Scot and Bothered

11. Now

11

NOW

Brooke knelt by her tent in the diluted rays of the foggy morning, struggling to light her camp stove against the blowing wind. She ran her thumb over the ribbed metal circle on the lighter, the flame sparking before the wind immediately snuffed it out. She closed her eyes against the frustration and hopelessness rising up in her, which was far too large for the number of minutes she’d been awake.

Yesterday, they’d stopped at the Flodigarry hostel for a drink. While Catalina, Natalia, and Jack sipped beers and tipped back on chairs to catch the sunshine, she’d stayed inside. Even the bartender talking bitcoin at her was better than being around Jack.

When Catalina and Natalia had announced they were staying at the hostel with hours of daylight still left, an entire war had raged inside Brooke’s chest. She couldn’t part with the buffer they provided, but she also needed to finish this trail as quickly as possible—for the sake of the memoir and her still-broken heart.

The rest of the day had been a grueling climb until Brooke’s feet were throbbing and her shoulders were numb. Every step they took was into an absolute bog. The ground was so saturated, there was no way they could pitch tents. Brooke was all but dropping to her knees in exhaustion and in supplication to whatever old gods might still claim this land. By the time they’d found a campsite that wouldn’t swallow them whole, Brooke was starving and bone weary.

Now, she had the start of a blister on her right heel, her shoulders ached from her heavy pack, and the wind sifted through her teal Patagonia with no regard for her mood. She was one inconvenience away from hiking out of here and that included a failure to make a mediocre cup of coffee—dreams be damned.

Meanwhile, Jack was having an absolute field day, wandering around the outskirts of their campsite, taking pictures of the blue sea in the background, the sweeping emerald mountain range, and twigs or something. He’d always loved the liminal light of dawn and Brooke hated that that knowledge was stored in the same part of her brain as the dance moves to the “Macarena”; she couldn’t forget, no matter how hard she tried.

She was drowning in memories of him, tossed around by the ones they never got to make, all those wasted nights dreaming about a future that’d never materialized. She was terrified to look him in the eye, to open a connection that had always felt so intimate and inevitable. Afraid she might remember the mornings they’d lain in bed, foreheads pressed together, too close to focus on the autumn brown of his eyes, but still not close enough.

Brooke sucked on the side of her sore thumb, the ridges of the lighter’s flint wheel etched into her skin.

Jack circled back to his tent, long legs clad in convertible zip-off cargo hiking pants that should’ve looked ridiculous, and yet he was somehow channeling an REI catalog model. He tugged on a black puffy vest and zipped it halfway. He was still so insufferably good-looking, so homey in morning hik ing gear. A gray T-shirt peeked out of the collar of his hunter green sweatshirt and she hated the rumpled look of him. Hated that she used to love it so much.

Jack pulled his camp stove from his pack, squatting down to light it. His tan pants pulled tight over his toned ass and Brooke hastily looked away. So much for not noticing him. If she hadn’t made the mistake of looking up the original photographer on Instagram and accidentally imprinting the X-ray of his jagged bone pieces onto her brain, she’d leave Jack behind.

She flicked the lighter until her skin was red and raw and still she couldn’t keep it lit for the second it took to reach her stove. Goddammit.

Jack crossed the expanse between their tents; Brooke had set up her tent as far from his as the boggy soil would allow. “Mine took an age, too. Want some help?”

She cast a look over to his side of camp, where his black stove, shielded by a large boulder, happily boiled water—unlike her disappointment of an outdoor cooking gadget. The only one who hadn’t let her down in this wilderness was her left hiking boot.

“I think I’ve had enough of your help.” She was being hostile and immature, but she couldn’t deal with Jack being nice. Couldn’t bear to rely on him, even in this completely insignificant way. Not when she knew how swiftly he could pull the rug out from under her.

She wanted to pick a fight. Wanted to see him affronted just for the excuse to tell him off. Wanted him to suffer like she had. To face some consequence besides leaving a master’s program he hadn’t even wanted in the first place and following his dreams of being a professional photographer.

“Right,” Jack said stiffly, shoving his hands in his pockets.

His chastened retreat back to his tent should’ve been a triumph, but it made Brooke feel shitty instead. It was so infuriating she could hurl the boots he’d left upturned on the tops of his hiking poles directly into the sea. She had a right to her anger. It was the only punishment he’d gotten.

Brooke moved behind a rock to block the wind and held a hand close enough to the lighter to burn herself, but the flickering flame caught the camp stove and she punched her hand in the air. Victory was hers. And nearly coffee, too.

She boiled water to make her drink, poured the rest in a bag of dehydrated oats, and took a deep breath. She could do this.

After she finished breakfast, Brooke slid the poles out of her tent. As she tossed them on the ground, the tent billowed in the wind. She clutched the fabric to her chest and stepped on the edge as she rolled it up, just in case it blew away. That would be a fucking disaster.

Jack approached, adjusting his pack. Brooke ignored the freckles dusting his cheeks—either darker than she remembered or easier to fixate on without his glasses—and continued stuffing her tent poles inside their bag.

“How do we want to handle navigating today?” he asked.

The Skye Trail was not particularly well marked. It wasn’t an official path where rangers came through and cleared the trail, adding wooden steps and footbridges in hard-to-hike places. And today’s hike was the most technical section. Eleven grueling hours up and over the imposing Quiraing Mountain Range, which had been created by land slips like glaciers calving, resulting in dramatic cliffs and steep slopes.

Brooke pulled her laminated map from her pack. “I’m on it.”

The physicality of the strenuous day and the beginnings of a blister on her heel that she’d expertly bandaged in moleskine were at the top of Brooke’s worry list. Navigating was not. They just had to follow the ridgeline.

They set off, climbing hill after hill, her body at a forty-five-degree angle, fighting the steepness and the wind acting like a puppy who couldn’t fucking leave it. It changed directions, yanking on her pack and trying to knock her off balance.

Next to her, Jack was the walking embodiment of the Calm app. He took pictures of fluttering leaves and rock piles and tiny rivulets along the path. He set up his tripod, backtracked to get footage of himself walking, then looped back to retrieve it.

Into the camera, he said, “Hope you liked that, I had to walk past twice. The first time was set to slow-mo.”

She was curious what reason he could possibly have for making this hike longer than it needed to be, but not enough to ask.

Sometimes, being in nature made Brooke feel insignificant in a way that recalibrated her problems so they seemed insubstantial in the greater scheme of things. It gave her perspective. But with Jack around, she was all wrapped up in her head instead of being present in her body. And that was no way to get to the heart of the memoir.

Peace —just another thing he’d stolen from her.

Humming “Wide Open Spaces,” Brooke opened herself up to the creativity in the universe. She spread her arms out, the wind tugging at her raincoat sleeves, but she wasn’t letting anything hold her back. Not today. She was ready for inspiration to strike, since apparently binge-watching Lucifer and The Great British Bake Off wasn’t cutting it.

She cataloged the scenery for the memoir, recording a voice note. “The range spans out like an unwound ribbon, slipping down to a bowl of the valley littered with pyramidal peaks cupping glassy lakes between them.”

She looked for the details she’d missed in her draft. But she’d included the rocky outcroppings covered in white lichen and the fence posts staked into the hillsides and the way the clouds stretched down as if reaching misty fingers to catch the land.

Now that she was here, she’d describe it the exact same way.

She was an A+ researcher. She could make the story more visceral, but it wouldn’t be hugely different. Even Catalina and Natalia had immediately lost interest in her description of the trail, distracted by a hawk like her parents near a bird feeder. Details might not be enough.

A spiral of anxiety coiled tightly like a physical knot in her chest and Brooke tumbled into the panic that started at I’ve hit a roadblock , dipped down to I’m a completely useless human being , and headed straight on to The world is ending . She might fail Mhairi, destroy her legacy.

But Brooke caught herself, taking a deep breath for a count of four, holding it, releasing it. She’d been through this kind of doubt before—the terror of encroaching writer’s block when she waited for a shower or a dream or a fucking lightning bolt to unlock the hidden answer. She just had to wait it out.

The sound of quick footsteps reached her and she suppressed a full-body eye roll at the universe’s sense of humor. “So, you’re still writing?” Jack said as he fell into step behind her.

Not that she wanted to talk about anything else, but she really didn’t want to get into the details of her work with Jack. He already knew she was cowriting Mhairi’s memoir. That was all he needed to know. “Yup.”

“Fiction?” he asked.

Jack was a stranger who knew too much. She could crow about all her many achievements, but he was the one person who might see right through her. Who might look at what she’d accomplished, superimpose it over all the dreams she’d shared, and find her wanting.

“Not anymore. What about you? Living the dream?” She gestured at his camera. Their implosion probably did him a favor. Pushed him out of inaction and onto the path he’d always wanted.

He made a noncommittal sound that sounded like I’m not dignifying the sarcasm with an answer .

Good . Let him be annoyed with her. Brooke picked up the pace, hoping to lose him.

The wind whipped up clouds from the ocean, a never--ending cascade billowing over the cliffs like a row of fog machines was installed just out of sight. The ridges of far-off hills became barely-there silhouettes in the distance. The trail narrowed as the slope angled down like a ski run.

Mist swirled around her ankles until it enveloped everything she couldn’t reach out and touch. She’d read once that people couldn’t sustain a certain level of adrenaline for much more than twenty minutes, but her fight-or-flight reflex was going strong. While her anxiety was primed for creative writing—devising ever more distressing scenarios was her superpower—out here, it was debilitating.

Brooke came to a fork in the trail and stopped, peering into the haziness in both directions. Now she knew why people wrote books about slipping back in time in Scotland; it wasn’t at all hard to imagine.

On her first pass through the maps before their trip, she hadn’t spent the time she should have in this section. The trail followed the ridgeline. It couldn’t get much easier than that. But apparently there were identical-looking offshoots.

She glanced at the map again. Checked the mileage on her watch. Pushed down the rising panic that there was no fork where she thought she was.

She followed one track a few paces until the trail evaporated into trodden grass. It was probably a deer path up another vista. She breathed out a sigh of relief and went back to the main trail. Jack had caught up with her and the stomp of his boots and the swish of his jacket echoed in the all-consuming, almost haunting, fog. A physical embodiment of the ghosts that wouldn’t stop nipping at her heels.

Brooke’s boot hit a stone and it rolled before dropping out of sight. She took a giant step back, her heartbeat tapping out a violent Morse code, her breathing coming quick and shallow. Jesus Christ , she hadn’t realized she’d been so close to the edge. Goose bumps spread across her skin and raised the hair on the back of her neck.

Something bumped against her pack, knocking her forward, and she let out a strangled cry before catching herself and whipping around. Jack stood there, hands outstretched. “Sorry.”

“Trying to knock me off the cliff?” she asked.

“I didn’t want to lose you.”

His words cut straight to her heart. She closed her eyes against the sudden stabbing in her chest. She’d longed to hear words like that from him once. But his actions had spoken a lot louder.

“Give me some space,” she said, meaning both literally and figuratively, and kept walking.

The trail rounded a high knoll and the wind ceased. This was the landmark she needed. Something she could control. Brooke took a deep breath, trying to settle the pounding in her chest.

She pulled out a laminated map from her pack while Jack passed her. She noted where they were, how the path would head inland for a couple of miles before turning back toward the ridge. She’d revel in the lack of wind while she could.

Following Jack, Brooke cursed her inability to refrain from tracing the slope of his shoulders, noticing the tin mug dangling from his pack, or measuring his assured stride against the tentative boy he’d been.

Jack took off his hat, rubbed the heel of his hand into his eye, and placed the hat on backward. The chorus of Sam Smith’s “Unholy” struck up in her brain like a needy pulse that reverberated all the way down to her toes. Goddammit.

He crouched down, bringing his camera to his eye and twisting the lens. “Brooke, look at this. It’s a lichen native only to Skye.”

She slapped at a pinch on her neck. Then her arm. A swarm of midges descended and she waved her hands in the air and let out a strangled cry before running up ahead on the path.

Clearly not faster than the swarm, she dropped her pack to the ground with a wince and tossed out her extra layers, digging for the yellow bottle of bug spray. She misted it all over her head and arms, hoping the tiny piranha flies would drop dead from the sky, but they didn’t seem the slightest bit deterred.

One flew straight down her throat and she leaned over, dry heaving, coughing up nothing. “What in the fresh hell?” she rasped, tugging her sleeves down over her knuckles and pulling her hood up to protect her neck.

Jack pulled a bottle from his pack and offered it to her. Avon Skin So Soft stretched across the green label. “It’s the only thing that works.”

She shot him a scowl and sprayed an additional layer over her shirt. “Because you know what’s best for everyone?” she said, being needlessly aggressive-aggressive, but he didn’t get to run around making choices on her behalf and acting like he knew better.

“That’s not…” He shook his head and a muscle in his cheek jumped before he pulled out a green hat with mesh hanging from the wide brim and replaced his baseball hat. Even once he had it on, he slapped at his neck. “Little blighters,” he cursed under his breath.

“You look ridiculous,” she said. Like he was trapped inside an oversize bug catcher.

“And not eaten alive.” Jack’s voice held an edge Brooke hadn’t heard before and it made her feel better. It was easier to indulge in her anger than any of the other emotions he stirred in her chest.

The air was completely still now and the thick fog offered no hope for a breeze to blow them off. They were trapped in this hell.

Twenty minutes and an uncountable number of slaps later, Brooke was in pure agony. Her skin burned, and she could feel tiny legs traipsing all over her body—even though they were too small to actually feel.

Jack pulled the Avon Skin So Soft from a side pocket, set it on a rock, and walked in the direction they’d come from, unhooking his tripod as he went.

He never headed backward to set up a shot. He was giving her salvation and a cover so she didn’t have to swallow her pride. Or at least not all of it. “Thanks,” she mumbled as she popped the top off and pressed the orange nozzle to spray a woodland-and-citrus midge-death all over her.

It might’ve been a misting fan at a Fourth of July parade for how instantly relieved she felt. The spray was working and she was trying to be magnanimous about it. She really was. She forced herself to wait for Jack.

They pressed on in eerie silence. The lack of other hikers and no signs of civilization were disorienting. Like they were wading through the inside of a cloud.

“This doesn’t seem right,” Jack said.

It sent another flicker of unease through Brooke’s stomach. She didn’t need his skepticism making her second-guess herself.

Brooke pulled her paper map out, the one she was so proud of knowing how to read, which was feeling more and more useless with no landmarks to ground her. She tilted her wrist to check their mileage on her watch. “We’ve been walking for forty minutes since the last time I found a landmark.” Brooke pointed to the curve in the path and the high knoll that, in retrospect, had been a portal into Hades. “So that should put us right here.”

“Unless we took the wrong ridge,” he said gently, his finger skating to a part of the map where they couldn’t possibly be.

“I think I know how to read a map.”

“I’m not questioning your mountaineering skills, but it’s foggy as fuck out here.” His voice was laced with frustration and it fueled her. Finally.

“I’m surprised you’ve noticed anything outside of water droplets clinging to the underside of flower petals.”

His cheeks turned pink while his eyes narrowed. “Oh, excuse me for paying attention, not charging into the wilderness, so intent on checking off a to-do list.”

She just wanted this over with to get away from him. “I’m not checking off a to-do list—”

“We’re off track,” he said in a stern voice she’d never heard from him before. He pulled out his phone and the maps he must’ve downloaded before the trip and turned on the GPS. The little blue dot lit up right where he’d suggested they were—way up a secondary ridgeline.

Fuck .

“We should turn back,” Jack suggested.

“Do whatever you want. You’re great at that.”

Instead of snapping at her like she wanted, Jack moved in front of her, tipping his chin to catch her eye. “I fucked up. So badly. I wish more than anything I could take it back. I know I broke your trust and it’s unforgivable.” Jack reached for her, held her arms. Brooke nearly twisted out of his grip, but not before she looked up and his eyes were so weary and sad that it sapped all the vengeful wind from her sails.

Maybe seeing the real pain splashed across his face, the real regret, siphoned away some of the resentment she’d carried for so long.

“You don’t have to share your life stories or your hopes and dreams, but if we can’t trust each other out here, we should end this now. It’s too treacherous.”

That was the perfect word for being around Jack. Always had been. But he was right. The consequences were too high to fight Jack and the elements at the same time. And she needed to keep going for Mhairi.

She would never trust Jack with her heart again, but she could trust the blue dot in his hands.