Gianluca Ginoble and I

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

          At a little past four I was itching to go out and explore, and I pressed my face against the window, gazing at the mountains in the distance.

          I went to find my mother. She was sitting at the desk in her guestroom, sending emails to some clients.

          “I’m going out for a while,” I said.

          “Okay. Why are you telling me? You usually just leave.”

          “Because Gianluca will be looking for me when he finishes with Piero and Ignazio. I want you to be able to tell him that I went out, but tell him not to go after me.”

          “Why can’t he go after you?” she asked, pushing back from the desk and looking concerned.

          “He likes to go with me when I go exploring. Sometimes it’s just fun to be alone, you know? But he says it’s not safe for me to be alone in Abruzzo.”

          She smiled.

          “And that’s why I like him!” she said. “Reasonable, respectful…”

          “Okay, Mom,” I interrupted, “I’ll see you later.”

          I looked around for my phone, but couldn’t find it anywhere in the house.

 Desperate to go, I left without it.

          I strapped on a watch, took Gianluca’s bike from the garage, and snuck past Ignazio’s house, where they were practicing. Then I straddled the bike and rode off.

          I really wanted to go to the mountains, and I biked through some trails in a woodsy area and then through a long field as a shortcut.

          I eventually arrived at a cluster of smaller, rocky mountains that led to the much higher ones.

          I left Gianluca’s bike at the base of the mini-mountains and examined them. They were only about a hundred-fifty feet tall where I was standing, and covered in dirt.

          Were mountains usually so dirty? Perhaps they were; I hadn’t been to any mountains before.

          I walked forward and grabbed onto a rock, hoisting myself up. I slowly and carefully went up rock by rock, clinging onto the side of the mountain as I climbed. The side slanted somewhat, making it easier to climb. Halfway up, I looked around and down at the ground, smiling with delight. I cupped my hands to my mouth.

“I love Abruzzo!” I yelled, and it echoed around me. I laughed, and that echoed too.

I continued climbing until I reached the top, where I sat and looked around me.

I whooped with joy and peered down at the ground, a hundred-fifty feet below me.

I decided to get up and hike some more, not getting too far away from the bike.

After a while, it began to drizzle.

“Ah, well…” I said to myself, putting my hands on my hips and smiling up at the gray Abruzzo sky, “Guess I’ll get to cross showering off of my to-do list then.”

I turned around and around, taking in the scenes around me. It was absolutely breathtaking. If only I had my phone to take pictures! Oh, well, I could always come back later.

The drizzling turned to a light rain, and I started to head back towards the bike, hoping to get down before the dirt turned to mud and the rocks became slippery.

I was about a hundred feet above the bike now, and I kept climbing back down, carefully stepping onto rocks and holding onto others. I reached a point where the next large rock was several feet away, not within stepping distance, but perhaps jumping distance. The rain started to come down a little harder, dripping off my blue T-shirt and cutoff shorts. My surroundings were covered in a gray shroud, and I squinted through the drops running down my face.

I decided to try to skid down the side of the mountain a little and land on the rock. Under that there was a little cliff, and I’d have to get on my hands and knees to get down from that. I stepped off of the rock I was on and inched toward the other, skidding a little.

Then my shoe caught in the mud, and I hurtled forward.

I threw my arms out and desperately grabbed hold of the rock, falling against it, only to discover that it was unsteady, and I was now plummeting off the side of a mountain. I screamed, and slammed into a mound of rocks that cut into my skin. I rolled off of it and plummeted downward, off a little cliff, screaming and grasping for something to hold onto.

I slammed onto the side of the mountain, and my arms were burned with the friction of brushing down rocks. Everything pulsed as I was gripped with pain, and I was pressed against the side of the mountain.

The rain blinded me, and I wasn’t falling anymore.

My heart pounded, and my head spun, and I moved to get up, onto to discover that I couldn’t. Things were pressing into me, into the sides of my chest, making it hard to breathe. I blinked the rain out of my eyes, and looked around, bewildered.

I was wedged between two huge, stubborn rocks, if you could call them that. They were more like boulders.

One was pinning my arm to my side, and the other was against the side of my chest, my arm stuck reaching out for help that wasn’t there. Little pebbles that were dislodged from my falling tumbled over me.

I struggled, and rain ran down the boulders into my eyes. I kicked my feet around and muddy water flew up. I tried desperately to free myself from the mountain’s tight grasp, but to no avail.

I screamed, but the rain drowned me out, literally, running into my mouth and making me splutter.

I got my leg up onto one of the boulders and pushed at it, but it refused to move.

The edges were cutting into me, and I screamed, feeling hopeless, angry, and out of breath.

I wiggled around to try to free my chest, but I was stuck!

In the rain, in the dark, trapped!

I moved my arm above my head and blinked away the rain, trying to check the time. It was almost six. I should be heading back now, if only I could free myself.

I thrashed around, and the rocks cut into me, making me inhale sharply in pain.

Streams of thick mud started to run over my curls and legs, and rain was running into my face in a steady stream.

I spluttered and screamed, and prayed that I wouldn’t have a panic attack.

As soon as I thought it, a painful pounding began in my chest.

I screamed.

“GIANLUCAAAA!!!”