One

Cass!
Don't be pissed ok? I know you said I couldn't wear your shoes, but I needed them! Don't forget you owe me lunch today! See you at break. -Sadie

I trudged out of the house that morning feeling defeated. When I had first seen Sadie's note peeking guiltily at me from underneath my backpack, I had clenched my jaw and grunted in rage. But that hot anger had been replaced by a lukewarm despondence. It settled on my limbs and weighed them down so that as I walked down the stairs my feet barely left the ground. My shoes scuffed in a disheartened, hopeless sort of way. Except they weren't even my shoes; they were Sadie's. I had dug through the piles and piles of shoes in her room to choose which ones I would steal in revenge. With each pair I seethed, "Why not these, Sadie? What was wrong with this pair? or this one? Why did you have to wear my shoes? My brand-freaking-new, never-worn, beautiful, expensive, saved-for-ten-months-to-buy-them shoes." I finally found a pair to wear, the sandals with the squishy soles she'd been in love with for all of one week. The inadequacy of my revenge only drove home the overwhelming, unfair-but-irrefutable truth: Sadie gets what she wants. And that morning she wanted my shoes. So I scuffed along the sidewalk and glared at Sadie's shoes, knowing there was absolutely nothing I could do.
There was a pinecone in my path—it looked so out of place there with the summer grass creeping through the cracks in the cement. I almost felt sorry for it. It was dried up and fragmented, pieces of it lost along its long path of survival from winter to now. It might have been noble, if I had been in the mood: the last survivor, the lone holdout. But instead it looked helpless and ineffectual as it pointlessly fought against forces beyond its control. In that moment, I hated it and hated myself for being like it. So I kicked it. I kicked it as hard as I could and followed it with my eyes as it skittered over the cement. It gave me a sort of grim glee to see the parts and pieces flying off its battered shell. My eyes followed it, bouncing from cement square to cement square until finally the pinecone stuttered to a stop. And that's when I saw him.
I never meant to follow him. My attention was focused on that dried-up pinecone; I was speeding my step just a little so I could catch up to it and kick it again. I was, as usual, trying to ignore him so I didn’t have to face the fact that he was ignoring me. But then Michael turned. He turned right, and the shock of it made me forget Sadie, forget the shoes, forget the pinecone—made me call out to him. "Michael!"
But he was already gone, around the corner. I had walked to school behind Michael every day for the whole year. He left his house, three houses down from mine, just a little before I left my own, and we walked fifty feet apart from each other all along the straight, straight path to school—there were, or there should have been, no deviations and no turns.
"Michael!" I called out to him again, somehow thinking that maybe he'd turn back and say "Whoa ... what was I thinking? School's that way!" But, of course, he didn't. I shuffled my feet a little faster, not wanting to look like I was running. But I was hurrying. I guess my plan was to catch up to him, maybe just look to see where he had gone then continue on my way to school. But when I reached the corner where Michael had turned, he was there—just standing there, as if he had been waiting all along. "Hey," I gasped, a little out of breath, "Where are you going?"
He didn't answer me; he just started walking again, seamlessly, as if he had never stopped. His head turned back toward me though."You coming?"
"Coming? Where?" I said dumbly, as if it mattered where he was going. No, I wasn't coming! I was going to school, just like he should be doing. Just like we did every day and just like we would do every day until we graduated. That's the way things are for kids like me and Michael. We don't skip school: we're not even tardy, ever. What was with him?
By that time, I had caught up to him and I was walking beside him despite my internal protests. He looked at me and grinned. I'm pretty sure I squinted at him then, trying to make sure I was really seeing what I thought I was seeing. Michael didn't grin. At least, he hadn't for a long time, not in the long year that had been our first one in high school. He smiled, sure, who doesn't? He smiled a little, tight-lipped smile to tell the teachers he was just fine, to let the counselors know not to worry. He was all right. I'd seen that particular smile so many false times that when Michael had started using it on me, I'd stopped walking to school with him and stopped eating lunch with him. Or maybe he'd stopped walking to school with me. I don't really know anymore. But this time, it was Michael's real smile, from before, from a long time ago when we were friends. I just squinted at him. He laughed at me then, and hearing Michael laugh was as much convincing as I needed, even if I didn't realize it at the time. I was going with him, wherever he was going.
After that odd little exchange, we walked in silence for a while. I stole glances at Michael out of the corner of my eye every couple of seconds. His black-brown hair was sleek and longer that I'd thought. It hung flat all the way to the bottoms of his ears and flopped in his face as he bounced lightly up the sidewalk. His face was very pale, even in the summer, and he was what Sadie had always called a pink-cheek boy. You know, the ones that always look like they're blushing or like they've just run into the room at full speed. I realized then that I'd sort of stopped looking at Michael in the past year. I hadn't noticed the little changes—like, now he was taller than me and his nose seemed just a tiny bit pointier than I'd remembered. His hands and feet looked bigger. I didn't recognize the band on his t-shirt. I thought then how we'd really become strangers, and it made me timid. Instead of demanding to know what he was up to, as I once might have, I coughed a hesitant little cough and began cautiously.
"Um... hey... um, Michael?" then I blushed and rolled my eyes at myself. I was acting like an idiot. I cleared my throat again. "Michael, what are you doing? I mean, where do you think you're going? It's a school day."
"Cass," he drawled, and hearing my name in his voice thrilled me and angered me all at once. "It's the last day of school, Cass. No one cares if you go or not. Or are you worried you won't get your yearbook signed?"
"Sadie took our yearbook," I answered without thinking, then got mad at myself for taking the bait. "I'm not worried about the yearbook. I'm freaking worried about you. You're not a rebel, at least you didn't used to be, so what are you trying to pull here?"
"Trying to pull? What are you trying to pull? You sound like your Mom, or something.” He laughed at me again, a bark of a laugh that fell flat on the still air. He looked at me a little uneasily then and I guess he could see I was mad, 'cause he sighed and shrugged. “I'm not rebelling Cass, I just..." he paused and we walked on, the thudding of our sneakers on the pavement filling the space of his unfinished sentence.
"Cass," he repeated my name again. The way he kept saying it with every sentence—I remembered that later when I was trying to decide if everything that happened really happened. It stood out to me. Let me know it wasn’t all a dream.
"Cass, look around for a second. We've lived in this valley our whole lives. There's the lake over there and beyond that the mountains, and here on our side more mountains, like a big wall on all sides. Haven't you ever wondered what's on the other side?"
"Wondered? What's to wonder about? There's just another town like ours—you know, lights, houses, streets, stores—a town. And if there's not, then there's just a big empty valley, and some more mountains on the other side."
He raised his eyebrows at me in that way that says, Oh really?
"What? You don't think so? They've got this whole world mapped out, Michael. They can see it all from a satellite and you can check it out on google if you really wanted to. There's no mystery anymore, no discoveries. It's just another town."
"Sure, Cass, whatever you say. But that's what I'm doing today. I'm going to find out. I'm going to find out what's on the other side of that mountain." He said it lightly, as if it was just something to fill the time, but there was a look of determination in his eye that just didn't fit with his words. I was about to point that out to him, but he spoke again.
"Come on, Cassie, don't you want to have an adventure?" He smiled at me, and I smiled back and laughed, only a little feebly.
"Fine, have it your way weirdo. We'll go, climb the mountain on a school day, look over the other side, see the boring little town that's there, and go home and get grounded. You're gonna owe me for this one," I threatened, but I was still laughing, though uneasily.
"You're a good sport, Cassie."
We stopped talking and just walked then. The foot of the mountain wasn't even all that far away—it only took us about an hour to walk there. I was glad it was the last day of school, because the only thing I had in my bag was my lunch and one notebook, which I had brought to doodle on during the farce that was the last day of school. Michael was right, if we were going to skip any day, that day was perfect. Plus, this way I wouldn't have to buy Sadie lunch.
We got to the base of the mountain and found a little hiking trail that took us gradually up the slope in a zigzag pattern. It was early summer, but the heat was strong and I was panting and sweating soon, little rivulets of sweat dripped from under my shorts down into my sandals. Michael stopped us and made me drink some water. It seemed like that was all he had in his bag. He'd really been planning this. I wondered for a second if he'd planned for two. I was about to ask, but he started walking again, and I followed.
It was really weird to be hiking with him, after so long of us not talking. It seemed I was always just about to open my mouth, just about to say something, anything, but the words all caught in my throat. There were a lot of things I wanted to ask, but they all revolved around a subject I'd learned was taboo with Michael. Even asking him how he'd been seemed to risk opening a floodgate of unspoken emotions. If he'd said fine, I would have just known he was lying, so I didn't even bother to ask. So instead I asked him about the band on his t-shirt. He looked confused for a second.
"Oh this?" he said, holding out his t-shirt. It said Paradise Lost and had some kind of faded, swirling pattern around the words. "It's, uh, it's not a band, it's the title of a book."
"Oh, I mean, oh yeah I knew that. By Milton, right? I guess I just thought it was a band, too. I mean, they don't normally put book titles on a t-shirt, right?"
"Yeah, no, I mean, you're right, they don't. I, uh, I actually made this one." He saw the puzzled look on my face and explained quickly. "I've been helping my cousin out, you know, the one that has the t-shirt screening business. Anyway, I was just messing around with some designs and he said I should print them. So, I made a few. I just liked the look of these words together," he explained, seeing my raised eyebrow at his t-shirt. "I made one for you, too," he said and stopped, pulling something out of his bag.
"Wait a second!" I demanded. "You brought that…for me? How'd you know I would come with you? I mean, did you try to—are you tricking me into coming with you or something?" My jaw was dropped in angry awe.
"No, Cassie, I didn't—no, really I didn't know! I just... I just sort of hoped you would come. I was going to ask you, but then I didn't really think you'd come with me since we, well, you know... don't talk," he sounded really miserable. "Anymore, I mean we don't talk anymore. So then, anyway, I decided not to ask you, but then you shouted out to me, so I waited for you." He bit his lip and looked down at the t-shirt he held in his hand.
"All right," I said, grudgingly, only slightly mollified. "Let me see it then, basket case." I'd always called him basket case, so he looked up at me and kind of smiled again. He handed me the t-shirt. It was black, like his, and the same swirling pattern danced across the front, but the words were different. Paradise Regained.
"You don't have to wear it," he said quickly.
"No, I will," I answered just as quickly, though really it was getting a little too weird for me. I pulled it on over my shirt—a green one I had worn in case anyone wanted pictures that day. I'd always thought green looked good with my hair. I slipped it off underneath the new t-shirt and stuffed it in my bag. "Let's keep going, then," I said. Since my chosen conversational topic of his t-shirt had ended awkwardly, I just kept quiet for a while.
It really wasn't a very tall mountain. It took us only about two hours to hike the dusty trail to the halfway-point where we could look down and see the whole valley below us. It was about ten o'clock then, and I realized that Sadie was probably looking for me by our locker, since it was now morning break. When I didn't show up, she'd probably just think I was mad at her for taking my shoes, and I was, so I guess that was all right
Sadie and I were ten months apart—people sometimes asked if we were twins, even though she's taller than me and prettier, too. We'd gone to different schools for the last three years, since Sadie had gotten in to some special science program and I hadn't. I'd thought this year would be the same, since Sadie was still in middle school and I was starting at the local high school. But her teachers thought Sadie was just too brilliant for middle school and they booted her out a year early, so we shared a locker and a homeroom our whole freshman year.
Things were always a little weird with Sadie. We could be best friends one minute and mortal enemies the next, literally. We did everything together at school, even if half the time we were scowling at each other. Like that day, if I had gone to school, I probably would have met her for break, even though she had stolen my shoes that morning. She probably would have conned me into forgiving her by the end of lunch, and by the end of the day, the shoes would be hers. That's just how it was with Sadie.
"Come on," I said. "We're getting close to the top now. Hey, we should have a bet," I said suddenly.
"What kind of bet?"
"Well, I'll bet you that you're freaking crazy and there's nothing on the other side of this mountain," I taunted.
"Ha! Okay, then," Michael answered. "What are we betting then? What's the prize?"
We both thought about it for a minute. We'd bet lots of things before, and we'd always come up with interesting rewards for the winner, or heinous punishments for the loser. Michael, as usual, decided what he wanted first
"If I win, you have to tell everyone that this was your idea, and I get to say you hypnotized me into going with you. What do you want?"
I laughed, but there was something wrong about the whole thing. It was like we were both pretending that the last year hadn't happened. That our last bet had been yesterday, and not months and months ago. My laughter almost turned to tears as I thought how I had walked behind him every day for the whole year, just to avoid the silence between us.
Suddenly I knew what I wanted from him more than anything. A second before I had been joking, but I was completely serious when I said, "You have to tell me. If I'm right, if I win the bet, then you will tell me what happened that day."
He looked at me then, dumbstruck. I thought he might actually just walk away from me then. It wouldn’t have been the first time. But he held up one trembling hand to shake mine. "Deal."
There was no more conversation after that. We walked and I looked out over the treeless mountain to the desert landscape beneath us, wondering what was going on at school, what my mom would say when I got home. It was a little after noon when we reached the end of the path. It turned out to a little lookout, about ten feet from the top. Michael was a little bit ahead of me, and I saw him step off the path to scramble the remaining way up the mountain.
"Wait!" I called, but I don't think he heard me. He was pulling himself up eagerly, grabbing pieces of brush to propel himself forward. I followed just a little bit behind him. When he got to the top, he stood there for a second, and then turned back to me with the strangest look I had ever seen. Confusion, betrayal, and desperation marred his simple face as he shouted something back to me.
"What?" I shouted, then pulled myself faster up the mountain until I was just an arm's length behind him. "What?" I panted.
"I said I think you won the bet," he whispered and he pointed in front of him. I couldn't see anything but sky, so I crept closer to the edge and looked down.
He was right. I was right. There was nothing there.