by Karina Halle
I want him to kiss me. I want to kiss him.
I’ve wanted and yearned my whole life, but I don’t think I’ve ever wanted quite like this. It pulls from my gut and mingles with those feelings I’ve ignored, the ones that tell me I’m looking for something and haven’t found it yet.
Is it Josh? Would he fill that void?
Or is he just the sleight-of-hand in a card trick?
He’s sitting across from me on a mossy rock and his eyes keep catching mine through the flames. If I were to lean over and kiss him, I would catch fire.
But I think I’d enjoy it.
“I think I’m going to turn in,” he says, his voice careful, and I look down to hide the disappointment I know is etched on my face.
“Yeah. Me too,” I reply, hoping I sound free.
But I’m not free. My stupid fucking heart is nothing more than a cage. I have to learn better. I have to watch myself.
I tip another shot of whiskey into my mouth and feel it burn as it goes down. I wish there were no tomorrow.
Josh seems hesitant to leave me so I get up and go to the washroom instead with the one dying flashlight that we have. I relieve myself and then spend a few moments milling around the campsites, staring at the glow from the tents against the glow of the stars above.
I wish I could paint this. I wish I could capture it as it is, all the details. I wouldn’t need to embellish or elaborate. The reality is as beautiful as art.
With that thought in my head, I crawl into bed beside Nick and go to sleep.
The next morning I wake up with a fuzzy head and a frozen nose. It’s the only thing poking out of the sleeping bags, and when I open my eyes I see frost on the top of the tent. Lord, it’s cold.
I turn against Nick and try and snuggle, try to get warm. But he cries out and pushes me away.
“Fuck, babe, you’re pure ice,” he says in annoyance and he keeps me at arm’s length so I don’t bring the chill to him. Now I kind of want to freeze him out in a different way.
“Cuddle me,” I demand, half joking, half serious.
But he only covers himself with the rest of his sleeping bag and rolls away, facing the side of the tent. “Fuck no, cuddle yourself, ice queen,” he grumbles.
Maybe he doesn’t mean for it to sting, but it does. It shouldn’t. He meant it as just a joke, a jab at my frozen limbs, not anything more than that. The truth is I don’t really need to snuggle up to Nick; he’s just a warm body and I’d probably snuggle up to a fat, bearded trucker named Earl if I had a choice, but I don’t.
I sigh, my breath catching in a cloud above my head, then decide to get on with the day. I get dressed as fast as I can, my teeth chattering as I go, pulling on singlets and T-shirts and flannel shirts and sweaters.
I noisily zip out of the tent and emerge into the mist. I can barely see Josh and Amber’s tent across the fire pit. Everything is hidden by cold, heavy fog.
My teeth are still chattering as I quickly get the fire going for warmth and then the stove going for our breakfast. It’s not long before everyone else is emerging, hugging themselves and spewing obscenities over the weather. But that’s the thing about the South Island and especially the mountains. You can have four seasons in one day and the weather can change drastically in a short amount of time. The number one killer for tourists is hypothermia.
Thankfully we’ve all planned ahead, and though it takes a while and we have to wear all the clothes we’ve packed and wait for the fire to get hot, we eventually warm up and get ready to continue on with the hike.
The track from the campsite is a lot of up and down, and though I know that the cliffs don’t suddenly drop off from the path, it’s still scary making our way through with limited visibility.
I guess I’m going too slow for Nick because he takes the lead in front of me.
“We’re not going to fall off the mountain,” he tosses over his shoulder at me. “Pick up the pace.”
I exhale noisily but keep one foot going in front of the other. Compared to yesterday, I’m in a bad mood. The low cloud makes me feel boxed in and claustrophobic, plus the slight whiskey hangover and Nick’s rejection this morning doesn’t help.
We pass through an area known as “The Orchard” where the path turns into a grassy plain dotted with ferns and ribbonwood trees. Josh says they remind him of arbutus trees back in British Columbia, the way their thin trunks bend and reach. In the fog they just look like ghostly, frail hands trying to hold the mist, but they can’t hold on any better than I can.
Today’s hike feels longer than yesterday’s, and though we pass by waterfalls and lush beechwood forest, I feel like that moment I wanted to hang on to has passed forever. I didn’t want a tomorrow and yet here it is. Cold and gray and trapped.
We reach Lake Howden Hut around three p.m. and just before the torrential downpour starts. Unlike the first hut we stayed at, this one is much smaller and feels cramped, thanks to all the other trampers taking shelter from the rain, plus the addition of my own foul mood.
Nick cooks dinner this time—parboiled rice and rehydrated vegetables, which actually taste better than it sounds—and I barely finish the bowl when the clouds suddenly clear a path for the sky and the rain stops and the sun shoots us a barrel-wide ray of light.
“I want to go to Key Summit,” I announce suddenly, getting to my feet.
“What?” Nick says, reaching for me to sit back down.
I move out of his grasp and eye them all. “The weather has finally cleared up and if I stay in here I’m going to go crazy.” Amber and Josh exchange a look. I ignore it. “I wanted to go to Key Summit earlier but what’s the point if you can’t see anything.”
“It’s almost sundown, babe,” Nick says. “We can go tomorrow.”
“Fuck tomorrow,” I say. “I want this today. I want the sunset. It’s only twenty minutes up and it’s totally guided by signs. There’s a boardwalk up there. It’s safe. I’ve seen the pictures.”
They all avoid my desperate eyes.
“Don’t be mad,” Amber admits sheepishly, “but I’m not moving an inch.”
“Neither am I,” says Nick, folding his arms.
Hesitantly, I look at Josh. He just nods and gets up, his empty dish in hand. “I’d love to go. But let’s just pack a backpack just in case.”
My nerves jump at the idea of being alone with him. Where was the brave girl from last night? Was she still hidden in the fog?
But he’s right, we need to be smart, even for a short hike. He comes back from the bunks with the small daypack that detaches from his larger one and I see he’s put in a first-aid kit, two rain jackets, sweaters, socks, the flashlight, and a handful of energy bars.
“All set?” I ask him, almost afraid to meet his eyes.
He gives me an easy smile that puts my cagey mind to rest. “Let’s go.” He looks at Nick and Amber. “I’ll send you a postcard.”
We leave the hut side by side, the trees around us touched by fading sun at their tops and hidden by darkening shadow below. Once we’re back on the track and heading south toward the turnoff for the summit route, we go into single file. This time Josh is leading the way. I like it.
Maybe I just like staring at his ass.
The track ascends through thick beech forest and ferns, everything growing darker and darker the more the sun sets, like the land is preparing for the night. And then the final ten minutes it opens up into bogs and tussock and pastel sky. I feel so much better with the forest beneath us, like my head is clearing.
We reach the summit just in time. The sun is starting to sink in the west over the peaks, and the sky is turning shades of orange and blue, tingeing the edges of the clouds with magenta, like a child has taken a neon marker and outlined them. The boardwalk among the bogs, ponds, and low shrubs ends at a lake that reflects all the colors of the sky back at us.
I want to cry. The tears are there, rushing to my eyes because my soul can’t contain them. It’s all too much but they still don’t fall.
Instead I let out a quiet sob that seems to echo across the mountains and all the way to the unseen sea.
Suddenly Josh wraps his arms around me from the back, holding me in place. He rests his jaw on top of my head and keeps his focus forward, on the beauty changing, melting, evolving in front of us.
My nerves change, too, slipping into something more comfortable. He’s just holding me, providing comfort, giving warmth, support. He’s a friend and he’s here for me. He can feel the ache in my heart.
But I also know he’s more than a friend. He’s on the brink of becoming something else, if only I have the courage to try.
We stand like that for a long time. Too long. It’s getting cold and dark but now the moon is out and the stars are like the glowworms we saw in the cave. I don’t want to turn around. I don’t want to go back to the hut or to my life as it was. I want to keep standing here with his strong, hard arms around me, staring up into infinite space.
“We should go back,” Josh eventually says, and I hear a bit of trepidation in his low voice.
I turn around and face him, my chest pressed against his. I rub my lips together, wishing I could ask for what I want, even though I don’t know what it is. I want him to help me.
“Okay,” I say quietly. So we’re not going to talk about it. So it was just a friendly embrace. So that was it.
He sucks in his breath, hesitating for a moment, then he steps back and away from me, removing his backpack. He digs the flashlight out of the front pocket and flicks it on. The light is weak but it works.
But by the time we get to the end of the boardwalk, it doesn’t. Clouds roll in from the sea, hitting the mountains and covering the moon.
Our light is gone.
We are alone in the dark.
We are alone on the mountain.
I try not to panic. I take out my Samsung Galaxy and try to use the flashlight feature. It kind of works, painting the route in front of us in a dim gray. But when I hit rocks and nearly stumble over a low ledge into a mess of trees below, and Josh has to yank me back to safety, I realize we can’t use it to navigate.
“Shit,” I swear. “Shit, shit, shit, fuck!”
I can’t keep the panic out of my voice.
Josh grips my arms, and in the dimness I can barely see his face. “Gemma,” he says, calm and steady. “It’s okay. Save the battery on your phone. I know there’s no reception right now, but you never know what tomorrow will bring. If we try and go down that path in the dark or with those phones, we’re asking for trouble. Do you know what they teach you in Boy Scouts?”
I shake my head.
“Neither do I,” he says. “I was kicked out after the second day for lighting shit on fire. But I did take an outward bound class in high school. You stay in place. You don’t move. You wait for people to come to you. Trust me, this happens all the time at home, people going off to hike in the mountains above Vancouver, and if only they didn’t move, they would have been found. They would have survived.”
“It was so cold last night,” I say, the terror rising in my throat, the image of Nick rolling away from me when I was freezing.
“It was cold,” he says. “But that’s why we packed a backpack, to prepare for this. There are two of us for heat, plus I know how to make a good bed and shelter from the elements. We’re going to be fine, and as soon as dawn breaks, we’ll be on our way. We know where we are. They know where we are. We’re not lost. We’re just delayed in getting back, that’s all.”
I stare at his face in the dark as a cold breeze whips up my hair. I’m putting all my trust in him. I don’t know how he knows this stuff but I believe him. He’ll take care of us. He’ll take care of me.
As if hearing what I’m thinking, he places his warm hand on my chilled cheek and says, “Trust me, I’ve got you.”
And he does. With the weak light of the phone we head back a few feet from where we were and stop at a grassy area beside a low shrub. On the opposite side of it, against the direction of the wind, Josh starts ripping up grass from the ground and leaves from the surrounding trees.
I do the same, adding the occasional hunk of moss that feels dry. We spread it out on the ground beside the tree, then on top of all the foliage he lays down a silver emergency blanket that he brings out from the first-aid kit.
Next he brings out an extra pair of socks and a sweater and orders me to put it on. I do so quickly and he does the same. Then he gives me my rain jacket. As I’m slipping it on, he walks a few feet away to relieve himself. I should do the same but my adrenaline is running too high.
“All righty,” he says as he comes back and gestures to the makeshift bed. “Lie down.” He puts on his jacket but he doesn’t zip it up.
I carefully lower myself to the ground. The low bush really does block the wind and I immediately feel a lot warmer.
He gets down on his knees beside me and puts his hands on my waist, lifting me up slightly. “Here, flip over. We’re spooning tonight.”
A faint smile touches my lips. I roll over so my back is to him and he lies down right beside me, his body pressed flush against mine. For once I can luxuriate in the contact and I move my body back against his, craving his heat. He tangles his long legs over mine and wraps the open flap of his rain jacket over me like it’s the end of a blanket. One arm goes up over my head, making sure my jacket hood is covering me, while the other holds me in a tight embrace.
“You okay?” he whispers in my ear. Even through the hood, his breath is hot and sends shivers running down my spine.
I nod. It’s all I can do.
“We’ll be okay tonight,” he assures me. “The bush will block the wind and all the stuff between us and the ground will let us keep each other warm. That’s why most people die in the wilderness. They think it’s more important to have shelter over them, but it’s the ground that kills them. It will steal all your warmth.”
“What if it rains?” I manage to ask. “Or snows?”
“I don’t know if it will snow. But where we were camping last night was at a much higher elevation and it didn’t snow there. If it rains, then we’ll huddle under the rain jackets, but until that happens it’s best if we get some sleep.”
But I can’t sleep and it’s not just that we’re lying in the open in the dark in the middle of the Southern Alps. It’s that Josh is holding me as tight as he can and I’ve never felt so safe because of it.
My chest is begging for release but I don’t know how to start or what to say.
So I find myself saying something I never thought I would.
“Josh?” I ask softly.
“Yeah?”
“Do you ever find yourself wanting something so badly but you don’t know what it is?”
His breath is heavy in my ear for a moment. Finally he says, “Yes. I do.”
I swallow, my throat feeling thick. “I have this . . . I don’t know what it is exactly. But I wake up and it’s there and it’s been there for a long time. It’s just this absence. It tells me that either something was there before and now it’s gone or that something should be there at this point in my life. But I don’t have it. I feel this lack. So much that it hurts. And I don’t know what it is. It just makes me sad. It makes me long and ache and I need something to fill it. It’s a constant pain and I’m so fucking tired of it.”
My voice chokes up a bit at the end and the tears that didn’t come during the sunset are coming now, slowly, cold on my cheeks. “I think I ache for things I may never have. I long for purpose, for life, and yet sometimes I think I’m too afraid to live.” I pause. “Do you ever worry that there’s something out there that you’re missing?”
“I do,” he answers quietly, pulling back the
edge of my hood. His warm lips brush against the rim of my ear and I close my eyes to intensify the feeling. “The feeling that you won’t be happy until you find it.”
“Yes,” I say, relief flooding through me at the realization that he understands. “Do you know what yours is?”
He pauses. “I have an idea. It’s becoming clearer day by day.”
I suck in my breath, waiting, hoping, wishing on what he will say next. If he says it, then I’ll take the plunge.
“What is it?”
“Well, coming here has helped,” he says. “I feel like I’m actually living my life instead of just getting by. I’m doing something, being somebody. Before this . . . I was just going through the motions. Now I am the motion.”
Knowing what happened to me, I ask, “Are you afraid that when you go back home you’ll change back to the way you were?”
I can feel him smile against my neck. “No. I’m not afraid of that. The things that have happened here . . . they’re permanent.”
Permanent. I can only wish he was permanent in my life.
“You’re lucky,” I tell him.
“Why?”
“Because no matter what happens, you’ll go back a better person. I came back a worse person.”
He flinches like he’s been struck. “What?”
“It’s true,” I admit, and even though it’s painful to do, that sense of freedom teases me with each word that comes out of my mouth. “When I was traveling I became whatever I wanted, whoever I wanted. When I came back home, it was almost like it was all for nothing. I regressed—and then some. All those months of finding myself were gone in a matter of weeks. And the hollowness has only gotten worse. Sometimes I think I’m just a shell of who I used to be and I don’t think I’ll ever feel whole.”
I can’t believe I’m admitting this much. It’s not even a life or death situation, at least it doesn’t feel that way in Josh’s capable arms, but I can’t help but open up to him. He wanted to know the real me and now he’s getting every ugly bit of her. But he still has no idea of what I could be like and only a small glimpse of what I could have been.