Seven Minutes in Heaven

18 WHAT GOES UP . . .

When I feel the hand on my shoulder I spin around, fear tight in my throat. For a moment I can’t believe my eyes. Garrett stands inches behind me, his features clenched in a bitter scowl. He’s close enough that I can smell the whiskey on his breath. His hair is a wild tangle, and one of his knees is skinned below his khaki cargo shorts. The scrape oozes blood down his calf.

“What are you doing here?” I gasp, staggering a few steps back. Behind me the trail slopes sharply away. I catch my balance on a boulder.

His laugh cuts through me like a knife. By now I’m used to Garrett’s mood swings, his erratic behavior, but that doesn’t mean I like them. Good Garrett might be a sweet, earnest puppy dog—lovable and easygoing and maybe even a little vulnerable—but Bad Garrett is a whole different story. And just my luck, guess which one of them is here now?

He squints at me through the gloom, his eyes bloodshot and unfocused. “No need to ask what you’re doing here,” he sneers. “You look like a slut in those shorts.”

I should ignore him. I should turn and walk down the mountain without saying another word. But like I always do with Garrett, I rise to the bait. “You liked these shorts just fine the other day,” I snap. Just a few days earlier we’d gone to see some boring superhero blockbuster together, and he’d been so distracted by my legs draped over his lap that we didn’t do much watching.

“That was before you were wearing them at midnight in the middle of nowhere,” he says. His words slur sloppily together. “Are you trying to get attacked?”

I know why he’s saying this, where his venom is coming from, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. I turn away from him to hide the tears in my eyes. “Go home, Garrett. You’re drunk, and you’re being a real asshole.”

But he reaches out and grabs my arm. “Stop trying to act like you’re so innocent,” he hisses. “Stop trying to make me feel like the bad guy. I know what’s going on.”

“You don’t know anything,” I say angrily. After everything I’ve already been through tonight, I don’t have any patience for one of Garrett’s temper tantrums. “And I really don’t appreciate you acting like I’m a total ho just because I want to . . .” I can’t finish the sentence. All summer, I’ve been hoping that Garrett and I could cement our relationship, that we could finally take it to the next level. I think part of me has been hoping, deep down, that if we finally make love I’ll be able to commit to him and him alone, that I’ll be able to let go of Thayer and quit all the sneaking around and lying. I’ve given Garrett about a thousand opportunities to seduce me, and he’s rebuffed me at every turn. It’s almost enough to make a girl doubt her own charms—except I know it’s just Garrett’s own weird hang-ups holding him back. He’s been funny about sex, ever since what happened to his sister.

Now, though, I’m glad we didn’t go all the way. I don’t want to be with him anymore. What Thayer and I have is so much more real than anything between me and Garrett. I just can’t believe it’s taken me this long to see it.

“I know what you’ve been doing out here, who you were with,” Garrett says. He lets go of me, and I stumble backward. My wrist is tender where he gripped it.

“Why? Have you been following me?” I think about the feeling I’ve had all night that someone’s been watching me, and my skin crawls. “That’s gross, Garrett.”

He gives a derisive snort. “You know, I went to Nisha’s house tonight. Looking for my girlfriend?” He says the last word almost sarcastically. “Since that’s where you told me you were going to be tonight, after all. But they said you hadn’t been there all night.”

I shrug. “I decided not to go to Nisha’s lame party. So what?”

“So I was pulling out of her driveway and just happened to see you running up the trail. I thought I’d come up and surprise you. But you weren’t out here alone, were you?”

The clouds around the moon shift, casting weird wispy shadows over the trail. To my left, Tucson sparkles like it’s made of fairy lights. To my right is the drop-off to the ravine. This is the part of the trail my father used to warn me about—when I was a little girl he’d make me hold his hand as we passed the drop. He’d always told me that the cliff was too steep for climbers to rappel down, and that there were bodies no one had ever been able to retrieve at the bottom. A shiver runs up my spine.

“Admit it,” Garrett says, his voice ragged. “You were with Thayer, weren’t you?”

My mouth goes dry. I don’t even have the heart to deny it anymore. But I don’t want to admit the truth right now either—not in the middle of nowhere, when he’s this drunk, this angry. Before I can move, he rips a sapling up by its roots and snaps it in half, screaming with rage.

“Goddamn it, Sutton!” His voice echoes, ricocheting around the ravine below. He throws the broken halves of the little tree over the side, and I watch as they are swallowed by the darkness. “How could you do this to me? I love you.” He pulls at his own hair, grabbing it with his fists.

Terror flashes through me, and suddenly I think of the shadowy figure behind the wheel of my Volvo as it crashed down on Thayer. Of the driver who hijacked my car to run down the boy I love. A bleak realization starts to blossom inside of me. I take a step away from him. “How long have you been following me?”

“Long enough,” he sneers. My heart twists in my chest. This is Garrett, I try to tell myself. Sweet, dopey Garrett. He’d never run anyone over with a car—not even Thayer. Right?

But then the moon comes out from the clouds, and I can see the muscles in his neck and shoulders taut with barely restrained rage. His jaw is clenched into a twisted rictus grin, his eyes flashing wildly. The thought comes to me with a sudden dull thud of my heart—maybe this isn’t Bad Garrett after all. Maybe this is a Garrett I haven’t seen until now. Insane Garrett. Violent Garrett.

“What did you do?” I breathe.

He laughs, and it’s a bitter, broken sound. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.” He takes a step toward me, grinning nastily.

A rush of anger flashes through me, burning my fear away. For a moment it’s almost like I can hear the sickening crunch of Thayer’s leg snapping again, like I can hear his voice call my name, weak with pain. I clench my fists, pushing my face close to Garrett’s. “You’re so fucked up,” I whisper. His eyes widen.

“Me?” He takes another step toward me. I stand my ground, even though he’s inches from my face now. “Who’s the liar here? Who’s the slut?” On the last word he shoves me, a short, hard push. I stumble but catch my balance before falling. “Who’s the one who just . . . can’t . . . tell . . . the truth?” With every word he pushes me farther back. My blood is pounding in my ears, and this time it’s as much from anger as it is from fear.

“We’re through, Garrett!” I stare up at him, and it’s like I’m seeing him for the first time. The sweet boy who brought me lilies of the valley for our first date, who sent me dozens of playlists filled with songs that made him think about me, who held my hand so innocently when we walked side by side—that boy is gone. Did he ever even exist? The person in front of me is a monster, damaged beyond all repair.

He freezes, and for a moment it looks like nothing is alive but his eyes. They burn with a frenzied light. I don’t know how I ever thought they looked soulful. “We’re not through until I say we’re through,” he grits out.

Pebbles shift beneath my feet, and I turn to realize he has backed me up against the precipice. Inky darkness fills the air below me. I can’t tell how far the drop is.

He moves so fast. All at once he has me by my shirt. My feet rise up off the ground, the collar of my shirt tight against my neck. I whimper and kick out, but my feet don’t hit anything. Below me, the ravine opens hungrily. He lifts me up and pulls me close to his face so that I choke on the rancid fumes of whiskey.

“Why do you make me so crazy?” he asks, his voice breaking in agony.

And then he lets me go.