It should have been me.
For my twenty-first birthday, I didn't want to go to Vegas. I didn't even want to go to the bar. I just wanted to camp in the woods with a few close friends, try alcohol with them, and have a good time. So last week, the fifteenth of June, we did just that. We went camping like we have every summer for the last fifteen years.
God, I wish we hadn't.
Everything was great. I thought the beer tasted disgusting, but it made everything more fun. The campfire was going, the tent was set up, and Sam, Josh, Ryan, and I were drinking beer. Everything was perfect. Beer, stargazing, and a campfire was all we needed. Truth and dare is a fun game, but it's even more with alcohol involved. Things get a little crazy, you know?
Hide and seek's always been my favorite game. As a small person, I've always had a wide range of hiding places I could fit into. I've won most of the games with everyone ever since we were kids. Sam and the others got height as we hit puberty; I got mad hide and seek skills. It's become something of a tradition, actually, to play a game of hide and seek on my birthday. I think it's Sam's way of trying to make up for growing so much taller than me. Well… was.
I should've known better than to agree to playing hide and seek in an unfamiliar stretch of the woods after dark, especially buzzed. It wasn't that far from our usual camping site, but it was far enough to make a difference.
It was far enough that we didn't know about the gorge.
If you've never been in the woods after dark without a flashlight, it gets dark. Really dark. Everything is silhouettes and shadows, and if there's enough moonlight, occasionally a small bit of detail. The dark makes hide and seek that much more fun. You really have to know what you're looking for to find anyone in the dark, even if you're the seeker and have a flashlight. Everywhere is a viable hiding place if you can get there. Trees, bushes, undergrowth. Anything.
We all agreed on a direction from the tent that we would stick to, set Sam to counting, and scattered to hide. We'd all been in the woods enough that we knew how to move quietly. I angled away from Ryan as soon as I could. My brother's always lived up to being a brotherly annoyance and spoils my hiding places as often as he can. Josh would work with him, so my best chances of winning would be hiding away from them.
It's easy to feel like you've been in an unfamiliar stretch of woods before. Everything looks the same after dark. I thought I knew where I was, but when Sam got close and I started running to try to make it back to camp without getting caught, it turned out I was wrong.
I ran, she almost caught up to me, and that was when I slipped. The gorge seemed to come out of nowhere. One moment, I ran on solid ground, and the next, my feet were skidding down a wall. I caught a tree root by some miracle and held on for dear life.
"Leah? Leah!" The beam from Sam's flashlight swept over the gorge and landed on me as I responded. "Oh my god! Leah! Hold on, I'll get you out of there."
She dropped her flashlight, knelt down, and grabbed my hand. If it wasn't for her, I would've slipped. Because of me, she did. On solid ground again, I clung to her for several moments as I tried to breathe again, and she held me just as tightly. We were so terrified. Then we stood up to head back to camp, and I tripped.
I tripped. How stupid is that?
Sam tried to catch me, she did catch me, and it cost her everything. Her hands disappeared from my arm and I turned around even as her scream echoed. It still hasn't left my mind. I'm on my knees at the edge of the gorge, and I can see her. She's caught herself, barely, about three feet down, and I can just barely see her as a blob of paleness in the shadows. "Sam!" I scream for her to hold on, to not let go, and start screaming for Josh and Ryan to come help us.
I'm on my belly, stretching as far down as I can to grab her hand. I touched the back of her hand. Rock wouldn't have been that warm. I try to grab her wrist, to help her hold on until our brothers get there. I've always been the weakest of the bunch; I can't lift her on my own. Her hand shifts, and I feel her slipping. She's slipping, and I can't catch her.
I can see her staring up at me. Wide, terrified eyes, barely contained sobs drifting up, pleas for me to help her. I'm trying, I'm stretching my arm so far that it feels like I'm pulling it apart to reach her, to keep her holding on for just a few more seconds. Our brothers are close now, crashing through the woods and asking what happened. I can't answer; if I talk, I'll lose my grip.
I still don't want to believe it. My hand slipped. She fell. She fell right before our brothers got there. They heard her scream just like I did, and the crunch that ended it. The silence after.
We heard her die because of me.
Everything after that is a big blur. There was screaming. No answers. Ryan dragged me away from the gorge, I think Josh called someone, and I couldn't pay attention to anything once the tears started. Haven't slept since, haven't really talked. I still can't; I'm too busy thinking about how it should have been me.
