CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

I have these odd memories of faces coming and going, low voices speaking, the ground moving under me… they might even be dreams. I’m not quite sure. Either way they came and went with the haziness of a cloud, drifting in the far corners of my mind. Jackson’s face was in one of them, withdrawn and slightly morose. Another was of Connor, standing in a dark corner. The last I can remember was of Kyle, saying my name over and over and then a very bright light.
I wasn’t quite sure what time or era I was in when I awoke. All I was sure of was that I had one hell of a headache. As my eyes flickered open in an unfamiliar place, the memories of past occurrences flooded my mind once again. The last thing I remembered was waking up in the counselor’s cabin and talking to Connor about something. So where was I now? I looked around – it looked almost like a fisherman’s shack or a really old shed in the middle of a secret garden. Through the window on the left the sun was shining brightly though it was hard to make out anything on the other side of the glass because it was so fogged up with age and was covered in leaves. On the right side of the bed on which I had been lying in there was a bunch of medical supplies – I saw jars of pills, flasks with dark liquids inside, gauze rolled up in various places, cotton balls, a thermometer and bottles of peroxide and alcohol. I wasn’t sure what other mysterious kinds of supplies and medicine were hiding behind the termite-bitten cabinets and drawers. I pushed myself up from the bed, hearing faint voices coming from outside. It sounded like short abrupt shouts, I wasn’t sure who they were coming from.
When I got outside I saw the guys outside doing jumping jacks while Connor stood at the head instructing them and counting their jumps. As soon as one person spotted me, the rest followed and when their jumps slowed Connor spun around to see what they were so intrigued with.
“Hey, look who’s up!” I heard Jerry’s voice from within the group but didn’t spot him until a few moments later.
“Morrison, you’re awake, finally!” Connor had to almost raise his voice over all the commotion the rest of the group was making. They were upon me within seconds and I felt almost smothered by all the ‘How you doing?’s and ‘It’s about time!’s.
“Boys, boys, give him some room,” Connor tried to talk over them.
When they backed up a bit, Connor stepped forward and addressed me. “Did you know you were out for about five days?”
“Wow, really? It felt like a couple hours,” I said.
“Yeah well it usually does when you catch something like that.”
“Like what?”
“Hypothermia. It takes a while to get your strength back up.”
I almost heard the breath escape my lungs. “I caught hypothermia?”
“Yeah but you’re all better now. Kyle kept you in good care. Shot you up with drugs and all that.”
“He injected me with something?” I was never fond of the thought of people doing things with my body while I was unconscious.
“If he didn’t you might not be standing there right now.” Connor raised his brows matter-of-factly.
“You mean I might have died?” I found it odd how I missed out on all of this while I slept and everyone else did the worrying (or not). So I really did almost die. And it was all because of Connor. Or because of my loud mouth… whichever way you prefer to look at it. So what does that make it, like two or three times now? I wonder why I kept surviving all these times. Do I really matter that much or something?
Connor patted my shoulder. As opposed to before when I was absolutely certain, I couldn’t tell now whether Connor’s actions were genuine or phony. “But you didn’t.”
He led me away from the group. “So do you want me to do everything I missed times two or something? How many rounds? There’s gotta be a catch somewhere.”
He sighed and cleared his throat. “Well, you could do that…” – I held my breath – “Or you could just join us to dinner.”
I almost sighed really loudly with relief. My body still hurt everywhere and I couldn’t even imagine doing something as simple as jogging right now. “Are you being funny? ‘Cause if you are, I don’t think I’ll be able to handle that.”
He seemed to think I was funny and ignored my question. “You hungry?”
I half expected my stomach to grumble at the mere word. “A little.”
“Come on, boys, time to eat,” he called the group to follow him.
I had no idea where we were, but the area did look familiar. I looked far in the distance and saw the obstacle course we had taken part in just a short couple of weeks ago.
During dinner I was bombarded with questions from Jerry and Steven and a couple other guys that sat with us.
“We thought you were going to die,” Jerry said, his voice going all high-pitched at the end.
“Yeah, actually some of us were betting you already were dead, since Kyle didn’t let anyone in to see you, and when we saw you through that little window you looked like a ghost,” another boy that I think was named Mike told me.
“Yeah we thought it was this whole conspiracy,” Steven started, chewing a spoonful of mashed potatoes. “Like WOS couldn’t let the news of killing a fifteen-year-old get loose so they were planning to bury your body on the campground and pretend you had gone home to Chicago safely.”
“Wow guys,” I said. “It’s great to know you were looking forward to my recovery.”
They laughed and told me everything that happened while I was out. Apparently Connor was actually making jokes. When I asked what about, they hid behind grins.
“What? Tell me!” I pleaded.
“He kept coming up with different sayings that would be on your tombstone.”
I couldn’t say I wasn’t expecting something sinister coming from Connor’s mouth, though I was a little offended. “That’s lovely, thanks for that.”
“Aw he was just kidding around because he knew you were still alive,” Jerry said, trying to lighten the mood. I wasn’t sure it was working.
I shook my head after shoveling a mouthful of carrots into my mouth. “I just can’t imagine Connor joking.”
“It was quite entertaining,” Mike said.
“Now that I’m healthy again he’ll probably put his act back on.” I wondered why he disliked me so much. It was almost unfair how the rest of the boys got to see this lighter, playful side of Connor that I was afraid I would never get to see for some unknown reason.
Nonetheless, he let me off the hook for the night and soon enough I was laying on my back engaged in conversation with Jerry and Steven in our cabin.
“C’mon, Timothy Dalton wasn’t that bad,” Steven argued. Our conversations at night often revolved around sports or movies, typical guy stuff. Jerry was rolling his eyes while Steven leaned over from the top bunk, head resting on his arms.
“He cut out all of his one-liners from the script! I mean, who does that?” Jerry argued right back.
“I’m sorry but no one beats Sean Connery. He’ll always be the best Bond. I couldn’t care less about Daniel Craig to be honest,” I mentioned, running my hands along the bed slats above me.
“Okay, okay, what about Brosnan? I mean he had everything! He revived the whole series, man.” Jerry said, getting excited.
Steven shrugged and nodded at the same time, to show he was willing to come to an agreement. “Yeah, Brosnan was good too.”
The night was over as soon as one of us closed our eyes. Even though my body still felt pretty dead I wasn’t ready to sleep again just yet. It was no surprise, after all, I had been asleep for the past five days which was pretty much like saying I was out for a whole week. So I kept waking up and tossing and turning every hour or so and hardly got any real shuteye in.

• • •

I wasn’t ready for the morning. I thought I was until I was standing outside in the freezing damp wilderness in a thin polyester t-shirt listening to Connor dishing out instructions.
“Once you reach the Ivy tree you turn left for another four kilometers until you see a really big pine, lots of needles on the ground, can’t miss it.” Connor paused to let everyone soak in the information. “Did everyone get that?”
“No,” was a muffled voice that came from the back of the group but no one really took note of it.
“Anyway we’re sticking together as a group so no one will get lost. If one person can’t keep up, we let them lead the way instead while we trail behind. If one person can’t keep their breakfast down, we stop. We all stop and wait and watch. Understood?”
And before I knew it we were propelling ourselves forward with our feet at a speed that was faster than jogging yet not tiring enough to be called a sprint. Not tiring at first. But when you’re just getting over hypothermia every tension on your body, even the smallest strain feels like the end of the world. I didn’t want to fall behind though. I knew if I did it meant public humiliation. When a large hill came up and the group showed no sign of altering our path, I hesitated a moment before pushing myself forward. Connor was at the head and called out chants for us to repeat. It sounded like a song. Or maybe like we were part of some sort of kids’ summer camp.
“To my left!” he called.
“To my left,” we repeated.
“To my left!”
— “To my left.”
“Ugh!” (Connor made this grunting noise)
— “Hey!”
“Ugh!”
— “Hey!”
“Ugh!”
— “Hey, hey, hey!”
“One!”
— “One.”
“Fifty-nine!”
— “Fifty-nine.”
“Fire it up!”
— “Fire it up.”
“Saturate!”
— “Saturate.”
“Graduate!”
— “Graduate.”
“Regurgitate!”
— “Regurgitate.”
“Ooh yeah!”
— “Ooh yeah.”
“Aha!”
— “Aha.”
And it went on like this for pretty much the whole run. It made me feel like I was in the army or the marines. It almost felt good. Like maybe we had a purpose for being here. Or maybe just that shouting things made me more motivated to run through the wilderness while getting over hypothermia.
When Jerry noticed I was falling behind he slowed his pace down too so Connor wouldn’t single me out. Every time my feet collided with the ground it made this loud thumping noise in my ears. My breath was hard to catch and I found myself clutching my chest and forcing air into my lungs as each minute passed.
I continued to fall behind. It actually angered me. Though, when I looked around I didn’t seem to be the only one having trouble keeping up the pace.
A guy that I didn’t know caved in and slowed his run to a walk, heaving and coughing. About forty-five minutes had past without anyone stopping. That had to be some sort of record for teenagers. Connor looked behind about a minute later and noticed the boy.
“Hey, you, Marco. Come up front and lead the team, will ya?” It appeared Connor had not been lying about what he said earlier.
A lot of the guys were coughing now.
It wasn’t really that humiliating for the guy because we all felt sorry for him. We were also just glad it wasn’t us.
“I have asthma, sir,” the guy said.
“Do you?” Connor started with that I-couldn’t-care-less voice of his. “Well that really is unfortunate. Come on, get up here. Bunch ‘a girls. You’re all a bunch of girls!”
“Don’t be sexist now, sir,” Jerry said, half laughing half trying to catch his breath.
“Y’know, you’re right. Girls would be able to run much better than you guys. Let’s go, move it! To my left!” He started that damned chant again.
I didn’t bother repeating, my lungs hurt too much. The guy at the front looked like he was about to hurl. Wooziness soon washed over my entire body, my pace slowing with every passing minute, my heart beating faster than I could handle, my legs aching a little more each step.
“I don’t want to see anyone slacking. Pick up the pace you bunch of losers!”
It made me wonder how Connor could be so fit. What practice had he undergone in the past? And why was he being so unfair? If he was in our position, young and untrained, he definitely wouldn’t be calling us losers. Even though I loathed him, I found myself needing and wanting to impress him. So I continued to push my body to its limit.
“There’s no such thing as stopping. If you stop, you can forget about dinner tonight. And remember what I said: one person stops, we all stop. Which means more grilled chicken filet for me tonight.”
As the hour mark came around I began to wonder if skipping a meal was all that bad as Connor made it sound. I could physically hear my breath, or maybe my lungs, squeezing in and out as I ran. I was wheezing now, and every inch of my body hurt. In fact there was this ache in the pit of my stomach that would not go away. And then once the seventy-five minute mark arrived I felt so horrible I came close to collapsing on the ground. I had to stop. I had to stop. I had to stop. I didn’t want to let the guys down, though. This far and I’m the one who spoils dinner for everyone? How far were we going, anyway? We had to stop eventually, right?
I tripped. My feet were dragging and I tripped on a mass of entangled branches extending from a tree about two meters away. I tried to get up but my body wouldn’t let me. It was as if gravity itself had its immense hands outstretched and was tugging at my arms and legs, forcing me to give in to its temptation.
I heard someone say “wait!” and then footsteps jogging up to where I lay. I didn’t want them to wait. I didn’t want them to stop for me. I forced myself to a stand and saw Connor directly in front of me with this look on his face that was somewhere between smug and irritated. I clutched my stomach to try to get the fiery feeling to go away and I heard my heart thumping loudly in my ears. My breath came out in short and forceful spurts and I felt my saliva getting thick in my mouth.
“I’m sorry,” I said between gasps, directed more towards the group than at Connor. “I can’t… I can’t…” Throbbing. Lots and lots of throbbing. Everywhere. It was almost worse now that I had stopped, like all that running was catching up to me. We appeared to be on a sort of hill. I hadn’t even realized. I might have enjoyed the view if I hadn’t been busy clinging on to my last string of life.
“Well boys,” Connor turned to address the group after staring me down, waiting for me to say more. “It seems none of us are eating dinner tonight thanks to your good friend Shuro.” He turned back to me. “Congratulations.”
All I could do was shut my eyes and wish I was back home in Chicago.
“This is bullshit, Connor,” I heard someone speak up through a lot of huffs and puffs.
“Excuse me?”
“You can’t do that to us. We were just running for over an hour straight. We have to eat something.” It was Jerry. His voice was clear now. I looked up, my sweaty hair sticking to my face.
“I thought I made the instructions very clear. One person –”
“Yeah, yeah, we heard you. Except you can’t do that to him. He’s just getting over hypothermia, goddamn it. You tryin’ to kill him or something?”
I knew this couldn’t result in anything good so I gave Jerry “the look” which didn’t seem to faze him.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Connor’s deep mocking voice kicked in. “But I half expected Shuro to be the one ahead of you all, no offence. After all, he has been resting for… How long was it?”
“Five,” came a low voice within the group.
“Five days. Five days.” The second time he said it it sounded as if he really said five years. “While you all were working your asses off doing rounds and hiking up Mount Coral and gathering firewood and whatever else you did. So does it really seem logical for you to say that I’m being unfair? You should think about the situation here. He’s been resting, safe and sound in a warm bed. And he has the nerve to make you all miss a meal.” He paused, probably for emphasis. I hated when he did that. I hated the way he did everything. “Go ahead, tell me I’m being unfair. Or do one thing for yourselves and tell him how you feel.”
I didn’t know what to say. Up until now I had thought Connor was a jerk and Jerry was right for telling him off. Now I wasn’t sure who was right. “I’m sorry” were the only words I seemed to be capable of.
Though what happened next was completely unexpected. The boys surrounded me and I was afraid to look up. But instead of a punch in the face or a kick to the groin I was being pat on the back and consoled. Connor and his hurtful words were completely disregarded.
“You okay man?” Jerry asked.
“Looks like you took quite a spill,” Steven told me.
“I’m okay.” I didn’t know what else to say. I couldn’t say anything.
Through the various heads and shoulders of the group I saw Connor, and I could have just been imagining it, but on his lips was the faintest trace of a smile.

• • •

We ate that night, despite what Connor had said: “one falls; we all fall.” We ate very well. Amongst the conversation of about twenty boys with their mouths full, I pondered over what I had seen earlier. At the time, I half expected Connor to shout out obscenities at us all and tell us to keep going or maybe instruct the other boys to throw stones at me, but instead he smiled when they commended me. That smile was engraved in my mind. It wasn't a false or malevolent smile like he usually wore. It was genuine, real. I could see it in his eyes.
When I had finished my dinner I placed my plate and utensils at the front. I was the first to finish so I turned to the counselor's table and sat down.
“Evening gentlemen. Lady,” I said.
Linda smiled. “Hello, Shuro.”
When I turned to Connor he was chewing on some macaroni.
“So what happened today?” I asked him bluntly.
After he swallowed, he said: “I might ask you the same question.”
“Yeah, you might. Except I'm asking you right now. So how about it? We aren't starving and I'm not beaten up or anything, so what's the deal?”
Connor smiled a long, thoughtful smile. “Why don't you take a walk with me,” he said after finishing up his plate.

“I know exactly the type of person you are,” he said once we were outside. Alone, the night seemed so quiet and almost serene. The wind was gentle but bitter cold. I couldn't help but shudder.
“Always asking questions, always wondering why. And god help the person who won't provide you with answers.”
I shook my head, about to talk. He didn't let me.
“Your peers admire you, Shuro. That’s why you experienced what you did today.”
“No, they hate me,” I tried to get in on this seemingly one-way conversation.
“If they hated you I'm pretty sure you’d be a bruised up mess by now. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. They admire your strength, your determination, your will power. You think half the guys here would have completed those fifty rounds you did?”
Okay, what was going on? Was I being pranked or something? There was no possible way Connor was sincerely treating me with respect. I mean, this was Connor we’re talking about. And yet I didn’t sense one tiny hint of sarcasm or mockery in his voice. In fact, it barely sounded like him at all because of the honesty in his words.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” I asked out of the blue.
He almost laughed. “There you go again with the questions!”
“I know, it’s because I almost died, right? And you felt sorry about making jokes about my tombstone,” I guessed.
“Hey, you weren't supposed to hear about that,” Connor mentioned.
“A little birdie told me.”
We kept on walking. It was so dark I hardly knew where we were. Though, Connor looked at ease and when Connor felt at ease everyone around him did too.
It was silent except for the howling of the wind and the leaves whispering in the forest next to us.
“You know when I founded this place everything was different,” he told me. His words sounded hard to get out, as if he hadn't told them to anyone before.
“You founded Walk of Serenity?” I asked. Up until now I had thought this place was a lot older than that.
He nodded. “All by myself. A lot of people thought it would be a complete disaster. But I was determined. I had a different mentality back then.”
I shook my head. “What changed?”
“I was faced with the harsh reality of it all. Turns out running a camp in the middle of nowhere for a bunch of juvenile delinquents is no picnic.”
“I find it hard to believe you didn't know what you were getting yourself into,” I scoffed. “I mean, what did you expect, we play games and talk about our feelings like good little boys? Half the guys here are insecure about themselves and they end up lashing out irrationally. If you really wanted to help us you’d make us feel good about ourselves and feel like we’re making real progress instead of putting us down and running and running without seeing the finish line.” I said, then when I was afraid I’d said too much, I added: “for example.”
Connor didn’t really look like he was taking what I said to heart. “And I suppose you’ll want a pat on the back for that little speech, too? Real life is hard. Nobody cares about your mediocre problems like who your ex-girlfriend is dating now. It’s irrelevant in the big picture. Life is a bitch. I’m simply laying it out for you guys on the table before it’s too late. You should be thanking me.”
“Who said anything about an ex-girlfriend? Have you even asked any of the guys here about their issues? Or why they’re here at all for that matter? I may be just a stubborn juvenile delinquent to you but at least I understand these guys. Maybe that’s why they respect me.” I said. I didn't want him to shoot more useless words at me so I began walking in the other direction. The cold air collided with my breath, causing smoke to escape my lips. I was heading to our cabin, regardless of any late night activities Connor had planned.
“Hold it, Shuro,” I heard his voice call after me. “Wait a sec.”
On the second “Shuro,” I spun around to face him.
“Look,” he tried to explain to me. “You might have a point there.”
I gave him a “you think?” face, holding back my words.
“I think the first step to success is trust. If I don’t understand you none of you will trust me. And if none of you trust me why bother even having this job, right?” He looked vulnerable. I had never seen him this way before, it was different… almost refreshing. I almost saw a hurt behind his eyes. Something was causing him pain and I wasn’t sure where it was coming from. Seeing him like this made me look at him in a different light. He seemed… human.
“Just say you’re sorry for everything and you can have my trust,” I said confidently after much contemplation.
He laughed at that. “Shuro, I’m not going to apologize to you when I don’t even know what I’ve done.”
“Do you want me to name them? ‘Cause I can do that.”
“Really? I’m pretty sure I can name a couple incidents that merit an apology from you as well.”
“God, you are such a dick. You’re really no better than any of the boys here. You say you want to help us and you say you want our trust yet you can’t even say a simple word.”
Connor cleared his throat when I began to walk away again.
“Sorry.” It was quiet and almost caught and blew away in the breeze, but it still reached me. I still heard him.

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