It had been almost a week since our little adventure and I hadn't spoken to Ace once. It actually felt pretty good, I had to admit. Teddy and I were back to hanging out with the girls, and everything was cool. I was feeling pretty happy again, and while I still thought Ace was a jerk, I wasn't angry at the sight of him any more. Now I just ignored him, like he didn't exist. Teddy had learned after the first day not to mention his name.

It was Saturday morning and all of us boys were crowded around the office building, waiting for the camp director to come out and talk to us. This was the weekend of our navigations exercise. We would be paired in groups of two and be given a map, compass, and an area we had to get to and spend the night at. I was looking forward to it, figuring it would give Teddy and me a good chance to test how much we'd learned. Plus it would be cool to escape the camp for a night and be on our own.

But to my utter horror, we were told that we weren't picking our own partners. I immediately got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach and I hoped - I desperately hoped that fate wasn't cursing me.

It turned out that she was. I was partnered up with Ace.

We'd set off fifteen minutes ago (all the groups had different routes, and we all left at timed intervals) and I already wanted to kill him. As soon as we'd been paired, I could see him immediately get the same pissed off expression on his face. But his didn't last long. He grinned at the camp director as he took our map and compass, exclaiming how excited he was for the exercise. It made me ill. I wanted to protest, to ask if we could change partners. But I knew I couldn't explain to the staff why – it would mean admitting everything we'd done a week ago, and we'd all get in trouble. And if I couldn't offer up a good explanation (because if I said that I didn't like Ace, they'd only see this as an opportunity for us to bond and become better friends) then what could I say?

So in the end I'd said nothing and simply followed along as he took off. As soon as we were out of earshot of the camp he'd turned to me and said that he was going to carry the map and compass, because I'd probably just lose them. It made me so angry, but he'd just smirked and turned around, taking off again.

Sometimes it was a bit of a struggle, keeping up with him. It almost felt like he was taking the hardest route possible just to test my ability to keep up. Eventually we stopped when we got to the top of the mountain we'd been steadily climbing up. I was kind of surprised I had managed to keep up with him, but now that we'd come to a stop I was grateful for it.

He sat down on the grass and took off his bag, going through it in search of something. Probably food, which I thought was a great idea. I sat down too (though not too close to him, because even though we were stuck together for the weekend, it didn't mean we were going to be friendly) and went through my pack, looking for a sandwich. We ate in silence, neither one of us wanting to talk to the other. When I had finished my meal I looked over at Ace, seeing him lying back on the grass with his eyes closed.

Part of me wanted to ask if we could get going again, because it was sort of getting awkward sitting here and not talking. But the other part of me thought that a nap sounded like a perfect idea. We were out of the shade of the trees and in the sun, and it felt so relaxing. A bit of a rest would be a good idea before we got going again.

But just as I had lain back on the grass, as though he'd been waiting for me to get comfortable, he stood up and said we should get moving again. I remained where I was for a second, feeling a little angry. I wanted to protest and say that no, we should stay for a little while longer. But he did have the map and compass, and I knew that if it came down to it, he would just head off on his own and leave me here. So I got up and shouldered my pack again before following him.

It occurred to me that I actually had no idea where we were even going. I knew Ace did have a high level of navigational skill though, so I knew he'd get us where we had to go. But it still irked me to follow along. This weekend was supposed to be testing the skills we'd learned, and how was I going to test mine if I just followed him?

We followed the ravine gorge for a while, walking above one of the park's rivers. At least it was gorgeous out here today; the way the sun glittered off the rocks in the river was kind of breathtaking. Maybe I would be able to keep calm more easily if I stopped thinking about Ace so much and instead focused on everything around me. I wish I had a camera! Or my painting set. If I was with Teddy, I knew I could convince him to stop so I could paint this scene (he'd probably sleep). But I wasn't with Teddy, and I didn't have my paints anyway. It would just have to be another memory I would try to recreate one day.

I looked at my watch – 1:37 in the afternoon. We'd been hiking for just over five and a half hours, and I wondered how much further we had to go before reaching our camp. Not that I was complaining, really. At least the hike kept us busy. What would Ace and I do when we had to stop and set up camp for the night? That was an awkward mess I wasn't looking forward to.

It was around two o'clock when we stopped again, but this time Ace spoke to me, saying that in his estimation we should be at our camp site in another two hours. I was both happy and nervous to hear that. We sat down again, this time on the edge of the ravine overlooking the river below. I could imagine that if Teddy were here, he'd probably try to convince me to jump in the river with him. It wasn't really that high, after all, maybe a fifteen foot drop. It had been higher before, but we were coming down into a bit of a gully.

"Hey Ace," I said suddenly, "Can I see the map? I just want to see where we're going."

To my surprise he handed it over without saying anything. I'd at least expected him to tell me not to drop it. I looked it over and saw our destination marked by a little red X. It was apparently along a stream that came off of this river, which would make it easy enough to find.

I felt rather thirsty then, so I set the map down beside me and pulled off my pack, digging around for my water bottle. I pulled it out and flipped off the cap, taking a long, slow sip. As I was midway through it, suddenly a gust of wind came up and right before my eyes (my suddenly terrified eyes) the map was picked up by the wind and went sailing over the side of the cliff.

"Shit!" I yelled, which drew Ace's attention away from looking up into the sky at the clouds.

He saw what I was looking at and let out an annoyed huff of breath. "Nice going, dumb ass!"

"I'm sorry; there was no wind at all until just now!" I felt like an idiot, and I knew he was going to ride me over this for the rest of the day. I looked down and saw the map sitting on a ledge just above the water. If only I was more skilled at rock climbing, I'd climb down right here and get it.

"See? This is exactly why I didn't want you to carry the map. You always screw everything up, Lancer." He took off his pack and threw it on the ground and before I knew what was happening, he disappeared over the edge of the cliff. Apparently Ace was confident enough in his rock climbing skills to climb down and get the map.

"Be careful!" I shouted half-heartedly, feeling useless again. Great, he'd let me have the map for one minute and I'd done exactly what he'd said I'd do – lose it. I didn't think things could get any worse, but they did.

I watched as Ace grabbed on to a root sticking out from the cliff face, using it as leverage as he leaned down to pick up the map. Just as his fingers closed on it though, suddenly the root gave way and I watched him fall backwards off the cliff toward the water.

"Ace!" I yelled, watching in shock as he hit the river. If he'd just fallen into the water that wouldn't have been such a problem, because the map was laminated so it was waterproof and he was a strong swimmer, but just like in every movie that had a scene of someone falling off a cliff, there happened to be a big branch sticking out from the other side, and I heard more than saw him crack the back of his head on it.

"Ace?" I stood in stunned silence for a moment, watching to see if maybe what I'd heard was something else entirely. But in the few seconds I'd stood stock still, his unresponsive body started drifting down the river. "Fuck!" I yelled again, totally on the verge of freaking out. What could I do?! I could jump into the river after him, but I didn't know how deep it was, and me breaking my legs would not help this situation at all. So I took a deep breath while shouldering my bag and started climbing down the side of the cliff, grateful that it wasn't as tall as it had been an hour ago. When I was close enough to the water I let go, splashing into the river. Ace was quite a distance down-stream from me, but I was a pretty strong swimmer (I had plans of getting my lifeguarding license in a few years) and at least he was floating face up, and not face down.

I dove into the water and started swimming as fast as I could, hampered a bit by the bag on my back, and luckily in the space of a minute I managed to catch up to him. But now the only problem was that there wasn't really any way for me to get him out of the water, because there was a bit of a cliff on both sides now. I held on to him though and let the current carry us downstream, hoping that maybe there would be a sandy bend somewhere that I could pull him out.

It felt like we drifted for a good ten minutes before I finally saw an opening. The river bended around to the right rather sharply, and as I'd hoped, the right side of the river bank was level with the water, and there was a bit of a sandy beach area. I somehow managed to grab Ace under the arms and drag him out (at least I remembered that from our first aid training) and I felt completely drained by the time I managed to get him to dry ground. I laid him down as gently as I could before nearly collapsing on my stomach, breathing heavily.

I knew I couldn't just stay like that, though. I had to check Ace, to make sure he wasn't in serious trouble. I tried to remember what we'd been told to do; there was some line we were supposed to remember or something. I think it was "Look, Listen, Feel" or something like that. So I crawled over to him and felt a little better when I saw that he was breathing. How he'd not managed to swallow a lungful of water was beyond me, but I'd be grateful for whatever I could get. He looked okay, his skin wasn't all gray or white or anything. He was still unconscious, though, so I carefully checked the back of his head, relieved to see he at least wasn't bleeding from anywhere.

So then I checked for a pulse, and it seemed normal enough. His breathing sounded okay, he wasn't gasping for breath or anything. So it was probably just a concussion. Lovely. I tried to remember what you were supposed to do when this happened – elevate the legs? Or was that just for shock? What if he was in shock? Could you be unconscious but in shock? I tried my hardest to remember, but everything just floated around in my head and I couldn't make any sense of it.

I just wished he would wake up! I was sure he would know what to do, because he always seemed to know everything. But then I suddenly had another concern shoot through me – where were we? And how was I going to get help? I didn't know if Ace was going to be okay enough to walk whenever he woke up, but I couldn't just leave him here.

I pulled off my pack just then, remembering that we'd been told that if anything happened and we needed help that we each had a flare and that if we shot it off, someone would come and find us. But then I had a sinking feeling in my stomach, because before I'd lost the map I'd had my bag open after taking my water out. And now everything I'd had in my bag was gone, including the flare.

I threw the bag away from me, frustration welling up uncontrollably. What could I do?! Ace was in serious trouble and it was all my fault, and I couldn't even find anyone to help us! I felt the beginning of tears welling up in my eyes and I didn't want to cry, but I couldn't help it. I'd never felt so helpless in my life. But just then I heard a shifting sound beside me and I looked over to see Ace moving his head.

"Hey, are you waking up?" I immediately went over to him, forcing myself to stop crying. I couldn't let him see me like that. "You shouldn't move your head around too much."

"Lance?" Ace's voice sounded kind of muffled, like he was saying my name with a mouth full of cotton. I don't think that was a good sign.

"Yeah, I'm here. How do you feel?" I was relieved that he'd woken up finally, but also scared, because what if I found out that his head injury was really serious?

It took him a moment to answer me, and he kind of looked confused. "Um, wet. Why'm I wet?"

He was definitely mumbling when he spoke, and that had me worried. Ace never mumbled. Not to mention the fact that he couldn't remember what had happened! "Well, you fell into the water and hit your head. Do you remember that?"

He paused again, his eyes appearing unfocused. I was getting more worried by the second. He was obviously in a pretty bad state, and I couldn't really do anything for him. So I just sat and waited for him to answer me.

"Ace? Do you remember what happened?"

He closed his eyes again and gave me a mumbled "No" as a response. Was I supposed to let him sleep? Or did I need to keep him awake? I couldn't remember! I looked back at the river, thinking. He'd left his pack up on the ridge before jumping in. Maybe I should go back to where we were and get it? I could use that flare, at least. And I'd have his sleeping bag to put over him, since mine was all wet. I'm sure he was fine now, lying in the sun, but if it got dark and no one found us, I'm sure he'd be awfully cold.

I just didn't know if I wanted to leave him. What if he woke up and I was gone? What if he panicked and tried to move and hurt himself even more? If only he could wake up and stay awake, and if only I was sure that he'd remember things that I tell him, then I could leave him. But I just felt like leaving him alone right as he was would be a mistake.

So instead I got up and took out my wet sleeping bag, opening it up and laying it on the grass and hoping it would dry in the sun. I just couldn't risk taking off and leaving him here by himself. I would have to wait him out until he woke up again.