Middle Ground (32 page)

“Maddie?” I heard Scott’s yell and the next thing I knew people were dragging me out of the boat by my arms. Scott wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against him. I stood there, stunned that Scott was actually hugging me.

I patted his back. “Um, I missed you, too,” I said.

He let go of me and grabbed Pat next, practically lifting him off the ground.

“What’s with all the brotherly love?” Pat asked him.

“How did you guys get out of there?” Scott asked us, shouting over the crowd that was piling in around us. I was afraid they were going to crush us and Scott yelled for people to back up and give us room.

“You turned the propellers off,” I reminded him, like it wasn’t a big deal.

“I didn’t think it worked in time. Justin took the plane back for you guys and saw the debris from your boat floating around the wave farm,” Scott said. “How did you survive that?”

I tried to explain what happened, filling him in on the lifeboat and how I pulled Pat and myself onboard, but I kept getting interrupted by screams and strangers throwing their arms around me.

I was pulled deeper into the crowd, through a mob of fans screaming my name. Everyone wanted to congratulate me. Some guy with long, shaggy hair wrapped his arms around me and announced he loved me. It was starting to freak me out.

I searched through the crowd for Justin or Clare, but Gabe found me first. He picked me up in his arms and lifted my feet off the ground. He hugged me so tight my ribs squeezed together.

“Ow,” I said into his shoulder, and he set me down.

“We thought we lost you,” he said. Clare found me seconds later and tugged me away from Gabe. She threw her arms around me with so much force, I stumbled backwards. She said something to me, but I couldn’t hear her because her face was smothered in my shoulder.

“I’m fine,” I assured her, and hugged her back. Her swollen eyes looked into mine with relief.

“Maddie,” she said, and then she started crying and couldn’t find her voice. I wasn’t prepared for this much drama. I just wanted to find Justin and the nearest place to crash.

“You guys are acting like I died,” I said.

She leaned back and nodded. “We did think you were dead,” she mumbled. “These past three hours, we thought your boat was torn up. We were just about to call your parents and tell them—”

“Whoa, I’m fine,” I interrupted her. “Stop talking like that. I’m right here.” I looked at her and tried to smile. “It was a close call, but we did it.”

I scanned the beach, on the prowl for one person, craving one person. Where was Justin? I looked for the tallest guys in the crowd, trying to locate him. People were already beginning to disperse. I grabbed Clare’s arm.

“Is Justin here?” I asked, and she hesitated. “Where is he?”

Clare and Gabe exchanged looks.

I felt a chill run over my skin. Why were they stalling? “What happened?” I demanded. “Is he all right?”

“He’s . . . okay.” Clare seemed at a loss for words.

“Just okay?” Was he shot? Hurt?

Gabe finished for her. “You don’t understand, Maddie. It’s been like a funeral here the past couple hours.”

Clare nodded. “He went back to look for you and saw what was left of the boat . . .” She trailed off again. “He told us there weren’t any survivors. All we had to track you with were your earpods, and the last signal we got was twenty feet underwater at the wave plant. And you know he blamed himself,” Clare said.
“Again.”

“Does he know I’m alive now?” I asked.

She shrugged. “We sent him a message. But I haven’t seen him in the past hour. He took off.”

“Took off? To where?”

I didn’t wait for her to answer. I turned and headed for the airport hangar.

I walked inside the airport hangar, where students would be staying for the next few days, until they could go back home or find more permanent housing. Inside, neat rows of cots were lined up, and stacks of clothes were folded along one wall. It was amazing Clare had coordinated all of this in one week. Volunteers handed out plastic-wrapped sandwiches and bags of chips and fruit. Kids were already filling up the beds.

There were hundreds of people inside. But I could tell Justin wasn’t one of them. An energy was missing.

I walked out of the hangar because I couldn’t relax until I found him. I walked around the side of the building and found myself in what looked like an airplane cemetery. There were parts of planes heaped on the ground; rusted engines, wheels, propellers, and entire crafts sitting on the side of the abandoned runway. Tall weeds and grass grew around the edge of the cement. I stopped and listened. I could feel he was close by. There was a spark in the air. Or maybe I felt like I was being watched.

I turned and found him. He sat on the ground, in the shadow of an abandoned building. His hair was standing straight up, as if he’d been pushing his hands through it for hours. His arms were around his drawn-up knees. He looked broken, as if he’d fallen apart and been crudely put back together without anything aligned. He lifted his head and I could see silver reflected in his eyes. They were wide. He was looking at me like I was a ghost.

“Did you hear we made it back?” I asked him.

He nodded slowly. He was still in shock. “It’s not every day somebody comes back from the dead,” he said, his voice so flat it didn’t sound like his.

He dragged himself up and leaned against the wall. We stared at each other. His eyes traveled down my face and back up again. They were half lidded and glassy and dull. So much of the fire I loved about him had burned out. It was like watching a statue crumble. I was careful to stay where I was. He reminded me of how I used to feel at the DC, slowly waking up out of a nightmare, when all your emotions are still singed from the heat. It takes time for your mind to cool off.

“I told you to go with Pat,” he said. The skin under his eyes was puffy. His cheeks were wet. He pulled his hand through his hair. “Then,” he continued, “when Scott told me what was happening, I suggested you head for the river. It was my idea.”

“And I’m fine,” I announced, my voice starting to get shaky from seeing him so upset. “It worked. We got out of there.”

He wasn’t listening to me. His eyes were dazed. He was still living in the nightmare. “I thought you could hide out until I came back for you. I thought the canyon was safe.”

“We escaped. Stop blaming yourself for things that didn’t happen.”

He turned and looked out at the broken plane yard. His face was numb. He grinned but there wasn’t a trace of lightness to it. “All I wanted was for you to be safe. I told you to risk anything. And it almost killed you.”

He was scaring me. I needed him to wake up from the trance his mind was in. I wanted to grab his shoulders and shake him until his doubts fell out.

“I am safe, Justin. Look at me.”

Thick tears welled up in his eyes and started to roll down his face, so large I could see each one falling. He didn’t wipe them away. They looked unbelievable on him.

“I’m not Kristin,” I said. “That won’t happen again. You need to forgive yourself for that.”

I took a couple steps toward him until we were close enough to touch, and I grabbed his arm. He didn’t move. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t respond at all.

“Look, tonight was terrifying, I’ll give you that. It was a close call. But we did it,” I told him. “Haven’t you heard? Everyone escaped. All the students are safe. This mission was a complete success. I’m alive. Why don’t we focus on that?”

He looked down at his feet. I couldn’t imagine what state I would be in if I thought Justin was dead, if I had been brooding for hours, imagining I had played a role in his death. But it was killing me to see him like this. It was worse torture than staring at the slicing wave generators. I squeezed his arm tighter, trying to jerk him awake. Couldn’t he understand that he saved me? Until he stopped blaming himself, I knew he wouldn’t be able to see me.

I took a deep breath and focused my eyes on his. “Look at me,” I said. He turned and watched me, numb, his face lifeless.

“You’re not responsible for me. I need you to accept this. I’m not going to quit, so don’t even think about pushing me away again. It’s not about you. Maybe at first it was. Maybe I wanted to follow you because it was exciting and dangerous and I wanted to break ties with my dad. But now it’s just as personal for me. So you can say anything you want, but I’m not backing down. Ever. So why sit around wasting time dwelling on what could have gone wrong? Shouldn’t we be celebrating all the things that went right?”

He reached his hand up and touched my cheek, delicately. His fingers were cold. He cupped my face in his palm and his eyes focused on mine but he still couldn’t see me—he was still in shock. His cheeks were wet and light glistened off of them. I wanted to wipe them dry but instead I put my hand over his and we stood like that. I closed my eyes and leaned closer to him but his hand went limp and slipped out from under mine. He turned and I watched him sleepwalk away.

I wanted to yell after him, but I thought about all the times he’d stood in my shoes over the last six months, all the times he’d wanted to pull me back and rescue me. I realized how hard that must have been, how much it hurt when you know the only way to help someone is to give him distance. So I let him go.

***

The next night, everyone celebrated. We built a bonfire on the beach and set up speakers for music. I sat on a blanket next to Scott and Molly and watched the students in the firelight. It was the mangiest group of people I’d ever seen. The girls all had ratty hair, and some of the guys still had scruffy beards growing in. They were wearing borrowed clothes that were too big on most of them, hanging off their lanky bodies, but they didn’t care.

News started to leak out about the DC break-in. Molly anonymously sent a press release containing all of our research and evidence. We watched the story unfold on a wall screen Scott hung in the airport hangar. The cops pulled out the weary staff from the gates. The staffers looked battered and traumatized. They had the same expressions we wore for six months.

Journalists and police were investigating the LADC, as well as other detention centers around the country. All centers were on a lockdown and until investigations were over, no new students could be enrolled. At the same time, no students would be released. The news avoided giving information about Molly’s reports. Even the honest journalists Justin said we could count on were hesitant to speak out against the DC.

I knew who could make a difference. One person. One man could set the record straight. Even though I wouldn’t admit it, I knew my father still held the torch in his hands. He could sway the public either way. One memory gave me hope: the anger I saw in his eyes at the detention center. He would have to choose DS or his daughter. It finally was coming to a head and it was time for him to make a choice and show where his true loyalties lay.

I tapped my feet to the music and watched Gabe dancing with Clare. He had obviously grown up dancing—he smoothly spun her around and caught her hands, only to spin her back again. Even Scott and Molly got up and joined the crowd. I wanted to join in, but my thoughts were still weighing me down. I felt like Justin had said goodbye to me last night. I kept thinking back to what Pat pointed out to me, that Justin never told me he cared. Every time I remembered those words, it felt like a sting.

I’d hardly seen him during the day. A trail of students always followed him, eager to introduce themselves. After all, he was one of the founders of this group, he brought people together, he sacrificed more than anyone. There was always a line of people pursuing him, thanking him for inspiring them. It was like what Gabe said: he had become a household name. He was a spark that shot through the air. He was an event, a zephyr, a force. Now he was tangible for the first time. I watched girls shake his hand and hug him and giggle like they were meeting their celebrity crush. But I felt like I couldn’t touch him.

When he wasn’t being idolized, someone was bugging him to take a call or answer a message. Our eyes met a few times throughout the day. But it was only for an instant and then he was distracted by someone tugging on his arm or shouting his name. And I couldn’t read what was in his eyes; it was the intense look he always gave me that had thousands of meanings.

I tried to focus on the students. Gabe eventually dragged me into the mob of dancers. The music helped me forget. I let my problems escape through my pores and more light filled in the spaces. I let myself laugh and dance because I earned it. You have to take the time to celebrate your miracles.

I was flushed and sweating and headed over to a stand stacked with water jugs. Before I got there, warm fingers grabbed my arm. I looked over and Justin was there and his face was impatient. His eyes were lighter; he was finally seeing me again.

“I’ve been trying to get you alone all day,” he said, and I let him pull me away from the crowd. We walked fast through the sand, avoiding the bonfire and noise to find some privacy. I stumbled over a mound of weeds and he pulled me up, his hand wrapped tight around mine. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look at me. He just breathed hard and focused on a spot ahead of us. We finally stopped in a shallow valley of sand.

He grabbed my face in his hands and I looked up at him but only for a second because then his lips were on mine. He lifted me up and pulled me closer until our chests pressed together. I jumped up and straddled my legs around his waist and we fell back on the ground and kicked up sand all around us. We started coughing and brushed the sand away.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered in my ear, but I found his lips again because I didn’t need to hear it. I already knew.

“Wait,” he said, and pried my hands off his face. He rolled me over so he was leaning on top of me. He eased off enough to let me breathe but I grabbed his arms so he couldn’t get far.

“You know what I realized last night?”

“That you’re an idiot?” I asked.

He brushed his hand against my cheek. “I realized when I couldn’t get to you, when I was too late, I realized I never told you I loved you,” he said. My stomach fluttered at the word coming out of his mouth.