Played. Liz Fichera

needle to another. It was as if we sat below a giant fountain, each raindrop trying desperately to reach our hiding spot. “I’ll give you the rest of the granola bar if you do.” My eyebrows wiggled.

      “Forget it.”

      “You’re no fun.”

      “Wait. I thought I was complicated?”

      “Touché.” I sighed and looked away.

      I counted raindrops when the storm quieted for a few seconds. During one stretch, I almost reached one hundred. But the rain always returned to pound around us like an encore. The sky soon became so dark that we didn’t even get a sunset.

      Sam’s shoulders began to shiver. I hadn’t thought he ever got cold, but he was wearing only a T-shirt. At least I had a sweatshirt.

      This wasn’t good.

      “Okay,” I said, mostly to keep our minds off the growing cold and our grumbling stomachs. “If you won’t go first. I will.” I bit the inside of my lip to keep my teeth from chattering, because if they started again I wasn’t certain they’d stop.

      “What are you talking about now?”

      “I’m going to tell you something personal,” I said. “And you have to promise never to tell a soul. Can I trust you?” I looked up at him, just as the sky flashed another bolt of lightning, squiggly white lines stretching in every direction. “Promise?”

      Sam surprised me by nodding. Or maybe he was shivering again. Whatever it was, I decided to tell him. What if we never made it off this mountain? What if we froze together tonight in each other’s arms? What did I have to lose?

      I took a deep breath to steady myself and said, “I let my best friend use BOTOX on my forehead on Friday night. That’s why I’m wearing this stupid baseball cap.”

      Dead silence.

      Sam’s chest began to shake—but not from shivering. From laughter. It was the dry-heave, raspy kind, like he was having difficulty catching his breath. It started slowly and then built to a splitting crescendo.

      “Thanks,” I said, between his chest heaves. “Thanks a lot. Glad you find it hilarious.”

      His laughter turned into a coughing fit when he tried to speak. He raised his hand, begging me to wait. Sam’s laughter finally subsided until all we could hear were raindrops again.

      “Why would you do that, Riley?” He reached for the brim of my baseball cap but I slapped his hand, which only got him chuckling again.

      “I’m gullible. I was bored. I don’t know. My best friend, Drew, talked me into it. I blame her.”

      “Does your forehead hurt?”

      “I don’t know. I can’t feel it.”

      Sam started another laughing fit and I just shook my head at him, biting back my own smile.

      When he finally quieted, I challenged him. “Okay, now it’s your turn to play. You’ve got to tell me something juicy, something really personal. And I swear to god I’ll keep bugging you till you do. I could bug you all night. I swear, I will.” I looked out beneath the branches into nothing but infinite blackness. “We’re not going anywhere, so make it a good one.”

      14

      Sam

      “I’m not playing.”

      I was defiant. I even forgot how chilled I’d become for a few seconds. There was no way I was playing Riley’s stupid game.

      It was such a girl thing. Why did girls always feel compelled to share personal embarrassing stuff? And BOTOX? Are you kidding me? Why would a pretty girl do something like that? Girls confused me.

      “Please?” she begged.

      “No.”

      “Chicken!”

      “Maybe.”

      “Maybe you’ll play?” She tugged on the collar of my T-shirt, hard.

      “Never.”

      “Then I’ll have to guess.”

      In the growing darkness, I heard her lips smack. It was obvious that she was giving this way too much thought. I could practically hear the wheels spinning in her head. Or maybe that was just her teeth chattering.

      “Still cold?” I said to change the subject.

      “I’m freezing,” she said, just as a gust of wind blew through the tree, knocking icy raindrops off the branches. “This is miserable.” We shivered in each other’s arms.

      “Your sweatshirt is wet.”

      “So’s your T-shirt.”

      We hugged tighter. We breathed heavily for warmth. We rubbed skin where we could reach. We didn’t have a choice. And while it didn’t seem so bad in the dark, now that we couldn’t see each other’s eyes, the situation was clearly going from bad to really, really freaking bad. Ugly words raced through my head—hypothermia and pneumonia, for starters.

      “Riley.”

      “Yeah?”

      “Don’t take this the wrong way—” I paused for courage “—but there’s something we need to do. Now.”

      “You’ve changed your mind about playing?” Her voice turned giddy, even as her teeth resumed chattering. I hoped she wasn’t starting to crack. I’d read about such things in life-or-death situations. Some people turned crazy as a survival mechanism.

      My eyes rolled. “No. I’m not talking about playing your game. Be serious.”

      “What, then?”

      “We have to take our clothes off.”

      Her body stiffened against mine.

      “We’re soaking wet,” I added by way of explanation. “We could freeze to death if we don’t take them off.”

      “We could freeze to death with them on.”

      “True.” I nodded, trying to play to her reasonable side. “But we should at least...consider it. For body heat.”

      “Get naked?” she whispered.

      “Get naked.”

      But then her shoulders softened beneath my hands. “Yeah, I was thinking about how to handle the wet clothes, too.”

      “This is survival,” I stammered a little. “Nothing else.”

      “Agreed,” she said. “Survival.” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than me. “What about underwear?”

      “I guess...I guess we can leave those on.”

      “Okay,” she said. It sounded like she was trying to work up her nerve.

      At least it’s dark, I wanted to assure her, but that sounded like something a creepy guy would say. “I’ll go first—”

      Riley caught my arm in the dark, interrupting me. “Let’s do it together.”

      “Okay. On the count of three.” I counted slowly. “One...”

      “Two,” Riley said with me.

      “Three.”

      With only a couple of inches between us, we stripped out of our wet shirts. Blindly, we fumbled and felt for a branch beside us to hang them in the hopes that they might dry, knocking arms at the same time.

      “Sorry,” we said at the same time when our elbows crashed against each other. I winced when hers caught my funny bone.

      I doubted that our shirts would dry even a little in the damp night air. Removing our pants was harder.