Marriage
Daze
Chapter
29: Highway to Heaven
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Notes: From Charlie’s point of view.
So, they were at the lookout point, finally. They’d been walking for almost two hours, knowing that as soon as they got to the goal, they’d have to go right back again. Charlie kept walking in pure anger. Everything always had to backfire on him. Julie being mad at Scott. Of course that would affect him in some way. Of course!
If he’d only volunteered to stay back at the parking lot with Connie and keep her company instead. She wasn’t allowed to move around too much, because of the concussion. Damn Guy to always get the advantages.
“Cheer up, Charlie,” Fulton said, catching up with him. “Look at the view or something.”
“You look at it, I’m too busy being mad.”
“Why? Is she so bad?”
“Want her?”
“No.”
“So, shut up then,” Charlie suggested and sat down on a big rock. “I decide when I want to be angry. And why.”
He saw Adam coming up on the path, followed by Russ and Dwayne. They’d all gotten separated on the way, and somehow the Ducks had moved a lot faster then the former Owls’ players. Charlie hadn’t even seen his ‘wife’ in several hours.
Maybe she’d been eaten by a bear!
“So, are we supposed to wait here for the youngsters, or can we walk right back?” Russ asked. “We’re all here.”
“We have to wait for the others,” Charlie sighed. “We’re a team, not two teams against each other.”
“It’s not a competition,” Portman reminded him. “We can’t be responsible for their slow pace. Maybe they’ve found blueberries and stopped for a meal? They’re still children, children do that.”
“They are one year younger then us,” Adam reminded them. “They’re not five-year olds, lost in the forest.”
“Oh, I beg to differ. They act like babies, so why not treat them like one?” Portman said.
“One whole baby, or several small ones?” Adam asked. “Would you leave a baby in the forest?”
“If he was thirteen, yeah!” Portman replied. “Not one of those small ones, but a big one I’d leave.”
Charlie went through his knap-sack. “Anyone got something to eat?”
The rest of the players went through their packing too, obviously sharing Charlie’s hunger. “Anyone got some candy?”
“Cecilia do,” Adam smiled. “I bet you wish she was here now, don’t you?”
“Shut up.”
They looked around at the view, waiting for the rest of the team to catch up. Charlie chewed on his nails, wishing for a McDonald’s at the next corner. That would be just great. He looked at his watch. Okay, they we’re a bit younger, but one hour? They were behind one hour? Were they crawling up on the mountain?
“Maybe we should go look for them,” Ken suggested. “Maybe someone got hurt?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me at all,” Charlie muttered and got up. “I’ll go look, you coming?”
“Sure.”
They both walked back on the trail, trying to get a glimpse of the ten players missing. Charlie was beginning to get worried when they still hadn’t found them after fifteen minutes. “We have to find a phone or something,” he said.
Ken pointed into the forest. “Maybe they took another way. There’s another path over there, I think it’s going to the look-out point as well.”
“You go back and tell the others to come down here and take this path instead, in case it leads somewhere else. I’ll go find them,” Charlie told him.
“But...”
“I know what I’m doing, okay? Don’t worry.”
Ken disappeared back on the trail and left Charlie on his own. Charlie moaned a little. He had no idea where he was going, or where he’d end up. He was so going to regret his little hike in the forest.
He walked through the forest, climbing over fallen trees, and emptying his shoes off needles. Every once in a while he stopped to curse a little at the rocks and bushes along the way, in lack of players to yell at.
Finally he got out of the forest, just to find another endless path. What the hell?!
Just when he was about to give up hope on ever getting his players back, almost wishing that they’d suffer the same fate as those students in the ‘Blair Witch Project’, he suddenly heard a voice.
Crap, he’d found them.
“All I’m saying is that you should’ve been more supportive!”
“To someone’s lunacy? I think not.”
“So, you don’t think it’s unfair to yell at me because of some pointless argument made several months ago.”
“Weeks! Weeks ago!”
“Whatever!”
Charlie closed his eyes. Who could that be? Surprise, surprise, it was Cecilia and Fred. Why, oh, why did he have to go get them?
“Hey! Guess who’s missing? You are!” he announced and walked up to them. “Why aren’t you walking?”
“We’re waiting for you,” Cecilia said. “God, it’s taken you long to get here.”
“Us to get here? We got to the lookout point hours ago; we’ve been waiting for you to show up! You took the wrong path, idiot. I’ve been walking for almost forty-five minutes, trying to find you. I’m calling for rescue, I refuse to walk all the way back.”
“What are you talking about?” Sarah interrupted, coming from nowhere. “We ARE at the look-out point. There’s a sign over there!”
Charlie gazed at her. “No, you’re lost, believe me. Just...” His voice trailed off when he realized that she was right. He looked up, and then down, then up again. Then he cursed some more.
“Okay, hello, could you please censor the following words your mouth is about to process?” Sarah suggested. “What’s wrong?”
“This is how it is; you took the wrong path. We took the right. We got up on the mountain we were supposed to look out from. You are at the bottom of the mountain, right under the stupid lookout point. We were up there, we could’ve seen you down here if we’d only thought about looking DOWN!”
“So, it’s actually, YOUR fault, then,” Cecilia shot back. “Why are you yelling at US?”
“I’m going to kill you,” Charlie told her and took a step closer.
“Maybe later,” Fred said. “So, we have to go back.”
“We could climb,” Sarah suggested. “It’s not so high. We all got boots.”
“No climbing, I will not see you fall down from there,” Charlie refused. “No way!”
Sadly enough, the rest of the team didn’t agree, especially not the ones who showed up a couple of minutes later. They also refused in their own sort of way, they refused to walk back the whole way, just to get where they were, only higher up.
Charlie watched as they disappeared up on the mountain. Maybe he was wrong; they all knew how to climb. Then he remembered something. His lovely wife, wasn’t she...? Yes, she was. Cecilia was afraid of heights.
Charlie grinned happily. If she thought that the field trip to the ER was bad, he could just imagine what climbing a mountain would do. He turned to look for her, and he wasn’t surprised to see that she still hadn’t begun climbing. She was afraid.
He heard that she was bickering with Nish about something. According to Sarah they’d both been arguing, like usual, all the way there. Nish was probably just mad because Cecilia beat him at some stupid game on the bus. Sometimes those bus-trips were more like the atmosphere in a sandbox, Charlie always wondered why.
“No matter how much you bitch about it, I’d still be better then you at everything. I’m the oldest.”
“Not better then me at that game, obviously,” Cecilia replied.
“I let you win.”
“Fine, let’s have a new contest,” Cecilia went on.
“You’d challenge me to a contest? I’d win, you know. You can even decide what the contest should be about,” Nish smirked.
Cecilia smirked back. “How ‘bout climbing? You know how to climb, right?”
Nish’s eyes widened. “You mean from a height?!” he yelled with a high-pierced voice.
“I thought ten meters. You’d up for it? Nish, can you hear me?” Cecilia waved her hand in front of Nish’s face.
“I think he’s having a melt-down. It happens sometimes,” Travis explained with a smile.
“This mountain should be about ten meters,” Cecilia continued. “Are you in or out?”
“Like you’re gonna climb,” Nish muttered. “You’re afraid of heights too!”
“Am not!”
“Am too!”
Charlie decided to break them apart before they began fighting for real.
“Hey, Cecilia!”
“What?”
“You walking back?”
“No, why would I?”
“It’s rather far up, don’t you think?”
“So?”
“You’re the youngest, maybe you shouldn’t climb.”
“Screw you.”
“Maybe later, I’m busy. I can walk you back.”
“I don’t need a baby-sitter.”
“Sure you do, but that’s another story,” Charlie smiled. “Nish, you’re walking too, right?”
Nish turned towards him and gave him an insecure look. “Huh?” he mumbled, his face reminding more of a ghost then of a living person. Charlie repeated the question, but got the same respond.
“Cecilia, you and Nish can walk back,” he said a bit nicer, realizing that being too evil wasn’t good for his karma.
“I ain’t afraid of nuthin’,” Cecilia replied and walked up to the mountain. “I can climb.”
“Of course you can,” Charlie answered. “I’m just worried that you’ll fall.”
“Hey, Charlie’s right,” said Adam. “Don’t climb, Cecilia.”
“I grew up climbing, I can climb this mountain.”
“Exactly were did you grew up, climbing mountains?” Fred asked and went over to grab her jacket. “Get down from there, there are no mountains in our town. Just water.”
“Maybe I grew up in the northern parts.”
“Of the city?”
“Of the country!”
“You lived two blocks from the school, I never heard of you living among the mountains. You’re not Julie Andrews. Get down.”
Fred yanked her down, and Charlie grabbed her arm. “We walk, Nish too. Come on.”
Nish and Cecilia looked at each other, and then they looked up. Then at the others. “We’re climbing,” Nish announced.
“Yeah, we are,” Cecilia agreed and pulled free from Charlie’s grip and rushed over to the mountain again.
“I should’ve killed her earlier. Thanks Fred.”
“She’ll probably be dead in a few minutes anyway. Group pressure, don’t you love it?”
“It’s a blast,” Charlie sighed.
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