‘I’ll take you away tomorrow.’

Aren’t men funny!—natascha

We drove down I-15 and then switched to an empty route 6, or I should say, Chris drove and I rode. Soon a brilliant orange sun shone before our left side. Chris’s eyes were invisible behind his sunglasses, and I hoped he could see through the dust and bugs that collected on the windshield faster than he could wash them off. We got through Soviet Kitsch, Absolution, and Los Reyes del Perreo before either of us spoke.

“So how long does it take to get to Albuquerque from Provo?” I asked.

“A little under ten hours, if you speed.”

“Oh. Um, do you want me to put in Back to Black? We’ve only got one more CD left. I wish I’d brought more.”

“I’m not really in the mood,” Chris shrugged. “What’s on the radio?”

Nothing, it turned out.

As the sun went down we climbed to Soldier Summit. While Chris filled his gas tank, I looked out over the foundations of empty ruined houses overgrown with brush. We ordered Chinese takeout in Moab: Chris ate his egg rolls while he drove, and I picked at some lemon chicken on steamed rice. The car started to smell like a deep fryer. Chris let me put Back to Black in the CD player. Stomach full and prospect darkening, I leaned my head against the window frame and fell asleep.

A horn blared, the car jerked. “Where are we?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.

“Route 491, somewhere in Colorado,” Chris informed me. He was blinking powerfully and shaking his head. He cranked his window down, and cool night air rushed into the car.

“Are you falling asleep?”

“Not anymore.” He sounded strained.

I shivered and put Absolution back in the stereo—prog rock wasn’t exactly somniferous. We passed a green highway sign. “Chris, that sign said we’re five miles from Cortez!”

“Mm,” Chris answered.

“Cortez is only a few miles from my house! Well, my parents’ house. Anyway no one’s there right now . . . and you really need to rest. Maybe we could stop there for the night?”

“Bekah, I don’t really . . . I was hoping we could get to Albuquerque tonight.”

I swallowed. We were three miles from Cortez, and soon we’d pass it. “But Chris,” I tried again, “you can barely keep your eyes open.”

“I don’t know why, it’s only nine-thirty.”

“You had a rough day yesterday, remember?”

“So I’ll let you drive,” Chris suggested.

“I’m falling asleep too! Please let’s stop,” I pleaded, my hand on his elbow. The exit for the San Juan Skyway was right in front of us.

He took the exit.

“Turn left towards Dolores,” I directed. “And thank you.”

As we neared my home in Joshua’s Ravine, I felt a pang of shame. The white paint was chipping off the siding, and the lawn was more dirt than grass. A maroon Corolla was parked on the cracked driveway, so Chris parked in the street.

It wasn’t until I had retrieved the hide-a-key from a hanging flowerpot (no flowers) and turned the key in the lock that I realized that the car in the driveway meant something. I was so used to seeing it there.

“Sharon?” my father’s voice asked as Chris and I stepped into the brief entryway littered with umbrellas and boots.

“No, it’s Bekah,” I called. I followed the sound of his voice through the kitchen to the family room where he sat basking in the shifting light of a muted television.

“What are you doing here? And who is tat?” He frowned at the beat-up guy next to me.

I hoped to smile disarmingly, but it probably came off as nervous. “Uh, Pai, th-this is Chris, Marianne’s brother. You might remember him.” I was pretty sure he did not remember Chris, but I thought it safest to act as if he should.

“Hi, Brother Cardim,” Chris added helpfully.

Pai narrowed his eyes.

“Um,” I tried to sound casual, as if BYU students often went on larks to Albuquerque, “Chris and I are going to New Mexico, just for the weekend and stuff, and, well, we were getting tired, so we decided to stop here, y’know, to, um, rest here. Because we were tired.” I silently thanked God for helping me remember to say rest instead of sleep. It sounded less salacious. Then I wondered whether God would ever help me with something like that.

My father stood up and examined Chris up and down. Meanwhile I stepped away from my traveling companion just a bit so we’d appear less intimate. “Only you two on tis trip—togezer?” Pai addressed Chris, looking steadily at the taller, younger man from two and a half feet away.

“Yes, sir,” Chris put his bag down and clasped his hands behind his back. He looked straight into Pai’s eyes, “Bekah and I were going to stay with my dad and his wife in Albuquerque, but we left later than we’d planned.”

Pai and Chris were too busy staring each other down to see my cheeks flush. Both of those pieces of information were new to me.

“So you, a man, and my daughter, a girl, choose to enter te empty house alone?”

“This house isn’t empty: you’re here, sir,” Chris answered smoothly.

“You did not know tat I would be, yes?”

“But, Pai, we’re not dating!” I exclaimed. Both men glared at me. I went back to staring at the handle of my overnight bag.

“Sir,” Chris began again, “the plan to stay here was not my favorite choice. I would never have dreamt of putting your daughter in this position had we been able to drive farther. However, I would never harm her, which is why I thought it better to stop than to risk an accident.”

“But—” I wanted to tell my dad that stopping was my idea, but Chris silenced me with a shake of his head.

Pai’s face relaxed slightly. “Well, ten you are very lucky tat I am here, no?”

“Yes, sir, we are,” Chris smiled.

Chris slept in Rock’s room in the back of the house while I climbed to the lilac-themed attic room I’d shared with my big sister Ruth in childhood. My father spent the night on a mattress in front of the attic stairs. More embarrassing than Pai protecting my honor was that he didn’t have to.

* * * *

I woke at first light with an urge to see more of the mountain spring than I could from my window. I dressed quickly, brushed my hair into a ponytail, and crept down the stairs and past my snoring father. So much for his vigilance. The air was crisp through the back door, and the sky lightened with every passing minute. I found the trail behind my house and walked through the heady scent of pine, spruce, and juniper to the ravine, my town’s namesake. Snow lingered in the shadows. Wildflowers were opening in the high meadow beyond the small canyon, sprinkling the lush green with yellow, purple, and white. The choking Wasatch Front pollution disappeared from my lungs as I deeply inhaled the clean mountain air—or at least I imagined it did.

Tender sprigs of new grass were growing on the trail. Careful not to crush them under my feet, I stopped near the edge of the ravine and drank in the scene. Birds chirped from a silvery tree near the water’s edge. An unseen waterfall buzzed in the background. Somewhere nearby, aspens quaked. Never had I appreciated Joshua’s Ravine in the eighteen years I’d lived there as I did now that I lived in Provo. A while later the yellow sun peeked between two mountains and tickled my cheeks. Overcome, I fell to my knees.

“Dear Father in heaven,” I whispered to the air, “thank Thee for this beautiful place and this beautiful morning. Thank Thee so much for not letting Chris crash the car last night. Thank Thee for the peace I feel right now, and thank Thee for the comfortable and happy life I’ve had. I can’t imagine how I deserved to be so blessed when other people’s lives are so hard. Please help Chris’s and my journey to be safe, and please . . . I don’t know. Heavenly Father, Chris needs help, or something. I don’t know what it is, but I know You do—I mean, Thou dost—and please help him. Please help him to find what he’s looking for when we get to Albuquerque, and help me to know how I can help him. And please—Heavenly Father, he confuses me so much. I don’t even . . . I’m not even sure why I care so much, why I’m even here on my way to New Mexico when I should be catching up on homework and begging Professor Allred not to fail me. Am I just friends with him because I’m confused and I think if I stay near him I’ll be unconfused eventually?” A tear dropped on my arm. My answer was clear. “Wow, God, that was fast,” I whispered as two more tears splattered my sleeves. “Um, thanks. In the name of Jesus Christ, Thy Son, amen.”

Again I stared at the ravine. I had known it all along, but I had pushed the thoughts out of my mind. Even now I wanted to ignore my Heavenly Father’s answer to my plea: I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be going to Albuquerque with Chris to face who knows what. I shouldn’t be following Chris around like a mixture of puppy and doormat. This was unhealthy. I had cried more in the past two months than I had in any other two-month period of my life. And yet . . . Chris hadn’t always made me cry. Most of the time, he had been there for me when I was upset about something else. He’d saved me from a (possible) rapist. He’d cheered me up after my best best friend hurt my feelings. To admit the truth, I had grown dependent on him. Our perpetually platonic relationship was safe—but nothing else. Sniffing and wiping my eyes, I walked back to my house. But this isn’t about me, Heavenly Father! I thought petulantly.

My father and Chris were in the kitchen sipping Postum. They both looked angry at me. Pai spoke first, “And where did you go, Rrrrebekah?” I was in big trouble when he rolled his Rs.

“The ravine is so beautiful in springtime, Pai. I just wanted to see it this morning.”

“Your jeans are wet,” Chris nodded at my knees.

“I do not like to not know where you are during a time like tis,” my dad explained.

“Look, I’m sorry. But can I talk to you, Chris?”

Pai folded his arms and looked stern as I beckoned Chris into the living room. We sat on the faded flowered sofa.

Before I could speak, Chris told me, “I was hoping to leave first thing this morning. Now it’s nearly eight.”

“Sorry,” I replied automatically, “but—”

Chris patted my left upper arm, “You can tell me in the car.”

I shook my head. “No, but first I—I have to ask you something.”

He took a deep breath and settled back on the couch, “Okay, what?”

“Well, um, Chris . . .” I pulled at the ends of my hair and finally blurted, “why’d you want me to come with you?”

Chris messed with his own hair and shrugged, “I guess I just wanted some company. And . . . I know that you being there will keep me from falling into bad patterns.”

My fingernails looked a little ragged. I should cut them soon, I thought. One deep breath, two—

“Bekah?”

Staring at the dirty beige carpet, I muttered, “Actually I think I should stay here for the weekend.”

“Hmm?” Chris leaned towards me.

I looked up at him and repeated myself more clearly.

Puzzled, he sat back and regarded me.

“You can pick me up on your way back on Sunday afternoon,” I added, “and then you’ll have a reason to come back.”

Chris shook his head, “Well, why? You weren’t planning this from the beginning, were you? Is that why we stopped here last night?”

“No, of course not! I swear it just came to me this morning—I need to stay here.”

“But I need you!”

My heart fluttered. He needs me! the thought swirled in my brain. I can’t leave him when he needs me. Aren’t we commanded to give our neighbors everything they ask? But my belly was full of lead, and my shoulders bent by an invisible millstone around my neck. While my heart yearned, my head and—something else—screamed, no! no! no!

In fact I felt my head shake back and forth before I even knew that I wanted it to. “No, I’ve—” I wanted to say I needed to be with my family, but that wasn’t my real reason, “I’ve gotta stay here.”

Chris’s whole, dear, beat-up face showed deep disappointment: the lines of his mouth had fallen, and his eyes were unfocused. He opened his mouth and closed it again. “But, Bekah . . .” He sighed, “I’m not gonna convince you, am I?”

I thoroughly wished he would not try. “Have a safe trip!” I told him. Because it was expected among close friends, I leaned in and gave Chris a firm hug. His faint, cool scent and his warm arms surrounded me, and my breath caught, and my heart pounded, and I almost forgot to let go.

As I watched Chris drive back towards the highway, the lead and the millstone disappeared. Though I had no idea what it meant, I thought I could say that I’d been buoyed up. Calling my mom to tell her to come home, I skipped up the concrete steps and into my house.