me from being surrounded by supers that I could never compete with physically, and Chandler from being surrounded by frequently challenging and awkward social situations that he wanted to avoid like the plague. Out there, we could be just who we were with no one to judge. Faedra came along with us most of the time. I wasn’t sure if she liked it as much as Chandler and I did, but she seemed to have a good time.
The bell rang, and the teacher called the class to order, took roll, and then gave us the intro to the day’s lab. We were done fifteen minutes before anyone but Sam Tulver’s team. Sam was another brainiac.
* * * * *
The school pep rally went off without a hitch. The Cool Tones’ performance of Faedra’s song was out of the ball park good. I watched her scream along with everyone else in the crowd when the song was over. She seemed so happy, so... beautiful... Suddenly it felt hotter in the gym. Not because of the hundreds of screaming high schoolers sitting all around me, either. Faedra was my best friend, and we’d been best friends forever, but what I’d just felt wasn’t a best friend feeling.
I noticed how pretty her wavy blond hair looked as it fell down her back. Then I came back to my senses. What the heck was that about? Must be some crazy teenage hormones. I looked back at her, and she turned to look at me, her smile a mile wide, and suddenly I blushed. I smiled back, trying to cover up my embarrassment.
“That was great!” I said, shifting the conversation to anything but myself. “You did a really good job on that song, Fae.”
“I am sooo pumped!” she replied, turning back to the band as the next song started.
I was just relieved that she wasn’t looking in my direction any longer.
* * * * *
After school, Faedra and I met up at Chandler’s truck. He was already there waiting for us. We all piled in the front, shoving our book bags onto the floorboard. Faedra sat in the middle, and I rolled down the passenger window so we didn’t suffocate on the way out of town. The A/C had sprung a pin-hole leak two weeks before when we’d all gone muddin’, and all of the refrigerant had leaked out. But it was a beautiful day, and the breeze felt good against my face as we tore off down the road.
An hour later, we’d parked in one of the little off-road parking lots at the trail head of one of our favorite hiking trails. We liked it because not many people hiked this trail at this time of day. It led up to a rock outcrop at the top of one of the mountains, and the view was breathtaking. It wasn’t as high up as Cheaha Overlook, but it was still a great view.
Today, the hiking was perfect. We didn’t see another single soul on the way up to the top, and we didn’t speak for the first ten minutes on the trail. Finally, Chandler broke the silence.
“My parents are getting a divorce,” he said matter-of-factly.
“What?!” I said as I stopped and turned around. He almost ran into me.
“Yeah, I mean... I’m pretty sure. The signs are all there, you know. They don’t talk much to each other anymore. Everything they say is either to my sister or me – almost never directly to each other. Dad keeps working later and later. I’ve seen my mom... I’ve seen my mom crying sometimes on the back porch... Anyway, like I said. I think they’re getting a divorce. Statistically, it’s not unusual... but it still sucks.”
I looked at Faedra and her face showed the same thing I was feeling. “Are you sure? Maybe they’re just going through a hard time,” she said as she put her hand on Chandler’s shoulder. I felt something when I saw her hand touch him – jealousy maybe? I’m such a jerk! I thought to myself. My second best friend’s parents were probably getting a divorce, and I was jealous of him because Faedra was touching his shoulder. Get a grip, Dylan!
“I feel... I just feel that something bad is about to happen and I can’t do anything about it. I’m not sure what to do.”
“Dude, if there’s anything I can do...” I offered.
“Well... I just wanted to tell you guys, that’s all. If it’s going to happen, then it happens.”
Faedra gave Chandler a side-hug, and I felt my chest tightening up. I bit my tongue and didn’t say anything. Must not let feelings show! I told myself like I was Bruce Banner trying to keep the Hulk from showing up.
“Thanks, I appreciate it, you guys.” After a few moments, he continued, “Let’s just keep hiking; I don’t want to talk about it anymore right now.”
I could tell he was about to cry. Faedra was about to cry, too. I was about to explode. I turned around and started hiking up the mountain again, grateful the moment was over with.
* * * * *
At long last, we reached the overlook where a rock outcrop jutted out from the top of the mountain and gave us a great view of the surrounding mountains and the valley before us. The sun was starting to set, and the sky was turning that glorious mixture of pink, purple, blue, and yellow. The forest around and below us stretched for miles and miles, and the new bright green growth of spring was beginning to show on some of the hardwoods, interspersed with the evergreens. I took a deep breath and just stared. No one said anything for what seemed like an hour, even though it was probably just a few minutes.
“Well, we better head back down or it’ll be dark before we reach the car,” I finally said. Even though I’d brought my flashlight, I wanted to avoid the possibility of missing a marker in the fading light and spending the night lost in the woods.
As I turned to go, I heard the sound of loose gravel and Chandler’s voice saying, “Whoa!” My head whipped back around, and I saw him in what seemed like slow motion as he began to fall off of the edge of the rock we’d just been standing on. I began to reach out to him, but even as I did, I knew I wouldn’t reach him in time. It was fifty feet down to some more rocks – a fall that would surely kill him. But Faedra’s hand was on his shoulder in a flash and she pulled him back onto safe ground, where he regained his footing.
Chandler was bent over, catching his breath, obviously aware of how close he’d just come to dying. Faedra’s hand was on his back as she bent down to speak to him. “Are you okay?” she asked. I didn’t feel that same feeling that I’d felt when she’d put her hand on his shoulder earlier. What I was feeling was something else entirely. Because, as I’d watched Faedra pull Chandler back onto the rock, I’d seen something that Chandler didn’t see. When she pulled him back to safety, Faedra had been standing on nothing but air.