Page 75 of The Chaperones

Stella, the art teacher

At the crest of the hill, I stop to catch my breath. On the bluffs, it’s so windy, it nearly knocks me over. I lean my hands on my thighs, debating my next move. The wind whips my hair into my face. Every time I tuck it behind my ears, it becomes airborne. It’s too dark to walk across the cliffs, then loop around to camp. Turning back means walking past Travis. I’ll have to wait up here until it’s light enough to continue. As my breath slows, I stare out at the coast of Ventura, lit despite the hour. I wonder what all those people are doing up in the middle of the night.

“There you are.” I startle when I hear his voice. His breath is as labored as mine. “You okay?”

“I’m fine, really. I just—I need to be alone.” I start walking again. Mud cakes the soles of my shoes, making every step a struggle.

My feet are completely numb now, and I don’t even feel it when my foot catches on something, sending me tumbling to the ground. I hit the cold, muddy trail hands first. Pain radiates up my arms.

“Stella,” Travis shouts as he runs over to me. Despite every cell in my body wanting to get away from him, I let him help me up. The wind rages against him, but Travis is strong. Too strong. “Jesus, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I take a step away, wincing as my ankle buckles, clearly twisted. It’s dark enough that he can’t see the pain on my face. Still, he must notice that I’m limping.

“Here, let me help you. We’ll get you back to camp.” He reaches for my waist. I push him off me. “Stell, come on.”

He reaches for me again. I step back. Again.

“I’m sorry, okay? I’m not really sure what’s happening here. I can see that I scared you, and I’m sorry. This wasn’t how I wanted to do this, but I think you need to see, you need to know how much I love you.” His headlamp flashes down as he looks toward his pocket, where his hand emerges holding something that reflects the light.

Before I know it, Travis is reaching for my hand, being so gentle that it seems like I’ve imagined all this, or at least dramatized it. He wraps something cold around my wrist. When I look down, his headlamp illuminates a bracelet. I feel paralyzed at the sight of it. It’s the mesh diamond bracelet that Cassie always wears.

“It’s the only thing I ever designed for Bent,” he says. “For our tenth anniversary. It was my vow to turn my life around. And I did. From there, every step has led me to you. It’s my promise to you now, Stella.”

The bracelet feels heavy and cold against my skin, a shackle, not a promise. Suddenly, I’m furious. So angry I’m not even scared anymore.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

He drops my wrist and steps back, my words a physical blow.

“What, you want to buy me off too? A bracelet, and I’ll forget that you just tried to rape me in your tent?” I’m more startled than Travis is by what I’ve just said, words I can never take back. But it’s true. He wasn’t listening to me when I told him to stop. He probably didn’t listen to his girlfriend when he was twenty. And poor Sawyer—she probably didn’t know how to say no at all. Cassie was there each time to cover it up. Now she’s on my wrist, binding me to Travis.

The clasp is too complicated to undo one-handed in the dark, so I yank at the bracelet, trying to break it off, wanting to throw it at him and tell him never to contact me again. When I can’t get it off my wrist, I haul up more words instead.

“You touched Sawyer, didn’t you?”

“You’re serious right now?” He sounds so wounded. It doesn’t make me believe him.

“She’s a child, Travis.”

“Obviously she’s a child. Jesus, Stella, that’s really what you think of me?”

He steps away, starts pacing. Although this wasn’t my plan, I can see it’s working. He might actually leave me alone. I keep going, prodding, hoping to break him.

“And that girl in high school. Why would her parents be out to get you? Why would Mona?” Because that’s what he said about Mona too. She’s out to get me. The whole world against Travis Stevens. “Cassie was trying to warn me. She knows exactly what you are.”

And still, she protected him.

“And what am I, Stella?” He storms toward me until his face is so close that his headlamp is pressing into my forehead. I can’t see him, just a glow around me like a halo.

I take a step back. He follows, the headlamp pressing forcefully into my forehead. “Travis, stop. You’re hurting me.”

“I thought you were better than this, but you’re just like the rest of them.”

I try to push him away. He’s stronger than I am, and he doesn’t budge. I step back again, continue this dance where I retreat and he advances.

We’ve abandoned the path. I can feel the wind that races up the bluffs from the ocean, like a hand holding me back from the edge. I have no idea how close we are. He keeps advancing, forcing me to retreat.

I don’t feel the ground grow loose beneath my feet, don’t realize when it’s disappeared. I just hear Travis’s voice as he shouts, “Stella, no—”

His hand skims my arm as he tries to catch me. I’m falling too fast. My fingers graze his, as I try to grab his hand, a final caress before I’m airborne.

The fall is slower than I would expect. I stare up at the pure darkness that seemed so lovely an hour ago. His headlamp punctuates the black, from where he stares down at me, calling my name as I plunge.

The fall is surprisingly peaceful. It reminds me of Frida Kahlo’s painting of Dorothy Hale floating down from the Hampshire House. I’ve always loved that painting, the tranquility of her body mid-fall combined with the haunting expression on her face as her body lands below. And then my body smacks into a bush. I reach for it, but I’m tumbling, over rocks and brush, each thud more painful than the last as I try to grab hold of anything I can.

At last, my hands clutch a small shrub. I hold myself as Travis shouts from above, “Stella?” I realize he can’t see me. He keeps calling, saying “I’m coming. I’ll get you.”

As I cling harder, I feel the bush slowly bend until it snaps and I’m tumbling again, rock after rock, until I reach my arms out and they thud against the ground, a snap as loud as anything I’ve ever heard, my nose smashing into the cold, hard stone between my throbbing arms.

Then I don’t feel anything at all.