Chapter 3

On day seven, the program organized a nighttime hike in the mountains.

It was the single most important shoot of the entire series. I'd cleared it with the group instructor in advance and gotten permission to record alongside the group with an action camera. Noah was supposed to wear a wireless mic and capture our conversation along the trail.

Before we set out, he clipped the receiver onto my camera and tapped the brim of my cap with a grin. "This time I'm turning my phone off. Nobody's pulling me away."

I actually believed him.

Halfway through the hike, Claire suddenly crouched beside the trail, clutching her chest and gasping for air. When Noah broke from the group, he forgot the transmitter was still clipped to his jacket. I ran after him to remind him, but he'd already hoisted Claire onto his back and shouted at me, frantic, "At a time like this, all you care about is the audio?"

He ran off with the mic still on him. All I got on the recording was the rustle of fabric, pounding footsteps, and his voice, over and over, soothing Claire. "Don't be scared, I'm here. Hold on to me. I'm not leaving you."

Those words ran through my entire night-hike footage.

I hiked seven and a half miles in the dark with the rest of the group. Blisters formed on the soles of my feet. The equipment strap rubbed my shoulder raw. At one point, I lost my footing and fell into a shallow ditch beside the trail. I didn't break down. But when I returned to the cabin at dawn, put on my headphones, and heard his voice, the tears came without warning.

He said he wouldn't leave Claire behind. He'd already left me behind seven times.

The next morning, Noah showed up with a tube of ointment. "Last night was an emergency. Claire was hyperventilating. It can cause fainting if it gets bad enough. What happened to your feet? Why didn't you tell me?"

I looked at the ointment in his hand. Back in high school, he'd carry me to the school nurse if I so much as scraped my knee during an eight-hundred-meter race. Now I'd hiked seven and a half miles, blood soaking through my socks into my insoles, and he didn't find out until the next day, from Megan.

"Would telling you have made a difference?"

He frowned. "If you don't say anything, how am I supposed to know?"

"Claire didn't say a word, and you knew anyway, didn't you?"

His face hardened instantly. "You're still comparing yourself to her. Erin, she has health problems. Do you really have to compete with someone who's sick?"

He set the ointment beside me and walked out. I didn't go after him.

Day eight, he missed the wilderness first-aid drill. Day nine, he skipped the group aerial shoot to handle Claire's conflict with an instructor. Day ten was the camp-wide group photo. I saved the spot next to me for him. When the shutter clicked, he was standing outside another squad, putting his hat on Claire's head to shade her from the sun.

When the photo was printed, there was a half-person gap to my right. Megan studied it for a long time, then asked quietly, "Why didn't you stand in the center?"

I wanted to know, too. Why did I keep saving him a spot when I already knew he wouldn't come?

On day eleven, I decided to trust him one last time.

We were shooting a long take that moved from the team-coordination drill into sunset. The light, the group's route, and the final movement would align only once. Noah made a point of handing his phone to his roommate right in front of me. "Nothing is dragging me away today."

At 6:07 p.m., his roommate came running over with the phone buzzing nonstop. Claire's name was on the screen. After barely a dozen seconds, Noah's face changed. "She's throwing up at the clinic. Nobody's with her."

I grabbed his sleeve. "Just twenty more minutes. Once the drill's over, I'll go with you."

He looked down at my hand as if he couldn't understand what I was saying. "She's throwing up and you want me to wait twenty minutes?"

"The nurse is right there."

"Can a nurse replace a friend?"

He jerked his arm free. The back of my hand struck the tripod clamp, and a cut opened across it at once. He saw, but paused for only half a second. "Keep filming. I'll be back as soon as I get her settled."

He ran out of the training field as the sun was sinking behind the pines. The instructor blew the start whistle and the team moved along the planned route, but I'd designed the shot for two people. Without him, every transition, focus pull, and camera movement fell apart. I couldn't be in the frame and operate two rigs at the same time.

The only sunset drill we'd get ended just like that.

At nine that night, Noah still hadn't come back. At nine-thirty, Claire posted to her private Instagram. She was sitting in the dessert shop outside the camp's east gate, holding a smoothie, a smear of whipped cream on her lip. Her caption read, "When you're feeling awful, someone's willing to drop everything to come get you."

In the corner of the photo, Noah was cutting into the cake for her.

I called him. He took forever to answer. Upbeat music played in the background.

"Wasn't she throwing up?" I asked.

"Stomach cramps. She's fine now. She's been in a bad headspace lately, so I took her to get something sweet."

"Do you know how late I waited?"

"Erin, we can always reshoot. Her health can't wait."

"There won't be another sunset drill."

"Then pick a different shot. You're always so good at improvising."

He said it like it was obvious, as if the script I'd spent two weeks writing was worthless.

I heard Claire's soft voice beside him. "Noah, the cake's melting."

He answered at once. "Coming." Then he said hurriedly, "Don't get hung up on it. We'll talk when I get back."

The line went dead.

I sat at the top of the bleachers and rewatched eleven days of footage from start to finish. At the beginning of every clip, I looked off-frame. At the end of every clip, I said "See you tomorrow" to an empty space. What the audience thought was an artistic choice wasn't design. It was me waiting.

I dragged all eleven empty-frame screenshots onto the timeline, imported the chaotic night-hike audio, then opened a new file for the Day Twelve script. When I typed "Just me," the remaining space in the frame suddenly looked vast.

At two in the morning, I texted my father: "Dad, I'm sorry. I'll find my way back from the wrong turn I took."

He replied quickly: "A wrong turn isn't a wasted journey. Turn back as soon as you see it. Our door is always open."

I stared at the message and cried for a long time, grieving for the girl who had gambled her future on love and been certain she couldn't lose.

By dawn, I'd finished the new storyboard for Day Twelve. I'd also made up my mind to end things.