Strong emotions and exercise are two things that will trigger my asthma, and having just had a hefty dose of each, it's no surprise that my lungs feel too tight and my breath whistles in my throat. Anxiety zings through my veins, making my heart pound and my hands tingle, and panic looms like a dark cloud at the back of my mind.
I force myself to take slow, deep breaths, in through my nose and out through my mouth, as I retrace my steps towards camp. I can't have walked more than a kilometer, despite my emotion-fueled pace, and I'll be back at my tent, inhaler in hand, in less than ten minutes. If I can just stay calm, I'll be fine.
Dry gravel crunches under the soles of my sturdy hiking shoes, and a fitful wind tousles my hair. It was already getting long when the internship began. The curls hide most of the length, but it's nearly to my shoulders when it's wet. I need to get it cut when I get back, but I hate to pay salon prices. Maybe Lana will cut it for me.
Distracting myself with such mundane thoughts, I focus on anything except the wheeze in my lungs and the way my vision seems darker at the edges. I've only passed out from a combined panic and asthma attack once before, and the memory isn't pleasant.
My high school gym teacher had concluded, in his infinite wisdom, that I was a whiner and a fake, when I'd asked to be excused from training for an upcoming track meet while still recovering from a cold. Threatened with detention (the horror) I'd done my best to run, panicked at the point furthest from the locker rooms (where I'd left my medicine) and fainted. The gym teacher had then panicked, too, and called 911, which is how I ended up in the ER.
There, to make my day even better, I'd had to endure the doctor's pitying glances as my dad insisted that no son of his would panic or faint, and she'd had to explain that I had, indeed, done both.
It only happened that once, but I never really lived it down—at school or at home. A few kids even mentioned it in my yearbook ("Stay conscious, Charlie!" Ha fucking ha, Jake) and my dad makes backhanded comments to this day about stamina and 'grit,' or whatever the fuck running until you die because you're terrified of 'weakness' is called.
It's a painful memory, fraught with negative feelings, and I try to focus on something more positive. Unfortunately, the best I can come up with is that if I pass out and no one finds me, exposure or asphyxiation will spare me another trip to the ER.
Finally cresting the small rise above camp, I stop in my tracks and stare. Like a cartoon character, I actually blink and rub my eyes, but the scene doesn't change.
The camp isn't there.
For a full two seconds, my irrational conclusion is that everyone packed up and left me here, but that's impossible. Even if they'd started the instant I was out of sight, there's no way they could break down the tents and get everything packed in thirty minutes.
The truth, when it settles in, is no less alarming, because the truth is the camp was never here.
When I stormed off earlier, it was late evening, but there had still been plenty of light in the sky. Now, the first stars have appeared, and most of the color has drained from the world, leaving behind only blues and gray. On my way back, I'd been so lost in my own thoughts, caught between memory and trying not to panic, that I must have taken a wrong turn, or gotten turned around, and now I'm lost.
Panic slams into me like a bus, heat exploding in my chest and cold sweat breaking out across my chest and back. Dizzy, I collapse to sit on the ground, heedless of the sharp gravel poking through my jeans, and lean forward with my head between my knees.
It's your own damn fault, I tell myself, fighting to remain rational and calm. The first day in camp, one of the first things they told us was not to wander off alone. It might seem like you can't get lost in a barren landscape, but if you don't take note of landmarks, it's easy to get turned around. Another thing they told us was that if we were to get lost, we should remain where we are and not keep wandering around, potentially getting more lost, or inadvertently eluding rescuers.
That's hard advice to follow, though, and with night closing in and my breathing more strained than ever, I feel like I can't wait. If I don't save myself, no one else will.
Rising, I stumble back down the 'trail.' If I can get to some higher ground, maybe I'll be able to see the light from camp, or hear people making noise, or—
My foot slips and I fall, twisting my ankle and landing hard, cutting my palms on sharp stones. As if this night could get any worse. Rolling onto my back, I look up at the darkening sky and almost laugh at my luck. I guess I'm staying put after all.
"Charlie!"
The distant call reaches me from an unexpected direction. I sit up, wheezing, and attempt to shout back.
"Here!"
My voice is weak and reedy, and the strain makes me cough, which makes things worse. I shut up and concentrate on breathing.
"Charlie!"
Shit. After two weeks of weak, intermittent solar charging, I'd finally broken free of my phone and no longer carried it with me everywhere, and I have nothing else with which to make light. Work with what you got, I guess.
I grab two rocks and smack them together, producing a sharp clack! that echoes off the surrounding hills.
"Charlie!"
Clack! Clack! Clack!
I clap the rocks together and keep at it, pouring everything I've got into the troglodyte's version of a rescue beacon.
Things get hazy after that. Hazel appears, running from the dark and dropping next to me, asking questions a million miles an hour, none of which I have the breath or presence of mind to answer. He takes the rocks away from me, and tells me to stay awake, but I'm really tired and want to go to sleep.
He picks me up and carries me; I dream that he takes me surfing, but George is there, too, smelling like corn chips and complaining that his candy bar melted in the sun, which is shining directly in my eyes.
When the fog lifts, I'm back in camp, lying on my cot with Hazel at my side, inhaler in hand. The 'sun' was a flashlight, held by a very concerned-looking Professor MacDowell, who looks on while his son takes my pulse.
"Hey, Charlie," Hazel says, giving me an uncertain smile. "You awake?"
I nod. "Yeah."
"How you feeling?"
Like absolute shit.
"Okay," I mumble. My lungs inflate easily, and my airways are clear, if a little raw. It's my pride there's no saving.
"You gave us a fright, Charlie," MacDowell says. "Hazel especially. I was about to call for a medevac."
"No, don't." I sit up, brushing off Hazel's attempt to help. "I'm okay, really. I just... had an anxiety attack. It's happened before."
"I'd still like you to get checked at an urgent care. I'll have someone drive out to pick you up first thing tomorrow."
Lacking the motivation or energy to argue, I merely mumble an, "okay," unable to meet the professor's eyes. It's not like I belong here, anyway.
"Charlie..." Professor MacDowell rests a hand on my shoulder, and I flinch. "We need to talk about what you heard, but I'll let you talk to Hazel first. Just know that no one is here who doesn't absolutely deserve to be."
Unable to meet his eyes without bursting into tears, I keep my head down and nod. He goes out, leaving Hazel and I alone.
"I didn't hear anything," I say, sniffing.
"Right after my dad and I fight, you disappear?" Even without looking, I can tell Hazel's brows are raised. "At first, I thought you were just in another tent, but then you weren't anywhere. I haven't known you for long, but I know you well enough to tell when you're upset."
I shrug. "What do you want me to say?"
"Nothing," Hazel reaches for my hand, and I let him take it. "I want you to listen. I know it sounded bad, but I swear to God, I didn't want you here just to flirt, and my dad didn't 'only' pick you because I asked him to. It's not like your name was at the bottom of the list or anything. There were a bunch of names he'd ranked the same—like twenty, including everyone here—and it was just bad luck you weren't one of those he selected as final picks."
So, he swapped my name with someone else's, meaning someone else who had been chosen missed out. Great; now I have guilt, too.
Oblivious to my thoughts, Hazel runs his thumb over the back of my hand and continues in a low, earnest tone.
"My dad gets caught up in his head. He weighs all these factors, wanting to choose not only the best, but the most deserving, and he misses the big picture sometimes. I saw you in action. I saw your dedication and, just—I don't know—your love for your studies firsthand. When my dad proposed I come along, and I saw he'd left you off the list of final choices, I made that my ultimatum: both of us, or neither. You almost died over a fucking dead clam, for fuck's sake! Nobody deserves to be here more than you."
Caught off guard by his vehemence, I laugh and then cough. "It wasn't a clam," I say, when I catch my breath again.
"Yeah, I know," Hazel says, tentatively rubbing my back between my shoulder blades. "It was, like, a snail or something, right?"
I only nod, knowing the genus name will be meaningless to him.
"Hey, are you sure you're okay?"
"Yeah. I haven't had an attack like this in a few years, but I'm okay. I used to have a steroidal inhaler, but I haven't needed it in so long, I just rely on the rescue one. It's probably just stress. I have a lot of passive coping mechanisms, so it builds up and then..." I wince apologetically. "When something really triggers it, it goes off like a bomb."
"Is it me?" he asks, brows knit. "I mean, am I part of what's stressing you out?"
I shrug. "I guess. It's also just being here—a new environment, new people. Travel and socializing stress me out, too, so it's not entirely your fault."
Hazel goes still and withdraws his hand. "Charlie... I really like you. Everything I told you was the truth. I'm not playing, and I've had a great time with you—which is way more than I hoped. Like, I hoped we could be friends, and I thought you were damn cute, but I swear that's not why I asked my dad to pick you. I... I could fall in love with you, if I haven't already. But if you want me to back off, I will."
He waits, his anxious puppy-dog look pulling at my heart, and I can't keep him in suspense for long.
"I don't want you to back off," I say, finally smiling and squeezing his hand playfully. "I need you around to rescue me when I do dumb shit, clearly."
Hazel laughs, pure relief lighting his eyes. "I can do that."
He leans in and kisses me, which is precisely the moment his dad chooses to return.
I break contact as heat floods my face.
"I see you two have made up," MacDowell says, taking a seat on Riley's cot. He fixes me with an earnest stare. "Charlie, I owe you an apology as well. My son and I are both hot-headed sons of bitches, and honest to a fault, and you're not the first to get caught in the crossfire. You deserve better. In fact, once I got my head out of my ass and listened to him, Hazel explained exactly how deserving you are, and I believe him when he says his feelings for you are genuine. If you feel the same, then of course you have my blessing and full support. Now, don't think that means I'll go easy on you—quite the contrary! There's no room for favoritism in the classroom. Outside of it, though..." he gives me a genuine, kind-hearted smile, and reaches over to shake my hand. "Welcome to the family."
Fighting a fresh onslaught of emotion, I return the gesture. Whether things work out between Hazel and me in the long run, the fact his dad accepts him, and me by extension, means more than he can know. Belonging to such a family, even for a short time, would be an honor.
I can only hope Hazel doesn't want to meet mine.