Out of Reach by Arcos Carrie

Author:Arcos, Carrie [Arcos, Carrie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Published: 2012-10-16T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

When Micah entered the six-week rehab program, the people at the facility gave my parents a copy of the Twelve Steps for recovery. Micah was supposed to “work” the steps, which, from what I could tell, meant he was to take an honest assessment of his life.

The steps surprised me. The first one had to do with admitting you were out of control, because of the drugs or whatever addiction you had, and that you couldn’t live life without help. The third step revealed that the help would come by giving your life over to a Higher Power or whatever you thought of as God.

The steps dealt with character, humility, and faith. I had expected them to be more psychobabble and scientific, not some kind of spiritual awakening. I wondered if Micah bought any of it. He had never mentioned a Higher Power or God. I don’t think he was much of a believer in anything except his music.

Step Number Two was about how believing in a Greater Power could restore sanity, which I understood because, really, Micah did become insane. That’s the only way I could reconcile it in my mind. If you thought about it, most people suffered from some type of insanity at some point in their lives. And it was comforting to believe that there was a God or something bigger out there that could help reel you back in, that could help get you back to normal, whatever that was.

I never talked about it, but one time I actually thought I felt God. It happened the summer I went camping with Michelle and her family in the Sequoias, where there was nothing except miles of huge trees and rivers and waterfalls. We had camped along a river marked by large round boulders. We had two tents at the site, one for her parents and little brother, and the other just for Michelle and me.

The first night we grilled chicken kabobs over the fire and roasted marshmallows and made s’mores. Her parents always went all out, doing everything by the book, as if they had taken Camping 101. They even told us ghost stories around the campfire, something about a car and handprints on a foggy window. I didn’t believe it; I had heard it before, but I gave them an A for effort.

That night, after everyone was asleep in their tents, I heard dragging footsteps outside. I froze in my sleeping bag, thinking it was a bear. I tried to remember what the pamphlet Michelle’s father had picked up at the ranger station said about bears, something about how waving one’s arms and making lots of noise would scare them away. I couldn’t remember anything about what to do if they came to your tent. I stayed very still, trying not to make a sound with my breathing. Michelle snored softly. On the side of the tent, I saw a silhouette in the moonlight. It moved near the fire pit. I was convinced it

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